Cut out the BS. Do THIS to build muscle [3 New Studies]

Chapters:

00:00 What really builds muscle?

02:15 My Online PT Course

02:35 Mechanisms of muscle growth

04:54 Hyperplasia

05:33 Outro

Transcript:

This cool new study illustrates very well what is really important to build muscle and what is not. The researchers had a group of trained lifters train one of their arms with traditional sets, and the other arm with drop sets. Both groups used 8 to 12 RM loads and 3 minute rest intervals. The traditional group did 4 sets of biceps preacher curls, and 2 sets of lat pull downs to failure. The drop set group did 2 sets of biceps preacher curls and one set of lat pull downs, so half the volume, but they did it with multiple 8% weight drop sets after reaching a 20% velocity loss. And in pilot testing the researchers found that this resulted in them doing the same number of total repetitions on average every session, but staying within 0 to 2 reps in reserve, so very close to failure, throughout all of their drop sets. So which arm do you think built the most muscle mass?

If you go by models like the effective reps model, you would expect that the drop set arm built more muscle because they spent more time close to failure. They had the advantage of higher density as well. So if you go by a density model, then you would see that they have higher training density and in general a harder workout closer to failure in a more condensed amount of time. However, if you go by something like the Henselmans Hypertrophy model, which you might know as a long term viewer, you would see that the total training tonnage of the drop set arm was lower.

They did the same number of repetitions, but with a lower average load, because every drop set of course reduced the weight. So same total number of repetitions with a lower average load means less tension for repetition on average, because tension, or roughly speaking we can simplify to the weight on the bar, and the time under tension should be similar because it was the same number of total repetitions. So if you have same time under tension and less total tension, you would expect based on that model that the drop set arm would have less muscle growth. Indeed, after 10 weeks there were significantly less elbow flexor muscle hypertrophy as per ultrasound in the drop setted arms. The difference was small, however, and this makes sense because the difference in total training tonnage was also small. So this study, which is still in pre-print, by the way, is a nice illustration that what really matters for muscle hypertrophy is very much time multiplied by time under tension. You can think of this for the mathematically inclined as the integral of time under tension.

That muscle tension is really the only thing you have to be concerned about in terms of program design is also the conclusion of the second new study I have for you today. This was a scientific review and the researchers concluded that the only truly established mechanism of muscle growth, the only thing that really drives your gains is tension on the muscle, mechanical tension, which is equal to the internal force output of the muscle. It’s the contractions that are being produced that are producing the force. That’s what’s driving muscle growth. And it doesn’t matter whether the tension is active or passive, as long as there’s tension on the muscle, that’s what really drives muscle hypertrophy.

This simple focus on muscle tension stands in contrast to many influencers that still promote a great degree of emphasis on things like cell swelling, the pump, or metabolic stress. Yet the researchers concluded: “While cell swelling and ‘the pump’ may feel satisfying, neither process affects long term muscular adaptations.” There has honestly never been very strong scientific support for metabolic stress, and in large part it was just a rationalization of the pump. I’ve lived in over 50 countries as a digital nomad, and one thing I’ve observed is that the bros in every country trained the same way. And I think it makes a lot of sense because they train based on intuition.

If you go to the gym and you do not have exercise science to support what you should do, what is it that you really focus on? Well, it’s what you feel. And what do you feel? You feel the pump, metabolic stress, you could call that or rationalize it as, and you feel a muscle damage, or soreness at least. Soreness is not actually a great indicator of muscle damage. So what is it that you think matters? Well, no pain, no gain. Right? So if you feel something in the muscle that must be producing muscle growth, right? Wrong.

These are just feelings, and exercise science has quite conclusively demonstrated that these things are just not that important, at best they are a proxy for what really matters, which is muscle tension. The researchers also concluded that the only type of muscle growth you need to be concerned about is muscle hypertrophy, and specifically myofibrillar muscle hypertrophy: – the actual contractile tissue getting bigger. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy does occur, but it occurs alongside with myofibrillar growth, meaning that the sarcoplasm and all the other stuff in the muscle basically grows along for the ride, and there was no specific type of training like high reps or low rest intervals or anything like that that you can specifically use to target sarcoplasmic muscle hypertrophy. Again, it just comes down to tension.

Tension makes the muscle bigger and the muscle grows in proportion. All the compartments grow roughly proportionately. Related to this, another new review also concluded that hyperplasia, which is formation of new muscle fibers or new muscle cells, rather than making existing muscle cells larger, basically does not occur in humans. While some earlier research in animals suggested it might be possible, the meta analysis concluded that on average, in the studies that we have in the literature in humans we don’t see an increase in the number of muscle fibers.

I would note, however, that it is notoriously difficult to count all the muscle fibers in a human, especially if they’re still alive. So these findings should be taken with a little bit of grain of salt, but there is really no support that hyperplasia is possible, and certainly no support that we can target that with any type of specific training.

So I hope this helps simplify your training program design, because the only things you really need to be concerned about is exposing the muscle to enough tension and enough time under tension. I explore the implications of this for your repetition tempo, rest intervals, training frequency and other things in this video. Check that out if you haven’t yet, and if you have, and you want a true deep dive into everything that really matters for muscle hypertrophy, fat loss, strength development, and anything else serious lifters should be interested in, then check out the Henselmans PT course. The link is in the description and it will teach you absolutely everything you need to know to take your physique to the next level. Ciao-ciao!