It is often said that the science has to catch up to conventional gym wisdom.
This was true of:
1. Protein intake for muscle growth
-> Bodybuilders always said 1g per pound....turns out that's about right.
2. The Post-Workout Window
-> "make sure you get quick digesting carbs and protein immediately post-workout to blunt catabolism, maximize anabolism, and recover"......while less true for protein and growth, carbohydrate uptake and glycogen re synthesis is indeed more effective when carbs are ingested during or immediately after training. Thus, the better you can reciver, the better your training, the greater the gains - thus an indirect result.
Carbs also DO NOT actually seem to enhance the effects of protein ingestion on muscle protein synthesis or inhibiting muscle breakdown, a theory that largely revolved around the impact of insulin on stimulating muscle protein synthesis, which it appears is actually not required and if present can support MPS at low levels.
3. Train low reps for strength & power, high reps for hypertrophy
-> It's been well-established at this point that similar degrees of hypertrophy may be achieved across rep ranges and intensity ranges as long as sets are taken to or near failure, with volume being the major predictor of effect magnitude - however you could argue that since the standard BRO hypertrophy training range is so broad (basically anything above 10 reps and from 60-80% RM) that bodybuilders were right after all, especially considering that it is far more effective to achieve higher training volumes at mid-intensities vs. power or endurance level intensities.
When it comes to strength, the edge is given to lower rep ranges and higher intensities for achieving greater strength adaptations.
https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0177-8
https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-10-53
Some recent analyses on other popular quandaries surrounding how to train or eat have been released.
1. Does exercise order affect strength or hypertrophy? - A systematic review and meta-analysis
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17461391.2020.1733672?journalCode=tejs20&
Author's conclusions:
- exercises at the beginning of a session see better strength gains
- growth is not significantly affected by exercise order, and multi-joint (MJ) to single-joint (SJ) or SJ to MJ order produce similar results
2. Do fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibers need fiber specific training to maximize growth? - Stronger By Science comments on the literature to date and the results of a recent randomized trial
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8tqsdpHmEQ/?ck_subscriber_id=698179458
- Greg's OP: It’s only been clearly demonstrated once, in my opinion (“Type 1 Muscle Fiber Hypertrophy after Blood Flow-restricted Training in Powerlifters” by Bjørnsen et al.), with most studies not supporting its relevance. You can read more about the topic at strongerbyscience.com/muscle-fiber-type/
- Science to date: muscle growth is pretty similar when training with loads ranging from ~30% to ~80-85% of 1RM
- recent study: Subjects trained their quads with either 80% 1RM or 30% 1RM for three sets to failure for 10 weeks. Both conditions led to significant hypertrophy of both fiber types, with no significant differences between them.
Below is a video by Dr. Layne Norton on the relationship between training intensity VS. volume
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