Why "science-based lifting" is irrational

[Lyubov]

@Carl-Richard my point was pretty vague. I’m simply saying I don’t really know what degree of exercise and activity leads to longevity. I used to lift weights and do strength training. I was no bodybuilder or avid lifter. I’m saying I’m not sure even being an athlete means you’ll live a longer life. I’m trying to understand how much time I reasonably need to put into athletics and exercise to live to 100 and stay mobile and be reasonably strong enough to defend myself and my family. 
 

9 hours ago, Jannes said:

Sure, but everything below 5 reps isnt optimal for hypertrophy. 

Depends on the program and how advanced you are. For people training who have passed intermediate level programming there are advanced programs that have one rep max for lower body lifts, usually deadlift, sometimes squat. Obviously for most novices (90% of lifters) you won’t be doing a program that has one reps for progression. 

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Jannes said:

Sure, but everything below 5 reps isnt optimal for hypertrophy. 

Says who? I suggest to drop all preconceived notions and workout like a mystic would meditate. The knowledge you get from directly knowing your own self is much higher detail, much more sophisticated and real than some retarded estimate (which assumes 100 billion things about what even counts as a rep or how to execute a reo) based on bullshit studies. "Science-based lifting" is a bit like thinking getting a degree means you're now somehow something. No, knowledge itself, acquaintance with the thing itself, is the thing.

If you can pull an insane 1-rep max, you can pull insane 10-rep maxes, and it will be reflected in your muscles. The strongest men who have ever lived are also the most muscular men who have ever lived. Don't let bodybuilders with their visual appeal fool you. A 434 lb Eddie Hall is more muscular (has higher FFM) than any bodybuilder who has ever lived (except maybe Greg Kovacs who is 5 cm taller).

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Lyubov said:

@Carl-Richard my point was pretty vague. I’m simply saying I don’t really know what degree of exercise and activity leads to longevity. I used to lift weights and do strength training. I was no bodybuilder or avid lifter. I’m saying I’m not sure even being an athlete means you’ll live a longer life. I’m trying to understand how much time I reasonably need to put into athletics and exercise to live to 100 and stay mobile and be reasonably strong enough to defend myself and my family. 

The answer is always do what feels best (unless you're an automatized measurement freak like Bryan Johnson). Whether it's lifting weights or not, see what makes you feel the best, whether it's bodily or mentally or spiritually. If you start feeling bad, it's either a lack of adaptive response (too little training) or a buildup of fatigue (too much training). Both have their own signatures of presence or lack of vitality, clarity. If you value functionality over longevity, then you might trade-off some increased adaptive response for some increased fatigue (like professional athletes do: when a competition comes up, they often take a rest day to lower the chronically elevated fatigue temporarily).

But this is longevity through proxy. Feeling good isn't necessarily a straightforward line to longevity, but it's a very good proxy.

[Jannes]

34 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Says who? I suggest to drop all preconceived notions and workout like a mystic would meditate. The knowledge you get from directly knowing your own self is much higher detail, much more sophisticated and real than some retarded estimate (which assumes 100 billion things about what even counts as a rep or how to execute a reo) based on bullshit studies. "Science-based lifting" is a bit like thinking getting a degree means you're now somehow something. No, knowledge itself, acquaintance with the thing itself, is the thing.

That like the most basic pointer of science. I see the point of going inwards and listening to your bodies signals and intelligence but if you keep science completly out of it, it becomes a mythical pre-rational not so sophisticated approach I feel like. 

34 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you can pull an insane 1-rep max, you can pull insane 10-rep maxes, and it will be reflected in your muscles. The strongest men who have ever lived are also the most muscular men who have ever lived. Don't let bodybuilders with their visual appeal fool you. A 434 lb Eddie Hall is more muscular (has higher FFM) than any bodybuilder who has ever lived (except maybe Greg Kovacs who is 5 cm taller).

Size and strengh arent antithetical to one another, you can certainly be very strong and also very muscular. Strength implies a certain degree of size and muscle a certain degree of strength. But look at Larry Wheels for example, he has a muscular built of cause but is nowhere near in size compared to Olympians out there who dont have the strength of him. 

 

Like Kai Greene:

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Jannes

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Lyubov said:

Depends on the program and how advanced you are. For people training who have passed intermediate level programming there are advanced programs that have one rep max for lower body lifts, usually deadlift, sometimes squat. Obviously for most novices (90% of lifters) you won’t be doing a program that has one reps for progression. 

Is it purely a hyperthrophy program or also about strength?

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, Jannes said:

That like the most basic pointer of science. I see the point of going inwards and listening to your bodies signals and intelligence but if you keep science completly out of it, it becomes a mythical pre-rational not so sophisticated approach I feel like.

Last I heard Mr. Mikeratel speak, it was 3-5 reps, so please be specific. Is he wrong?

Regardless, is there a study showing the benefits (or lack of benefits) of doing a one-rep max at the very end (the last set) of say your otherwise high-rep deadlift sets? Is there a study showing the benefits of doing a one-rep max-oriented workout once week or twice a week instead of every single session? What if you feel like working out any of these ways because it feels good? Should you trust "the science" or your feeling?

Is there a study quantifying exactly the workload per rep? Is every rep the same, for all people, for all situations, at all times, in all training phases, for all levels of fatigue, sleep deprivation, blood glucose levels? And what if you train the way I've suggested, treating every set like "one rep" (all reps are continuous with the next)? Does that give the same workload per rep as a "deep stretch" gimpsuit "I'm homosexual" certain specific Russian Jew rep?

There are times where severe critiques of science are not pre-rational but indeed post-rational. Integrating scientific understanding does not entail taking disgustingly generalized estimates as gospel. And at the end of the day, it's down to your own results. If 1 rep maxing (in whatever frequency or form) makes you see some hypertrophy-related progress you otherwise didn't see, then "the science" is irrelevant. And if my experience is worth anything, the more I challenge "the science" — the more I listen to how I feel and follow my own intelligence rather than some statistically embarassing "work" funded by a lab from Soylent-whatever University with untrained college students as subjects — the more results I get.

Besides I don't even train weights for hypertrophy mainly. It's like number 2-3 on the list of why I train weights. That autistic focus on hypertrophy itself muddies the entire discussion, but it's sufficient (and also more challenging) to counter "science-based lifting" simply on those terms (for other terms it's painfully obvious).

 

2 hours ago, Jannes said:

Size and strengh arent antithetical to one another, you can certainly be very strong and also very muscular. Strength implies a certain degree of size and muscle a certain degree of strength. But look at Larry Wheels for example, he has a muscular built of cause but is nowhere near in size compared to Olympians out there who dont have the strength of him. 

He is also nowhere near the strongest in the world. You're comparing somebody who is not the best in something with somebody who is best in something. Again, peak Eddie Hall or Brian Shaw, they both have more or less the same muscle mass as Greg Kovac, the most massive bodybuilder in history. But also, bodybuilding is not even much about mass either, but aesthetics, muscle insertions, genetics, tan, dieting; targeting the right muscles in the right way, getting the proportions right. If your traps, neck and torso are huge but your arms and shoulders are relatively small, you're a strongman not a bodybuilder. The former muscle groups tend to respond to really heavy, really tough workouts, the latter tend to respond to more light, isolated, targeted workouts.

Edited 11 hours ago by Carl-Richard