Welcome to the r/AdvancedFitness Weekly Simple Questions Thread - Our weekly thread to ask about all things fitness. Post your questions here related to your diet and nutrition or your training routine and exercises. Anyone can post a question and the community as a whole is invited and encouraged to provide an answer.

The rules are less strict in this weekly thread. Rules 3, 6 and 7 do not apply here. Beginner questions are allowed.

Recently found a popular episode about Exercise on Chris’ channel. So, I wanted to share some of the best takeaways I found. Hopefully, you will find them helpful if you did see the episode but forgot or simply never saw the episode.

You can view a full summary here.

Biggest Mistakes of Training for Muscle Growth 00:57

• Lack of consistency is the biggest mistake people make when training for muscle growth.
• Consistency is important, but it's not the only factor.
• If you're going to be consistent, you might as well do it well.
• Optimizing on the margins is important when you're committing a lot of time to something.

If Mike Could Only Keep 10 Exercises 13:04

• Dr. Mike Israetel, an exercise scientist, recommends 10 exercises for effective muscle building.
• The exercises target different muscle groups:
  • High bar squats for quadriceps, adductors, and glutes.
  • Overhead barbell press for midline bracing and overall strength.
  • Barbell skull crushers for triceps development.
  • Overhand chin-ups for back muscles.
  • Barbell bent rows from a deficit for hamstrings, spinal erectors, and glutes.
  • Stiff-legged deadlifts for hamstrings.
  • Cambered bar bench press for chest development.
  • Incline cambered bar bench press for further chest development.
• Dr. Israetel suggests a full-body workout routine with these exercises, emphasizing personal motivation and enjoyment.

Is Motivation Scientifically Reliable? 01:45:15

• Motivation, which includes inspiration, motivation, habit, willpower, and passion, is essential for going to the gym.
• To increase motivation, set clear and achievable goals, surround yourself with positive influences, make the gym easily accessible, and choose exercises you enjoy.
• Consistency is key, so develop a habit of going to the gym regularly, even for short workouts.
• Gradually increase the intensity and duration of your workouts as you become more comfortable and experienced.
• Ensure progressive overload by increasing weights or reps to promote muscle growth.
• Assess your recovery status and adjust training intensity accordingly.
• Prioritize sleep (6-9 hours per night) and ensure adequate nutrition to support muscle growth and recovery.
• Follow a well-structured training program that includes progressive overload, proper recovery, and sufficient sleep.
• Muscle building requires a combination of progressive overload, adequate nutrition, and sufficient rest.

Welcome to the r/AdvancedFitness Weekly Simple Questions Thread - Our weekly thread to ask about all things fitness. Post your questions here related to your diet and nutrition or your training routine and exercises. Anyone can post a question and the community as a whole is invited and encouraged to provide an answer.

The rules are less strict in this weekly thread. Rules 3, 6 and 7 do not apply here. Beginner questions are allowed.

The stimulating reps model has become very popular especially in TikTok with fitfluencers stating quite adamantly that it aligns with what we know about physiology.

I believed it true but I’ve had my doubts about it. It doesn’t help that it’s biggest proponents either regrugitate it or are unwilling to properly engage with its criticisms.

Greg Nuckols pointed out how motor unit firing rates decrease as a result of fatigue with greater decrease with greater set durations. Therefore single fibre tension as we approach failure will be significantly lower in low-load compared to high-load conditions.

My other issue is that high-load training produces greater voluntary activation increases than low load training yet we observe the same muscle growth despite exposing more high threshold motor units to stimulus in the high-load conditions.

Moreover if you look at measurements of peak force in sets towards failure you observe a decrease in peak force (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11057621/) with an increase in sEmg(which roughly correlated with motor unit recruitment). So the assertion that single-fibre tension increases with closer proximity to muscular failure because of slowing contraction speed ignores the effect that fatigue has on force production.

With that being said, what then happens that makes reps close to failure more stimulative than reps before ? For the above reasons I don’t think we can make the claim that it’s because of higher single fibre tension with slowing contraction speeds.

Welcome to the r/AdvancedFitness Weekly Simple Questions Thread - Our weekly thread to ask about all things fitness. Post your questions here related to your diet and nutrition or your training routine and exercises. Anyone can post a question and the community as a whole is invited and encouraged to provide an answer.

The rules are less strict in this weekly thread. Rules 3, 6 and 7 do not apply here. Beginner questions are allowed.