High Frequency Studies Flawed

[fairbjosh]

All the studies I have read on training full body vs "bro splits" seem to be flawed in that it don't go into detail what type of training style the subjects were doing before the actual study, the studies elaborate on training "experience" but not training program ran before the study. I believe this would matter and make a difference in the outcome of each study, since research has shown changing training styles (volume, intensity, frequency) in different blocks has shown to help with progression in return strength and muscle gains. MY hypothesis is that 90% of the subjects were following your typical "bro split" before the actual study was done since that is what 90% of you common gym goer uses, so once these subjects started following a high frequency training program instead of the "bro split" they were following the muscles adapted and grew to the change. Now I believe those initial gains in the 8-week block that the typical study does would level off and both the "bro split" and high frequency subjects would be making the same amount of progress as long as volume and progression is matched.

[SuffolkPunch]

I tend to agree that a change of protocols could be factor - but as to whether this completely subsumes any advantage seen remains to be seen. What we can say is that if an advantage exists, it's a very small one otherwise everyone would have naturally moved towards that way of working already.

Menno responds to the HF studies

https://mennohenselmans.com/training...alysis-review/

It's a fairly rigorous and objective analysis - but of course he has a predisposition to favour HF - a Bayesian 'prior' if you like.

[fairbjosh]

I tend to agree that a change of protocols could be factor - but as to whether this completely subsumes any advantage seen remains to be seen. What we can say is that if an advantage exists, it's a very small one otherwise everyone would have naturally moved towards that way of working already.

Menno responds to the HF studies

https://mennohenselmans.com/training...alysis-review/

It's a fairly rigorous and objective analysis - but of course he has a predisposition to favour HF - a Bayesian 'prior' if you like.

I agree if an advantage does exist to HF it is minimal. I know James Krieger has done some studies on if HF is the "holy grail" of training like everybody makes it out to be and his studies show that Volume is the biggest factor in muscle hypertrophy not HF. I believe we can conclude that hypertrophy MUST have the following things #1 - Volume #2 - Nutrition #3 - Progression, HF is optional but I believe it only matters in a way to obtain Volume.

[Spoken36]

We are all really different from one another, and we are all amazingly adaptable. It turns out that amazing physiques and super strong people are the products of a variety of training approaches. It follows, then, that "scientific" testing of this variable laden terrain is challenging at best.
I agree. The study is flawed. The results give no real world increase in understanding. Self experimentation is still our best course of action, given some basic approaches that most of us are already aware of.

But, alas, people will still trot out the studies to assert the superiority of their pet dogmas.

It's interesting that ten year old studies of all kinds are regularly shown to be misleading by the new studies ten years later, and those will probably be shown to be misleading further on. Science is supposed to function by hypothesese rejection via testing, but scientists get paid to support things for investors, and they routinely coddle their own preferred ideas. It's completely understandable, but it makes most "science" not much better than "bro-science".

[TAWS6]

I tend to agree that a change of protocols could be factor - but as to whether this completely subsumes any advantage seen remains to be seen. What we can say is that if an advantage exists, it's a very small one otherwise everyone would have naturally moved towards that way of working already.

Menno responds to the HF studies

https://mennohenselmans.com/training...alysis-review/

It's a fairly rigorous and objective analysis - but of course he has a predisposition to favour HF - a Bayesian 'prior' if you like.

Brad and Krieger responded to this article on Menno's ******** post yesterday.

[fairbjosh]

We are all really different from one another, and we are all amazingly adaptable. It turns out that amazing physiques and super strong people are the products of a variety of training approaches. It follows, then, that "scientific" testing of this variable laden terrain is challenging at best.
I agree. The study is flawed. The results give no real world increase in understanding. Self experimentation is still our best course of action, given some basic approaches that most of us are already aware of.

But, alas, people will still trot out the studies to assert the superiority of their pet dogmas.

It's interesting that ten year old studies of all kinds are regularly shown to be misleading by the new studies ten years later, and those will probably be shown to be misleading further on. Science is supposed to function by hypothesese rejection via testing, but scientists get paid to support things for investors, and they routinely coddle their own preferred ideas. It's completely understandable, but it makes most "science" not much better than "bro-science".

I HIGHLY believe in your comment, amazing physiques are the product of a variety of training approaches. Take Dorian Yates he mostly did one really hard all out set to failure per body part once a week on the other hand you have somebody like Lee Haney who did 24 sets per body part split between two sessions than you have Phil Heath probably one of the smarter bodybuilders who does your typical "bro split", all have amazing physiques. Before the trolls show up, yes I know the guys listed do take Steroids but my point is all these guys used different training styles to accomplish a common goal win Mr. Olympia.

I guess a lot of people miss the main point, train in a way that makes you excited to go to the gym and makes you want to keep going back if that means a "Bro Split", Full Body, Upper/Lower, PPL or the thousand other routines because even the most flawed routine that has a person motivated and consistent will outperform the most optimal routine that has the gym goer un-motivated and inconsistent.

[Spoken36]

I HIGHLY believe in your comment, amazing physiques are the product of a variety of training approaches. Take Dorian Yates he mostly did one really hard all out set to failure per body part once a week on the other hand you have somebody like Lee Haney who did 24 sets per body part split between two sessions than you have Phil Heath probably one of the smarter bodybuilders who does your typical "bro split", all have amazing physiques. Before the trolls show up, yes I know the guys listed do take Steroids but my point is all these guys used different training styles to accomplish a common goal win Mr. Olympia.

I guess a lot of people miss the main point, train in a way that makes you excited to go to the gym and makes you want to keep going back if that means a "Bro Split", Full Body, Upper/Lower, PPL or the thousand other routines because even the most flawed routine that has a person motivated and consistent will outperform the most optimal routine that has the gym goer un-motivated and inconsistent.

It's at once the difficulty, and the beauty of resistance training. Can look at it as confusing and mystifying, or liberating.

How could Mentzer criticize Arnold's training? Or anyone Yates'? Critique, yes.