Why "science-based lifting" is irrational

[Elliott]

It seems kind of intuitive that different muscle groups or types of muscle fibers would react quite differently.

[Carl-Richard]

59 minutes ago, Elliott said:

It seems kind of intuitive that different muscle groups or types of muscle fibers would react quite differently.

In theory, yes, but that doesn't matter for the "dose-response relationship" claim if only one of the between-group comparisons were ever solid. The relationship was ever only solidly 1 sets vs 5 sets; very low volume < very high volume (granted the host of other limitations with the study). The intermediate part of the supposed curve is at best tentative or unknown. If the latter, any conclusions about that part of the curve is speculative and hypothetical, not empirical, not "the science has shown that".

Edited Saturday at 10:22 PM by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

SeRIoUs SCieNcE

[VioleGrace]

On 05/12/2025 at 3:56 PM, Carl-Richard said:

. "Science-based lifting" is mostly not serious people in the field. It's YouTubers either without scientific credentials or with dubious ones making ideological proclaimations, selling programs, apps and coaching services, making "educational videos", trying to make a buck, and their minions slurping it up.

I am agree with it but it is not absolute some are using this as a marketing to sell their shit, and other are really serious about sourcing their work from scientific studies.

It like say "all youtubers on self-help are gurus " ...
 

 

On 05/12/2025 at 3:56 PM, Carl-Richard said:

2. Serious people in the field disagree on what "the science" says. And me pointing to the pseudoscientific levels of methodological design and conclusions is simply a way to explain that.

And that is just not true.

Edited Sunday at 12:00 AM by VioleGrace

[VioleGrace]

On 05/12/2025 at 1:16 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Please elaborate. Your other points did not.

I mean that serious scientific studies are aware of their limitations 

On 30/11/2025 at 7:56 AM, Carl-Richard said:

1. not at all knowledgeable in lifting,
2. not at all motivated to lift (at any considerable level of intensity or rigor),
3. not the same size or shape as you,
and 4. maybe most importantly generally lifting in a controlled and alien setting where a scientist is standing behind you shouting "start", "stop", "start", "stop", at every rep, where some designs use absolutely unheard of training setups like using one technique with one arm and another technique with the other arm for those 8 weeks, where even quantifying states like "true failure" vs "3 reps in reserve" is mere hocus-pocus philosophical conjecture?

And never proceed like what you just described there except if there is a specific need to do that 

Ultimately i don't think that you read enough scientific study to really know how "serious scientific studies are managed"

Edited Sunday at 12:05 AM by VioleGrace

[Carl-Richard]

18 hours ago, VioleGrace said:

And that is just not true.

The dose-response relationship between resistance training volume and muscle hypertrophy: There are still doubts. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376670037_The_dose-response_relationship_between_resistance_training_volume_and_muscle_hypertrophy_There_are_still_doubts

Critical Commentary on the Stimulus for Muscle Hypertrophy in Experienced Trainees https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342788680_Critical_Commentary_on_the_Stimulus_for_Muscle_Hypertrophy_in_Experienced_Trainees

Comment on: Volume for Muscle Hypertrophy and Health Outcomes: The Most Effective Variable in Resistance Training https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-018-0865-9

 

18 hours ago, VioleGrace said:

I mean that serious scientific studies are aware of their limitations

It's a double-bind: they provide the limitations but still present a general conclusion that assumes the limitations are not important. It's like "yeah, so we used a banana to measure the length of an acorn, we put that in Limitations; in Conclusion, we put 'the results point to a length of less than one banana for an acorn'". And because these are standard practices in the field, you have to question the entire field to question the limitations, and the individual studies can slip past the critique with "we're just doing what is standard". So they keep doing it until a large enough number acknowledges the madness and stops doing it.

 

18 hours ago, VioleGrace said:

And never proceed like what you just described there except if there is a specific need to do that 

Ultimately i don't think that you read enough scientific study to really know how "serious scientific studies are managed"

Show me one "serious scientific study" and I'll point out the limitations, just like with the Schoenfeld study.

Edited Sunday at 06:29 PM by Carl-Richard

[VioleGrace]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The dose-response relationship between resistance training volume and muscle hypertrophy: There are still doubts. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376670037_The_dose-response_relationship_between_resistance_training_volume_and_muscle_hypertrophy_There_are_still_doubts

just read this one for now but  and they not "disagreeing" they are just saying that they don't know every thing :
"While RT volume may very well be one of the more important factors influencing the hypertrophic response in resistance trained individuals, we would suggest that the current
evidence is much more ambiguous than clear."

And they are trying to formulate hypothesis on why some results are contradictory in the "Possible Explanations" like this : It is possible that such dissimilarities in muscle growth may very well be explained by methodological differences between lab groups" 

And they are concluding with hypothesis that training volume emphathis may be exagerated and that other investigations on this part must be made : 

While there appears to be some threshold of volume that is necessary for muscle growth, the current recommendations may exaggerate its importance. It is our hope that this paper stimulates positive inquiry around in the area of RT volume and muscle growth

That is not people digressing in my sense it is exploring limitation and questioning deeper previous discoveries

But yes that mean that we should not trust blindly scientific studies like we should not blindly "vibe training"

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's a double-bind: they provide the limitations but still present a general conclusion that assumes the limitations are not important. 

Training standard don't mean that limitation are not there it is just that we don't know everything and we will never anyway 

but if 20 studies show that this method work than we can use it but we will do more studies to find out why it work and how 

Meanwhile our studies with this and theses setting provide these result in most cases that we observed 
 

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, VioleGrace said:

And they are trying to formulate hypothesis on why some results are contradictory in the "Possible Explanations" like this : It is possible that such dissimilarities in muscle growth may very well be explained by methodological differences between lab groups"

That's what I'm saying.

 

9 hours ago, VioleGrace said:

 And they are concluding with hypothesis that training volume emphathis may be exagerated and that other investigations on this part must be made : 

While there appears to be some threshold of volume that is necessary for muscle growth, the current recommendations may exaggerate its importance. It is our hope that this paper stimulates positive inquiry around in the area of RT volume and muscle growth

That is not people digressing in my sense it is exploring limitation and questioning deeper previous discoveries

"Threshold of volume", without any specifics, is essentially "you have to lift to gain muscle", and nobody disagrees with that. It's the claims that as volume increases, gains increases, seemingly ad infinitum, that's what is disputed.

 

9 hours ago, VioleGrace said:

But yes that mean that we should not trust blindly scientific studies like we should not blindly "vibe training"

Training standard don't mean that limitation are not there it is just that we don't know everything and we will never anyway 

but if 20 studies show that this method work than we can use it but we will do more studies to find out why it work and how 

Meanwhile our studies with this and theses setting provide these result in most cases that we observed 

If the 20 studies all use flawed methods that don't reflect the generality of their conclusions (which I think is very possible), that means it doesn't matter how many studies you do or whether they agree or disagree. They are all flawed at the very foundation. This is not just a critique I'm making of exercise science. It's a critique people have made of all behavioral science. Any jump from specific research design to general conclusion could be problematic, and it's a difficult argument to argue against. But in exercise science, the problem is usually so severe that I think you're bound to run into problems.

That said, I think there are some research designs that could be much less problematic, but I don't see anybody doing them (e.g. correlating bodybuilding competition placement with self-reported training style). While correlative and self-report designs are generally considered lower quality than experimental designs (e.g. RCTs), the very problems in exercise science are seemingly exclusively tied to the experimental design setup. Alternatively if you can develop an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) for exercise science (allowing for better ecological validity) and objective measurements and monitors for workout intensity / proximity to muscular failure, then maybe you can circumvent some of those problems, but that of course won't happen overnight and without serious investment, if it's even possible.

 

I'm still waiting for that one "serious scientific study". By the way, feel free to address any of Lyle's points also. I really recommend the video I linked.

Edited yesterday at 01:31 AM by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

I consider myself very open for what you can use science for (and that you can use science meaningfully; I'm not someone who has "deconstructed science" and thrown it all in the garbage).

For example, I think studying psychic phenomena and far-out there stuff like breatharianism are legitimate areas for science. However, curiously, these two examples are currently in the stage of merely proving that the phenomena is possible. The buck is set much lower here in terms of straightforwardness compared to comparing very minute differences in exercise volume or movement patterns (e.g. full stretch, slowed eccentric, etc.) or level of intensity and determining which configuration of those factors is best. It's an entirely different level of investigation that science might not be well-equipped for in any situation, and certainly way less in the current situation where we are essentially using bananas to measure acorns.

Randomized control trials are not well-suited for exercise science. The ecological validity is just way too problematic, the lack of blinding of participants and scientists is problematic, the timespan (usually 8 weeks) is problematic, the study population (usually untrained individuals) is problematic, the list goes on. Once ESM for exercise science and objective measures of workout intensity are established, then we're approaching the level of research in other behavioral sciences, but we'll still be stuck with the "minute difference" problem. And there are other things worth looking into, like flow states and how to measure these objectively in an RCT (let alone acquiring participants that regularly enter flow). I believe flow is the number 1 metric for performance in terms of hypertrophy training, as it is in strength training, as it is in general athletic performance. But this is 40 years too early.

Edited yesterday at 12:50 AM by Carl-Richard

[Jannes]

@Carl-Richard A point for "anti-science" lifting:

A few days ago I trained chest with the chest press. Found a perfect angle which felt like magic, it followed the movement pattern of my chest perfetctly smooth with zero disruption of my shoulders. I did a set. Did a second set and when I reached failure I went a bit beyond to squueze a little more out at the buttom. Rested for a few seconds and squeezed a little more out, rested a bit and did the same thing again. Full on "feel sets". 

An academic would have a hard time saying what the hell that was, maybe beyond failure, lenghtened partial mio sets. 

Point was they felt amazing, left me sore and were completly guided by my bodies intelligence and passion. 

That would be hard to replicate in a scientific setting. And not even necessary, I am pretty certain that this worked great and dont need a study as backing. 

But I also wouldnt say I contradicted science in any way here.

I guess the critique here is not against science as a pointer but to take the scientific lense to rigidly into the actual workout. No way would I have found this way to train then. 

[Jannes]

My thesis is that science can help to tune training intuition by preventing self deception in exposing misguided intuition which comes from wanting to avoid painful trainings aspects and or compensating with showoff training (1RM, excessive swinging etc.)

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, Jannes said:

My thesis is that science can help to tune training intuition by preventing self deception in exposing misguided intuition which comes from wanting to avoid painful trainings aspects and or compensating with showoff training (1RM, excessive swinging etc.)

Some aspects of science-based lifting might work perfectly for some people. I like the deep stretch microreps/pause at the end of some sets. And this is reflected in how in virtually any measurement in an exercise science study, you have big variation among individuals. That's another point Lyle makes, that the modelled group means belie that individual variation (and we know mathematically that different measures of central tendency treat individual variation differently). So unless you find a study where you believe your particular individual sensitivities are adequately represented (and you believe the methods are not completely flawed), science can only serve as a probability space and a range of suggestions.

Edited 16 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Jannes]

1k for whoever can record doing this workout btw. I think its doable. 

The biggest hurdles are probably the sheer volume alone and the squats but each other exercise on its own isnt much of a challenge I think. 

What makes it easier is that you need to drop a lot of weight with each set. 

[Elliott]

8 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

 

), science can only serve as a probability space and a range of suggestions.

Isn't that how it usually is with physiology though; how much to eat, what to, smoking doesn't cause cancer in these people,.....

[Leo Gura]

Science lifting:

[Terell Kirby]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Science lifting:

now that's real strength

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Elliott said:

Isn't that how it usually is with physiology though; how much to eat, what to, smoking doesn't cause cancer in these people,.....

Yeah. The "this is the optimal way" virus extends to all spheres: diet, health, aesthetics. The difference is that exercise science is such a low quality version of that, it borders actual crystal healing in its scientific rigor (that said, I'm all for studying both exercise and crystal healing; just do it right). As long as the rigor is low (and even if it's not, you still have the generalization / individual differences issue), then people like Bryan Johnson who espouse "experiment and measurement for your own self" is actually the "most optimal" way.

Edited 11 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Thought Art]

I think science based lifting makes sense…. Top athletes use science in their training which is why they outperform people from 100 years ago. 
 

It’s funny because pills have the same problem with weight lifting. Science done to represent populations rarely work on individuals which is why doctors often struggle to get medications “scientifically proven to work on populations” to work on an individual. 
 

I would also suggest it is possible that pills do offer far more complexity than lifting weights. Each pill is a unique chemical compound which can be extremely hard to measure how it effects the human body and especially when people are taking a mixture of medications…..

People lifting weights is largely the same process for everyone. People may have different recovery times and stuff, and each body may react somewhat uniquely but it’s not the same level of adding a unique compound to the body. 
 

That being said, science based lifting does make sense. It just has to be done intelligently, and allow for direct experience of working with an individual to adjust and make personalized fixes.

It’s unrealistic to take scientific studies of soccer moms when looking at highly motivated weight lifters and that makes sense. But, are there not studies in your chosen population group that you can study? And not all science is simply controlled trials… some science is looking at things like cellular metabolism, nutrition, etc….
 

This backlash against science in lifting is dumb. Is it conformity? 

I think your overall premise of philosophy based lifting is interesting. But, I also bet that science is being used in your decision makings. 
 

Coaches who train professional athletes to be the best in the world have a strong understanding of sport science. That is how they create consistent results in their field. So, I’m open to criticism of science based lifting but I do not think it would hold up as a complete move away from science based lifting. 

My sister works in sports nutrition and she studies sport nutrition science very deeply. It’s obvious to her that through her scientific education individuals have unique nutrition and training needs. That’s what the science shows. They don’t just rely on population studies alone. There is also data collected from individuals….

Edited 1 hour ago by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

@Carl-Richard You are likely right about not just relying on the studies. Philosophy based training. While, using the science as a field of probabilities. Then, you yourself become the experiment n=1, and the scientist.

 

I used ChatGPT as well after this and it helped me spell out what top body lifters use:

 

They use a combination of:

1. Science

2. Coach Experience 

3. Athlete Intuition

4. Technology 

5. Practice Refinement. 
 

Interesting stuff!

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Thought Art