Rep Ranges and Science

[malfeasance]

This is well worth watching in full and listening to the details without jumping to conclusions one way or the other. Brad Schoenfeld has a lot to say about actual studies and how even his own studies have been misinterpreted. There is a lot to learn here if you aren't too busy arguing with the screen while he is talking.




View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsTjUb5O8d8

 

[buck]

I think all rep ranges work to a point. And the range a person prefers probably will work the best for them as they will apply themselves better to that range.

 

[malfeasance]

I think all rep ranges work to a point. And the range a person prefers probably will work the best for them as they will apply themselves better to that range.

That's kind of what the video said, but there is much more to it than that.

 

[AlexDavis43]

I think all rep ranges work to a point. And the range a person prefers probably will work the best for them as they will apply themselves better to that range.

That's kind of what the video said, but there is much more to it than that.

Yeah a lot of the old school bro-science hasn't really been debunked.

Some guys switched to low rep high intensity later in their careers (Mentzer, Yates, etc.), but they all gained most of their size with higher volume training.

Bodybuilding rep zone 10+ per set. Get close to failure/burn/pump. Schoenfeld is doing great work because despite being scrawny, he's a bro at heart. But actual doing sciencey stuff.

 

[Joeblack]

I've grown to love higher reps (to failure )as I get older. That and long-length partials have brought me to the next level.

 

[Doog33]

Me personally - the higher rep ranges on smith machines has yielded me my best visual responses. But i do like being strong during the winter and go to the low rep ranges on compounds.

 

[iris]

This is good to see.
There is another thread about this topic, started by @PaintDrinker .
I heard about Brad S through B Contreras. They worked together years ago and also came across some of his articles on fitness magazines.
I had no idea, at the time, that he had also published books and was highly regarded within the sports science arena.

He said that in applied research nothing is set in stone and so these findings may get undermined by someone else, but seeing accepted knowledge challenged is always interesting.

I wonder, though, to what extent this would stick, in reality, for us and alter received wisdom about how we train.
The thinking he tries to debunk has been around for a long time and we tend to be creatures of habit.

When he talked about the misunderstanding about time under tension being over a session, not a set, well I deffo got it wrong.

His discussion about how muscle fibre typing has been thought of in a misguided way was also good.
And let's hope fitness education has caught up with the latest thinking and is teaching people in a more nuanced way.

I would have liked to know why they chose 7 sets of 3 for the heavy training part.
I had a look at the published study and, if it is the one from 2014, I couldn't find it there, either.
But maybe I missed it or you guys know.
Like, why that instead of something that was popular at the time, the 5×5, which would give a similar tut?

I would have asked him how he saw his latest findings in light of all the previous studies he has conducted, too.


The whole idea that training can be sustainable, effective and you don't have to kill yourself to achieve a certain degree of strength and hypertrophy is a positive one, for sure.
This was about muscular development, though, not about the development of strength, per se.
And in the study, they do write that heavy training does provide better outcomes with regards to this (in trained individuals).

" Current theory proposes that strength increases are maximized using heavy loads of approximately 1–5RM. Although significant gains in strength have been reported using higher repetition bodybuilding-type training, it has been postulated that the lighter loads used in these protocols are suboptimal for maximizing strength, particularly in advanced lifters (2,16). Results of this study support this hypothesis. Given that maximal strength has a substantial neural component (10), it can be inferred from this study that loads of ∼75% 1RM are not sufficient to optimize improvements in neural mechanisms as compared with heavier loads on a volume load–equated basis in well-trained subjects."


The words hypothetically and anecdotally were used a lot.
Maybe that's also why it is difficult to shift our thinking.
We want sure things out of something that is hard to pin down and "set in stone".

I am not sure I like the interviewer much.....

Sorry this was long.
Gym is too busy and I am waiting for it to get as empty as possible.
I am very antisocial