5 ms·

Why is this article showing up on New Year's Day like the flock of newbie gym customers attracted to the gym only to quit 30 days from now? Every year without

• bookofjoe 9mo ago
  >Every year without fail. >First published: 31 December 2025
  • bdbdbdb 9mo ago
    I think the poster means that around this time of year these types of articles appear
    • bookofjoe 9mo ago
      Precisely. Also, noted yesterday the sudden appearance of TV commercials for gyms. That'll last about 2 weeks if memory serves....
• swalsh 9mo ago
  "approximately 1gram/pound of body weight" I believe this should be lean mass, not total mass. I think people tried to calibrate this metric since most people don't have scales that can measure composition... but if you're obese, you're going to be consuming more than you need to, which is counter productive if you're obese.
  • ffsm8 9mo ago
    It's actually not, because nothing provides as much satiety as protein. Every calorie you get from protein reduces your cravings for food significantly more then the equivalent carb and fats. You still need to get over the initial insulin normalization though from reducing sugars. Nothing reduces that pain, no matter what you try.
    • MegaDeKay 9mo ago
      Protein is more satiating "if and only if you are not getting enough protein for optimum body recomposition" which Menno in another video puts at 0.8g per lb of body mass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHLXank1PPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHLXank1PPk Menno's videos are exceptional: science based and backed up by common sense.
    • astura 9mo ago
      I truly believe that satiety is dependent entirely on 1) what you're used to eating and 2) what you expect/culture. Years ago I was watching a video that interviewed a guy who owned an international fast food franchise somewhere in Asia, a burger place, like a McDonald's. He was saying a big difference between America and wherever they were was that they absolutely, positively MUST serve rice because in their culture most people don't find that burgers produce satiety, you need the rice otherwise you're still hungry.
      • vladvasiliu 9mo ago
        I've never had rice with burgers nor do I have an "Asian eating expectation/culture", but I absolutely do avoid McDonald's and the like because I feel hungry and lethargic shortly after eating there. However, after a nice home-made burger I won't feel hungry again until the next meal and am full of energy. This isn't a tiny burger, either, I'll usually slap an egg on a 150g patty with some cheese for good measure. Since this is an "I'm too lazy to actually cook" meal, this tends to go with some kind of potatoes. I think the only difference between the two is the quality of the ingredients (added sugar in ketchup = bad, tomatoes are plenty sweet). I think the difference absolutely comes down to what I eat. I don't put sugar syrup or whatever makes the McDonald's sauces so sweet in my burger, just basic boiled tomato sauce (so that it's thicker and doesn't make a mess). And I think that not only typical fast-food places are guilty of this. I've had similar outcomes after eating in "regular" brasseries around Paris what, on the face of it, wouldn't be considered "fast food".
• senko 9mo ago
  This is a physiology research article published in a physiology journal, not a Tiktoken influencer peddling "get ripped fast" schemes. In an ironic twist, you then proceed to peddle your own. In a single paragraph you added more contentious "advice" than in the entire article you're dismissing. > Stop reading these studies thinking there is some optimal way! It's just hard work over time. "Hard work" and "learning new things" are not mutually exclusive. Stop presuming you know what I think while I'm reading these studies.
  • Insanity 9mo ago
    To be charitable to both the article and the OP - his advice of “hard work over time” is still good advice. I think many people tend to get stuck in premature optimization, which can take the fun away and thus you end up quitting. I did that a few times, so it might be a me-thing. Nowadays I exercise 4x/week without really worrying about a strategy or about optimal protein intake etc. But then again, nowadays my goal is just to live healthy rather than gain strength.
    • danenania 9mo ago
      Going further, you don't even need to count your reps or track how much weight you're lifting. Literally just do any exercise with any weight per muscle group to near failure for 2-5 sets. Rest the muscle groups you targeted the next 1-3 days, and be consistent every week. Bodyweight, free weights, machines, bands, kettlebells, etc. are all fine. That gets you 80-90% of the benefit with no stress.
  • gf000 9mo ago
    Still, a "given all else, this optimal thing giving +1% growth" is negligible percentage, when all the other mentioned factors are several orders of magnitude more important. My point is, simply doing it consistently, even if slightly less optimally, will trivially surpass anything else in the long run and there are no "silver bullets" in training. The only importance is safety, avoiding injuring oneself. Also, the article also states this: "RET-induced hypertrophy is mediated to a far greater degree by inherent endogenous biological factors"
• bargainbin 9mo ago
  >1. Consistency >5. Vary your workout The muscle "shock" broscience has been disproven many times: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35438660/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35438660/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349502442_Does_Varying_Resistance_Exercises_for_the_Same_Muscle_Group_Promote_Greater_Strength_Gains https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349502442_Does_Vary...
  • jraines 9mo ago
    It doesn’t really affect hypertrophy but it matters because imbalances will get you weird injuries and/or mobility restrictions in the long term.
    • oarfish 9mo ago
      Not true, no one is symmetrical or fully balanced in strength. outside of extreme cases, so called imbalances arent a problem on a population level, at least as far as we know today.
      • jraines 9mo ago
        I guess you live in a different population than me, where all the physical and occupational therapists are out of work
        • oarfish 9mo ago
          I live in a population where 90% of physical therapists will do placebo manual treatments and susbcribe to unscientific ideas about imbalances and "moving wrong".
  • MegaDeKay 9mo ago
    Indeed. It is really just tension x time under tension within a sensible rep range (probably around 5 - 30 reps or so). Menno on Youtube has a bunch of videos on this, the link below being the latest one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmOBmTZARq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmOBmTZARq8 Basically work the muscle harder and get more jacked. It isn't that hard. Full body workouts are also great for this reason: you can hit a muscle more times per week and be fresher when you hit that muscle, so both the tension and time under tension can be higher vs a body part split.
• spectralista 9mo ago
  I just got back from the gym and it was surprisingly empty. Actually, more empty than normal. My experience from lifting now for 30+ years and seeing thousands of people lift is it is: 1. Genetics. Everything else is a distant second or third. This was actually something that was widely understood in 90s bodybuilding magazines. Lifting is mostly a display of genetics. That worked when you could sell magazines of genetic freaks working out. Without the magazines you have to sell all this nonsense like 1 gram per lb of protein. Even though I know the early research was 1 gram per kilo and then Americans just changed that to 1 gram per lb. I mean it is just such obvious nonsense that the optimal amount would happen to be the exact integer amount vs body weight that is easiest to remember, how convenient for people who sell protein lol. duh.
  • h2zizzle 9mo ago
    Can sort of confirm. I wouldn't say so much "genetics" as "constitution". That is, you're born with a set of attributes, and those can also be affected by circumstances outside of your control. Those come together to determine how you respond to exercise and whether you can exercise consistently at all. Someone with active and athletic parents who was affected by undiagnosed childhood diseases and poorly managed injuries (*cough*) is going to have health and performance problems that keep them out of the gym. Someone who builds muscle very slowly but who can just keep at it for 10, 15 years is going to be jacked. We also don't account for the role of money in these things. Do you make enough to buy good food, afford a decent gym that you can visit regularly, afford a good doctor who can help you manage issues (such as, ahem, low testosterone)?, afford a low-uncontrolled-stress lifestyle? You're good. It's a lot harder when you get hit by roadblocks and don't have the money to resolve them before you've detrained.
  • d357r0y3r 9mo ago
    It really is just mostly this, and social media has tricked people into thinking otherwise. I was looking at some photos of myself about 10 years ago. At the time, I had been hitting the gym hard, consistently, and intelligently. I had a huge bench press, squad, and deadlift, and was lifting 4-5 days a week, and managed every facet of my diet. Now, I'm older, have kids, don't sleep as much, and definitely don't make it to the gym as much. I might lift twice a week - and don't try very hard or do progressive overload at all - and try to get in 3-4 days of cardio. And I honestly don't look very different. Muscles are roughly the same size. In clothes, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
• 7bit 9mo ago
  The fact that you state that muscle soreness is necessary for hypertrophy shows that ignoring studies is bad advice.
  • machomaster 9mo ago
    Muscle soreness is not necessary for hypertrophy, but often enough (but not always) it is a good measure of the effort/volume/weight/technique (so a proxy for the mechanical tension, the thing that we want, but it hard to measure directly).
    • oarfish 9mo ago
      Depends, its also an indicator of novelty, and that by itself isnt useful. Once you are used to a movement and training volume, getting sore is difficult unless you ramp up the volume continuosly. id say, never being sore at all is maybe a sign you dont do enough for optimum results, but frequently being sore means the load is too high. And for health outcomes it probably matters less.
      • machomaster 9mo ago
        Agree.
• hetspookjee 9mo ago
  Why you’d actively argue to ignore a study with interesting outcomes and peddle platitudes that i see on a daily basis about everywhere is one thing. But for it also to be the top comment in this thread is a real pity
• eudamoniac 9mo ago
  All this advice is mostly harmless and not contraindicated, though some of it is incorrect, but point 5 in regards to soreness is harmful advice. Soreness is not a goal and does not indicate anything other than that you did a lot of eccentric lifting to which you were not recently adapted. Soreness means you waited longer than what was necessary to exercise that muscle group again. If you are getting sore beyond the first few workouts, it is a sign that your programming is suboptimal. Progress is the weight on the bar increasing. Progress is not you being sore. Excess soreness is counterproductive during training, and should only be sought after if you are exercising as a penance for sins instead of training for some goal. For more information read "Practical Programming for Strength Training".
  • maerF0x0 9mo ago
    +1. Point number 5 is probably the worst part of their post. Beginners should focus on form, consistency, and linear progression of weight. If you can stand the boredom do the exact same program for a year. Probably 2-3 full body workouts that hit each body part twice. For intermediate+, hitting a body part once a week is suboptimal for most. People who care about results and progression/growth should be progressing from 5 up to 20 hard sets per muscle per week across the span of a few years. (Compounds hit multiple, so it's not necessarily 20 hard times the number of muscles!) What's "hard"? in the 0-2 RIR range, ideally some to failure. Most people do not know what 0RIR is until they actually go to failure on a weight, compute their 1RM and start to use the computed reps/weight load. For many people "0 RIR" is actually 3+ RIR because they stop themselves short. This is why I mostly only trust studies that take people to true failure (either an inability to move the weight any more, or a coach saying the person significantly broke form and must stop) For advanced, as i understand it, they need to focus on weekly periodization like hitting 3RIR, 2RIR, 1RIR, 0RIR (test new 1RM), Recovery week kind of cycles. Plus more that advanced coaches can teach.
    • dredmorbius 9mo ago
      RIR: Reps in reserve. <https://blog.nasm.org/reps-in-reserve https://blog.nasm.org/reps-in-reserve> 0RM: One rep max. This is the (actual or theoretical) maximum weight / resistance which can be moved on a given lift. ExRx has a good calculator as well as several tables for calculating resistance at specified reps: <https://exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax https://exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax>