back in the day when we used to think you needed 20+ rep sets for things like shrugs I remember a study coming out on this topic basically coming to the conclusion that the actual beneficial experience here was TUT. 5 grinded out slow reps that were done as fast or slow as 10-20 (or whatever) had the same stimulus as one another.
You can look at a guy like Hyde who has built a solid level of mass as a long time power lifter and see that he's developed nearly bodybuilding levels of lean mass without spending a decade doing bodybuilder style hypertrophy work. I think doing volume has its place, especially if you enjoy it, but in many ways Rippetoe was still right, if you squat, pull, press, and throw in powercleans you're 90% of the way there (even if the last 10% is very hard).
Not totally related but in terms of studies you gotta also ask who stands to benefit. I'm so sick of creatine after 20+ years of use I don't even think about it anymore and I get it largely via osmosis from other supplements. I don't even care if I have it or not. if I'm salted and carbed I get more value anyways. but all the sudden the whole world went on a creatine kick in the last year.
oh and now that alcohol sales are down like 40%, everyone is telling us about the mental dangers of cannabis use, lol.
I dont' trust anyone haha
when I was doing a thousand squats every single day in xfit I had huge legs. when I stopped and switched to deads they atrophied horribly. When I brought back squats my legs grew plenty again. slacks are tight, knee sleeves are tight, the mass is back. but I've only been training them in mostly low rep schemes (with the occasional 5x10 bbb) and I think my legs are as big as they ever were.
The only measurement I haven't taken which I would say could be laggard would be chest/lats. I always had a huge chest on a narrow frame when 10% or lower bf. I would guess its equal to my best size, if not a hair smaller, but no bigger. I'm far stronger now in all chest and back movements, but I'm not doing 350 pull-ups and pushups any more so that might be a contradicting anecdote there...
I would be willing to bet your chest is bigger now, just maybe looks more proportionately sized next to everything else that is now bigger. Now lats maybe, maybe not, all those kipping pull ups and everything, would be harder to match volume and effort on with out truly focusing hard on back growth.
I don’t do quite the volume that many dedicated bodybuilders do, but I would say I definitely have accomplished a lot of bodybuilding accessory to build what I have. I mean my squat, bench, and deadlift are primarily propped up by the secondary volume I acquire through variations like frontsquats, closegrips & RDLs, as well as things like Hacksquats, GHR, and machine pressing at times.
I don’t think Rippetoe was ever as muscular looking as I am (and he was natty, so that would make sense), nor will his system produce that in general for most without extra volume added. I think he’s saying SS will get you 90% of your strength potential, just doing big lifts, but that tends to run out of road at higher levels (mainly due to wear & tear with bigger weights). There’s only one guy I know who took SS to a 2,000lb total. But even to get that he found adding things like incline bench, curls and pec deck for a while pushed him to a PR benchpress that helped make that total, after a lot of stagnation on bench for a long time.
Buck Tow Truck doing 730 in sleeves, 470 bench, 800 conventional hookgrip:
I knew this response was coming as soon as I saw it said. You are pretty intentional about hypertrophy work and getting in some effective volume as part of your goal of continuing to get stronger you know tissue accumulation is a big part of the game. Certainly it is hypertrophy for PL, but it is a hypertrophy focus.
And also how far the healing peptides have come in the last 20 years like BPC 157, TB 500, and the two mentioned here recently GLOW and KLOW, and how they absolutely speed healing, as well as how far supplements have progressed…just look at the cutting edge supplements Steve has with his product lines and some of the other excellent products just on this forum. The faster you can heal and recover the more you are able to stay in the gym.
Yes this is super cool, not so much an in the face of, but definitely a new era in the healing and recovery world.
Nutrition timing immediately post-WO isn't as important as total macros/hitting protein goals for the day, particularly with the "anabolic window" post-training for hypertrophy.
Yeah this one used to be a major priority for so many of us. Now there is some benefit to nutrient timing, regarding hormones, glut 4 reaction, and nutrient partitioning around training that can be taken advantage of to aid in body composition, but almost all of the progress is covered just by getting in adequate food and protein in as mentioned.
I did some full body stuff Saturday, but really pretty much was on vacay mode in my brain for the weekend. Well other than yesterday, I took my wife's car out to my sons and we worked on several things for her. I have to leave for Denver mid-day today, and will be back Wednesday. So I won't see my chiro or anything until Thursday this week. I don't really have room for the therapy collar in my carryon so I am probably just going to skip it. I am still contemplating checking a bag just so I can take it with me but we are talking 2 nights, it will be fine.
I can do some other work on it with a towel that will be about as beneficial. I should be in Denver early enough to work out tonight as long as no delays, if not I will get one in Tuesday evening. I am not going to sweat it too much either way works.
To learn how to actually start making and engineering things with AI, I am creating a coaching engine basing programming strategies off of how I tend to set up workout programs for myself and others. It will be similar in function in some ways to the RP Hypertrophy App, but won't just be based on hypertrophy. I am actually teaching it how to think more like me so when I give it new information regarding training or example programs it can take that new knowledge and apply things in a way I would likely apply it based on my rules / decision trees. It will have very quick checks and balances, and will build an ROI based profile on every movement or exercise I do factoring in personal favor, efficiency, uses, and risk based on reported pain / discomfort issues. Ideally once I am done creating this I will be able to tell it what type of programming I want, and it be able to spit out something that feels like I spent a while writing it out myself. I have already done a massive amount of the decision mapping by creating rules and what not. I was going this in ChatGTP but after speaking with my son, and him showing me some stuff I am going to transition the project over to Claude so I can give it access to my computer and let it execute.
I already had it write me 3 different week long sample workouts, and I have to say, it is really starting to learn how I select things, and choose to apply them. Now going back and forth on what needs to be on the front facing app for logging and capturing everything without making it feel busy because I need to be able to update this log super easy and even have drop down options for reps, or regression / progressions on calisthenics work. All of the rules and stuff will be done in the background using google drive, google sheets, and docs, then the in the gym logging part will be a phone app that will sync to them. I probably won't do much on this until I get back from Denver, but once we move to claude having it write the application is going to be pretty cool to have an app I built on my phone that not only writes the programming, but let's me log my workouts the way I want to have them captured with ease and convenience. I am just learning this stuff and how to do it so it is fun and going to be a challenge, but if I can become good at creating products in AI I will have a high valued job skill when other guys my age start getting retired from the workforce if they don't catch up.
