The Science of Swole — How to Grow Your Muscles
Episode Stats
Summary
On this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, my guest Paul Carter talks about the difference between size and strength, hypertrophy, the correct number of sets to do for developing muscle groups, and why he thinks machines are better than free weights for building bigger muscles. After the show's over, check out our show notes at AWIMIS slash Hypertrophy.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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A lot of guys would like to build bigger muscles and they may have heard that in order to do
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so, they need to activate something called hypertrophy.
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But what is hypertrophy and how do you achieve it in order to get swole?
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My guest, bodybuilding and strength coach Paul Carter will unpack what you need to know
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We get into the difference between size and strength, the two big myths around hypertrophy,
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the right number of sets to do for developing a muscle group, why Paul thinks machines are
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better than free weights for building bigger muscles and more.
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash hypertrophy.
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Yeah, we've been trying to track you down for a few months.
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But you are a bodybuilding and strength coach and you've been in the game for over two decades.
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I've been reading your stuff on your own website, Lift, Run, Bang, T Nation, Elite FTS for a long
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And you've got an interesting career path because you started off in bodybuilding and then you did
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And that's where I found you was with your powerlifting stuff.
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Why the initial shift from bodybuilding to powerlifting?
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Well, first off, I'm glad you actually got that order correct because a lot of people
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through the past few years, either finding me through social media or those means, have
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made comments like that I made this shift to create a brand or whatever.
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When, as you said, anybody who's actually followed me for a very long period of time knows
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I actually started in bodybuilding, I got started lifting when I was 14 and one of the first guys
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And, you know, like it's kind of cool because that resurgence of the Mike Minster stuff has
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But yeah, I went from, from bodybuilding and all of those years where just kind of like what's
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popular now on quote unquote social media, as far as training, I was already, I'd already
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And then my transition over into powerlifting mainly happened because when I went into the
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military and I came out and I was actually a computer engineer for like 15 years and I
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wanted to do something with my lifting and powerlifting, I think was probably the most popular back
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I don't even remember what years those were, but they would have been around something like
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But I started competing in powerlifting because at the time in my head, I thought that powerlifting
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was like a little bit more tangible than bodybuilding in a sense that bodybuilding is a very kind of
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You know, you do your diet, you do your cardio, you slap on some Italian salad dressing on your
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And then the judges determine like who's the winner.
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And at the time I thought, well, powerlifting is a little bit more concise in terms that
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you're going to go in, you've got to hit depth in your squat, you've got to pause your
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I felt like there were some more tangible things that you could say, okay, here's the kind of
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the achievement side of things and it's more clear cut and dry.
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That was kind of my thought process at the time.
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And then I competed naturally in powerlifting for quite a few years.
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And then when I decided that I'd been natural for a very long time, like 20 years, I decided
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I was going to go ahead and pretty much felt like I'd maxed out my natural potential and
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And then that was when I started competing in non-tested federations.
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I said, when I turned 40, I would get off drugs and get out of powerlifting.
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And why the 40 cap was just like, you're just old and you don't want to do that anymore.
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To me, I just didn't want to be that guy that you see like in powerlifting.
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And there's still, I think a lot of that going on where it's like dudes are still kind of
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like quote unquote chasing their glory or like five more pounds on the bar or this or
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And I just felt like having a, if I, if I can get, I had goals.
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I wanted a 750 deadlift and I wanted a 500 like close grip bitch.
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And no, you don't get, there's no special division for having a close grip bench or,
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you know, like not wearing a belt or anything that kind of stuff.
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Like, so I kind of decided by the time I was like, well, if I, whatever I hit by the
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time, that's my, that's my end game was when I get to be 40, I don't, you know, I got kids.
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I don't want to stay on drugs and I don't want to keep chasing like pounds on the bar.
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So I was just like, whatever I've got done by then, I'm going to get done.
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So I got really into powerlifting starting like eight years ago and made, I really enjoyed
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Cause I like you, I enjoyed the tangibility of it.
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You're able to see your progress and it was great to have concrete goals.
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Like, well, I'm going to get a 500 pound deadlift.
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But then last year I turned 40 and it's amazing.
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People talk about, oh yeah, when you turn 40, things just kind of change.
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I started noticing it took me a little bit longer to recover.
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And I also stopped enjoying the, the process of chasing numbers.
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It gave me the chasing numbers cause more frustration than satisfaction.
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There, there's something that I learned through those years of doing powerlifting.
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And that was that if you think arrival fallacy is the belief that if you achieve something
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or obtain something, or, you know, there's something in your life that you finally get
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that you believe is going to give you this, you know, sustainability of happiness that
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And then immediately you are like, okay, I could do better.
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So it is, it's like a, it's just chasing the dragon.
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It's a never ending pursuit of, I, of you're trying to get more.
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And the other thing, cause you're describing exactly what happened to me.
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I lost my joy for that type of training because so you hit, like I hit a 700 deadlift.
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And a lot of people out there that are like, you know, kind of in your position say, well,
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And I'm here to tell you, it's the same feeling each time you cross a PR barrier.
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So like when you hit that 500 deadlift or 550 and the 600 to 650, the 700, it all feels the
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And then you're like, well, I've got to get to 650 or the, you know, people would post
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Like they just hit a 700 deadlift on the road to 800.
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Like there's never any satisfaction in my opinion, that is sustainable from it.
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And when I got out, when I retired and I decided I wasn't going to compete anymore, it was the
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The other shoe I ran into with the chasing numbers is, yeah, same thing.
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I remember my last deadlift PR was 615 and you feel happy for like two minutes and then
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you post it on Instagram and, you know, maybe it lasts a little, a little longer because
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you're getting the accolades from everybody and then it goes away.
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And then what you think about is, well, if I'm going to get the next PR, I'm going to
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have to, it takes more work, significantly more work for just barely any gain.
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So there's diminishing returns at a certain point.
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It's like, I don't want to put my body through that.
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It's months and months and months of just pounding your body to get five more pounds.
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And the funny thing is, is that the amount of work to go from 300 to 400, not really a
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And going from 400 to 500 can be going to 500 to 600, very different going from 600 to
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And then going from 700 up to 800, my best boat was 725.
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So I never got to 750 or 800, but going each, like you said, each of those increments took
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And just for me, the amount of satisfaction each time was actually less.
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I got to that exact point where I was like, I have to put in so much work to add so little.
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And then it's very, those big swings are, are fleeting.
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I could never do the drugs the other guys were doing because anytime I would try to take
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And like, I couldn't do a lot of the androgens that they used and stuff like that.
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And I remember this world record holder I was talking to about it at the time told me, he's
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like, well, what are you running going into this meet?
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And when I told him when I was running, he, this was his, his remark.
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He said, they don't give an award for highest total with lowest dose.
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And I remember thinking at the time I was like, that's, I'm never going to be great at this
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because I'm just, I can't do like the gram of trainer week with a gram and a half a test
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I mean, like that, I just could not do those things.
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I, anytime I try to push stuff, I felt horrible anxiety.
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So I never did the massive amount of drugs that people have to do to really succeed at
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It seems like that from your videos that you're really enjoying this, but let's talk
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Cause I think a lot of the reasons that guys lift isn't to pull 600 pounds.
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They want to get big muscles and muscle hypertrophy is how your muscles get bigger.
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Before we talk about what happens in muscle hypertrophy, let's talk about the difference
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between hypertrophy and strength because something my kids brought up when I was into powerlifting,
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you know, I'd be pulling 600 pounds, you know, squatting, you know, 450 pounds.
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And my kids would be like, dad, like, how is it that you can like deadlift that much weight,
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Your kids, uh, kids always had the hot takes on this, right?
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And I was like, I had to explain to him, there's a difference between like muscle size and strength.
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So like, what is the difference between hypertrophy and strength?
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Like, how is it possible for, you see these guys, these like 180 pound guys pulling 800 pounds.
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So, well, when we talk about the average person and these maximal strength adaptations,
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they really happen mostly, especially the early parts of them through a lot of neural adaptations.
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Um, so you have like an increase in what we call like action potentials by the nervous system,
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which is, well, a lot of people, they understand, they hear this word, it's known as like rate
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Uh, and then you have through stuff like coordination improvements.
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So you have a bunch of neural adaptations that happen as you're doing the lift that make
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you more efficient with the lift that make your nervous system more efficient at basically
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recruiting all the stuff that's going to be involved in the lift.
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So the other thing for maximal strength is that there is a loading component for the pattern
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So when my goal was to get stronger, but I didn't want to beat my body up in doing so,
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I would actually do like sub maximal lifting like the squat, but I'd try to be as explosive
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So what that kind of does is it trains that pattern, but then you also get maximal motor unit
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recruitment of everything that's going to be involved in the squat.
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So you're in essence, you're training kind of the neural components of that, that pattern
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without having to do the heavier loading, but in order to kind of maximally get the true
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amount of the motor unit recruitment that you're going to need to maximize your squat
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strength, you eventually do have to train with heavier loading to get those adaptations
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So the difference in that and hypertrophy is that hypertrophy is going to be the muscular
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component of the adaptations that are occurring.
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So with strength, we're looking a lot of neural adaptations, rate coding, motor unit recruitment.
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We're looking at a lot of different things that are happening because we're getting more
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With hypertrophy, what we're actually looking at are the muscular adaptations that are occurring
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So that's going to be the addition of something called either sarcomeres or myofibrils.
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So that's essentially the kind of the functional units of protein that actually create contractions
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So the interesting part kind of between these two things is when you look at the, if you
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had like a little pyramid and you were creating like, you know, the base of the pyramid and
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kind of going up through to the very top, the largest amount of strength that you're ever
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going to have in your training is actually going to come from hypertrophy because what do you
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And that's basically the actual muscle fibers themselves, right?
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So that the sarcomeres and the myofibrils and the muscle fibers that actually produce force
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are going to be where you're going to have your largest potential and your greatest foundation
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So that when you stack all that stuff up, that's kind of where that comes from.
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So that's kind of the basis of it all is that if you're going to train to maximize hypertrophy,
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you're really talking about training with a certain degree of proximity to failure to create
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mechanical tension, you're talking about a specific amount of like hard sets close to failure
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or to failure in order to kind of get enough of those stimulating repetitions within the
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training session to create the need for those adaptations.
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Whereas with strength, it's not quite as important to train to failure.
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It's kind of more important to become very efficient at the motor patterns and become very efficient
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So there's some things that separate those two approaches.
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So hypertrophy, you're actually adding muscle tissue to your body.
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With strength, I think Pavel, that guy, he says like strength is a skill.
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So you're basically, you're training the muscle tissue you have to contract and express force
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Yeah, so that will be, like I said, the neural adaptations that are incurred from that will
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happen because there is a degree that we become more efficient.
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Like I said, that rate coding is that that's firing those action potentials off for those
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One of the things that I find pretty interesting, I'll give you a really kind of layman's example
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of this, if you put up a little basket in the corner and you had a bunch of wadded up like
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paper balls and you start trying to throw, you know, like, like a basketball, like throw
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At first you might be really off, but every time you throw it, you probably get a little
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closer and then better and better, better eventually.
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And you're literally just training those motor patterns for how much force you have to apply,
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you know, like the angle that you have to release it and all kinds of stuff that's going on in
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Every time that you go in to the gym and you do a workout, a lot of people used to think
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that those neural adaptations, it took like weeks or months for them to happen.
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They literally happen rep to rep to rep to rep.
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So anything that you do, the neural adaptations actually happen fairly quickly.
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And that's the reason why you see these massive run-ups in strength for beginners, right?
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Like a beginner comes in and over from the time they start to six months later, their
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strength improvement is like through the roof and then it slows down over time.
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So the neural adaptations that, as you said from Pavel, it's like, it's a, something that
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So what are the muscular adaptations that I need to create in order to become more efficient
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And then what are the neural adaptations that I need to create to become more efficient at
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Whereas with muscular adaptations and we're actually adding contractile units to produce
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So you can be strong, but not have that much hypertrophy because you've gotten strong more
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through neural adaptations rather than gaining muscle tissue.
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So this is why someone can deadlift 600 pounds and not look like John Cena.
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But then you can also have hypertrophy and not be super strong.
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I think there's, there's impression, there's this impression out there that bodybuilders
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They are strong, you know, from adding that muscle tissue, but they may not be able to deadlift
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600 pounds or squat 500 pounds because they haven't been training those particular lifts and developing
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So with that understanding, let's dig more into the process of muscular hypertrophy.
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And you talk a lot about the myths that are out there about hypertrophy.
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I think over the past decade, the one, well, there's a multitude of ones.
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And I think that the two common ones that still either come up or have come up the most was the
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whole like volume is a driver for hypertrophy or volume is the driver for hypertrophy, which
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Um, or not, it's definitely not true in the context that it's presented.
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And then the, the other one that comes to still comes up quite often, which I, every time that
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I debunk it, the amount of engagement gets crazy.
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It's the fact that muscle is, is torn down and built back bigger.
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So, I mean, there's a whole long list of myths that still exist and permeate throughout the
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social media landscape or through even throughout the educational landscape, which is pretty
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wild because there's people that come out of school now and they haven't updated textbooks.
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They haven't updated relevant information and they will just spout off stuff they learned
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from their professor who has never opened a new study or textbook since like 1995.
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So there's a multitude of myths that still occur and run around.
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I try to do a good job of helping people to learn past that.
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And some people will be like, just go to the gym and lift weights.
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I'm like, if you just want to be that lunkhead, meathead, like mentality guy, that's cool.
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But a lot of us are actually interested in the physiology and the biomechanics of how
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So that's kind of the people that I'm trying to give this information to.
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It's like, well, to train for strength, you train to like the three to five rep max with
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For hypertrophy, it's higher volume, lighter load.
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Um, so a lot of that stuff came back to, there used to be the one myth, for example, that
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one comes back to a lot of it was fiber type stuff, right?
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So before people really understood the size principle and the force velocity relationship
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and those kinds of things and how they tie into the addition of new myofibrils for hypertrophy.
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A lot of that tied in, they say like, oh, well, this creates explosive strength and this
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creates maximal strength and this creates strength endurance.
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And this does all this stuff now to be slightly nuanced.
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If you're doing higher rep stuff, there are some endurance adaptations that you'll get
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that you won't get as much from lower repetitions.
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However, when we're just speaking about the hypertrophy scale and just adding muscle tissue,
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the mechanisms that create muscle growth are the same regardless of the rep ranges.
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If we're working at rep ranges, anywhere from about four to five reps, all the way up
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That's kind of the range that the adaptations occur in.
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And they're essentially similar throughout that entire range because the muscle physiology
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mechanisms that cause hypertrophy are the same regardless.
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The muscle damage stuff and the muscles are torn down and grow back bigger.
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And all of that stuff was consistently disproven throughout any of the research that looked
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at actual muscle damage and how it needed to be attenuated in order for the same cellular
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processes to cause muscle tissue to accumulate.
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So the idea of people would say, well, it's torn down and built back bigger.
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There's so many layers that that wouldn't even make sense.
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And we can also look at the fact that the repair process for damaged tissue is the exact same
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as you'll see from muscle damage, but actual like contusions and stuff like that.
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Like if you go out, if people were just adding muscle from muscle damage, then football players
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that get muscle contusions or lacerations that happen around that kind of stuff, people
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be growing muscle out the yin-yang from that kind of stuff, but it doesn't happen.
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So a lot of those repair processes from a cellular mechanism standpoint are identical, but they
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So the idea that you would tear muscle down, the other thing is, is that when we see muscle
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damage occur, we're actually looking at it in the research, it tends to occur anywhere
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from four to six to eight hours after the workout or even, you know, a bit longer, somewhere
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in the eight hour period, is when those, basically the cellular mechanisms occur that cause the
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protein degradation at those kind of microscopic levels.
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So if muscles will be in quote unquote torn down and they were, people say, well, fibers
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If you tear the actual muscle fiber, you're not moving.
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That's the amount of pain you're being, it would be incredible.
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But it's not even happening until maybe six to eight hours later.
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And that is because it's a protein degradation thing from this type of protease.
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So it's not anything being quote unquote torn or micro tears or stuff like that's occurring
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It's actually from the protein degradation processes that happen due to muscle damage.
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When those are occurring, there are a multitude of mechanisms that happen to try to thwart that
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And what we know of that now is something called the repeated bout effect.
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And we think of that happening through eccentric, a bout of eccentric exercise.
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So there's a bunch of things that happen to say, I want to protect against future bouts
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Now, once those protective processes are in place, what we have seen at the cellular level
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is that that is when muscle hypertrophy starts to really happen.
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So we need those protective processes in place.
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So that way, those cellular mechanisms can actually go towards adding those contractile
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So really, the fact is, is that if a bunch of muscle damage is happening, you're actually
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And you're just creating the repair or the basically the repair and the remodeling and
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the protective processes in order that need to be in place before that can happen.
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So it's the same cellular mechanisms, but it's different outcomes.
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Okay, so to help listeners understand this difference, if muscle damage does occur during
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exercise, like when you're doing a bunch of, you know, fatiguing reps and you're feeling
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that burn, muscle protein synthesis is going to occur, but it's not adding more muscle tissue.
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Instead, the muscle protein synthesis is happening to repair and replace the damaged muscle fibers,
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So it's not adding fiber, it's just replacing it.
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And then during that repair process, there's some stuff going on to protect that tissue
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And then this repair and strengthening process of damaged tissue, it can eventually help with
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hypertrophy because you're able to train the muscle and achieve mechanical tension.
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And we're going to talk about what that is here in a second.
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You're able to do that without damaging the myofibrils.
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So the process to repair damaged muscle fibers and adding new muscle fibers, they're different.
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And again, you don't need to experience muscle damage to experience hypertrophy.
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And what you need is what I just said, you need mechanical tension.
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What is mechanical tension and how does it drive hypertrophy?
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So mechanical tension, the best way that you can think about it is there's two things that
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You have to have a high degree of motor unit recruitment and you have to have a slowing
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Is if you think about going to failure and let's say you're doing a set of 10 reps and you're
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not going to make the 11th rep, your repetitions start slowing down towards the end of the set,
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So during that time, there's a lot of things going on at the, basically the microscopic
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And that's going to be at the sarcomeres, whereas you're going to have these cross bridging
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So as the weight is trying to pull against you, the actual sarcomeres themselves and the
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actin and myosin filaments, they are basically trying to, they do this thing called cross bridging
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They're creating a high degree of force to oppose that external force.
00:26:01.340
When that happens, that force is detected as tension.
00:26:05.540
And then that is actually converted into the biological process where the adaptations for
00:26:16.180
And that's essentially the hypertrophy process.
00:26:19.740
So I get asked, like, you know, how do you explain mechanical tension?
00:26:24.060
I'm like, it's just, it's simply a pulling force within the muscle fibers.
00:26:27.200
And so if the external force is pulling one way and you're trying to pull the other way,
00:26:31.340
then the muscles are trying to produce a high degree of force.
00:26:38.320
And so, you know, if you're experiencing mechanical tension, if for example, you're doing some
00:26:42.100
bicep curls and you get into that rep where things just start slowing down and it's getting
00:26:46.260
harder to complete the rep, is that mechanical tension?
00:26:50.000
So mechanical tension exists on the force velocity relationship.
00:26:54.200
And if anybody looks up the force velocity curve, what they'll see is that if you're moving
00:26:59.100
very fast, so let's say if you squat down and you try to jump up to the ceiling and touch
00:27:03.700
the ceiling, there's a high degree of motor in your recruitment, but there's a low degree
00:27:09.620
And a lot of people will say it or like, huh, because they confuse, they think of force as
00:27:18.000
But intramuscular force has nothing to do with that.
00:27:21.260
So intramuscular force has everything to do with the amount of cross bridging that is occurring.
00:27:26.500
So when you're actually pushing very hard, like you're saying, doing a set of bicep curls
00:27:31.660
and you're applying a high degree of effort, that's when you're actually getting a high
00:27:35.820
degree of motor in your recruitment and you get a lot of muscle fiber activation.
00:27:39.900
But because of the fact that they're having to produce a lot of force, they're like, oh,
00:27:46.320
So what do I need to do in order to create adaptations for this tension?
00:27:50.720
And that is number one, if it's, again, if it's early in the training session or if it's
00:27:54.920
not, it's a novel exercise or anything like that, there's protective mechanisms to put
00:28:02.700
And then from there, as you continue to do that week after week after week, it says, oh,
00:28:08.640
And it says, let me create the ability to produce more force.
00:28:12.720
So that is going to be how your muscle hypertrophy comes.
00:28:16.360
We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
00:28:18.060
We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
00:28:24.160
And this, going back to volume doesn't cause hypertrophy.
00:28:27.820
You can experience mechanical tension without doing 10 or 12 reps.
00:28:33.760
It's just because if you have a heavier load, heavier weight.
00:28:38.080
So if you do one set of five to failure and you couldn't do six reps, so it's a five rep
00:28:44.580
max load, then really all five of those reps are going to have a high degree of force.
00:28:50.720
And so those fibers that are active, we're going to experience a high degree of tension.
00:28:55.320
So volume load or volume itself is completely irrelevant to hypertrophy if you're not counting
00:29:04.500
sets that have a specific proximity to failure or they have a certain amount of velocity loss.
00:29:09.760
So if I do, and we've seen this through every study that's ever looked at this.
00:29:15.000
So this is not really like one of those kind of debatable topics.
00:29:18.320
It's like is what's repeatable over and over and over and over and over again is that as
00:29:23.000
we train closer to failure and we have a high degree of simulating repetitions, then that
00:29:29.960
is what's going to cause myofibril protein synthesis to be elevated.
00:29:33.480
And that's kind of the biological, the physiological mechanism that creates the ability that adds
00:29:40.920
If we train very far away from failure, we can do all the volume in the world that we
00:29:45.280
want to, but those fibers will not experience that high degree of tension.
00:29:54.820
So the idea that volume was king, because I've heard guys say that volume is king, volume
00:30:05.740
It's now I need to quantify that because every set you do is going to have a degree of, let's
00:30:14.300
say we're talking about sets to failure or very close to failure.
00:30:17.500
Every set that you do has a certain number of repetitions in it, like we just talked about,
00:30:22.800
that are stimulating repetitions that go towards creating that muscle growth process.
00:30:28.140
They also come with a certain amount of fatigue.
00:30:30.400
So there's a nonlinear relationship with volume and hypertrophy to where one set really causes
00:30:40.700
One set to failure causes an enormous response to create muscle hypertrophy.
00:30:45.540
The second set causes a nice response too, but comparatively, it's much smaller than the
00:30:52.100
first set because there's also been a degree of fatigue that's been created from that first
00:31:02.320
However, again, comparatively, it's smaller, a lot smaller than the first set.
00:31:07.460
So from the first set, you have to do, in order to double the degree of stimulus that you're
00:31:13.180
going to get from that first set, you have to do five more sets.
00:31:17.980
So it's not like if you were thinking in hypertrophy and something as basic like units, say like
00:31:22.200
one set causes one unit of hypertrophy units, two sets cause two units, and three sets cause
00:31:32.140
And in all the research that's kind of looked at how volume equates off to hypertrophic adaptations,
00:31:40.000
it's that nonlinear relationship to where it goes up, kind of up, and then it essentially
00:31:45.760
levels off so that anything that you're doing extra after that either doesn't add anything
00:31:51.040
to what you're doing or potentially even causes a regression.
00:31:54.720
And this is where this idea of Mike Metzner, his, you know, heavy duty training, like you
00:31:58.520
train one to two sets really hard and that's all you do.
00:32:04.840
And I mean, I think depending on how people have actually counted their sets over the years,
00:32:11.440
they may have already been training like that anyway, or may not have.
00:32:15.220
So all depending on what you're counting as a quote unquote set.
00:32:20.340
So if you go in and you do like four sets of 12, but each set you're having to add weight
00:32:24.960
and the only ones you even got close to failure on was the last set.
00:32:31.820
So mechanical tension, you know, it's mechanical tension if you're getting close to failure.
00:32:39.980
So, yeah, I think that's something that people kind of, they don't, so the, we had the meta
00:32:48.480
analysis that came out a while back and people were saying that hypertrophy is the same if
00:32:53.260
you're training three RIR to train two failure.
00:32:56.000
And I'm like, okay, that all of that stuff needs really in-depth nuance.
00:33:02.160
So in no world is three RIR the same as training two failure or one RIR.
00:33:08.220
Because it's just for our listeners who don't know, like three IR, that's like your three
00:33:15.000
So it's when you reach the end of the set, you could have done three more reps.
00:33:18.420
So I heard that said by some people and I was like, yeah, that's not even what the research
00:33:24.520
It still shows there does appear to be a somewhat linear relationship with training two failure
00:33:30.360
When the meta regression came out and there was, it was a much better overall look, what
00:33:36.940
they found was what I'd already felt like, what really we saw in the research is, and
00:33:41.440
that is if you're using heavier loading, it's probably not as important to actually get to
00:33:46.480
But if you're using lighter loading, it's probably a bit more important to actually try
00:33:51.120
to get to task failure than with heavier loading.
00:33:54.660
With heavier loading, you're going to have that full motor unit recruitment from the very
00:33:58.340
first rep, but I'm talking somewhere around 86 to 88% of one rep max, and that's going
00:34:03.360
to limit you to somewhere around five or six reps.
00:34:05.880
But that's where you're going to have essentially a set that's done where all of those repetitions
00:34:11.000
are going to be stimulating and have a high degree of mechanical tension.
00:34:14.220
Whereas if you're using lighter loading and both the meta analysis and the regression
00:34:19.260
found this exact same thing, and I think this was the part that most people missed out
00:34:23.240
on, they couldn't explain in the first one, the meta analysis, why that higher
00:34:28.140
higher reps or light loading with higher reps needed failure to kind of achieve that same
00:34:35.400
Whereas in the second one, they found the same thing, but they didn't, neither one explained
00:34:40.600
So the whole reason is it's just motor unit recruitment.
00:34:42.760
So when you're doing higher reps, there's a lot of things that are happening on your way
00:34:48.020
So if you're doing 15 reps to failure, if you think about it, those first 10 reps or
00:34:54.020
even 12 reps are just there to create fatigue feedback to say, this feels really painful.
00:35:02.860
And the repetition that you do creates a degree of fatigue.
00:35:05.820
They're not creating really a degree of stimulus.
00:35:10.720
So by the time that you're getting towards the end of it, you have to really push to
00:35:15.920
failure in order to get full motor unit recruitment or get maximal motor, you don't ever get full,
00:35:21.600
but to get maximal motor unit recruitment as comparatively as you do with the heavier
00:35:24.760
sets, because you have those negative feedback mechanisms in place and that afferent feedback
00:35:31.620
and those negative feedback mechanisms actually don't really allow you to get as much motor unit
00:35:37.120
recruitment because they don't exist when you're doing heavier loading, right?
00:35:39.440
So you know this, if you go in and you do like a three rep max or five rep max, there's
00:35:49.060
There's nothing in those that create fatigue as you're getting.
00:35:52.760
If you're only going to, if you're doing a deadlift with a five rep max and you can't
00:35:56.480
do six reps, you can't do the five rep max because you're just not producing, you can't
00:36:02.120
When you're doing a set of 15, there's a lot of negative feedback sensations that happen
00:36:09.760
on the way to that 15th rep that essentially create kind of an interference effect.
00:36:14.700
So it's more important with that lighter loading that you get to failure than with the heavier
00:36:19.840
So I think that's why some people end up misinterpreting that as, oh, it's perfectly okay to do three
00:36:29.060
Three RIR at a set of 15 reps is not the same as getting to 15 reps and hitting task failure.
00:36:39.160
So getting to failure is probably more important if you're going to do something like 10, 12,
00:36:44.380
15 reps, actually getting to task failure than if you're doing say like five or six reps.
00:36:51.660
So knowing that mechanical tension is what drives hypertrophy, mechanical tension is when
00:37:01.960
Like how do you, so one thing people know is that you have to progressively overload to
00:37:06.460
What does progressive overload look like in a hypertrophy program with this mechanical tension
00:37:13.140
So progressive overload is like, it's another myth one, right?
00:37:20.660
Progressive overload is adding more sets or doing more exercises or whatever.
00:37:24.880
And that that's consistently been misconstrued.
00:37:27.140
So progressive overload is how we measure if a program is working.
00:37:33.160
So if I did 200 pounds for eight reps last week, can I do 200 pounds for nine or 10 reps
00:37:39.900
So in my programs, how I set this up is people after their warmups will do one or two sets
00:37:46.320
to failure or very close to failure for that exercise.
00:37:50.440
And then we have a certain number of what we call like hard sets that have effective reps in
00:37:57.860
So as long as somebody is able to add reps or they can add load or, or even potentially
00:38:04.440
both, that's what we see as progressive overload.
00:38:07.700
And what that means is that it's feedback that these adaptations that we have talked about,
00:38:11.920
whether they're neural or muscular are occurring within the training program.
00:38:15.400
So yeah, the way I've been doing that, so I've been kind of shifting to more of a
00:38:18.700
hypertrophy program, I'll have a load and then I'll start at maybe eight and then I'll
00:38:26.220
And once I get to 12, I'll bump the weight up and then go back down to eight.
00:38:33.120
I, that was, that was, I actually, that was the exact method I used when I was younger.
00:38:39.080
What's, what's really weird to me at times is I figured out stuff through when I was like
00:38:44.960
a kid, like a teenager, I figured out a lot of these things just from what I felt like
00:38:50.560
was just good critical thinking and just made sense.
00:38:55.420
So that was the method I used forever was I figured if I could take a weight that I could
00:39:02.080
only get maybe seven or eight reps with, and I could get to where I was doing 10 or 12
00:39:11.660
Like you can get into the deepness of all the physiological mechanisms and all that stuff.
00:39:16.380
But at the end of the day, if I can take a weight that I was doing eight reps with and
00:39:21.140
I get to 12 and then I add load to something that brings me back to eight.
00:39:24.900
And I just keep repeating that process over years and years and years of doing that.
00:39:32.400
And that is like the, now you can do that with say, I'm going to go from six, six reps to
00:39:37.540
10 reps or six reps to eight reps or eight reps, 12 reps, just somewhere within that range where
00:39:42.400
you just have some way of progressively overloading those motions at there.
00:39:47.260
You don't have any other, any other outcome that's going to happen other than you're going
00:39:52.100
And I think that it's weird to me that so many people overthink this stuff and just miss
00:40:02.860
Like if you can, how I remember when I figured this one out, it was the hundred pound dumbbells
00:40:09.680
was the largest dumbbells that we had in, in the gym I was in at the time.
00:40:13.740
I was probably, I think I was 15 and I was doing the hundreds for like eight.
00:40:21.000
And I remember thinking if I could get those to 12, my chest would be bigger.
00:40:30.860
So from there, I just did that with like every, every girl was like, well, I guess I
00:40:35.120
So I'm doing this for eight reps and I can get that weight to 12 reps, then I'll be bigger.
00:40:40.500
And then when I'd get to 12 reps, I'd add weight.
00:40:43.880
So that's why tracking your workouts is important.
00:40:47.880
I'm going to progressively overload by either adding a rep or adding weight.
00:40:54.540
So you mentioned there's a non-linear connection between hypertrophy and sets.
00:41:03.840
Let's say you got programmed bicep curls for the day.
00:41:07.240
How many sets should you do of a bicep curl in that workout?
00:41:10.160
Well, it depends on how many bicep exercises that we're doing.
00:41:13.920
It depends on the entire structure of the program.
00:41:16.720
So sometimes it's just one set, but then it might be two or three different curl exercises
00:41:22.980
or two or three different forearm flexor exercises, or it could be just two sets of curls.
00:41:30.300
So a lot of people will be like, well, that doesn't meet the whatever.
00:41:35.280
My philosophy, we just talked about progressive overload.
00:41:39.200
My philosophy has never been, let me do the maximum amount of volume that I can recover
00:41:47.420
I think the idea about how you should approach training is how do I get the maximum amount
00:41:52.880
of progressive overload with the least amount of volume?
00:41:59.640
So if, let's say maybe you have an arms program, like you're doing arms day.
00:42:03.880
If you're doing two bicep exercises, you maybe just have to do one to two sets of each of
00:42:11.900
So if I literally had like an arm day, and that's what I said, kind of like the, if you'd
00:42:18.000
But if you had like an arm day, it might be something as simple as three tricep exercises
00:42:24.620
But they would each just get like one, one set to failure.
00:42:29.880
I can't ever see myself doing like six sets for triceps or biceps.
00:42:34.260
That's, I, in all of the research that we've had, generally the cap overall, I'm talking
00:42:41.300
about for everybody, has been eight sets for a muscle group in this session.
00:42:46.920
So somebody's going to listen to this and go, Paul said eight sets.
00:42:51.740
I'm saying for the absolute highest on the outlier scale of we've seen people of using
00:42:58.840
volume with long rest periods, it's around eight sets.
00:43:02.040
Six sets looks like it's the cap for the majority of people before the point of diminishing returns
00:43:07.920
So I can't see myself even doing six sets for biceps and workout.
00:43:12.820
I don't think, and a lot of people will go, why such low volume?
00:43:16.740
That's the other argument that comes up that really grinds my gears.
00:43:22.180
If you're taking longer rest periods, that's on the upper end of the volume scale.
00:43:26.880
So you have to do, when you're taking the rest periods thing, cleared up a lot of the
00:43:33.120
So if you take a short rest period, you basically have to do twice as much volume to get the
00:43:36.860
same hypertrophy stimulus due to the amount of the fatigue that's accumulated.
00:43:40.960
So if you're doing an arm day and you're doing three or four good sets for biceps, that's
00:43:47.900
If you're doing three or four good sets for triceps, that's going to be plenty because
00:43:51.380
you're still going to have other days in the week, right, where you're doing some pulling
00:43:54.360
and pushing and there'll be a certain amount of stimulus that they'll still get from that
00:43:59.400
I think the takeaway there is you don't have to spend two hours in the gym to get results.
00:44:04.240
I had no point have I ever in 30, I've literally been training 34 years.
00:44:10.600
Have I ever spent more than like an hour in the gym?
00:44:13.560
This, this belief that I think for years or when I was in powerlifting and I don't know
00:44:18.200
how much you know about this, but there was definitely a long period of time.
00:44:21.620
I think it was like when the Kelly start stuff was popular.
00:44:24.220
The whole supple leopard thing was going on was people would go in and spend half an hour
00:44:29.740
doing warmups and then mobility drills and stuff like that.
00:44:37.180
I'm like, I walk in, I find the first exercise that I'm doing and I do like eight to 10 reps
00:44:42.760
That's, that's how I like, I don't walk on the treadmill and I don't like do a bunch
00:44:47.080
of stretching or a bunch of mobility work or stuff like that.
00:44:49.900
I walk in, whatever exercise I'm doing first, I find that machine and then I put a load on
00:44:57.000
Speaking of programming, there's all different ways you could skin this cat, but just like
00:45:02.020
for a starter hypertrophy program, what do you typically recommend?
00:45:06.140
Do you recommend doing upper, lower, body parts?
00:45:12.040
So I actually, I am starting a brand new, it's a beginner program.
00:45:17.340
It's a tier one and a tier two based program under my train hero groups.
00:45:24.660
And so the first way I would actually start that out is something as simple as three days
00:45:30.460
a week, full body, because the beginners are still going to grow great off that kind of
00:45:35.220
And you don't need a massive amount of variety.
00:45:38.720
And then to split it up from there would be more like a tier two after maybe six months
00:45:43.900
where you go to like an upper, lower type split.
00:45:46.120
And you start incorporating a few new exercises than you, what you were doing.
00:45:51.660
And for beginners, that's going to be as much as you're really going to need.
00:45:55.280
You don't need a vast array of trying to hit iliac lats and, you know, some like the
00:46:02.000
causal division of the pecs and all that kind of stuff.
00:46:05.740
They're going to grow a really nice foundational level of muscle mass from using, you know,
00:46:15.720
And that doesn't have to be squat, bench, deadlift.
00:46:17.920
Like that's we, Chris and I just did the exercise essential books and we do not have
00:46:24.420
Well, speaking of exercise selection, something that you talk a lot about on your socials is
00:46:31.640
And for a while, I think a lot of people said, you know, oh, you know, machines aren't good.
00:46:38.240
But you argue that free weights have their limitations when it comes to hypertrophy.
00:46:42.860
What's going on there with the free weights versus machines?
00:46:47.580
Well, I'm always going to choose a more stable exercise over a less stable exercise.
00:46:53.800
Now over time, as we talked about forward strength stuff, you develop the coordination and stuff.
00:46:59.320
By, you know, that you get, I mean, you'll develop that ability to be more stable with an unstable
00:47:05.740
exercise, but you're still always going to have that stability component challenge with
00:47:14.160
So if you think about it, if you're always going to have a little bit higher of basically
00:47:19.960
agonist activation, the prime mover that you're using in a motion with a stable exercise, then
00:47:27.520
it's always going to be slightly better than using a less stable exercise because I'm just
00:47:32.820
removing a component that is a limiter component for that muscle group.
00:47:37.780
So if I'm doing dumbbell, why would I do a dumbbell bench press when I can do a machine
00:47:41.080
bench press and load the pecs better and not worry about stabilizing the dumbbells?
00:47:45.180
To me, that's a very simple way to kind of explain that.
00:47:49.520
So if I'm not trying to, you know, develop a, like to me, like after all these years,
00:47:55.460
that's one of the things I look back now and go, can you use dumbbells and grow muscle?
00:48:03.540
As soon as you say on social media, I think a machine press for the chest is, is better
00:48:10.860
Somebody will go, so you're saying dumbbells are worthless.
00:48:16.940
No, I just said, I think this is probably a better option because I'm removing that stability
00:48:23.680
So if I don't need that, I'm not trying to develop that.
00:48:28.160
Why would I choose a motion that's less stable?
00:48:35.380
I still don't like the squat because it's a high skill.
00:48:40.080
Cause you just, you're thinking about so many things like, all right, I'm going down.
00:48:42.940
I don't think that people think about the fact, I don't care what anybody says.
00:48:48.140
One of the things I think why you need so many warmup sets for your squat is for that
00:48:52.860
I think it's a much higher skill lift than people give it credit for.
00:48:56.500
Don't give it credit for whichever way you'd like to phrase that.
00:49:00.360
I like when I was squatting, it was the one motion.
00:49:03.840
Like when you're bench pressing, you go in, you set up, however you're bench pressing,
00:49:09.480
And getting set up and doing your warmups and then getting to a top sub-inch press doesn't
00:49:15.160
Doesn't take a whole lot of thought once you kind of get your motion down.
00:49:17.720
But I squatted for decades and decades and I still had plenty of days where going in
00:49:22.940
squatting would feel off or weird or not quite perfect.
00:49:27.820
And I think it's actually a far more coordinated exercise than people want to talk about.
00:49:33.140
And one of the things you can put somebody on a hack squat and get their feet in the
00:49:37.280
right place, they can go in and repeat that every single time.
00:49:39.800
And it feels the same every single time because you've removed all of those coordination
00:49:46.260
So why would I choose a squat if I'm trying to load my quads when I can get on a hack
00:49:49.820
squat and know exactly where I need to put my feet in the same position every time and
00:49:55.860
Why would I choose something different or a pendulum or a leg press or whatever, right?
00:50:00.240
So I've removed that whole coordination component.
00:50:03.540
And now I'm like, oh, I just want to load that tissue.
00:50:05.720
So now if I'm using a very highly stable exercise, I can just load that tissue and get in almost
00:50:10.260
like perfect position every time with a lot of thought going into it.
00:50:13.540
So yeah, if you're looking at hypertrophy, machines are going to be the way to go because
00:50:18.720
And you're able to focus on the mechanical tension instead of thinking about, oh my gosh,
00:50:25.000
I need to like, you don't have to worry about that.
00:50:31.640
I haven't squatting forever, but you're bringing up a lot of stuff I remember thinking about.
00:50:34.160
You go in on that squat day and then for whatever reason, like, why did I shift to the left there?
00:50:43.440
Well, if I'm just trying to load my quads, why am I worried about all that stuff?
00:50:47.340
Like if I have a pendulum or I have a hack squat that's right there, or even a Smith machine
00:50:51.480
squat, I think a Smith machine squat is even better because in a Smith machine squat,
00:50:55.860
you can get set up in the exact same position over and over and over again.
00:51:01.260
In a leg press, if you're exactly where your feet need to be, you can get set up there
00:51:07.680
Now, something could feel off or wonky that day because of overuse, or maybe you did something
00:51:12.820
the previous day, or you pulled something in a workout.
00:51:15.000
But I'm saying from the aspect of doing the motion, I think that the squat is really far
00:51:19.720
down on the list for being good for hypertrophy.
00:51:23.040
And, but that's not to say, like, let's say a guy's listening, he has a garage gym and he
00:51:26.960
It's like, you can still squat and you can do it for hypertrophy.
00:51:30.400
It's just, you know, it would be easier if you had a hack squat machine or a leg press.
00:51:37.280
With me, again, saying something's useless, worthless, whatever.
00:51:41.460
I'm saying if I have a list of druthers, then, and I have a long list and people say you can
00:51:47.420
pick from whatever you want to, the actual, like a barbell squat is pretty low down the list.
00:51:53.380
So, I mean, it'd be, it'd be like, you know, a pendulum squat, a good hack squat, a Smith
00:52:01.940
And, you know, then you had to get into something like a safety bar, heel elevated squat.
00:52:09.300
So it's basically down there around fifth on the list.
00:52:12.740
And then it even needs what I'd consider like a special bar and heel elevation.
00:52:17.240
Now, if I was doing something, I just wanted to do a lower body exercise where I'm getting
00:52:21.640
the adductors and I'm getting the quads and I'm getting some glutes, then I could do something
00:52:25.540
like a low bar squat with a nice forward lean angle.
00:52:32.460
I'm just like, Hey, I'm just doing a squat pattern.
00:52:34.760
I'm loading everything that's going to be involved in it.
00:52:36.720
But if we're talking about like hypertrophy and we're talking about, I would just want
00:52:40.700
to load this particular tissue and I'm trying to take my physique to the next level.
00:52:44.640
I do think those kinds of little nuances matter over a long period.
00:52:51.180
So exercise selection for hypertrophy, that's your goal.
00:52:54.200
Machines are going to be optimal, but you can still get it with dumbbells or barbells.
00:52:58.440
Even the cable machines, you use a lot of the cable stuff as well.
00:53:01.580
I use more cables now, I would say probably for mainly arm work, delt work, doing a lateral.
00:53:09.460
That's actually a shout out to Joe Bennett, who I think came out with those.
00:53:13.460
That is the, honestly, in my opinion, the best lateral for the lateral deltoid exercise
00:53:22.960
I used to not like those, but I've actually, mainly that was because there was a multitude
00:53:26.920
of those that sometimes do give my left shoulder problem.
00:53:32.240
It's basically got a certain amount of separation in the GH joint that it's caused by, I think
00:53:40.880
Some of the lateral machines cause me pain and some don't.
00:53:44.300
So I kind of shit on them for quite a while, but I can actually get set up in some of them
00:53:49.520
Not all of them, but most of them, to where they always cause me pain.
00:53:56.420
But the lying cable lateral, I like the most because there's a little bit of that freedom
00:54:01.660
of movement that gives my shoulder the least amount of problems.
00:54:04.380
And that's kind of the, also, that plays a factor in with everyone too, is your structure
00:54:08.100
and then your own injury potential or your injury history or your injury potential or
00:54:14.120
So if somebody's like, every time I do this motion, this causes me pain.
00:54:18.620
If I can look at it and see maybe if there's something wrong in their mechanics that's causing
00:54:22.540
But for some people, some stuff just hurts, right?
00:54:25.400
Like there's, there's not always like if somebody goes, well, you're doing this wrong
00:54:31.380
I'm like, no, it bothers my shoulder because I have, I've had injuries in that shoulder.
00:54:36.160
So there's certain movements that just bother it.
00:54:38.340
So those are things that take it to account too.
00:54:42.240
So let's do a recap here of what we talked about today.
00:54:45.200
If you want to train for hypertrophy, like if you want to get your muscles big, the key
00:54:48.920
is to achieve mechanical tension during your working set.
00:54:52.680
That happens when you train to failure or close to it.
00:54:57.640
And to achieve hypertrophy, you don't need as much volume as you might think.
00:55:01.180
If you're using lighter weight, you're going to have to do more reps.
00:55:04.140
But if you're using heavier weight, you can get hypertrophy with just a five to six reps.
00:55:08.900
So yeah, you don't have to go to the gym for hours and thrash yourself all the time to
00:55:14.340
Well, Paul, this has been a great conversation.
00:55:16.300
Where can people go to learn more about what you do?
00:55:21.060
I have said this on my own podcast so many times, I really want to change my name because
00:55:26.460
a lot of people are like, oh, when I started the blog and that name, I just wanted to use
00:55:32.860
And people always think the bang part has to do with sex.
00:55:37.420
So the idea behind when I started lift, run, bang was, you know, you're lifting, you're
00:55:42.720
And then the bang was, I was a computer programmer and engineer for 15 years.
00:55:49.440
So the bang was what we call a variable in programming language.
00:55:54.400
So it could mean whatever you wrote in the program.
00:55:58.920
So a variable would be one word that would contain a string of commands within that one
00:56:04.800
So within the program, if you call that one word, it would execute that string of commands.
00:56:09.020
So lift, run, and then the bang, the bang was a variable.
00:56:13.800
So what's your string of commands that are, do you execute in your life that you're passionate
00:56:18.000
Whether it's being a dad or whether, you know, whether you're into jujitsu, whether you're
00:56:22.520
into, you know, like coaching little league or something, but some variable in your life
00:56:27.560
that is more than just like lifting weights and like doing cardio or whatever.
00:56:33.780
And I, like now people, I think just something as simple as like coach Carter would,
00:56:43.660
But if you type in lift, run, bang on pretty much all social media, you should find me in
00:56:49.720
I think the only place I don't go to anymore is Twitter.
00:57:00.460
You can find him across social media platforms at lift, run, bang.
00:57:03.780
Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash hypertrophy.
00:57:16.440
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast.
00:57:19.440
Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com.
00:57:21.660
We find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that we've written over the years
00:57:26.720
And if you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review
00:57:33.940
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00:57:37.660
As always, thank you for the continued support.
00:57:39.700
And until next time, it's Brett McKay reminding you to not listen to AOM podcast,