Mechanical tension is “accumulated” through volume? Thanx…
Everything you do is “volume”, but does more volume = more mechanical tension? That’s not how it works in the way that I think you’re asking the question. Mechanical tension is the force generated by your muscles when they contract against resistance. This will increase depending on the difficulty of the exercise. This could be achieved in many ways, most commonly; a heavier load, a longer range of motion, and the proximity to failure.
How you seek mechanical tension can be done with not much volume or a lot of volume. The measure of volume itself is not what creates the most mechanical tension, but merely one of many tools we can manipulate to reach it.
I would suggest looking into the effective reps model to understand more about how you can apply this to your own training.
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Volume(number of sets per muscle group) can bring hypertrophy?If yes how?
It’s not about the number of sets per muscle group, but the number of effective reps. It is believed that the last 5 reps to failure are the stimulative reps which is where the most mechanical tension (and therefore muscle growth) is.
Say you wanted to get 3 x 10 of an exercise with the last set going all out. If it is properly loaded you will not able to get 3 sets of 10 unless the first couple of sets are held back a little bit. If you got 10 on your first set and there was absolutely no possible way you could get any more reps, that would harm the second and third set. So what we do in practice is something like…
First set 2-3 reps from failure
Second set 1-2 reps from failure
Third set you could not get another rep.
Because of the “accumulated volume”, that last set is made more difficult. This does not mean the first two sets were not stimulative, just not maximally so. If we take the first set, being 2-3 reps short of failure means we reached just 2-3 effective reps. The second set being 1-2 reps from failure means we reached 3-4 effective reps. The last set was our all-out set we couldn’t do another rep in - so we got all 5 effective reps. If we put the whole 3 sets together that could end up at around 10 total effective reps.
Or we could just do two all-out sets where we could not possibly get another rep so we get 5 effective reps from each set, totaling at 10 effective reps again.
Both methods will work for muscle growth, each with its own drawbacks and advantages. There are a ton of ways to reach a number of effective reps but there will always be a delicate balance of volume, intensity, and frequency that you won’t want to mess with too much. I won’t get into this as this post would end up far too long. Hopefully with this information, you can work out the relationship between volume, mechanical tension, and hypertrophy.
At your level of understanding, my best advice to you is to just find a program made by a professional, eat right, train hard, and don’t worry about the details
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No.
Mechanical tension is when the muscles have to produce force against a resistance. It’s essentially the muscles “tensing” of “flexing” against an external load.
Some points:
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The more actin-myosin bridges are created during muscle contraction, the higher the tension is.
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Tension is higher during slow movements than fast movements (because of both the momentum created and the lower number of actin-myosin bridges during explosive work)
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Tension is imposed only on the recruited/firing muscle fibers. For example, going slow on purpose against a light weight will lead to higher tension but only on the slow-twitch fibers.
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A higher external load typically lead to more tension, provided that the exercise (and movement technique) targets the muscle properly.
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One could actually say that volume and tension are somewhat inversely related (meaning that a higher volume of work will lead to a lower average tension per set)
That last point is because:
a) When doing volume through higher reps, there are a lof of the reps in each sets have low tension due to how easy the initial reps are (they require less effort to fight the resistance so less tension is produced).
b) When you do more volume work, you create more central fatigue. Every set done in a state of central fatigue lead to less tension (or less effective tension) because central fatigue reduces fast-twitch fibers activation.
- You cannot “accumulate tension”. It’ not how it works. Tension is a stimulus, it needs to be intense enough to trigger the hypertrophy mechanims. Doing tons of volume of lower tension work doesn’t “build up or accumulate tension”; it just gives you a ton of sets and none of them give you enough stimulus to activate the growth processes.
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Yes, but it can be inefficient.
As it was pointed out, the key is NOT volume, it’s volume of effective reps.
An effective rep is a rep that stimulates a significant amount of hypertrophy and to do this, there are 2 conditions that are needed:
- Recruiting the fast-twitch fibers (which have, by far, the greatest growth potential)
- Placing a high amount of tension on the fast-twitch fibers.
That second condition requires you to only be able to move the weight slowly even if you are trying to push as hard as you can. Trying to move slowly on purpose will put more tension but mostly on the slow-twitch fibers.
So you need to reach a point in the set where the level of effort required is so high (due to weight or fatigue) that the speed starts to decrease.
In a normal set, the last 4-6 reps (let’s say 5) before hitting failure are effective reps.
And that is true regardless of the number of reps in the set.
If you do 6 reps to failure you get 5 effective reps
If you do 12 reps to failure you get 5 effective reps
If you do 20 reps to failure you get 5 effective reps
etc.
And if you stop short of failure you lose effective reps.
For example:
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If you do 8 reps with 2 reps in reserve you get 3 effective reps
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If you do 15 reps with 2 reps in reserve you get 3 effective reps
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If you do 20 reps with 2 reps in reserve you get 3 effective reps
Now, to a point, volume can compensate for not going to failure:
For example:
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If you do 6 sets to failure per muscle, you get 30 effective reps for that muscle
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If you do 10 sets with 2 reps in reserve per muscle, you also get 30 effective reps for that muscle
But in the second case, you have to do almost twice the work to get the same result.
Not saying that it doesn’t work, but it’s less efficient.
At some point, volume cannot compensate for not going to failure:
For example:
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If you keep 4 reps in reserve on your sets (which is what most people who think that they have 2 reps in reserve normally have) you only have 1 effective rep per set, maybe 0. So it would take you 30 set for that muscle to have the same result as 6 sets to failure.
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But the problem is that the more volume you do, the harder it is to recover from the workout. Physiologically, neurologically and hormonally harder. Enhanced (using steroids) can still do it because they improve your capacity to recover.
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But doing a lot of work that is far from failure is a poor approach for a natural lifter.
There is also the fact that a higher volume of work leads to more central fatigue. And when that happens all the sets you are doing after that point are a lot less effective. So even if you could recover from 30 sets, chances are that the last 10-15 wouldn’t be as effective as they could be due to lower fast-twitch fibers recruitment.
Now, the closer you go to failure, the less sets you can do and be effective. That’s why you can’t do a high-volume of sets to failure and recover/progress optimally.
Finally, hypertrophy IS correlated with the volume of effective reps. BUT it has a diminishing return. Past a certain number of effective reps, you get less and less hypertrophy stimulation. There is even a point where doing more effective reps doesn’t cause more growth. So the mentality of doing a “shit ton” of volume to failure actually is mostly wasted resources, especially for the natural lifter.
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Coach Im pretty sure youve posted it before but I cant seen to find it. What is your recommended amount of effective reps per muscle group for someone seeking just growth and not on PEDs. I do train in a higher rep range currently due to injuries and several surgeries. Been training apprx 50 yrs non stop. I am a type 3 based on 2 tests. Im assuming I can train each muscle group up to 3 times a week based on your one article about stimulating growth frequently. Thanks
Actually, after seeing new scientific research, I now prefer a lower training frequency per muscle when it comes to hypertrophy… 1-2 x per week per muscle.
That’s because when there is less than 72h between two bouts of stimulus, the aount of protein synthesis from the 2nd session is lower than if you rest 72h or more (that’s 72h between the same muscle again)
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I agree and through trial and error I have found that hitting most of my muscle groups every 5th sometimes 6th day was optimal for me most of my life. I wasnt able to handle the frequency in your natural lifter program I tried. Got burnt our mentally too going hard 6 days a week.I look forward to ordering your new hypertrophy courses.
Just to let you know I have found the information you’ve provided over all these years to be invaluable and has impacted a lot of my training over the years. I learned a lot from you and many times your advice even confirmed a lot of instinctive things I have been doing in my training but wondered if it was correct even thugh it worked for me. I am grateful for your contributions, thanks coach.
One last thing, Im glad youre getting older now because I assume you will one day eventually research and create programs in the future geared towards the older guys who’ve been training for yrs and are a bit beat up if only to adjust your own training lol.
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Coach, how do you think about the ‘mind muscle connection’ in the effective rep paradigm?
Obviously, if you’re slinging weight and not contracting the target muscle, there will be less hypertrophy…
But, within the domain of ‘good reps’ (feeling the target muscle[s], controlling the weight), there’s still wiggle room.
I could do a set of 6 ‘good reps’ to failure to accrue 5 effective reps. I could also do a set of 6 reps to failure where I really focus on squeezing at the peak concentric, feeling a stretch at the lengthened position, etc. and then I’d have to use ~80% of the weight in accruing 5 effective reps.
Which set do you prefer for hypertrophy?
I think that to maximize hypertrophy, both extremes are bad.
Swinging the weight, using momentum, acceleration and body shifting will be inferior for growth.
But…
Overly squeezing, flexing, contracting a muscle will also diminish the gains… plus, it’s not really advisable on multi-joint exercises.
The reason is that flexing is not what mechanical tension is… this is “muscle tension” (tensing the muscles) but it’s not the same thing as mechanical tension, which is when your muscles are contracting to resist a pulling action provided by the external resistance.
By “overflexing” you will likely have to use less weight which will reduce the mechanical tension. Yes, it increases muscle tension, but that doesn’t stimulate growth.
The only times when “overflexing” might be a good idea are:
- During the warm-up sets on single-joint exercises
- At the peak contraction of a pulling movement (only there)
- When your goal is specifically to improve your skill at contracting a muscle (which can be a first step intervention to fix a lagging muscle)
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