What Actually Drives Muscle Growth?

Is it sets of 8-12? It is “feeling the squeeze”? Is it the crazy super-set your buddy Dave told you about?

Muscle growth has been a focus of many studies over time, and the latest research suggests that muscle growth is caused by one thing. Mechanical tension. Mechanical tension is the force exerted on a muscle during exercise. This goes hand in hand with a term called “progressive overload”. Progressive overload is the principle of gradually increasing the demands placed on your muscles over time.

No matter what rep range you choose in the gym, the reps closest to muscular failure are going to drive hypertrophy, aka muscle growth. Many people stop a movement when they feel a little bit sore, or when their last rep was slightly slower than their first 6, but the essence of muscular failure is the reps that progressively get slower until you cannot complete the final rep, recruiting all of the motor units required to perform that task.

Adaptation is your body’s response to exercise. It “becomes familiar” with increased tension and becomes more efficient over time. It is a consequence of mechanical tension.

Mechanical tension occurs when you:

• Increase the weight each week

  • This can be as little as 1lb but its common to see 2.5-5lbs

• Increase the reps each week

  • Even a half rep is still a win

  • Perhaps the next week you achieve the full rep

Recent studies have shown that “straight-sets” (regular sets without any intensifiers a.k.a. drop sets and super sets) are superior to those intensifier sets. This is because you will accumulate more fatigue through intensifier sets, and will not be able to have as good of a set following it, compared to if you just did a straight set. You are holding back potential and accumulating unnecessary fatigue. With adequate rest, you should be able to output a solid set to failure or close to failure. I won’t go into the nuances today, but not every set should go right to failure either.

Contrary to popular belief, “feeling the squeeze” contributes little to nothing with regards to muscle growth (hypertrophy). It is great to feel a contraction, but the fact that your muscle is producing the movement regardless of feeling, is indication that it does not matter.

Now, how can you utilize this information moving forward?  Here are some things to consider when creating your next split:

• Volume (sets per session&week per muscle group)

  • More is not always better

  • 4-25 sets/muscle/week is standard. Find what works for you

  • Some muscle groups may respond better to different volumes

• Training frequency

  • You need adequate rest and recovery before you train that muscle group again

  • Find a split that works with your weekly schedule. These are most common:

    • 3x/w full body

    • 4-5x/w Upper Lower

    • 5-6x/w PPL / Arnold (and other variants)

  • Make it a goal to hit each muscle group 2x per week

• Adequate Recovery

  • It typically takes longer to recover from high volume training

  • Sleep and nutrition are of equal if not greater importance than the training itself

  • Muscle soreness is not an indicator of muscle growth or the effectiveness of a workout

Now that you know the truth about muscle growth, optimize your training split and get after it!

As always, if you have questions please feel free to reach out, and if you’d like to work with me 1:1 click the link below!

~Kyle