7 ms·

> Healthy, recreationally active but untrained young males Yeah this is why. Anything you do as an untrained person is going to get you newbie gains. It's just

> Healthy, recreationally active but untrained young males Yeah this is why. Anything you do as an untrained person is going to get you newbie gains. It's just really easy to improve initially. Doesn't mean it'll work after the first 6 months

olalonde 9mo ago
Also, it's more difficult to reach true failure with lower load, people tend to stop too early.
- samiv 9mo ago
  False, failing to lift is not the same as lifting until failure. Consider, if I load up the bench press to 200kg I won't get a single rep. If I try to rep it I'll fail but I'm not lifting until failure. If I load it up to smaller weight lets say 100kg and crank out rep after rep I'll get much closer to "lifting until failure." When I reach the end, the last rep is a rep I won't make. But I'm still not at a point where I can't do no more, just the weight is too big, so I must reduce the weight and go again. When I do this I get even closer to "lifting until failure". It's like integration, the smaller the infinitesimal the closer to the true value you get when you sum up (integrate) all the parts.
  - unaindz 9mo ago
    While technically true getting very close to failure is only useful if you don't need optimal results and lack the time to do more volume. The damage by going to failure will make high volumes maintained over time impossible. Ideally you would leave 1-2 possible reps. I think it's important to train to failure to know your body and learn to gauge your reps to failure but other than that and very little time per week to train it's eventually counterproductive. And if training with lower weights you tend to end very far from failure if just following a program without knowing what you are doing.
    - samiv 9mo ago
      Volume itself is meaningless. The only thing that matters is the intensity of the workout. In fact you want the maximum intensity with minimum volume to have less wear and tear and more recovery while maximizing the growth stimulus. First intensity. Then recovery. These two dictate the volume. If volume exceeds recovery injury and burnout will follow.
      - machomaster 9mo ago
        Doing dumbbell raises to failure with 5repmax will bring more pain, discomfort and wear/tear than doing the same exercise with 20repmax.
        samiv 9mo ago
        Not sure what you want to say with 5repmax and 20repmax
        oarfish 9mo ago
        Why? Most people don't build up to such a stimulus, so its not surprising if its uncomfortable, if all youve ever done is 20 rep sets.
        machomaster 9mo ago
        It's not about the stimulus. It's about the fact that some exercises are naturally better done within the lower rep range (5-10), while others work and feel better with the higher rep range (20-30). Some are better in the middle. With DB side raises, take too high of a weight, and you will feel like you can't do anything productive done (can't even raise to an appropriate height). With lower weights you can get a proper range of motion and can really feel the burn and get the target (sic!) muscle exhausted. Additionally, too high of a weight doesn't feel good on joints. Similarly with squats (or deadlifts). Squating with 5-10RM is fine. But 30RM?.. Theoretically it gives the same stimulus as doing 5-10RM, but practically everyone who suggests putting such sets to a program should be medicated and put on a suicide watch. The taxationvon all systems of your body is just so huge (especially the more advanced you are). Heck, mere squating true (!) 20RM (just one set!) is considered a crazy challenge that most will never do. I have done crazy stuff in my life, but I am not embarrassed to admit that this challenge is beyond me. Simply doing 20RM leg extensions is hard enough for me. These require the practical experience. Take barbell/dumbbells, try yourself and no more explanations will be needed.
foldingmoney 9mo ago
exactly. when you're new, virtually any type of lifting you do is going to create sufficient stimulus to trigger maximum muscle growth, because you're going from 0 to 1. unfortunately, since the only people that researchers can usually convince to participate in their studies are untrained, this has led to an enormous amount of junk studies where they try to extrapolate the results to people who are not untrained.
ed 9mo ago
this wasn't a study of absolute growth (sure - newbie gains), but rather the difference between high and low load programming within individuals.
- Nevermark 9mo ago
  > the difference between high and low load programming within [newbies] Fixed that. As the comment you replied to noted, newbie gains are remarkably sensitive to any stimulation, and insensitive to the type of stimulation. Because going from zero to any resistance training is a massive stimulus increase, on a long-term under stimulated system. The study does confirm that. The data it produces is useful. What this study doesn't do, is help newbies (or anyone) choose the most effective practices to adopt. Because 10 weeks is way too short to identify best practices for any sustained program.
timr 9mo ago
Perhaps there's some unmeasured influence, but this study was looking only at the difference between growth within subjects vs between subjects. If the subjects were all "newbies", then that doesn't explain the results. They're essentially saying that individual genetics explain the majority of the variation seen as a response to muscle stimulus in their test subjects, not the mass used, because the variation within the test cohorts was greater than the variation between them. You can argue that, if they didn't test experienced lifters the results might be different in that population, but you can't dismiss the results on those grounds.
- sedivy94 9mo ago
  The activation energy or stimulus required for hypertrophy in untrained individuals is so low that it’s hard to differentiate the results. Studies like this absolutely need to be done in trained individuals if you want reliable data.
  - bluGill 9mo ago
    Most people are untrained so this is useful reliable data for most people. However for those who actually care about results: they are trained, or soon will be andthis data doesn't apply.
- raducu 9mo ago
  > not the mass used. Completely anecdotal, but when I was 18, in highschool, I trained in the gym in my hometown, supervised with a trainer, 12 reps per muscle group, very modest gains. I move to university, start reading a fitness forum where people were saying do max 6 reps if you want big gains. I also started supplementing with whey protein, and within 3 months the gains were spectacular, everybody noticed, I felt on fire, best time of my life, I miss so much how great I felt in my own body. I've seen other colleagues and how they trained -- I can say there was 100% correlation that those people who were not training hard also did not have big gains. People who had enough breath left in them to chat in the gym simply did not gain as much as people I saw as training hard. Also for me, the 6 reps to exhaustion felt completely different then 12 reps (again, to complete exhaustion) -- immediately after the training it felt amazing to be alive, the world became a comfortable place, my anxiety completely vanished, and in the night and morning after an intense training (especially the legs and back) the erections and libido boost were out of this world, something I never felt with the 12 reps regimen.
nezi 9mo ago
This paper isn’t saying that it doesn’t matter what program you do, it’s saying that other variables, not directly related to the method of weight training, matter more. It also assumes that you can extrapolate data from one individual training each limb with a different program to if that individual performs either program on both limbs. Maybe there are carryover affects to the lower load limb that you get from training heavier with the higher load limb that you wouldn’t from training both at a lower intensity.
- machomaster 9mo ago
  Except that the paper did not compare different training methods. The used the same method since it has been long established that training to failure anywhere in the 5-30 reps (perhaps even more, the upper limit has not been established yet) gets the same results from the hypertrophy point of view. So basically the study's results are "there are individual differences in how people respond to training". Wow, such news, so research, much insight. /s Therefore study itself is dumb and the misleading title makes it even worse.
- emptysongglass 9mo ago
  It's a bad study that can be disproven by anyone with any experience in strength training. The sample size is tiny. This is not good science by any measure.
throwaway713 9mo ago
[flagged]
- orleyhuxwell 9mo ago
  Yeah, that's pretty much it. The counterarguments don't address what AstroBen noted.: newbies get high gains from any kind of stimulus. The paper has simply confirmed the common knowledge teached in universities. The problem is, after you are no longer a newbie you may train for years with very little progress, and that's when you need to start differenting stimulus, being strategic about it - otherwise you may stay stuck. And unfortunately the paper doesn't address or refute that, while it's coverage (or even the title of this hackernews) may suggest otherwise.
zahlman 9mo ago
From my recollection, this is a quite common issue with studies in this topic area.
RickyLahey 9mo ago
this is peak gym bro science
matwood 9mo ago
Yeah. When was powerlifting seriously I spent months with my deadlift stuck on 525 pounds. I would measure progress by how many times I could just get the weight off the floor, then how far off the floor, etc… The newbie gains were long gone.
goodpoint 9mo ago
"HN dismisses study without understanding it"
andreareina 9mo ago
Brad Schoenfeld felt the same way, so he did the study on trained participants, and made the same finding: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2015/10000/Effects_of_Low__vs__High_Load_Resistance_Training.36.aspx https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2015/10000/Effec...
- malfist 9mo ago
  That is a very underpowered study, only 18 participants
  - evanjrowley 9mo ago
    Is there another study with more than 18 participants and results that conflict with this study here?
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - sandspar 9mo ago
      You don't need to disprove an underpowered study. You can just default to ignoring it. Especially in a field as notorious for replication issues as fitness and nutrition.
- AstroBen 9mo ago
  Oh that's interesting > it is possible that the type I fibers of subjects were underdeveloped in comparison with the type II fibers as a result of training methodologies. The type I fibers therefore may have had a greater potential for growth compared with the type II fibers Maybe a mix of both types of training would be best then?
mcswell 9mo ago
I think you missed the point. The point was that doing lots of lighter lifts or doing a few heavy lifts, you get the same improvement. While it's possible this wouldn't be true for non-newbies, it seems unlikely.

olalonde 9mo ago

Also, it's more difficult to reach true failure with lower load, people tend to stop too early.

samiv 9mo ago
False, failing to lift is not the same as lifting until failure. Consider, if I load up the bench press to 200kg I won't get a single rep. If I try to rep it I'll fail but I'm not lifting until failure. If I load it up to smaller weight lets say 100kg and crank out rep after rep I'll get much closer to "lifting until failure." When I reach the end, the last rep is a rep I won't make. But I'm still not at a point where I can't do no more, just the weight is too big, so I must reduce the weight and go again. When I do this I get even closer to "lifting until failure". It's like integration, the smaller the infinitesimal the closer to the true value you get when you sum up (integrate) all the parts.
- unaindz 9mo ago
  While technically true getting very close to failure is only useful if you don't need optimal results and lack the time to do more volume. The damage by going to failure will make high volumes maintained over time impossible. Ideally you would leave 1-2 possible reps. I think it's important to train to failure to know your body and learn to gauge your reps to failure but other than that and very little time per week to train it's eventually counterproductive. And if training with lower weights you tend to end very far from failure if just following a program without knowing what you are doing.
  - samiv 9mo ago
    Volume itself is meaningless. The only thing that matters is the intensity of the workout. In fact you want the maximum intensity with minimum volume to have less wear and tear and more recovery while maximizing the growth stimulus. First intensity. Then recovery. These two dictate the volume. If volume exceeds recovery injury and burnout will follow.
    - machomaster 9mo ago
      Doing dumbbell raises to failure with 5repmax will bring more pain, discomfort and wear/tear than doing the same exercise with 20repmax.
      - samiv 9mo ago
        Not sure what you want to say with 5repmax and 20repmax
      - oarfish 9mo ago
        Why? Most people don't build up to such a stimulus, so its not surprising if its uncomfortable, if all youve ever done is 20 rep sets.
        machomaster 9mo ago
        It's not about the stimulus. It's about the fact that some exercises are naturally better done within the lower rep range (5-10), while others work and feel better with the higher rep range (20-30). Some are better in the middle. With DB side raises, take too high of a weight, and you will feel like you can't do anything productive done (can't even raise to an appropriate height). With lower weights you can get a proper range of motion and can really feel the burn and get the target (sic!) muscle exhausted. Additionally, too high of a weight doesn't feel good on joints. Similarly with squats (or deadlifts). Squating with 5-10RM is fine. But 30RM?.. Theoretically it gives the same stimulus as doing 5-10RM, but practically everyone who suggests putting such sets to a program should be medicated and put on a suicide watch. The taxationvon all systems of your body is just so huge (especially the more advanced you are). Heck, mere squating true (!) 20RM (just one set!) is considered a crazy challenge that most will never do. I have done crazy stuff in my life, but I am not embarrassed to admit that this challenge is beyond me. Simply doing 20RM leg extensions is hard enough for me. These require the practical experience. Take barbell/dumbbells, try yourself and no more explanations will be needed.

foldingmoney 9mo ago

exactly. when you're new, virtually any type of lifting you do is going to create sufficient stimulus to trigger maximum muscle growth, because you're going from 0 to 1. unfortunately, since the only people that researchers can usually convince to participate in their studies are untrained, this has led to an enormous amount of junk studies where they try to extrapolate the results to people who are not untrained.

ed 9mo ago

this wasn't a study of absolute growth (sure - newbie gains), but rather the difference between high and low load programming within individuals.

Nevermark 9mo ago
> the difference between high and low load programming within [newbies] Fixed that. As the comment you replied to noted, newbie gains are remarkably sensitive to any stimulation, and insensitive to the type of stimulation. Because going from zero to any resistance training is a massive stimulus increase, on a long-term under stimulated system. The study does confirm that. The data it produces is useful. What this study doesn't do, is help newbies (or anyone) choose the most effective practices to adopt. Because 10 weeks is way too short to identify best practices for any sustained program.

timr 9mo ago

Perhaps there's some unmeasured influence, but this study was looking only at the difference between growth within subjects vs between subjects. If the subjects were all "newbies", then that doesn't explain the results. They're essentially saying that individual genetics explain the majority of the variation seen as a response to muscle stimulus in their test subjects, not the mass used, because the variation within the test cohorts was greater than the variation between them. You can argue that, if they didn't test experienced lifters the results might be different in that population, but you can't dismiss the results on those grounds.

sedivy94 9mo ago
The activation energy or stimulus required for hypertrophy in untrained individuals is so low that it’s hard to differentiate the results. Studies like this absolutely need to be done in trained individuals if you want reliable data.
- bluGill 9mo ago
  Most people are untrained so this is useful reliable data for most people. However for those who actually care about results: they are trained, or soon will be andthis data doesn't apply.
raducu 9mo ago
> not the mass used. Completely anecdotal, but when I was 18, in highschool, I trained in the gym in my hometown, supervised with a trainer, 12 reps per muscle group, very modest gains. I move to university, start reading a fitness forum where people were saying do max 6 reps if you want big gains. I also started supplementing with whey protein, and within 3 months the gains were spectacular, everybody noticed, I felt on fire, best time of my life, I miss so much how great I felt in my own body. I've seen other colleagues and how they trained -- I can say there was 100% correlation that those people who were not training hard also did not have big gains. People who had enough breath left in them to chat in the gym simply did not gain as much as people I saw as training hard. Also for me, the 6 reps to exhaustion felt completely different then 12 reps (again, to complete exhaustion) -- immediately after the training it felt amazing to be alive, the world became a comfortable place, my anxiety completely vanished, and in the night and morning after an intense training (especially the legs and back) the erections and libido boost were out of this world, something I never felt with the 12 reps regimen.

nezi 9mo ago

This paper isn’t saying that it doesn’t matter what program you do, it’s saying that other variables, not directly related to the method of weight training, matter more. It also assumes that you can extrapolate data from one individual training each limb with a different program to if that individual performs either program on both limbs. Maybe there are carryover affects to the lower load limb that you get from training heavier with the higher load limb that you wouldn’t from training both at a lower intensity.

machomaster 9mo ago
Except that the paper did not compare different training methods. The used the same method since it has been long established that training to failure anywhere in the 5-30 reps (perhaps even more, the upper limit has not been established yet) gets the same results from the hypertrophy point of view. So basically the study's results are "there are individual differences in how people respond to training". Wow, such news, so research, much insight. /s Therefore study itself is dumb and the misleading title makes it even worse.
emptysongglass 9mo ago
It's a bad study that can be disproven by anyone with any experience in strength training. The sample size is tiny. This is not good science by any measure.

throwaway713 9mo ago

[flagged]

orleyhuxwell 9mo ago
Yeah, that's pretty much it. The counterarguments don't address what AstroBen noted.: newbies get high gains from any kind of stimulus. The paper has simply confirmed the common knowledge teached in universities. The problem is, after you are no longer a newbie you may train for years with very little progress, and that's when you need to start differenting stimulus, being strategic about it - otherwise you may stay stuck. And unfortunately the paper doesn't address or refute that, while it's coverage (or even the title of this hackernews) may suggest otherwise.

zahlman 9mo ago

From my recollection, this is a quite common issue with studies in this topic area.

RickyLahey 9mo ago

this is peak gym bro science

matwood 9mo ago

Yeah. When was powerlifting seriously I spent months with my deadlift stuck on 525 pounds. I would measure progress by how many times I could just get the weight off the floor, then how far off the floor, etc… The newbie gains were long gone.

goodpoint 9mo ago

"HN dismisses study without understanding it"

andreareina 9mo ago

Brad Schoenfeld felt the same way, so he did the study on trained participants, and made the same finding: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2015/10000/Effects_of_Low__vs__High_Load_Resistance_Training.36.aspx https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2015/10000/Effec...

malfist 9mo ago
That is a very underpowered study, only 18 participants
- evanjrowley 9mo ago
  Is there another study with more than 18 participants and results that conflict with this study here?
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - sandspar 9mo ago
    You don't need to disprove an underpowered study. You can just default to ignoring it. Especially in a field as notorious for replication issues as fitness and nutrition.
AstroBen 9mo ago
Oh that's interesting > it is possible that the type I fibers of subjects were underdeveloped in comparison with the type II fibers as a result of training methodologies. The type I fibers therefore may have had a greater potential for growth compared with the type II fibers Maybe a mix of both types of training would be best then?

mcswell 9mo ago

I think you missed the point. The point was that doing lots of lighter lifts or doing a few heavy lifts, you get the same improvement. While it's possible this wouldn't be true for non-newbies, it seems unlikely.