Aight brehs I've been out of the game for a few years and am kicking back into heavy lifts again. Feels like every few years, all of the past strategies are considered broscience that don't work. SO. Ima just list them out, and y'all tell me what actually was true all along, and what straight up isn't considered true anymore.
If it helps, trying to rebulk from 165 to my past weight of 185+, so these are all related to wanting to do that as efficiently as possible.
1) 500 cal surplus will cause you to gain up to one lb per week, but you can only safely gain 1.5-2lbs per month, everything else is fat and water
2) Creatine and maybe beta alanine are useful, most other supps are largely placebos or only slight benefits
3) Eating a lot of protein and carbs right after a workout is important, and it's important to avoid fats because they digest too slowly
4) Carbs + protein, fat + protein meals are best. Avoid fat + carb meals.
5) To contradict the above, dirty bulking can help you grow faster
6) If you weigh 175lbs, you're going to want 150-200g of protein daily to bulk and recover well
7) Overtraining is overstated, so 2-3 days of heavy lifting per week to failure shouldn't cause that
8) Muscle memory for growth is a thing, so you can expect to grow more than 1-2lbs per month if you're regaining muscle mass you used to have
9) Sleep and maintaining low stress are super important for anabolic process
10) Sticking to mostly barbell and full body lifts (deads, squats, military, etc) is better for increasing test levels
Also that intermittent fasting CAN be used to bulk, as it raises H GH levels
Any of that no longer hold true based on recent studies?
Any new hypertrophy programs or findings that are major?
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11-19-2019, 11:38 AM #1
- Join Date: Jun 2010
- Location: Houston, Texas, United States
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Are these considered broscience now? (srs)
Death Metal // World Travel // Wholesome Shidd
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11-19-2019, 11:51 AM #2
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11-19-2019, 12:41 PM #3
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11-19-2019, 12:50 PM #4
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11-19-2019, 12:51 PM #5
- Join Date: Jun 2010
- Location: Houston, Texas, United States
- Age: 35
- Posts: 2,967
- Rep Power: 3337
Yes and no - I want to start a short burst back into hypertrophy (~8 weeks) before reevaluating, and want to make the most of my time and money towards nutrition. Want to make sure whatever food and workout plan I choose isn't going to be based on false assumptions.
All of the above are things that I used to follow (some more strict than others), but I'm not sure what was to credit for the growth I had, and I want to make the most progress I can to build myself back up. Based on that, what is now considered the most successful hypertrophy plan?
(fyi, two full body workout days a week based on compound lifts + a few accessory lifts did me well before)Death Metal // World Travel // Wholesome Shidd
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11-19-2019, 01:50 PM #6
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11-19-2019, 05:12 PM #7
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11-19-2019, 05:18 PM #8
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11-19-2019, 05:39 PM #9
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11-19-2019, 10:01 PM #10
I believe that everything you listed is valid. Just as for point 6) I would always recommend to calculate the protein intake on the lean body weight. And IF has nothing magic in it: only caloric deficit makes you lose weight and fasting certainly does not make your muscles grow.
Broscience in my opinion is not that... it is eating rice and tuna in the shower because of the narrow "anabolic window", switching to 15 reps for cutting, no cardio to avoid overtraining, etc.
What you mentioned in my opinion is very reasonable.
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11-19-2019, 10:07 PM #11
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11-20-2019, 04:13 PM #12
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11-20-2019, 04:22 PM #13
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11-20-2019, 04:24 PM #14
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11-20-2019, 04:31 PM #15
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11-20-2019, 04:58 PM #16
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11-20-2019, 06:18 PM #17
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11-20-2019, 06:39 PM #18
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11-20-2019, 08:37 PM #19
The best advice I could ever give is to be a natty bodybuilder, concentrate on getting stronger on all your power lifts, while lifting for reps, not necessarily maxing out, leave that to the powerlifters. You can figure out what your max is by looking at math calculations. Try to achieve a perfect strength ratio of benching twice your body weight and deadlift/squat 3 times your body weight, and that would make you pretty big, muscular and ripped. Once you reach this point, slowly by surely add weight, as long as you are gaining the strength accordingly. I advice the anabolic diet, is a great diet for bodybuilders. try to sleep literally as much as possible, forget about numbers, if it's your day off, go to sleep without setting an alarm, if your body decides to sleep 16 hrs, so be it, we need as much sleep as we can get to grow and repair muscles
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11-20-2019, 08:49 PM #20
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11-21-2019, 12:07 AM #21
- Join Date: Jan 2007
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- Posts: 54,513
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In a way, it's nice to keep things simple.
No need to worry about things like splits, complex periodization (for hypertrophy that is), timing of carbs, meal timing relative to workouts etc.
Empirical evidence suggest that volume is the key driver of hypertrophy. This doesn't necessarily mean cranking out submaximal sets - the degree of exertion in each set matters too but going to failure every time is likely not optimal. The number of "hard sets" done per bodypart over the course of a week is the key metric to use.
I like the concepts introduced by Dr. Mike Israetel regarding your minimum effective dose (MED) needed to produce any (net) hypertrophy. You workload should fall between MEV and your Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV). These are different for each person - and they evolve over time too.
He espouses starting at MEV and ramping it up over time until you can no longer recover - but there are many ways to skin a cat
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11-21-2019, 04:48 AM #22
- Join Date: Jan 2007
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- Posts: 54,513
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Another thing I meant to say: don't pay too much attention to hormone spikes during training or during fasting. Muscle anabolism requires a cocktail of different hormones and other circumstances. A 15 minute long spike in test after doing heavy compounds, or a raised HGH level during fasting has nothing to do with anabolism - those hormones are also implicated in energy mobilisation.
Training is catabolic. So is fasting. Rest + calories + protein = anabolism.
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11-21-2019, 06:41 AM #23
a concept in the hypertrophy world that has been making it's rounds is the idea of effective reps. Basically the idea that the last 5-6 reps before failure of a set are the ones that contribute to hypertrophy the most. The beginning 4-5 reps in say a set of 10 not being very meaningful. It's not exactly revolutionary, it's intuitive that we need to push a set close to failure with enough volume as the closer to failure you get the more muscle fibers will need to be recruited. I'm not sure I exactly buy that the first few reps in say a set of 10 is absolutely useless although that's not exactly what the research has come out and said. Basically choose a heavy enough weight that you can choose to push towards failure with enough volume (6-10 reps is probably a good and happy medium for this, but this is not to say you shouldn't use other rep ranges and that they can't help contribute to hypertrophy).
Longer rest periods (2-3 minutes) have lead to better strength and hypertrophy outcomes in a few studies. Against conventional wisdom that you need shorter rest periods for hypertrophy. Again though more studies are needed on this to make a more absolute conclusion.
Pushing close to failure has lead to better strength/hypertrophy outcomes than just training to absolute failure. Now one would think this is intuitive but many believe that you need to push every single set to absolute failure. This is simply not the case and there are costs associated with pushing every single set to failure. I.e: Form breakdown, recovery, nagging pains, etc.
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11-21-2019, 07:45 AM #24
I think the rest period thing is because it allows cns fatigue to dissipate more, which means subsequent sets will be due to failure of the muscles, rather than your CNS just giving up. So you would hey more "effective reps" taking a longer break that allows actual muscular fatigue to be the limiting factor. CNS fatigue definitely doesn't cause growth
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11-21-2019, 07:47 AM #25
- Join Date: Jan 2007
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- Posts: 54,513
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11-21-2019, 09:38 AM #26
********************/@SandCResearch/do...h-7859e0c4adfd
"Firstly, while most research has shown that central nervous system fatigue after strength training is fairly short-lived, it is certainly present in the 30 minutes after a workout. Moreover, it is also present within a workout, at least once a certain amount of volume has been accomplished, although it probably decays exponentially after each set. Therefore, using shorter rest periods makes it more likely that we will commence a subsequent set while central nervous system fatigue is still present. This will prevent us reaching full motor unit recruitment in that next set."
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11-21-2019, 09:47 AM #27
There are multiple facets to fatigue as it relates to time between sets. ATP replenishment, lactic acid dissipation, heart rate dropping. These can all effect the ability to fully and optimally recruit motor units. But as far as fatiguing the cns pathway that the electric signal travels, not a big concern. I've only heard of it actually happening in heavy deadlifts, which was in a podcast by Nuchols.
Last edited by PurmaBulker1984; 11-21-2019 at 10:52 AM.
Current max
325 bb bench
295 incl bb bench
275 push press.
Married w/ 2 kids crew
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11-21-2019, 10:56 AM #28
yeah, im thinking there is something to be said for shorter rest intervals in certain situations. I have always been one to not watch the clock or my rest intervals. yeah, u "fully recover" in between sets, true. But u can also lose focus, your workout take way longer. And how are u really gauging progress? did u really get stronger or did u just take 3 minutes between sets as opposed to last time u took 2 minutes?
So now I am trying to stick to 90 secs rest on a lot of my stuff like back work, oh presses
60 secs on arms, calves.
2 mins on benches
Then squats is just whatever lol. like 7-8 minutes
One reason I had to go to shorter rest is that on stuff like curls my forearms just ache way too much. So the shorter rest period is sort of an artificial way to keep the weight DOWN.
I dunno which side of the broscience thing it comes down to, but some are of the opinion that u SHOULDNT let the muscle "fully recover" in between sets. Or rather, either approach is fine as they might use different growth pathways etc. The longer rest is obviously going to build more strength and I suppose fiber size thru max tension etc but the shorter rest will obviously tax the metabolic aspects more"Humility comes before honor"
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11-21-2019, 12:00 PM #29
I saw John Meadows talking about protein and digestion on one of his videos a while back. He essentially said that to get the most benefit from a protein source it needed to travel slowly enough through the digestive tract for you to be able to absorb it effectively.
Rapidly digesting protein that passes through the gut too quickly doesn't allow you to absorb the amino acids in an optimal way.
His suggestion was to include a little fat with a protein source as the combination will make the absorption of the digested protein source more effective. He wasn't advocating eating gobs of grease - but made the point that whole eggs for example contained both fat and protein which would digest and absorb in a more optimal way.
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11-21-2019, 07:44 PM #30
Ok, the only thing that doesn't jive with what I was saying, is that they used 3 or 5 minutes if rest time on the heavy sets. Idk, I was just going off what I read on nuckols site. Exponential decay, he claimed something along the lines of 1 minute rest periods would allow whatever fatigue occurs to accumulate over the sets whereas another minute or 2 would let everything clear out and reset to baseline.
Personally, my conditioning is garbage. By the end of the workout, that's what is my limiting factor. I gotta work on that
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