The Reason Why Muscles Don't Grow With Low Volume.

[suckmymuscle]

  I was thinking the other day about why powerlifters, despite their greater strengh, as well as those who do one-set-to-failure protocols, do not grow muscles like bodybuilders who do a greater volume of work. These are my conclusions: hypertrophy of muscle fibers is but one mechanism through which muscles increase in strengh. Increasing strengh with few reps cause an increase in nervous as well as metabolic muscular efficiency without, necessarily, concomitant increases in the cross-sectional area of muscle. Strengh can be increased via increased ATP expedenture by increased mitochondrial density, creatine phosphate synthesis, increased motor neural number and/or activation via increased receptor sensitivity to Calcium ions, efficiency of lactic acid clearance ratio, etc. Only when muscular and neuromuscular metabolic function is maximized does the muscle increase it's cross-sectional area to increase strengh, because increasing strengh via improved metabolic function is less straining and a more efficient use of bodily resources than building more muscular tissue. The workload imposed by powerlifting style training doesen't strain the muscle fiber's ability to increase it's contractile force beyond what it can by becoming more efficient.

  The problem is that there are limits to which muscle efficiency can be maximized. Following this point, only increases in the cross sectional area of muscle will result in strengh increases. Suppose you load a bar with 200 lbs and you have enough motor neuronal efficiency, ATP reserves and mucle fibers to bench it once for 300 lbs. If you bench it once, 100% of your motor neurons will fire and all ATP will be used. Now, imagine that instead of benching it once for 300 lbs, you load the bar with 200 lbs and do 10 reps. You will use the same amount of stored ATP for those 10 reps that you'd use for benching 300 lbs for one and you'll be demanding as much from your nervous system and all muscle fibers will need to contract for you to complete your tenth rep. Now you rest for a minute, and go again. Only 50% of your fibers will have recovered from the first set, and ATP will have been depleted significantly as well as the lactic acid won't have been completely removed from sites. The demand you put on the muscles will indicate that the further strengh increases with this work load exceeds what the current muscle fibers can accomplish with it's size. Since it is impossible to increase strengh by increasing the density of actin/myosin bridges that compose muscular fibers and are responsble for their contractive ability, the only way to increase the muscle's strengh is to increase the proteinaceous volume of actin and myoson itself. Result: hypertrophy. This explains why a powerlifter has similar muscular efficiency to a bodybuilder but less muscular volume.

  Conclusion: muscular hypertrophy is only one of the mechanisms skeletal muscle have to become stronger and it is secondary in activation to several others. To achieve muscular hypertrophy, huge weights with low work load is ineffective because there is enormous room for your muscles to grow in strengh before growing in size. You'll need to use gigantic weights to achieve only a moderate degree of hypertrophy with a few contractions.

  Conclusion II: To maximize hypertrophy, increase strengh enormously first via powerlifting or one-set-to-failure protocols, then stagnate the weight you're using and work on increasind the amount of work you can perform with that weight. Huge gains in the cross sectional area of muscle will follow. Once volume has increased to the point where you have observed that your gains have stagnated, work on increasing your strengh agains via powerlifting type training. Repeat ad infinitum.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[io856]

Your idol brought muscle mass to a new level with a one set per exercise to failure protocol

btw, powerlifters often do large amounts of volume with the exception of a meet

I agree with your periodisation of one set/strength and volume approach

[Purge_WTF]

  I was thinking the other day about why powerlifters, despite their greater strengh, as well as those who do one-set-to-failure protocols, do not grow muscles like bodybuilders who do a greater volume of work. These are my conclusions: hypertrophy of muscle fibers is but one mechanism through which muscles increase in strengh. Increasing strengh with few reps cause an increase in nervous as well as metabolic muscular efficiency without, necessarily, concomitant increases in the cross-sectional area of muscle. Strengh can be increased via increased ATP expedenture by increased mitochondrial density, creatine phosphate synthesis, increased motor neural number and/or activation via increased receptor sensitivity to Calcium ions, efficiency of lactic acid clearance ratio, etc. Only when muscular and neuromuscular metabolic function is maximized does the muscle increase it's cross-sectional area to increase strengh, because increasing strengh via improved metabolic function is less straining and a more efficient use of bodily resources than building more muscular tissue. The workload imposed by powerlifting style training doesen't strain the muscle fiber's ability to increase it's contractile force beyond what it can by becoming more efficient.

  The problem is that there are limits to which muscle efficiency can be maximized. Following this point, only increases in the cross sectional area of muscle will result in strengh increases. Suppose you load a bar with 200 lbs and you have enough motor neuronal efficiency, ATP reserves and mucle fibers to bench it once for 300 lbs. If you bench it once, 100% of your motor neurons will fire and all ATP will be used. Now, imagine that instead of benching it once for 300 lbs, you load the bar with 200 lbs and do 10 reps. You will use the same amount of stored ATP for those 10 reps that you'd use for benching 300 lbs for one and you'll be demanding as much from your nervous system and all muscle fibers will need to contract for you to complete your tenth rep. Now you rest for a minute, and go again. Only 50% of your fibers will have recovered from the first set, and ATP will have been depleted significantly as well as the lactic acid won't have been completely removed from sites. The demand you put on the muscles will indicate that the further strengh increases with this work load exceeds what the current muscle fibers can accomplish with it's size. Since it is impossible to increase strengh by increasing the density of actin/myosin bridges that compose muscular fibers and are responsble for their contractive ability, the only way to increase the muscle's strengh is to increase the proteinaceous volume of actin and myoson itself. Result: hypertrophy. This explains why a powerlifter has similar muscular efficiency to a bodybuilder but less muscular volume.

  Conclusion: muscular hypertrophy is only one of the mechanisms skeletal muscle have to become stronger and it is secondary in activation to several others. To achieve muscular hypertrophy, huge weights with low work load is ineffective because there is enormous room for your muscles to grow in strengh before growing in size. You'll need to use gigantic weights to achieve only a moderate degree of hypertrophy with a few contractions.

  Conclusion II: To maximize hypertrophy, increase strengh enormously first via powerlifting or one-set-to-failure protocols, then stagnate the weight you're using and work on increasind the amount of work you can perform with that weight. Huge gains in the cross sectional area of muscle will follow. Once volume has increased to the point where you have observed that your gains have stagnated, work on increasing your strengh agains via powerlifting type training. Repeat ad infinitum.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

  Copy-and-paste plagiarism what?

[io856]

  Copy-and-paste plagiarism what?

Nope, suckmymuscle is that god damn smart and knowledgeable I would take everything he types very seriously

[suckmymuscle]

Your idol brought muscle mass to a new level with a one set per exercise to failure protocol

btw, powerlifters often do large amounts of volume with the exception of a meet

  He's not my idol. Dorian did 3 sets per exercise for the first 9 years of his career. He also used massive amounts of drugs. Furthermore, after so many years of training he achieved an incredible neuromuscular efficiency which allowed him to stress muscle fibers to a much higher degree than what an average Joe can.

  And the point stands: 99% of people who do low volume with heavy weights don't achieve as much hypertrophy as bodybuilders who do multiple sets. This is a fact. Compare the muscle mass of professional powerlifters and bodybuilders, both on steroids, and the bodybuilders are much larger despite being weaker. Riddle me that? Look, also, at all the people who do one-set-to-failure and experience huge increases in strengh but no muscle gain. My point stands.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[Sam]

 He's not my idol. Dorian did 3 sets per exercise for the first 9 years of his career. He also used massive amounts of drugs. Furthermore, after so many years of training he achieved an incredible neuromuscular efficiency which allowed him to stress muscle fibers to a much higher degree than what an average Joe can.

  And the point stands: 99% of people who do low volume with heavy weights don't achieve as much hypertrophy as bodybuilders who do multiple sets. This is a fact. Compare the muscle mass of professional powerlifters and bodybuilders, both on steroids, and the bodybuilders are much larger despite being weaker. Riddle me that? Look, also, at all the people who do one-set-to-failure and experience huge increases in strengh but no muscle gain. My point stands.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

It must also be noted that Dorian never did only one set even later in his career. He did several sets of one exercise before an all out ''Work'' set. People get confused about the volume Doz did. btw, his warm up sets were like most peoples all out sets.

[io856]

low volume sessions, high weekly volume  with a high frequency seems to be a great way to train

McLester JR., Bishop P., & Guilliams M. Comparison of 1 and 3 day per week of equal volume resistance training in experienced subjects. Med. Sci. Sports Exrc. 1999 31(5 Supp) pp.S117

Nosaka K, Newton M. Repeated Eccentric Exercise Bouts Do Not Exacerbate Muscle Damage and Repair. Journal of Strength and Conditioning. 2002 Feb;16(1):117-122.

[TRIX]

Thats why powerlifters are 300 lb plus behemoths? They don't look like bodybuilders because they train bench, squat, deadlift.. Mainly, but if they did a cut they would still be beasts.. Idiot
Cliffs: they don't look like bodybuilders because of there muscles are hidden in fat

[PJim]

 He's not my idol. Dorian did 3 sets per exercise for the first 9 years of his career. He also used massive amounts of drugs. Furthermore, after so many years of training he achieved an incredible neuromuscular efficiency which allowed him to stress muscle fibers to a much higher degree than what an average Joe can.

  And the point stands: 99% of people who do low volume with heavy weights don't achieve as much hypertrophy as bodybuilders who do multiple sets. This is a fact. Compare the muscle mass of professional powerlifters and bodybuilders, both on steroids, and the bodybuilders are much larger despite being weaker. Riddle me that? Look, also, at all the people who do one-set-to-failure and experience huge increases in strengh but no muscle gain. My point stands.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

You mention powerlifters, steroids aside, they tend to be the bigger/ denser people between themselves and natural bodybuilders.

[io856]

Thats why powerlifters are 300 lb plus behemoths? They don't look like bodybuilders because they train bench, squat, deadlift.. Mainly, but if they did a cut they would still be beasts.. Idiot
Cliffs: they don't look like bodybuilders because of there muscles are hidden in fat

Good point Trey Brewer didn't look all that impressive when he got fat

but come contest day he looks incredible

[suckmymuscle]

It must also be noted that Dorian never did only one set even later in his career. He did several sets of one exercise before an all out ''Work'' set. People get confused about the volume Doz did. btw, his warm up sets were like most peoples all out sets.

  The same for Mike Mentzer: Greg Zulak once commented that the guy "warmed up" doing 6 reps on the incline press with 400 lbs. He actually did like 4 warm-up sets with weights that would crush the bones of most bodybuilders.

  As for Dorian Yates, you can't compare the guy to an average Joe. You just can't. The guy is a fucking freak of Nature. Even if he never touched a weight, he'd still weight 200 lbs with single-digit bodyfat at a height of 5'10. He is naturally that muscular.

  And Dorian's training uses the same concept of hypertrophy that volume training does: force increases in strengh in the muscle fibers beyond what the muscle fiber can through increased efficiency. Dorian did lots of forced reps, negatives and rest-pause sets. What do you think those are? Those techniques are used to push the muscle in the same way that doing a second set after resting for no more than a minute or so does. It has nothing to do with powerlifting type training. Ever seen a powerlifter do 8 reps in a set like Dorian does and then, after resting for 5 second, do another rep? Lol.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[suckmymuscle]

Thats why powerlifters are 300 lb plus behemoths?

  Lots of it is not lean muscle mass. Their bodyfat is as high as that of football lineman. Secondly, powerlifters have much larger bones on average than bodybuilders, so their muscles are naturally larger. It tells me nothing about the efficiency of powerlifting type training at increasing mass.

  You can't do anything to refute my point: pro bodybuilders have greater muscle mass than powerlifters when you adjust for bodyfat and bone size, and yet are much weaker. You can't also refute the fact that most people who do one-set-to-failure protocols usually gain a lot in strengh but little in size. My point stands.

SUCKMYMUSCLE
 

[suckmymuscle]

remember that study that tested 3 types of people. powerlifters,bodybuilders, and sumo wrestlers.. the sumos had the highest percentage of muscle and they dont even touch weights.lol

  I really want to see this study, and I'm calling epic bullshit on it right now. Maybe a 7' tall sumo wrestler with 10" wrists and who weights 600 lbs has more lean muscle mass than a natural 220 lbs bodybuilder. So what? What does this prove except that obese people have more muscle than thin people because they need to carry their weight around all day, and that a 7' tall man with huge bones naturally has more muscle than a 5'10 man with average sized bones?

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[PJim]

End of the day, if you want to get significantly bigger at some point you've got to get stronger, which will entail cutting your volume down

[PJim]

In fact this is the simple way to think about it. Let's say high volume is really the way to go. Let's also say that there is no disputing that a low volume approach is best for gaining strength. Now take your average gymrat. How is he going to keep improving/growing if he NEVER switches to a low volume approach to focus on strength-building so that ultimately, in the long-run he can use heavier poundages in ALL his sets. I think low volume training has a very important indirect effect on hypertrophy.

[suckmymuscle]

End of the day, if you want to get significantly bigger at some point you've got to get stronger, which will entail cutting your volume down

  Sure. I never claimed otherwise. My point is that moderate strengh increases with higher volume work better at increasing mass than huge strengh increases with low volume.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[Royal Lion]

Every competitive powerlifter I have seen is huge.  Granted, I don't follow the sport closely, but aren't most of them up well over 300 lbs?  I would think they carry just as much muscle as bodybuilders, just much higher levels of bodyfat.  After all, it's not like powerlifters count calories or do cardio.  The muscle is just buried under fat.

[kh300]

  I really want to see this study, and I'm calling epic bullshit on it right now. Maybe a 7' tall sumo wrestler with 10" wrists and who weights 600 lbs has more lean muscle mass than a natural 220 lbs bodybuilder. So what? What does this prove except that obese people have more muscle than thin people because they need to carry their weight around all day, and that a 7' tall man with huge bones naturally has more muscle than a 5'10 man with average sized bones?

SUCKMYMUSCLE

its somewhere over at IM... but a more accurate comparision would be to take 2 teenagers, put one on a high volume, one on a low volume..

i would bet my life the kid focusing on his deadlift will be a hellofa lot bigger then the kid doing rep after rep of cable rows

[Marty Champions]

low volume sucks

[PJim]

 Sure. I never claimed otherwise. My point is that moderate strengh increases with higher volume work better at increasing mass than huge strengh increases with low volume.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

I think in essence it depends on the individual. You have to think about genetics etc. I know personally that if I stick to gaining strength, size comes along with it. I find the more I pussyfoot around the idea of gaining strength e.g doing 3 sets of 200 lbs instead of just 1 with 250 lbs, the slower I gain. That's just me personally, muscle fiber types and other things have to be taken into consideration.

[suckmymuscle]

  Lol...you guys are fucking stupid. You can't use the weight of powerlifters to gauge the success of their training methods at increasing muscle size. Most powerlifters and strongman are tall men with huge bones and they often carry significantly more bodyfat than what a ripped bodybuilder does. Sure, a 6'4 man with 9" wrists and 15% bodyfat will weight more than a 5'10 bodybuilder with tiny joints, like Flex Wheeler, who is ripped to the bone. When you adjust for height, size of skeleton and bodyfat, the bodybuilder carries more muscle. Even if the powerlifter still weights more when you bring down his bodyfat to the level of the bodybuilder, the latter will have more for what his stature and skeleton can support. The size of muscles are proportional to bones because muscles need to be naturally strong to move them. This is very basic physiology and physics.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[Royal Lion]

its somewhere over at IM... but a more accurate comparision would be to take 2 teenagers, put one on a high volume, one on a low volume..

i would bet my life the kid focusing on his deadlift will be a hellofa lot bigger then the kid doing rep after rep of cable rows

I'd have to agree - most bodybuilders build a foundation of size and strength by doing deadlifts, bench press, and squat.  Compound moves build mass more than auxilary moves, no?

[Marty Champions]

 Lol...you guys are fucking stupid. You can't use the weight of powerlifters to gauge the success of their training methods at increasing muscle size. Most powerlifters and strongman are tall men with huge bones and they often carry significantly more bodyfat than what a ripped bodybuilder does. Sure, a 6'4 man with 9" wrists and 15% bodyfat will weight more than a 5'10 bodybuilder with tiny joints, like Flex Wheeler, who is ripped to the bone. When you adjust for height, size of skeleton and bodyfat, the bodybuilder carries more muscle. Even if the powerlifter still has more lean muscle mass when you bring down his bodyfat to the level of the bodybuilder, the latter will have more for what his stature and skeleton can support. The size of muscles are proportional to bones because muscles need to be naturally strong to move them. This is very basic physiology and physics.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

your muscles and calcium bone mass grows simultaneously eating meat depletes calcium

[Royal Lion]

 Lol...you guys are fucking stupid. You can't use the weight of powerlifters to gauge the success of their training methods at increasing muscle size. Most powerlifters and strongman are tall men with huge bones and they often carry significantly more bodyfat than what a ripped bodybuilder does. Sure, a 6'4 man with 9" wrists and 15% bodyfat will weight more than a 5'10 bodybuilder with tiny joints, like Flex Wheeler, who is ripped to the bone. When you adjust for height, size of skeleton and bodyfat, the bodybuilder carries more muscle. Even if the powerlifter still weights more when you bring down his bodyfat to the level of the bodybuilder, the latter will have more for what his stature and skeleton can support. The size of muscles are proportional to bones because muscles need to be naturally strong to move them. This is very basic physiology and physics.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

I disagree completely.  You think a 230 Flex Wheeler has more muscle on his frame than a 350lb. Strongman competitor?  No way.  

[suckmymuscle]

I'd have to agree - most bodybuilders build a foundation of size and strength by doing deadlifts, bench press, and squat.  Compound moves build mass more than auxilary moves, no?

  Wow. Just wow. They build a foundation with these exercises how, genius? By doing multiple sets with more than about 6 reps per set. How does this disprove my theory?

SUCKMYMUSCLE