Question to You Guys: What Do You THINK is the Main Driver for Muscle Growth?

I think it’s been established that hitting a muscle every 5-7 days works. You could have two separate days a week (push/pull or upper/lower) and be fine as long as you work hard.

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Since you asked to Paul here’s something I remembered he wrote out for another poster. You lift have to change a few things based on injury etc but keep principles same should be good

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As an aside, is this probably the best thread on T Nation for ages?

The issue around ‘bro-science’ is what I call the ‘conveyor belt’ model: basically if enough people follow a methodology that has some value, enough people will trip off at the end to suggest that this method is optimum. A potential parallel is something like the so-called Bulgarian Method. You will also see it in other areas like gymnastics in China, etc. These methods are not so much superior but that, when you have enough people following them, the number of high achievers is going to be significant enough to suggest a correlation. Perhaps in years to come, the so-called evidence-led methods will occupy a similar space.

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Yeah, one of the few that focuses on real bodybuilding training rather than “evidenced-based” mumbo jumbo.

It used to be like this. But somewhere in the 2000s, people became obsessed with protein synthesis and frequency, and the notion that people had to make their bones and LARP as powerlifters even when building muscle and looking like a bodybuilder or just “having a nice body” was the goal. One had to reach strength standards til they finally had the rite of passage to move onto a bodybuilding split. But even then the split had to be cooped up with frequency. Never mind that most jacked or even competitive bodybuilders were doing this. @dt79 knows the story.

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This is pretty much exactly the answer I was looking for, thank you. And not a million miles from how I’m currently training, if you squint hard enough.

Thanks for the feedback @Frank_C and @Lonnie123

Lol I kept that link handy cause if I ever got cramped for times to lift I could break it out. Also it seems to be a common question on forums. Lifting only 2x week that is. Good luck man.

If this has been asked please forgive me, the topics discussed a couple hundred replies ago have me wanting to ask this.

When taking lifts to there max for muscle growth, would you benefit better from getting to your working weight, doing 3-4 sets and stopping, or would it be better to get to where you can no longer lift that weight and then lower the weight and keep going?

Paul answered this one in l post 135-7 of this thread.

‘10 sets for pushing, 10 sets for pulling, 10 sets for legs.’

It’s all so simple yet people need to find a way to overcomplicate things just to be special or think they’re getting the upper hand over the “dumb” meat heads who don’t read science.

You know I’ve said this many times. First, people read articles. They don’t read the fucking studies. Second, a lot of these “studies” look like high school projects that belong on the author’s refrigerator held up with animal shaped magnets with gold star stickers pasted on them.

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I’m not too sure about this. A proper rest pause (like 10 reps, then 5, then 3, with 30 seconds in between) is probably closer to three sets than it is to one.

Schoenfeld still gets a D-

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You would have to get @Paul_Carter 's opinion. I know Josh Bryant said that he counts it as 3 sets, and even then it might actually be more fatiguing than doing 3 regular sets. It’s not something you want to overdo.

I was just thinking about this, it’s absolutely true. I’m not going to call out any names, but there are a number of people around here who were all about PL for a bit and never even did a meet before they quit. I compete in PL, I like it and it’s what I want to do, but its not for everybody. If someone’s goal are just to get a bit stronger and build some muscle then going full-out into PL doesn’t make sense. Basing your training around heavy triples and testing your maxes every month or two (which is a bad idea for powerlifting too) is not conducive to the goals of at least 95% of people.

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In post #143 he said 8-12 sets per session (and I know he does a “bro split” so I assume that’s the type of program to which he was referring). I’m not sure if you meant to reply to the person who asked the question, but your reply to me was unnecessary. It came off as if you were trying to correct me - as if there are absolutes with this stuff.

I think that’s an example of the minutia of this topic. I count it as one set. It’s just how I do it. I might change my mind someday. I could be wrong. For now, it’s not that important. Most of us have never achieved true overtraining. If I’m wrong and I get overtrained, then so be it. I’ll learn from it and adjust.

I’d personally count rest pause as 3 sets they’re taken to failure 3x sometimes the last set it 1-2 reps but that isn’t important.

If you compare it to Yates, and it’s very similar in many ways, he’s taking muscle to failure 3-4 sets just each one is on a different movement. Some days he’s hitting 5-6 movements though. Back day I think has the most variation of movements. Dante has mentioned Yates in interviews in the past citing his method of training. Won’t say it “inspired” him
To make dc training but it seems that way in what I’ve read.

DC training however is supposed to be performed on an A B set up. So you’re doing rest pause set 2x roughly every 8 days.

so what? you were asked and you said it’s one set in your opinion, and i said i think it’s 3. nobody said it’s super important.

For me it’s one. 15-20 secs of rest don’t break a set. otherwise when I was doing clusters then I was doing like 20+ sets of squats alone ahahah

Correct. But someone asked a question and I answered them. Maybe I’m just off this morning and misinterpreting things since this is the second time I’ve felt this way.

Your unsolicited response to my response came off as if it was corrective.

Again, maybe I’m just having a bad morning. No big deal.

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about me, by chance? (not a sarcastic question, i can’t really recall if i’ve already responded to a message of yours in this thread)

yeah, that’s really not what i was trying to accomplish, i was chiming in because i didn’t see that exchange as a one-on-one conversation, being that this is a public thread. but yeah, like you said, no big deal

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Nope. I’m just going to chalk it up as one of those days.

Ever have days where it seems like everyone is acting a certain way towards you? Well, the common factor is you (or me in this case), and it turns out that everyone else is fine and you/I have the problem.

Guess it’s time for another cup of coffee.

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