Metabolic stress does some of the work and mechanical tension does a lot.
Beyond being in a state of caloric surplus, rested, and some more generalized debates over volume/intensity/progressive overload, the proposed processes which stimulate muscle growth come down to metabolic stress and mechanical tension. The old theory was muscle damage. “Break it down to build it up,” was a common bro-science aphorism. Not only isn’t it true, but it actually cannot be. No expert in the field affirms this anymore, because of the many counterexamples and obvious impossible paradox therein. Elongating muscles creates the greatest muscular damage, and training which emphasizes forced stretches and hyper-mobility does NOT improve muscular size or efficiency. The contrast of gymnasts versus yogis is perhaps the clearest example of how fixation on lengthening or over-lengthening muscle tissue does not result in a size, speed, or strength gain. Are there benefits to improving control of greater range of motion? Of course. But the very act of “relaxing into a stretch” instead of developing control in it and power over it means limiting mechanical tension, maximizing damage, thereby cutting the strength and size stimuli. Metabolic stress is real but harder to nail down. Contraction of skeletal muscle does produce myokines, alters energy uptake through changes in glucose transporters, and there are some real measurable reactions in hormone responses on site and throughout the person. The degree to which this contributes to overall health and fitness is significant. The precise muscle size impact from any one cascade is unclear, however. There are plenty of athletes who contract muscles millions of times at low tensions and have zero muscular development despite the metabolic stress contribution. See olympic and elite marathoners and endurance cyclists. This leaves us with mechanical tension. I have noticed a trend with upstarts in the past five years or so where they are obsessed with mechanical tension as the be-all end-all. And I’d agree that across decades of professional experience I MOSTLY see muscle size gains in response to mechanical tension. That is, as people truly encounter muscular performance limits, and barely eke out a last or genuinely failed rep, that is where we tend to see size gains most dramatic. The journey requires progressive overload, obviously. But the individual mechanism within a workout is the enhancing of mechanical tension. To be more clear, when a relatively rested person encounters a strength exercise in a stable position and performs 5-20 reps but only ends the set because the velocity of the movement grinds to zero, THAT is that person’s maximum mechanical tension for the intended muscle group of that exercise. However, I want to caution against a cult-like insistence on ONE way and only one way. The first reason for this is that we don’t KNOW for a fact that getting to absolute muscle failure is better than getting very close. And we don’t KNOW how much better (or if) very-close is than close. The second reason I caution people is that to be able to effectively get near muscle failure, you have to first develop expertise. And to become advanced and skillful (and retain said skill) you will have to train sub-maximally some of the time. Moreover, if people do not include some power, speed, and greater range of motion training into a program at some point, the participant is more likely to get hurt or discontinue, such that he or she can no longer gain the reward of mechanical tension. At this point, most people might be asking, “What does this translate into for my workouts?” Or, “how do I apply this?” Let’s take a machine chest press as an example. Imagine you are able to press about 200lbs on this exercise for around 8 reps. Let’s say we start this workout with this exercise, such that you are fully rested once getting to this piece of equipment. Potentially, you’d perform a set of 100lbs for 5 reps, very strictly and intent on creating tension and mentally connecting with the pecs, triceps and deltoids. Afterward, you might wait 3 minutes, and perform another sub-maximal set, 3 reps with 150lbs, perhaps. Wait another 3 minutes. Now, it’s time for business. You set up with all of your normal posture, cues, settings and mentally commit to getting 9-12 clean and toilsome reps with the 200lbs. The first 7 reps may be harder than you anticipate. 8 is grueling. At the 9th rep, it’s a serious question whether you can complete it or not, but, through gritting teeth and eating the pain, you get it. Now, you fight headlong into the 10th rep and the weight is grinding to a halt; but you continue pouring your every fiber of will into budging it another millimeter. And possibly it doesn’t go. You still go to war in your heart and drive your body in the back pad as the bones in your arms seem to bend against the impossibility of the handles. THAT is mechanical tension. THAT is one working set. And THAT alone is sufficient stimulus to get stronger and gain muscle size. Afterward, you might desire doing another few exercises for the same or similar muscle groups. There’s nothing wrong with that. Potentially, you could muster almost the same wherewithal for a legitimate working set like that on the same muscle group a few times in a whole workout sessions. If you include a separate muscle group, certainly you could. However, any degree of workout far in excess of that is not supported by evidence for the purposes of this simple discussion. Certainly, you could add many more exercises and sets and reps and alternate modalities, if you want to generate some more muscular endurance or train a variety of additional skills. But for muscle size, there isn’t a need to add lots of additional sets or exercises. In time, that chest press must be 210, 220, and 12 reps or more, BUT in the same manner, the same grind, the same intentionality, the same degree of battle. THAT is how muscle is actually built.
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In 2021, over 44,000 Americans died from taking a fall:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/527298/deaths-due-to-falls-in-the-us/#:~:text=The%20highest%20number%20of%20deaths,States%20was%2044%2C686%20in%202021. About 86% occur in adults over 65: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2804614#:~:text=In%202020%2C%2042%20114%20deaths,aged%2065%20years%20or%20older. But that means that over 6,000 occur in people under 65. This isn’t counting non-fatal fall injuries, which count in the millions. Almost every hip fracture and most traumatic brain injuries occur from falls. The number one risk factor is weakness: https://www.cdc.gov/falls/facts.html Literally, just become stronger, and in an increasingly greater range of motion; and you’ll nearly eliminate your risk of brain injury, hip fracture, and fall-related death: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2XOEMBuW6m/?igsh=aW1mbmxkaDV1OG1p Even when you train and eat protein, you will eventually lose some muscle. And muscle loss is the primary contributor to loss of function with age:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804956/#:~:text=Muscle%20mass%20decreases%20approximately%203,60%20%5B4%2C5%5D. The average is 3-8% of muscle lost per decade after 30, and that loss accelerates after 60. The implications of this cannot be overstated, as it is a causal contributor to loss of bone density, loss of insulin sensitivity (aka - becoming more prediabetic/diabetic), loss of stature, loss of balance, loss of most fitness and health markers. Weight loss doesn’t help. The average muscle and healthy tissue-loss during weight loss is 20%: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weight-loss-why-you-dont-just-lose-fat-when-youre-on-a-diet/#:~:text=A%20better%20determinant%20of%20how,to%20several%20kilograms%20of%20muscle. And it is not regained with weight gain. A person who has lost about 10lbs a few dozen times over the years has lost 2lbs of muscle, cartilage, and bone density multiplied by the same number of weight loss bouts. There’s a good chance there are 30 fewer pounds of muscle on that person, even if at the same body weight as before. There is less cartilage integrity in joints if she never lifted weights. There is less bone density. Thus, you can see that people who yo-yo in weight but don’t do resistance exercise and sufficient protein intake simply get weaker and less mobile as they age. It’s not simply that your risks of fall increase as you lose muscle, it’s that the degree of damage possible FROM THE FALL increases with loss of muscle: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10048873/#:~:text=With%20aging%2C%20muscle%20loss%20and,risk%20of%20falling%20%5B4%5D. I don’t need to enumerate the many signs of severe lean tissue loss. Inability to stand on one foot while you put a sock on the other is a decent measure. Getting on and off the floor without the use of hands is another. Handstands, pushups, pull-ups, cartwheels, full bridge, vertical jump, sprint speed, single leg squat, etc. There are many. Most “bad joints” are actually insufficient muscle. And even when the joints are indeed critically failing, you better believe that having piles of lean tissue around them makes the symptoms 1000% better. In 20 years of professional training and coaching, I have observed many people with “bad joints” get to performances they believed impossible simply by getting stronger and regaining some muscle. And this isn’t a plague of age. Young people are more susceptible to dislocations, collapse, and injury when they are detrained and have muscle weakness: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403423/ There are a number of studies showing that lean tissue loss is a predictor of mortality: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6014293/ To be clear, how much loss of strength predicts IF you recover from anything, which includes respiratory infections, just fyi. After a certain degree of strength loss, people simply die. Strength loss is an independent predictor of mortality: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5820209/. Weakness literally kills people. Perhaps more perplexing to people, muscle tightness and perception of inflexibility IS weakness. Tight hamstrings are weak. Tight backs have weak abs and weak hip flexors and usually weak hamstrings to boot. Tight necks are incredibly weak necks and shoulders. Aching and falling arches are weak feet and ankles. You get the idea. Muscle is next-to impossible to gain or regain or even retain as a full-grown adult. That is, unless you consistently train to get stronger across years, and consistently eat sufficient protein intake for years. But the selection of exercise is also critical. Walking isn’t a muscle builder because it occurs on a vertical skeletal alignment. That does not train the capacity of the body when the thigh is horizontal. A bicep curl is not going to help a person to stand on one leg and pull the opposite knee into her armpit. It’s not that these are no-value exercises. They are just low value with regard to high function of the body. Avoidance of contacting muscles in the shoulder WILL worsen neck and shoulder problems. Strong necks and shoulders simply don’t ache. They don’t degenerate. They aren’t tricky. As such, the selection of exercises must be some sort of approximation of the intended physical capability which the person wants to regain AND a direct confrontation of where that person is already measurably weak. This is a more difficult confrontation than one might expect. People may trend toward a longer walk or a longer bout of cardio, reasoning that the longer duration or distance is an increase in physical fitness. People may love their arm circuit training or Tabata arm series. But these will do absolutely zip nada for genuine fitness. Spending even more time in an activity which cannot confer muscular development will not magically confer muscular development, no matter how long that person spends on the activity. Cardio doesn’t help much. It is catabolic, meaning it breaks down tissue. The intensity of muscular contraction is very low. The skeletal angles are such that the muscles never must produce much force. Ergo, it won’t shield from major muscle loss AND it will often accelerate it, UNLESS the person is measurably getting stronger in lifts week over week. And without going too far into the science, suffice it to say that the person must feel the intended muscle he or she is trying to develop AND generate such tension in it that there is a serious question about whether the rep can be completed at the end of a set. That, and pretty much only that, is going to spur on muscle building. If you used to be able to squat all the way down but now can barely bend your knees, you lost far too much muscle already. If you used to do handstands but now can barely reach your hands overhead, you lost far too much muscle already. If you used to not have stiff muscles but now they’re tight all the time, you lost too much muscle and strength. Long story short: if you have not intentionally been training to gain muscle or get more athletic, you have lost a lot of muscle and healthy tissue. And if you want to turn that around, it doesn’t actually need to be too involved. What are the physical abilities you’d like to build, rebuild, or retain? Work strengthening exercises specifically toward those. That’s it. Really. And when you work them, it is critical that you create enough tension in the muscle to communicate to the body that it must adapt. What that means is that you should not pick any ol’ rep range and then stop AT that arbitrary point. For example, if you pick up a weight which you can confidently perform for an exercise 10 reps, your objective is to commit to 11-20 controlled quality reps which end at zero velocity because your muscle can no longer generate any speed of the exercise. It absolutely does not matter what you read or heard about rep ranges. It doesn’t matter what you saw in a magazine or heard in a group ex class. Your muscle fibers only know if they’ve been taken near their performative limit. That. Is. It. If you move the weight quickly and with ease and end the set before your physiology has ground to a velocity of zero while trying earnestly to complete a repetition which it cannot, then you simply haven’t trained. You have not strengthened. You have not communicated to the body to gain, regain, or retain muscle. “Failure” isn’t really even the right term. There are too many common misconceptions about this concept. People will use momentum and kipping and cheating to nab another rep. That’s not it. Really, it’s just a matter of placing effort into the exercise until your will cannot make the muscles move the exercise movement one more millimeter. That’s the stimulus. The environment which will respond to that stimulus is one of sufficiency. Vitamins. Minerals. Water. Sleep. Rest. Protein. A whole lotta protein. If you can’t imagine eating 1 or more grams of protein per pound of body weight, at the very least hit .5. If you weight 100lbs, the absolute low-end bottom of healthy intake would be a half pound of meat or equivalent protein source daily. For obvious results, double or triple this. And perhaps one can see why even really well-intentioned and hard-working exercisers and health enthusiasts tend to fail completely at making significant and obvious physical progress. Lots of light weights shy of high effort won’t do much. Lots of cardio won’t do much. Lots of green veggies won’t do much. It’s not that any of those things are bad. It’s just that none of them yield a high ROI for the most needed facets of fitness. Intense weight lifting, progressively and consistently performed, with a diet rich in protein, and sufficient sleep and stress management will outperform pretty much any other trendy programming in existence. Otherwise, you’re going to lose muscle. |
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