Hey all! 0:00 Intro 1:26 Part I: Muscle Growth Plateaus FAST 3:01 Part II: Studies Showing Sustained Long-Term Gains? 4:33 Part III: Limitations With the Data 11:09 Part IV: Potential Use of Training Breaks 12:43 Part V: Summary
As House of Hypertrophy, I think you need a banner or flag as a symbol of your house 😂 Btw, thanks for the vid always packed with so much info and knowledge. But if I may be honest, you need to make the presentation more interesting with your tone etc. Honestly sometimes I got bored or sleepy but that may just be me. I hope more ppl will come to join this House 🙏
I feel after 10 years of training some breaks in between but ultimately the knowledge ive gained through experience variety is key aspect of not only making extra gains but also keeping things interesting whilst understanding and connecting to your true self ! We are amazing if we love ourselves Keepushing peeps
Whenever I hit a plateau I take a break for a week or two then go back to training, but when I return I feel energized and more motivated than before. I think maybe there is a mental aspect to it?
I also started doing a week break and it seems to help. But not mentally. For me it is mentally much more difficult to start again after a longer break than just to continue
I think one of his video also mentioned about this, 1 study about 2 groups, 1 keep training while another took a break 2-3 weeks and then come back stronger
I think it’s easy to get fried from the gym if you’ve been going hard for a while. So when you take a break just long enough to truly rest up your muscles you’re ready for another phase of muscle growth potentially.
This is interesting as I have trained throughout the year in the past and found little to no progress to the latter end of the training cycle. Withing the last 3 years I have made the most progress by training for 3-5 months then completely stop all training for 1 month or longer. I can normally recomp and gain back strength and size within 4 weeks and always making decent size + strength gains in the weeks following. I'm sure this has something to do with you red lining your MTOR and other growth channels and taking time off allows for them to return to baseline whilst your not really losing slot of muscle in your off time mainly just fullness and strength which is quickly retainable.
@@GabrielCazorlaPersson1 I do agree that in most cases 1 month may be too long, I'm sure you could get most of the benefits within 2 weeks. I discovered that taking extended time off works the best for myself by accident as I was taking breaks in my training due to work stress life etc then when I would get back into training I gained everything back rather quickly and then broke through my strength and muscle growth plateaus. This is already having lifted for a number of years so you can rule out newbie gains, you really aren't going to lose much muscle in 3 weeks let's say if your nutrition is on point and you stay relatively active.
I have a similar experience but I just do deloads and runups when my strength begins to stall, not take time off. I find my measurements all shoot up in the first 3-4 weeks after a deload, then begin to slow down, but my strength doesn't suffer this way and don't need to spend time getting it back.
I also agree that when I take even 2 or 3 days off when im feeeling sore. I feel the 1st day back I can physically see the diffrence in my muscles the next day.
As a newbie 2.5 months in, I support that nutrition and calories is a strong explanation. Beginners recomp quite easily, especially the first few months. Many studies and pros will say this. I found myself accidentally recomping because I underestimated how much I needed to eat in my 2nd month. I failed to gain overall mass and was instead converting fat into muscle. But this can't go on forever. The laws of thermodynamics don't lie. Energy in, energy out and there's only so much fat that can be easily burnt to fuel muscle growth.
👍 But please don't call it 'converting fat into muscle' because that is not possible since they are different tissue types. You probably know this yourself, but calling it that helps the common misconception about how this works persist. You burned fat and gained muscle mass at the same time (=recomposition)
I think the conclusions drawn in the study are obviously incorrect. 3 months of training is nothing... Most people haven't learned how to efficiently contract the muscles they are trying to grow while performing exercises 3 months in. Most people haven't figured out diet, how their body individually responds to different training intensities, volume etc. Most haven't even realized just how important sleeping is. There's more to learn about hypertrophy and one's own body than can be achieved in 3months, hell I'm 19 years deep and still figuring stuff out.
Laws of thermodynamics arent ever in violation. Also, we humans have so much more body fat that can and will be used as fuel, and for building muscle, than you can ever imagine. People who think they need to force feed aren't doing themselves any favors, unless getting more fat and gaining the same amount of muscle as would without the need to "force feed". People are desperate to put on muscle, and have little patience and confidence in themselves and their bodies. I get it, you think more food will give you a little more growth. Science shows us, no, you won't put on any significant more muscle mass by eating in surplus. That's just not muscle growth works. Sorry, this takes time, and force feeding doesn't work and it also ain't healthy.
The reality is after newbie gains, muscle growth in reality is a few grams per session at most which essentially is a plateau after the initial explosive growth. It is why it takes years to gain muscle appreciably and gaining a pound or two per year is more realistic. Good video.
@@cherubino95 2 pounds is actually pretty good after 5 or 6 straight years of quality consistent training. Of course the first years it is much higher than that. At some point for everyone whether natty or enhanced, it is a slog adding muscle. The closer we get to our genetic limit the slower we grow.
@@robertspence7766 if the maximum of kg a male can gain in his life is really 20 kg, i would stop at 16 kg, if i have to wait years to obtain the last 4kg. I would use the earned time in a way to be happier.
@@cherubino95 That is certainly an option! I turn 55 in 3 months so although I am at or close to my genetic potential I keep going to maintain strength and health and look good naked as I age. So far my body looks even better than in my 20s and 30s, so fighting to keep it. That is just my personal view that works for me.
Just remember that hitting a plateau does not mean, that is all the strength or muscle you will build. Take a break after 10-12 weeks and start up training again. You will feel energized and motivated to get back to working out. And your body will be more sensitized to the stimulus. 💪🏾👍🏽
The problem is that the study starts by saying something we all know isn’t true, even if you’re natty: all of your muscle growth is noobie gains, and there are no other gains. We all know observed a different reality with our own eyes.
Noobie gains are not gains but neurological wiring and activation/technique. Noobies do not gain muscles faster except maybe cell expansion from water retention which does help a lot too. Stagnant muscle that isn't being use is like a balloon that is deflated to conserve energy.
Plateaus starts when we doesn't leave RIR during our workout.... Im always train in 1 rir ...when i see im starting to plateau im increase it by 1-5 with and increase decrease it over time .... Patience is the key
exactly RIR is very important which most people leave out. other than that it's also very important to reset the adaptations and do a week long deload of training, sometimes even two.
Another excellent video, you're absolutely smashing it at the moment. This channel will be huge soon. I think this is one of those things where to some extent anecdotal data has to supersede the fairly limited data on the subject. We've probably all seen in ourselves and those around us that gains absolutely do not plateau to that extent after 3 months if you're putting effort in with your planning, training and diet. It seems clear that in some ways progress does becomes a bit harder with time, but tbf the incremental improvements you make further in tend to also make a bigger difference. Even just doing a successful cut when you're already quite big can completely transform your physique, without doing anything significant apart from just losing 10lbs or whatever. Also, as you showcase very well on this channel there's an endless amount of new information, new strategies and new approaches. If people can use roids to go 4x beyond their genetic potential then it's reasonable to assume that we will continue to find other more natural ways to at least progress beyond what was previously thought possible. It's the same with so many aspects of health: you can be defeatist and look at things in a lazy way, but you shouldn't. People make a lot of glib, throwaway statements like "you won't improve after your first year" or "supplements won't do anything", when in reality these things are far from true. To me one of the most enjoyable parts of the fitness journey is constantly finding new things, new approaches, new strategies and trying to be consistently creative/focused in terms of optimising results. I think with this mindset you can achieve really great things, and thankfully there's a lot of great content like this out there to help with that. We're living in the best time so far in history to try to get in shape, and for those of us with open minds it's only going to get better. Keep up the great work.
Amazing stuff! All your vids are so well done. I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. Have you ever used any of these custom meal plan tools? I got one from Next Level Diet to help me build muscle up and I actually like their plans. Was just wondering if you've heard of or tried any of them yourself. Thank you!
Thank you so much, I have not used or looked into custom meal planning tools. But I think if you like them and they help meet your diet goals in a enjoyable way, that's fine!
Why people are so concerned with pointless muscle growth? Just get fit, increase the muscle size a bit to look good and be functional, that's more than enough.
Because they want to look big and muscular if you don't then good for you man but functional is complete bullshit you want functional become an athlete or a fighter or go work on a farm. If you want to get huge or strong lift heavy.
@@impyrobot functional is a complete bullshit? I seen plenty of big muscular dudes who can't run a mile without gasping of air, and can't even do 5 proper pull-ups. Getting big is a fine goal, to each their own I guess. But this unhealthy obsession with just getting big is fascinating to me, do dudes expect that they will be more respected by men and more desired by women if they keep inflating their bodies?
Absolutely GOATED CHANNEL 💯💯 I soak up so much information for my training from your videos! Plus I love how you say "HOWEHVERRR" is it just me? 😂 I always wait for it when you are talking about the studies 😂
Initally shocking, but after ruminating it over it's not actaully that controversial. Common broscience says you gotta switch things up every so often to confuse the muscle. Deloading (Like an actual leave ego at the door deload) and changing programs every few months can be super effective for recovery and growth stimulation, in my own experience.
true plus it also follows into another similar piece of logic I use being train every part of your body bruce lee really was correct on the whole aspect of training in as much stuff as you can. It helps you learn to have full control of your body when you need it most for whatever physical activity you do.
Back in my Sport Performance major (2004-2008) in several different courses they taught the importance of deload weeks in any athletic pursuit because of a concept they called "accumulated fatigue", basically a catch-all term for all of the multitude of fatigue and micro-damage in the body that we don't even know about yet that catches up to us when we don't take any breaks from training. They ultimately build up and the accumulated fatigue is so stressful on the body that it cancels out the body's ability to build up further adaptations to training. So even back then (and it was old established wisdom at that time) it was known that athletes need regular training breaks to make further progress. So... the big question is why don't these researchers doing their long term studies on training effect not seem to know about this? Why are they doing 9 month studies with subjects training every week without a break or even a deload? There's always this disconnect between what coaches and athletes actually do in the real world vs what researchers play with in the lab.
I very rarely deload, almost never. I've been training for over 20years and I have videos etc...where I'm competing in powerlifting meets in Arizona in the US pulling 600lbs, squatting 540 and benching 300lbs at 165lbs bodyweight. I've found that regularly deloading is really only necessary for people that don't have their workouts dialed into their recovery ability. Most people either use too much volume or too much frequency, or both.
ive only watched the intro so far however I will say, this really agrees with what ive said before. It doesnt matter the training routine, 5x5, gvt, whatever, because given enough food and hard training most people reach their potential regardless of the training method. However in my experience, I started training quite early in life, 14 years old, im 41 now, we really didnt have much info to go on back then and I largely just stuffed around at the gym and I got to my size within a year. 85kg. I have been this size most my life. I did however do a 6 month period where I only focussed on strength and this did increase considerably. Dirty bulk. I got to 98kg and very fat. However, when i cut down, I end up the same size more or less, 80-85. Just much stronger than I was previously, at least in the 1-3 rep range.
I also want to add as I have gotten to the protein variable in the video, that I know its seemingly trendy lately for people to say "oh you dont need that much proten" and then site the study where the benefit from protein tapers off. But I get great results, as far as body composition goes, from absolutely smashing protein. 3 grams plus per kg
Honestly, this has been my life experience to a tee. There are gains for like 1-2 months and then everything comes to a halt. It could be that it's just imperceptibly slow after that, but I think the big takeaway is that we don't understand very well how this process works. Is there some kind of negative feedback loop? Is something becoming desensitized (like how we think of insulin resistance)? We don't even have a good understanding (at the molecular level) for why advanced trainers grow at a slower rate than newbs, or how muscle growth stops after hitting the upper limit. This is why most studies and bro-understanding are just stabbing in the dark and theorizing. Imagine how different "bodybuilding" is going to be 50 years from now.
Interesting to hear! I will note I think there is some understanding for why advanced trainees grow slower. Namely, the anabolic pathways tend to be less responsive in these folks (leading to lower protein synthesis rates). Moreover, other factors related to myonuclei domain and myostatin could be related
JOHN, I thought the same,may be testosterine production and hgh flattens as the max amount in our dna.may be infuture we may find some plants or drugs that can boost t production for longer time without saturation.
@@TransNeingerian Ok, but what does that even mean? I know a thing or two about mTOR but I'm not the world's premier expert or anything. I don't know any good strategy for figuring out how to properly manipulate it for one's individual traits and the dogmatic "bodybuilding" philosophy has one trying to redline mTOR 24/7 with crazy overfeeding strategies (which is contrary to what we know about mTOR and muscle growth). And reducing myostatin doesn't do much in humans. You have to reduce activin-A alongside it and the only good way to do that is to increase follistatin. And the only known effective ways to do that is through frequent exercise (i.e., multiple times per day) and fasting. Is any of the bodybuilding dogma oriented towards fasting and training muscle several times per day?
Watching this and reviewing the part about nutrition made me realize that my mediocre nutritional methods(while I eat relatively clean, I rarely bother to measure) actually have an indirect means of programming, governed by appetite stimulation: If I do extensive cardio, I eat more that day. If I have caffeine, I eat a little less. If I sleep less, I eat more(although missing sleep is not one I would want to program in). As it is, my method could be roughly described as: default to a daily maintenance level of training - essentially just a warm-up and walking for the sake of neural conditioning and mobility. Using all the muscles, but not trying to push them. Then, about once a week, do a larger, intense strength training session, and on a different day, a larger, more intense cardio session. I've moved away from weights in favor of a more get-out-of-the-gym calisthenics-focused approach with occasional loading(lots and lots of crawl variations and pull-ups, then cycling for cardio - if I want a load, I add a backpack and turn it into rucking), but this doesn't seem to have stopped recomp and mass gains, and those changes generally happen after the cardio days, not the strength days...which can be explained by my also eating more after cardio. Given this anecdote I now believe that scheduling a default of moderate training with occasional high intensity days is the way to go for a casual approach to training, simply because it creates some periodization while working within a flexible schedule. I noticed today that the maintenance routine that had been "somewhat difficult" a few months ago was now quite easy and I had to add some more to it. While a more careful programming of it might get me there faster, this way is practical for lifestyle purposes.
Yeah, none of them (expect for one) showed a true full plateau. Rather, and as I tried to make clear with the language I used, the graphs tend to show "signs" of plateuing as the growth notably leveled off, this is what the researchers of the review study were thinking too :)
This is totally true! After about 5 months of real hard training you are at about 90% of your natural max in muscle mass, but you are not at your max in muscle strength. I was very strong in highschool working out heavy 3-5 times a week and i did that until i was 22 years old. I was benching over 365 and i was 6ft 205 pounds 100% natural.... I met my future wife at 22, stopped working out, had kids, got a mortgage, and was a typical middle class family. Fast forward 15 years I went back to the gym and I could only do 225 for like 3 and i was about 250 pounds, i was in dad bod shape.....hahahah.... anyways fast forward about 5 months and i was doing 225 for a max burnout after my heavy beach for 20+reps... This all happened within 5 months. my shirts no longer fit and i lost belly fat(but not all of it) and was about 240 pounds benching 405 pounds 100% natural... I can say now its has been almost 10 years back(i am 46) into the gym and my max in bench has not really changed i do powerlifting meets and my max goes up and down depending on diet. if i am a little heavy i am stronger, but fatter, if i lose weight the bench is the first thing to go and if i start eating again, it comes back within 2 weeks... That is just how it is, i workout out for heath and fitness...gains stop fast, but maintaining gains becomes the main focus, also you don't need to do as much work as you think you need to do. just do deadlift, squats, bench, military press, and pullups. I played the game of more work = more gains, and that is not true at all... Smart work in less time keeps you from burning out and your gains will not be any different. on leg day i just do squats, on back day i just do deadlifts(you don't need to do the machines or lat pulls if you do deadlifts) , on chest day i do banch and sholder press.... I will do triceps extensions on chest day also.... I am typically the strongest guy in the gym and lots of guys come to me and ask how i got so strong, I say i just lift heave and eat protean and carbs..I no longer take pre-workouts or much of any supplements... If i am training for a powerlifting meet, i will take protein powder and creatine, but that is about it... I take a week or 2 off after every powerlifting meet to deload and what i lost will be back within a week, meaning i lost nothing. I am 46 years old and people tell me i look good for my age, but i do have a belly now, that i am starting to lose and to lose weight the number one thing is to remember you will get weaker and thats ok, because it does come back when you increase carbs and food... We are a machine and there is not magic workout, there might be steroids but it seems like the youtube commuity is starting to switch gears because of all the people that have died over the last few years. It is amazing that youtubers are finally talking about not taking gear and staying natural... So that is very good.
@@HH-io9vh I disagree. They are talking muscle mass not max strength and there is a difference. I have been lifting for years and can tell you the most gains you will ever get are the first few months of working out that is if you are working out correctly. You can get stronger, but even that your only talking maybe 10-20% at most over the years. I am not talking powerlifting where good form alone will add 50 pounds to a lift. I am talking raw stupid strength where you can max out on how many times you can squat 315 or bench 275 for reps. Example of this is if you to a powerlifting class people most always add a few pounds to their lifts in just one class... Did they grow muscle or get stronger? Nope! it was just form. The reality is most people never reach their natural limits because they do not know how to workout to reach their natural potential. So you will see people going to the gym doing the same workout looking like a normal dude and all of a sudden over the next few weeks the guy who has been busting his but at the gym for years looks different after just a month... What changed? Maybe a cycle or maybe he figured out how to workout and and eating high protein... I took a normal guy who worked out for over 25 years he was in his 50s and always wanted to bench 315 and I told him it will take you 3 months if you listen to me... Well he did and he benched 320 100% natural and was 55 years old and weighed about 180 pounds. He just needed to teach his muscles what 315 felt like and it took a few months. Did he gain 10 pounds of muscle...I do not think so, he just worked out for weight....
Menno Henselmans says that he is able to add about 1 pound (450 grams) of muscle per year as a natural, even after training for years. I'm guessing diet and programming play a HUGE part in this.
From my observation,I tried biceps curls when in 7th grade and hardly noticed small gains and muscles become,hard and strength increased.later I dropped training ,to this day my arms grown small gains.
Nutrition certainly is critical. I plateaued when I switched to eating just by hunger because I got tired of eating a lot trying to get protein thorough natural sources alone, but after a few weeks of plateau, I added whey protein and increased diet a bit and my weight jumped up in 10 days what was previously taking a month or more and increased enough to rise back up to my 6-month trendline; almost as if the muscle was all trained and just waiting for the fuel to grow.
Once again a great video. Do you think that when you take a break from strength training, you also have to give up cardio so that your body becomes more sensitive to muscle building again?
A sincere THANKS to You for more clearly explaining what, and what did not go into this research study claiming the muscle growth plateaus only three month after resistance training has begun. I fully agree with you that this Study is flawed by leaving out vital training and nutritional techniques the have a significant effect on longer term hypertrophy. You have done an outstanding service to the Lifting and Resistance Training Community. Again, THANK YOU and BRAVO!
Team3DAlpha literally implemented the training breaks in his Nucleus Overload program in having a 1 week break after 4 weeks, in order to reset mTOR sensitivity. As he says, "the science will catch up."
Your Channel is amazing! i love your work, no one comes close to it. I have a question in mind that i have been looking for an answer for a while and i believe you are the right guy for it. So i started training recently after a long pause. I have done the 2 times per week muscle group training and i have seen tremendous results. I am putting muscles and losing fat at the same time and the results are stacking up quickly. I train 5 days peer week, and it's been around 3 consistent months and i lost 12 kg and put on 1.5 kg of muscles. Recently i started feeling exhausted can't drag myself to training and i have been reading that taking a week off each 2-4 months if recommended i like to check your take on it what do you think ? I would like to add that also my appetite is well under control when i started being at 130kg i had not control whatever comes to mind or in sight i would eat.
Thank YOU for those kind words! I'd say it might be best to take a break if you're feeling tired and unmotivated. Breaks are most likely not going to hurt you, in fact, it could actually be beneficial for long-term gainz: ua-cam.com/video/cBzaFBVVs50/v-deo.html
I'll look into that! problem though is some of my language in the video directs to video content, such as "subjects trained with these variables" and the variables are shown in the animation
I've been getting back into working out and I'm surprised by how quickly I am building muscle. But I totally forgot about the plateau that inevitably comes.
It makes sense. Your body replies to stimuli, and you progressively add more stimuli as you add more work. You can't progressively add more rest to compensate, so your recovery time between workouts and the amount of stimuli needed.to progressively overload will eventually overlap. If you slept 18 hours a day like a tiger you could overload a lot more.
I guess its also useful, to alternate effort periodes of certain muscle groups. Lets say, you divide your body in 3 parts with 3 different "effort-classes". Push, Pull, Legs for example. Push: High effort, Pull: Mid effort, Legs: Low effort/maintenance. Next period: Push: LE, Pull: HE, Legs: ME and so on... Maybe thats easier for your mind, because you improve your body every week, instead of exercising three weeks or so for "nothing".
I want to ask about the "plateau". Does muscle stop growing after a long time of exercise or after you get to some muscle level? For example if I would train legs only for 2 years my legs muscles would grow substantially and then it would plateau, but if I after that would start training arms would my arms size be impacted? (Don't know how to explain myself properly :D)
I have come to find the biggest limiting factor in my recovery is lack of sleep. I find myself sore for 3 to 4 days during my work week but recover almost fully after a single night of 8+ hours of sleep on the weekends
personally i think you have one year of appreciable growth. 3months doing what ever you want. Another 3 with maximum training and food intake. The final 6 being much slower gains. If anyone gets gains over 3 years or more I would suggest they simply werent training hard enough or lacked knowledge in the first year and it took them longer to reach peak. I would also pose this hypertrophy house, a known strength "guru"christian thibaudeau once said, often times you can focus on one part and get it a little bigger at the expense of other parts. Almost as if your body has a maximum sustainable total size that it is controlling but within this size bracket it will allow for small gains here and there, at the expense of elsewhere. Now what I think is happening there is simply you up volume for one part at the expense of focus on another but I find this phenomenon to also be true and this is where people think they are making non stop gains when really its just gaining one body part at a time instead of the entire body reaching absolute max at once. Ive noticed a lot of young guys can do very very good training for one particular exercise, that being bench press, and yet then I will see them move over to triceps and not apply the same kind of effort or lift near as much weight comparitively. These same kids might say they got great gains for a year, all in bench and chest and then if you said to them, hey, your tricep training is lacklustre, they might then think they are making tricep gains the next year, and they are, but really it was just that in the first year, there were gains left on the table as they only focussed on one exercise.
I mostly agree with that, with the qualification that 'leaving gains on the table' is just bodybuilding reality. I doubt there's been a single person in the entire history of lifting weights that hasn't left gains on the table in the first year. When you're that new to it, you just don't know anything (although you often think you do). People's heads are full of fantasies or bad advice or simple cluelessness. My guess is that, for the vast majority, this condition (ignorance) persists much longer than one year.
Hey, in a past video you said that the bench press doesn't recruit the long head of the triceps very well but the overhead press might -> why is that? Has it something to do w/ the increased shoulder elevation? But the shoulder still flexes w/ simultaneous elbow extension during an OHP. Great uploads btw.
Thank You! My thinking is this: the long triceps head is involved in shoulder extension (bringing the arm behind the body). This movement occurs notably more in the lowering phase of the bench press (meaning the long head shortens during the lowering phase and cannot fully contract and contribute to the lifting phase). It occurs not so much in the overhead press, maybe meaning the long head can contribute well. However, I'm still uncertain whether the latter part is correct (the overhead press recruits the long head well), hopefully we get research on it :)
Good video most seem to experience newbie gains but gains seem to drastically slow after that period I think it's hard to but a exact date on how long that period last! I think 80% of muscle building potential is genetics! Some can get big strong and look good by working out half ass and not even eating right and some could workout diet and even use PEDS and still not look like they ever been to a gym! Genetics isn't everything but by far the biggest factor in my opinion!
This is interesting because its been my experience. First 3 months went from 120-140 without doing anything about my eating. avg 1500-2000cal and about 60g protein. plateaued for a year and half. Was deloading, taking weeks off, changing volume etc and couldn't budge anything. Even lifts plateaued. Boosted my cal and protein and went up to 160 in about 4 months...mostly fat. Went from about 9% to 15% fat. Took a few years off. Started again at 155 and went to 185 in about 3 months. Body fat well over 15%. Just finished a 6 month cut down to a tight 165. Its been so consistent that I'm wondering if I should take a few months off before trying to hit my final goal weight at about 180 at 10%ish. I don't know if its a muscle memory+ resensitization thing.
Very interesting to hear! How's your proximity to failure during your training. Do you train to faliure, or leave a couple reps in reserve (if so how much)?
I would say the weekly volume in the studies is on the low side. Generally hard training over the course of 6-8 weeks requires adding more sets to continue muscle growth in addition to increasing weight and/or reps. If the subjects in these studies were doing 10-12 sets per week, I’d say that’s a great place to start for week 1, but towards the end of the mesocycle they should have been doing 1.5-2x the amount of volume depending on the muscle group
This video is interesting to me because my gains in muscle were very small in the beginning, rather my strength shot up fastest first. I got my best muscle gains as an intermediate from beyond the first year of training by optimizing training. I also think that once you hit that base level of gains, the gains that come after are much more noticeable because they look so exaggerated.
My purely speculative observation is that while skinny guys will blow up on like 5x5, if you are already naturally muscular it won't do much, and better to switch to an intermediate routine once your strength gains stall
It does but also not as fast as ppl think. It’s often said if you do everything right then after 3 years you’d be at 85% of your full potential. This might be true in terms of the biggest visual difference but fact is that most people don’t become advanced natural lifters. 90% get stuck in the novice stage and most of the other 10% are intermediate. Even I can see a flaw in my initial approach these days, associating progressive overload in weight with muscle growth. Yes size and strength are highly correlated for naturals and you get stronger by gaining muscle but if you do 3-6 sets for a muscle you’re still doing 3-6 sets whether you can get 10 reps with 100 pounds or 10 reps with 200. Progression would be much faster early on if more people realized this and increased their volume a bit faster. And that’s just ONE aspect of programming. Things are simple yet complex
Unfortunately, there's not much research that can help us here. I'd say just continue eating normally. You probably don't need to be in a suplus, you can be in a deficit if you want to lose weight.
Maybe the reaction from our nervous system to create new fibers slowly tapers off as the muscle keeps getting worn down consistently. This makes somewhat sense evolutionarily cause maybe it was not advantageous for people in the past who were active and straining their muscles everyday consistently to necessarily gain muscle if they didn’t need to even if they were being pushed close to failure since they may need fat for more energy storage. And by taking a break and letting your muscles stay fully healed for a bit you can trick your nervous system into reentering the must build muscle mode
My takeaway is to take 2 week breaks every 2-3 months. Especially when you combine it with those studies that show how muscles bounce back after a 2-3 week break (the ones where the group bounces back fast enough to catch up with the continuous group that seemed to plateau a bit).
I would also say, look at pro athletes, hard weight lifting athletes like nfl, rugby, mma. Most are lifting and eating well but over time, look at your favourite player, have they changed at all? they largely at some stage got to where they are and stayed there. What is happening? Like all the variables we can change, protein, cals, hours in the gym, in the end they all reach an upper maximum as far as what is actually convenient to do each week. You can just keep making each workout bigger ang bigger. So even if you plateau, just try it, up the volume up the intensity to insane levels, up the food, guess what? you will get a little bigger, but this routine will not be maintained, i guarantee it. You eventually will revert back to what is convenient , cals, protein, gym hours and over time, return to that baseline. Even longtime roiders with huge nutrition knowledge, greg deucette etc, they all have their upper level they reached they dont just keep growing. Look at the natty, vitruvian physique, he bulks and lifts hard for periods, cuts down, more or less the same.
I've been working out for about 15years at least 5 times a week I train upper body everyday for years and I've only gotten Bigger and I am Natural iam 48 I started when I was about 32 and I feel Great you don't work out you Don't Grow I've worked my arms out every time I've worked out for years and there pretty DAM Big when I started working out I weighed 145 now I am at 185 solid do what works for you leave the Science to Albert Einstein
So 2 times a week is better then 1 .. what i wana see is doing a heavy day and then a light day ... like 3 sets of 8 on mondays and 4 sets of 20 to 30 on a Thursday ??? I think im about to start doing 2 sets of 10 followed by a burn out of pushups ??
I mean these studies doesn't really consider genetics:) the further you are from your genetic for building muscle ( which are usually call newbie gains since a lot of trained athletes like basketball player who doesn't use weight and when they use weight they gain a large amount of muscle ) the harder it gets to put on muscle, which is why the "newbie gains" slow down and also social media these days fucks our brain up:) if in the first year of training, u put on like 9 or 10 pounds of pure muscle you have great genetics, and after a few years you may just put on. Muscle growth does slow down but i dont think it stops, since I've been training for 5+ years ( not too long but longer than the average person) and if I take pictures at beginning of each month, I still see progress. And also if you stop for few weeks and go back to the gym, most wont even go back at all:) then whats the point of stoping:), so just train if you want, take rest when your body feels like it, gets back and train harder😁
No, we don’t need more and more studies and more on fitness. There are millions and millions of people who built a great physique naturally. It simply takes a few years of consistent training. People who write fitness studies are typically not great scientists. The quality of most of those studies are low. They are generated in masses because fitness studies are so popular these days.
This seems to fly in the wake or common observations. slow and steady increases are obvious with many of my friends. Often it takes around a year for people to see significant improvements
better to do these kind of research by selecting twins , so to get a some what precise data, in kerala,india,there is a samll twins village over 400 twins are born there.
Hey all!
0:00 Intro
1:26 Part I: Muscle Growth Plateaus FAST
3:01 Part II: Studies Showing Sustained Long-Term Gains?
4:33 Part III: Limitations With the Data
11:09 Part IV: Potential Use of Training Breaks
12:43 Part V: Summary
Ty for your work
Thank YOU for checking it out :)
But this is a terrible news....it means I very likely made all my gains already :(
Not neccessarily, did you watch the full video?
As House of Hypertrophy, I think you need a banner or flag as a symbol of your house 😂 Btw, thanks for the vid always packed with so much info and knowledge. But if I may be honest, you need to make the presentation more interesting with your tone etc. Honestly sometimes I got bored or sleepy but that may just be me. I hope more ppl will come to join this House 🙏
I feel after 10 years of training some breaks in between but ultimately the knowledge ive gained through experience variety is key aspect of not only making extra gains but also keeping things interesting whilst understanding and connecting to your true self ! We are amazing if we love ourselves
Keepushing peeps
100% agree dude, great comment!
Why can’t you just do bench press for ever theirs no exercise like it if it works why change?
This channel is very underrated right now. I'm sure you'll hit millions someday. Keep up the great work
Thank you so much dude, that means a lot to me!!!
Whenever I hit a plateau I take a break for a week or two then go back to training, but when I return I feel energized and more motivated than before. I think maybe there is a mental aspect to it?
I also started doing a week break and it seems to help. But not mentally.
For me it is mentally much more difficult to start again after a longer break than just to continue
Yeah, I think this can be the case for some people!
@@HouseofHypertrophy i asked some friends of mine about this and it is the same for them as for me in this regard
I think one of his video also mentioned about this, 1 study about 2 groups, 1 keep training while another took a break 2-3 weeks and then come back stronger
I think it’s easy to get fried from the gym if you’ve been going hard for a while. So when you take a break just long enough to truly rest up your muscles you’re ready for another phase of muscle growth potentially.
This is interesting as I have trained throughout the year in the past and found little to no progress to the latter end of the training cycle. Withing the last 3 years I have made the most progress by training for 3-5 months then completely stop all training for 1 month or longer. I can normally recomp and gain back strength and size within 4 weeks and always making decent size + strength gains in the weeks following. I'm sure this has something to do with you red lining your MTOR and other growth channels and taking time off allows for them to return to baseline whilst your not really losing slot of muscle in your off time mainly just fullness and strength which is quickly retainable.
Really interesting to hear dude, thank you so much for sharing!
@@GabrielCazorlaPersson1 I do agree that in most cases 1 month may be too long, I'm sure you could get most of the benefits within 2 weeks. I discovered that taking extended time off works the best for myself by accident as I was taking breaks in my training due to work stress life etc then when I would get back into training I gained everything back rather quickly and then broke through my strength and muscle growth plateaus. This is already having lifted for a number of years so you can rule out newbie gains, you really aren't going to lose much muscle in 3 weeks let's say if your nutrition is on point and you stay relatively active.
I have a similar experience but I just do deloads and runups when my strength begins to stall, not take time off. I find my measurements all shoot up in the first 3-4 weeks after a deload, then begin to slow down, but my strength doesn't suffer this way and don't need to spend time getting it back.
I also agree that when I take even 2 or 3 days off when im feeeling sore. I feel the 1st day back I can physically see the diffrence in my muscles the next day.
Ya 3D alpha calls it an mTor reset. I’m guessing your receptors have to become resensitized to it and this is what leads to a lot of plateaus for ppl
As a newbie 2.5 months in, I support that nutrition and calories is a strong explanation.
Beginners recomp quite easily, especially the first few months. Many studies and pros will say this. I found myself accidentally recomping because I underestimated how much I needed to eat in my 2nd month. I failed to gain overall mass and was instead converting fat into muscle.
But this can't go on forever. The laws of thermodynamics don't lie. Energy in, energy out and there's only so much fat that can be easily burnt to fuel muscle growth.
Interesting to hear, thank you for sharing!
👍 But please don't call it 'converting fat into muscle' because that is not possible since they are different tissue types. You probably know this yourself, but calling it that helps the common misconception about how this works persist. You burned fat and gained muscle mass at the same time (=recomposition)
I think the conclusions drawn in the study are obviously incorrect. 3 months of training is nothing... Most people haven't learned how to efficiently contract the muscles they are trying to grow while performing exercises 3 months in. Most people haven't figured out diet, how their body individually responds to different training intensities, volume etc. Most haven't even realized just how important sleeping is. There's more to learn about hypertrophy and one's own body than can be achieved in 3months, hell I'm 19 years deep and still figuring stuff out.
@@nrlwkr he probably meant losing fat and building muscle... Cmon dude...
Laws of thermodynamics arent ever in violation. Also, we humans have so much more body fat that can and will be used as fuel, and for building muscle, than you can ever imagine. People who think they need to force feed aren't doing themselves any favors, unless getting more fat and gaining the same amount of muscle as would without the need to "force feed". People are desperate to put on muscle, and have little patience and confidence in themselves and their bodies. I get it, you think more food will give you a little more growth. Science shows us, no, you won't put on any significant more muscle mass by eating in surplus. That's just not muscle growth works. Sorry, this takes time, and force feeding doesn't work and it also ain't healthy.
The reality is after newbie gains, muscle growth in reality is a few grams per session at most which essentially is a plateau after the initial explosive growth. It is why it takes years to gain muscle appreciably and gaining a pound or two per year is more realistic. Good video.
Thanks dude! Muscle growth does certainly slow down after those initial rapid gains!
two pound a year seems too low bro
@@cherubino95 2 pounds is actually pretty good after 5 or 6 straight years of quality consistent training. Of course the first years it is much higher than that. At some point for everyone whether natty or enhanced, it is a slog adding muscle. The closer we get to our genetic limit the slower we grow.
@@robertspence7766 if the maximum of kg a male can gain in his life is really 20 kg, i would stop at 16 kg, if i have to wait years to obtain the last 4kg. I would use the earned time in a way to be happier.
@@cherubino95 That is certainly an option! I turn 55 in 3 months so although I am at or close to my genetic potential I keep going to maintain strength and health and look good naked as I age. So far my body looks even better than in my 20s and 30s, so fighting to keep it. That is just my personal view that works for me.
I watched most of your videos. They are amazing, keep it up :)
Thank you so much dude, I appreciate YOU
Much needed info, especially in these days. Great stuff!!
Thank you so much dude!
Some gold information right here man!
Would love to see a more in-depth video about forearms in this incredible informative channel.
Love from Brazil!
Thank you my friend, I plan to make content on forearms at some point :)
one of the rare channels that gives us useful info *and* summarizes it at the end
amazing content
Thank you so much dude!
4 - 6 weeks on, 1 week off, repeat. Now you can have infinite gains :)
To infinity and beyond!
I grow for 14 years now, in the first 3 months it was barely noticeble, today i have 50 lbs more with half and inch less waist size, natural.
Interesting to hear, awesome stuff!
Just remember that hitting a plateau does not mean, that is all the strength or muscle you will build. Take a break after 10-12 weeks and start up training again. You will feel energized and motivated to get back to working out. And your body will be more sensitized to the stimulus. 💪🏾👍🏽
:)
The problem is that the study starts by saying something we all know isn’t true, even if you’re natty: all of your muscle growth is noobie gains, and there are no other gains. We all know observed a different reality with our own eyes.
Agreed!
Noobie gains are not gains but neurological wiring and activation/technique. Noobies do not gain muscles faster except maybe cell expansion from water retention which does help a lot too. Stagnant muscle that isn't being use is like a balloon that is deflated to conserve energy.
@@daniels-mo9ol what
@@loosecannon6142 He is right.
Thanks for including the summary, I don't have much time and it helps a lot 💪🏼❤️
No worres! :)
The dig at flat-earthers at the end was just unnecessary.
I love it.
Haha :)
Wow almost 50k subscribers.
You deserve more
Thank you so much 😀
Plateaus starts when we doesn't leave RIR during our workout....
Im always train in 1 rir ...when i see im starting to plateau im increase it by 1-5 with and increase decrease it over time .... Patience is the key
exactly RIR is very important which most people leave out.
other than that it's also very important to reset the adaptations and do a week long deload of training, sometimes even two.
This channel is "up there" with all the best
Thank you so much man, that's very kind of you!
Another excellent video, you're absolutely smashing it at the moment. This channel will be huge soon.
I think this is one of those things where to some extent anecdotal data has to supersede the fairly limited data on the subject. We've probably all seen in ourselves and those around us that gains absolutely do not plateau to that extent after 3 months if you're putting effort in with your planning, training and diet. It seems clear that in some ways progress does becomes a bit harder with time, but tbf the incremental improvements you make further in tend to also make a bigger difference. Even just doing a successful cut when you're already quite big can completely transform your physique, without doing anything significant apart from just losing 10lbs or whatever.
Also, as you showcase very well on this channel there's an endless amount of new information, new strategies and new approaches. If people can use roids to go 4x beyond their genetic potential then it's reasonable to assume that we will continue to find other more natural ways to at least progress beyond what was previously thought possible. It's the same with so many aspects of health: you can be defeatist and look at things in a lazy way, but you shouldn't. People make a lot of glib, throwaway statements like "you won't improve after your first year" or "supplements won't do anything", when in reality these things are far from true. To me one of the most enjoyable parts of the fitness journey is constantly finding new things, new approaches, new strategies and trying to be consistently creative/focused in terms of optimising results. I think with this mindset you can achieve really great things, and thankfully there's a lot of great content like this out there to help with that. We're living in the best time so far in history to try to get in shape, and for those of us with open minds it's only going to get better. Keep up the great work.
100% agree with everything you've said, really nicely said. And thank you so much for your kind words again dude, they truly mean so much to me :)
@@HouseofHypertrophy you're welcome man, looking forward to seeing more vids
💯💯💯
I still have fun working out, if my muscles are growing or not.
True, and there are many other benefits to lifting besides hypertrophy or strength :)
Amazing stuff! All your vids are so well done. I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. Have you ever used any of these custom meal plan tools? I got one from Next Level Diet to help me build muscle up and I actually like their plans. Was just wondering if you've heard of or tried any of them yourself. Thank you!
Thank you so much, I have not used or looked into custom meal planning tools. But I think if you like them and they help meet your diet goals in a enjoyable way, that's fine!
Why people are so concerned with pointless muscle growth?
Just get fit, increase the muscle size a bit to look good and be functional, that's more than enough.
Because they want to look big and muscular if you don't then good for you man but functional is complete bullshit you want functional become an athlete or a fighter or go work on a farm. If you want to get huge or strong lift heavy.
@@impyrobot functional is a complete bullshit? I seen plenty of big muscular dudes who can't run a mile without gasping of air, and can't even do 5 proper pull-ups.
Getting big is a fine goal, to each their own I guess. But this unhealthy obsession with just getting big is fascinating to me, do dudes expect that they will be more respected by men and more desired by women if they keep inflating their bodies?
that's like asking why some people tune their cars or buy expensive cars.
dumb question.
@@ishitrealbad3039 a Dumb comparison.
@@user-vy1bf4jx3v post fizeek
Absolutely GOATED CHANNEL 💯💯 I soak up so much information for my training from your videos! Plus I love how you say "HOWEHVERRR" is it just me? 😂 I always wait for it when you are talking about the studies 😂
Haha, thank YOU again dude!
Initally shocking, but after ruminating it over it's not actaully that controversial. Common broscience says you gotta switch things up every so often to confuse the muscle. Deloading (Like an actual leave ego at the door deload) and changing programs every few months can be super effective for recovery and growth stimulation, in my own experience.
true plus it also follows into another similar piece of logic I use being train every part of your body bruce lee really was correct on the whole aspect of training in as much stuff as you can. It helps you learn to have full control of your body when you need it most for whatever physical activity you do.
Back in my Sport Performance major (2004-2008) in several different courses they taught the importance of deload weeks in any athletic pursuit because of a concept they called "accumulated fatigue", basically a catch-all term for all of the multitude of fatigue and micro-damage in the body that we don't even know about yet that catches up to us when we don't take any breaks from training. They ultimately build up and the accumulated fatigue is so stressful on the body that it cancels out the body's ability to build up further adaptations to training. So even back then (and it was old established wisdom at that time) it was known that athletes need regular training breaks to make further progress. So... the big question is why don't these researchers doing their long term studies on training effect not seem to know about this? Why are they doing 9 month studies with subjects training every week without a break or even a deload? There's always this disconnect between what coaches and athletes actually do in the real world vs what researchers play with in the lab.
I very rarely deload, almost never. I've been training for over 20years and I have videos etc...where I'm competing in powerlifting meets in Arizona in the US pulling 600lbs, squatting 540 and benching 300lbs at 165lbs bodyweight. I've found that regularly deloading is really only necessary for people that don't have their workouts dialed into their recovery ability. Most people either use too much volume or too much frequency, or both.
165lbs bodyweight.
As usual, interesting AF.
Now time for the Gym
Hope you have an awesome workout dude!
Nutrition is definitely key. Impeccable work, bro!🤜
I appreciate you bro!
ive only watched the intro so far however I will say, this really agrees with what ive said before. It doesnt matter the training routine, 5x5, gvt, whatever, because given enough food and hard training most people reach their potential regardless of the training method. However in my experience, I started training quite early in life, 14 years old, im 41 now, we really didnt have much info to go on back then and I largely just stuffed around at the gym and I got to my size within a year. 85kg. I have been this size most my life. I did however do a 6 month period where I only focussed on strength and this did increase considerably. Dirty bulk. I got to 98kg and very fat. However, when i cut down, I end up the same size more or less, 80-85. Just much stronger than I was previously, at least in the 1-3 rep range.
I also want to add as I have gotten to the protein variable in the video, that I know its seemingly trendy lately for people to say "oh you dont need that much proten" and then site the study where the benefit from protein tapers off. But I get great results, as far as body composition goes, from absolutely smashing protein. 3 grams plus per kg
Honestly, this has been my life experience to a tee. There are gains for like 1-2 months and then everything comes to a halt. It could be that it's just imperceptibly slow after that, but I think the big takeaway is that we don't understand very well how this process works. Is there some kind of negative feedback loop? Is something becoming desensitized (like how we think of insulin resistance)? We don't even have a good understanding (at the molecular level) for why advanced trainers grow at a slower rate than newbs, or how muscle growth stops after hitting the upper limit. This is why most studies and bro-understanding are just stabbing in the dark and theorizing. Imagine how different "bodybuilding" is going to be 50 years from now.
Interesting to hear!
I will note I think there is some understanding for why advanced trainees grow slower. Namely, the anabolic pathways tend to be less responsive in these folks (leading to lower protein synthesis rates). Moreover, other factors related to myonuclei domain and myostatin could be related
JOHN, I thought the same,may be testosterine production and hgh flattens as the max amount in our dna.may be infuture we may find some plants or drugs that can boost t production for longer time without saturation.
Yes, we do. Its called mTOR and myostatin.
Maybe take 1 second to research how bodybuilders manipulate their physiology.
@@TransNeingerian Ok, but what does that even mean? I know a thing or two about mTOR but I'm not the world's premier expert or anything. I don't know any good strategy for figuring out how to properly manipulate it for one's individual traits and the dogmatic "bodybuilding" philosophy has one trying to redline mTOR 24/7 with crazy overfeeding strategies (which is contrary to what we know about mTOR and muscle growth).
And reducing myostatin doesn't do much in humans. You have to reduce activin-A alongside it and the only good way to do that is to increase follistatin. And the only known effective ways to do that is through frequent exercise (i.e., multiple times per day) and fasting. Is any of the bodybuilding dogma oriented towards fasting and training muscle several times per day?
@@johncalla2151 if you dont know, then just say that.
Dont go around saying "we dont really know very much".
Simple.
Very high quality info.
Thank you my friend!
Watching this and reviewing the part about nutrition made me realize that my mediocre nutritional methods(while I eat relatively clean, I rarely bother to measure) actually have an indirect means of programming, governed by appetite stimulation: If I do extensive cardio, I eat more that day. If I have caffeine, I eat a little less. If I sleep less, I eat more(although missing sleep is not one I would want to program in).
As it is, my method could be roughly described as: default to a daily maintenance level of training - essentially just a warm-up and walking for the sake of neural conditioning and mobility. Using all the muscles, but not trying to push them. Then, about once a week, do a larger, intense strength training session, and on a different day, a larger, more intense cardio session. I've moved away from weights in favor of a more get-out-of-the-gym calisthenics-focused approach with occasional loading(lots and lots of crawl variations and pull-ups, then cycling for cardio - if I want a load, I add a backpack and turn it into rucking), but this doesn't seem to have stopped recomp and mass gains, and those changes generally happen after the cardio days, not the strength days...which can be explained by my also eating more after cardio.
Given this anecdote I now believe that scheduling a default of moderate training with occasional high intensity days is the way to go for a casual approach to training, simply because it creates some periodization while working within a flexible schedule. I noticed today that the maintenance routine that had been "somewhat difficult" a few months ago was now quite easy and I had to add some more to it. While a more careful programming of it might get me there faster, this way is practical for lifestyle purposes.
You’re saying the growth is plateauing but the graphs clearly show the line still going up.
Yeah, none of them (expect for one) showed a true full plateau. Rather, and as I tried to make clear with the language I used, the graphs tend to show "signs" of plateuing as the growth notably leveled off, this is what the researchers of the review study were thinking too :)
This is totally true! After about 5 months of real hard training you are at about 90% of your natural max in muscle mass, but you are not at your max in muscle strength. I was very strong in highschool working out heavy 3-5 times a week and i did that until i was 22 years old. I was benching over 365 and i was 6ft 205 pounds 100% natural.... I met my future wife at 22, stopped working out, had kids, got a mortgage, and was a typical middle class family. Fast forward 15 years I went back to the gym and I could only do 225 for like 3 and i was about 250 pounds, i was in dad bod shape.....hahahah.... anyways fast forward about 5 months and i was doing 225 for a max burnout after my heavy beach for 20+reps... This all happened within 5 months. my shirts no longer fit and i lost belly fat(but not all of it) and was about 240 pounds benching 405 pounds 100% natural... I can say now its has been almost 10 years back(i am 46) into the gym and my max in bench has not really changed i do powerlifting meets and my max goes up and down depending on diet. if i am a little heavy i am stronger, but fatter, if i lose weight the bench is the first thing to go and if i start eating again, it comes back within 2 weeks... That is just how it is, i workout out for heath and fitness...gains stop fast, but maintaining gains becomes the main focus, also you don't need to do as much work as you think you need to do. just do deadlift, squats, bench, military press, and pullups. I played the game of more work = more gains, and that is not true at all... Smart work in less time keeps you from burning out and your gains will not be any different. on leg day i just do squats, on back day i just do deadlifts(you don't need to do the machines or lat pulls if you do deadlifts) , on chest day i do banch and sholder press.... I will do triceps extensions on chest day also.... I am typically the strongest guy in the gym and lots of guys come to me and ask how i got so strong, I say i just lift heave and eat protean and carbs..I no longer take pre-workouts or much of any supplements... If i am training for a powerlifting meet, i will take protein powder and creatine, but that is about it... I take a week or 2 off after every powerlifting meet to deload and what i lost will be back within a week, meaning i lost nothing. I am 46 years old and people tell me i look good for my age, but i do have a belly now, that i am starting to lose and to lose weight the number one thing is to remember you will get weaker and thats ok, because it does come back when you increase carbs and food... We are a machine and there is not magic workout, there might be steroids but it seems like the youtube commuity is starting to switch gears because of all the people that have died over the last few years. It is amazing that youtubers are finally talking about not taking gear and staying natural... So that is very good.
bullshit, nobody is gonna accomplish 90% of their natural maximal muscle mass in 6 months
@@HH-io9vh I disagree. They are talking muscle mass not max strength and there is a difference. I have been lifting for years and can tell you the most gains you will ever get are the first few months of working out that is if you are working out correctly. You can get stronger, but even that your only talking maybe 10-20% at most over the years. I am not talking powerlifting where good form alone will add 50 pounds to a lift. I am talking raw stupid strength where you can max out on how many times you can squat 315 or bench 275 for reps. Example of this is if you to a powerlifting class people most always add a few pounds to their lifts in just one class... Did they grow muscle or get stronger? Nope! it was just form.
The reality is most people never reach their natural limits because they do not know how to workout to reach their natural potential. So you will see people going to the gym doing the same workout looking like a normal dude and all of a sudden over the next few weeks the guy who has been busting his but at the gym for years looks different after just a month... What changed? Maybe a cycle or maybe he figured out how to workout and and eating high protein...
I took a normal guy who worked out for over 25 years he was in his 50s and always wanted to bench 315 and I told him it will take you 3 months if you listen to me... Well he did and he benched 320 100% natural and was 55 years old and weighed about 180 pounds. He just needed to teach his muscles what 315 felt like and it took a few months. Did he gain 10 pounds of muscle...I do not think so, he just worked out for weight....
what was your advice? I could use it!
How encouraging.
Menno Henselmans says that he is able to add about 1 pound (450 grams) of muscle per year as a natural, even after training for years. I'm guessing diet and programming play a HUGE part in this.
Wow, very interesting to hear. Shout out to Menno!
I would love to see your breakdown of carb refeeds
From my observation,I tried biceps curls when in 7th grade and hardly noticed small gains and muscles become,hard and strength increased.later I dropped training ,to this day my arms grown small gains.
Just as what I was looking for.
Great to hear :)
Nutrition certainly is critical. I plateaued when I switched to eating just by hunger because I got tired of eating a lot trying to get protein thorough natural sources alone, but after a few weeks of plateau, I added whey protein and increased diet a bit and my weight jumped up in 10 days what was previously taking a month or more and increased enough to rise back up to my 6-month trendline; almost as if the muscle was all trained and just waiting for the fuel to grow.
Awesome, very interesting to hear. Thank you for sharing dude!!!
Once again a great video.
Do you think that when you take a break from strength training, you also have to give up cardio so that your body becomes more sensitive to muscle building again?
Difficult to say as there's no research, but I would speculate cardio would be fine :)
This is making me feel both relieved and defeated 🤷🏼♂️
Wait, why defeated?
A sincere THANKS to You for more clearly explaining what, and what did not go into this research study claiming the muscle growth plateaus only three month after resistance training has begun. I fully agree with you that this Study is flawed by leaving out vital training and nutritional techniques the have a significant effect on longer term hypertrophy. You have done an outstanding service to the Lifting and Resistance Training Community. Again, THANK YOU and BRAVO!
Thank YOU so much for your kind words my friend, they truly mean a lot to me!
Team3DAlpha literally implemented the training breaks in his Nucleus Overload program in having a 1 week break after 4 weeks, in order to reset mTOR sensitivity. As he says, "the science will catch up."
Interesting!
Your Channel is amazing! i love your work, no one comes close to it. I have a question in mind that i have been looking for an answer for a while and i believe you are the right guy for it. So i started training recently after a long pause. I have done the 2 times per week muscle group training and i have seen tremendous results. I am putting muscles and losing fat at the same time and the results are stacking up quickly. I train 5 days peer week, and it's been around 3 consistent months and i lost 12 kg and put on 1.5 kg of muscles. Recently i started feeling exhausted can't drag myself to training and i have been reading that taking a week off each 2-4 months if recommended i like to check your take on it what do you think ? I would like to add that also my appetite is well under control when i started being at 130kg i had not control whatever comes to mind or in sight i would eat.
Thank YOU for those kind words!
I'd say it might be best to take a break if you're feeling tired and unmotivated. Breaks are most likely not going to hurt you, in fact, it could actually be beneficial for long-term gainz: ua-cam.com/video/cBzaFBVVs50/v-deo.html
If you put these in podcast format that would be awesome!
I'll look into that! problem though is some of my language in the video directs to video content, such as "subjects trained with these variables" and the variables are shown in the animation
I've been getting back into working out and I'm surprised by how quickly I am building muscle. But I totally forgot about the plateau that inevitably comes.
It makes sense. Your body replies to stimuli, and you progressively add more stimuli as you add more work. You can't progressively add more rest to compensate, so your recovery time between workouts and the amount of stimuli needed.to progressively overload will eventually overlap.
If you slept 18 hours a day like a tiger you could overload a lot more.
I guess its also useful, to alternate effort periodes of certain muscle groups. Lets say, you divide your body in 3 parts with 3 different "effort-classes".
Push, Pull, Legs for example. Push: High effort, Pull: Mid effort, Legs: Low effort/maintenance.
Next period: Push: LE, Pull: HE, Legs: ME and so on...
Maybe thats easier for your mind, because you improve your body every week, instead of exercising three weeks or so for "nothing".
That's certainly a way to do things :)
Extremely hard to add enough additional stress to create adaption. Going from the couch to the gym is a massive shock. After that not so much.
The 'noob gains' phase. The real work is in pushing yourself to keep growing even in the diminishing returns region, for say, 10 years.
Im 40 and after decades of training, still getting stronger.
Method of training is key.
Awesome stuff!
I want to ask about the "plateau". Does muscle stop growing after a long time of exercise or after you get to some muscle level? For example if I would train legs only for 2 years my legs muscles would grow substantially and then it would plateau, but if I after that would start training arms would my arms size be impacted? (Don't know how to explain myself properly :D)
Plateau would be specific to the muscle you train! Hopefully this answers your question :)
I have come to find the biggest limiting factor in my recovery is lack of sleep. I find myself sore for 3 to 4 days during my work week but recover almost fully after a single night of 8+ hours of sleep on the weekends
Very interesting stuff!
COOL
:)
personally i think you have one year of appreciable growth. 3months doing what ever you want. Another 3 with maximum training and food intake. The final 6 being much slower gains. If anyone gets gains over 3 years or more I would suggest they simply werent training hard enough or lacked knowledge in the first year and it took them longer to reach peak. I would also pose this hypertrophy house, a known strength "guru"christian thibaudeau once said, often times you can focus on one part and get it a little bigger at the expense of other parts. Almost as if your body has a maximum sustainable total size that it is controlling but within this size bracket it will allow for small gains here and there, at the expense of elsewhere. Now what I think is happening there is simply you up volume for one part at the expense of focus on another but I find this phenomenon to also be true and this is where people think they are making non stop gains when really its just gaining one body part at a time instead of the entire body reaching absolute max at once. Ive noticed a lot of young guys can do very very good training for one particular exercise, that being bench press, and yet then I will see them move over to triceps and not apply the same kind of effort or lift near as much weight comparitively. These same kids might say they got great gains for a year, all in bench and chest and then if you said to them, hey, your tricep training is lacklustre, they might then think they are making tricep gains the next year, and they are, but really it was just that in the first year, there were gains left on the table as they only focussed on one exercise.
I mostly agree with that, with the qualification that 'leaving gains on the table' is just bodybuilding reality. I doubt there's been a single person in the entire history of lifting weights that hasn't left gains on the table in the first year. When you're that new to it, you just don't know anything (although you often think you do). People's heads are full of fantasies or bad advice or simple cluelessness. My guess is that, for the vast majority, this condition (ignorance) persists much longer than one year.
This just explains why linear periodization works for newbies up to a point. THey then have to follow a dedicated program based on their goals.
Hey, in a past video you said that the bench press doesn't recruit the long head of the triceps very well but the overhead press might -> why is that? Has it something to do w/ the increased shoulder elevation? But the shoulder still flexes w/ simultaneous elbow extension during an OHP. Great uploads btw.
Thank You!
My thinking is this: the long triceps head is involved in shoulder extension (bringing the arm behind the body). This movement occurs notably more in the lowering phase of the bench press (meaning the long head shortens during the lowering phase and cannot fully contract and contribute to the lifting phase). It occurs not so much in the overhead press, maybe meaning the long head can contribute well.
However, I'm still uncertain whether the latter part is correct (the overhead press recruits the long head well), hopefully we get research on it :)
Exercises seem to get stale, but I'd be surprised to find out that goes for every exercise hitting that muscle as well
@HouseofHypertrophy do you have Patreon or option to tip you on YT? You put such a good content I'd like to support you.
Hey dude, I currently don't have either of those things. I really appreciate that you want to support, but don't sweat it, haha :)
Good video most seem to experience newbie gains but gains seem to drastically slow after that period I think it's hard to but a exact date on how long that period last! I think 80% of muscle building potential is genetics! Some can get big strong and look good by working out half ass and not even eating right and some could workout diet and even use PEDS and still not look like they ever been to a gym! Genetics isn't everything but by far the biggest factor in my opinion!
So after 6-8 weeks of starting a program you should get on a cycle haha
Great video!
This is interesting because its been my experience. First 3 months went from 120-140 without doing anything about my eating. avg 1500-2000cal and about 60g protein. plateaued for a year and half. Was deloading, taking weeks off, changing volume etc and couldn't budge anything. Even lifts plateaued. Boosted my cal and protein and went up to 160 in about 4 months...mostly fat. Went from about 9% to 15% fat. Took a few years off. Started again at 155 and went to 185 in about 3 months. Body fat well over 15%. Just finished a 6 month cut down to a tight 165.
Its been so consistent that I'm wondering if I should take a few months off before trying to hit my final goal weight at about 180 at 10%ish. I don't know if its a muscle memory+ resensitization thing.
Very interesting to hear!
How's your proximity to failure during your training. Do you train to faliure, or leave a couple reps in reserve (if so how much)?
This means your diet + training + sleep isn’t dialed in . You should be gaining a pound or two at least a year after hitting the newbie gain plateau
Can you make a video about the best leg exercises for maximum gains plz
I do plan to make videos around leg development :)
I would say the weekly volume in the studies is on the low side. Generally hard training over the course of 6-8 weeks requires adding more sets to continue muscle growth in addition to increasing weight and/or reps. If the subjects in these studies were doing 10-12 sets per week, I’d say that’s a great place to start for week 1, but towards the end of the mesocycle they should have been doing 1.5-2x the amount of volume depending on the muscle group
Great points!
you should check out studies on whether or not breathing concentrated oxygen during or inbetween sets has an improvement on strength or hypertrophy
Good video
Thank you!
@@HouseofHypertrophy np
This video is interesting to me because my gains in muscle were very small in the beginning, rather my strength shot up fastest first.
I got my best muscle gains as an intermediate from beyond the first year of training by optimizing training.
I also think that once you hit that base level of gains, the gains that come after are much more noticeable because they look so exaggerated.
Very interesting to hear, thank you for sharing dude!
My purely speculative observation is that while skinny guys will blow up on like 5x5, if you are already naturally muscular it won't do much, and better to switch to an intermediate routine once your strength gains stall
That means yall need to be CONSISTENT, Thats what I understood lol
It does but also not as fast as ppl think. It’s often said if you do everything right then after 3 years you’d be at 85% of your full potential. This might be true in terms of the biggest visual difference but fact is that most people don’t become advanced natural lifters. 90% get stuck in the novice stage and most of the other 10% are intermediate. Even I can see a flaw in my initial approach these days, associating progressive overload in weight with muscle growth. Yes size and strength are highly correlated for naturals and you get stronger by gaining muscle but if you do 3-6 sets for a muscle you’re still doing 3-6 sets whether you can get 10 reps with 100 pounds or 10 reps with 200. Progression would be much faster early on if more people realized this and increased their volume a bit faster. And that’s just ONE aspect of programming. Things are simple yet complex
With advanced training techniques you can overcome this, but it takes a lot of time
Is it possible to do a video on how to eat during a gym break?
Unfortunately, there's not much research that can help us here. I'd say just continue eating normally. You probably don't need to be in a suplus, you can be in a deficit if you want to lose weight.
Maybe the reaction from our nervous system to create new fibers slowly tapers off as the muscle keeps getting worn down consistently. This makes somewhat sense evolutionarily cause maybe it was not advantageous for people in the past who were active and straining their muscles everyday consistently to necessarily gain muscle if they didn’t need to even if they were being pushed close to failure since they may need fat for more energy storage. And by taking a break and letting your muscles stay fully healed for a bit you can trick your nervous system into reentering the must build muscle mode
I cant get this video to play but studied the comments. When you say deloading what are you referring to?
So should we just do Trem and Tren and just call it a day ?
My takeaway is to take 2 week breaks every 2-3 months. Especially when you combine it with those studies that show how muscles bounce back after a 2-3 week break (the ones where the group bounces back fast enough to catch up with the continuous group that seemed to plateau a bit).
I would also say, look at pro athletes, hard weight lifting athletes like nfl, rugby, mma. Most are lifting and eating well but over time, look at your favourite player, have they changed at all? they largely at some stage got to where they are and stayed there. What is happening? Like all the variables we can change, protein, cals, hours in the gym, in the end they all reach an upper maximum as far as what is actually convenient to do each week. You can just keep making each workout bigger ang bigger. So even if you plateau, just try it, up the volume up the intensity to insane levels, up the food, guess what? you will get a little bigger, but this routine will not be maintained, i guarantee it. You eventually will revert back to what is convenient , cals, protein, gym hours and over time, return to that baseline. Even longtime roiders with huge nutrition knowledge, greg deucette etc, they all have their upper level they reached they dont just keep growing. Look at the natty, vitruvian physique, he bulks and lifts hard for periods, cuts down, more or less the same.
Hi,are you planing to delve in nutrition/supplements,sleep,naps,sustainability and other variables in the coming future?
Yes! I do plan to extend out to other things :)
Great conent! New subscriber here
Welcome, and thank you!
Shock the muscle and eat more. Great video.
We’ll you reach your body’s max potential and that is what you are
Do u plan on doing a vid on the most optimal rep range to build strenght?
Yep! generally training largely with 5 or fewer reps tends to be best for increasing one-rep max strength :)
@@HouseofHypertrophy and is one rep maxing the most efficient at it? So like the lower the rep range the better?
💪
🌍 *Not Flat
Haha :)
I've been working out for about 15years at least 5 times a week I train upper body everyday for years and I've only gotten Bigger and I am Natural iam 48 I started when I was about 32 and I feel Great you don't work out you Don't Grow I've worked my arms out every time I've worked out for years and there pretty DAM Big when I started working out I weighed 145 now I am at 185 solid do what works for you leave the Science to Albert Einstein
Upper body needs a day in between. Research "recovery".
Another great case for an mTor reset for 10-14 days every month or two
Agreed!
i do like to know about muscle strength growth plateau
Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's much research on this. But I'll see what I can find!
So 2 times a week is better then 1 .. what i wana see is doing a heavy day and then a light day ... like 3 sets of 8 on mondays and 4 sets of 20 to 30 on a Thursday ??? I think im about to start doing 2 sets of 10 followed by a burn out of pushups ??
I mean these studies doesn't really consider genetics:) the further you are from your genetic for building muscle ( which are usually call newbie gains since a lot of trained athletes like basketball player who doesn't use weight and when they use weight they gain a large amount of muscle ) the harder it gets to put on muscle, which is why the "newbie gains" slow down and also social media these days fucks our brain up:) if in the first year of training, u put on like 9 or 10 pounds of pure muscle you have great genetics, and after a few years you may just put on. Muscle growth does slow down but i dont think it stops, since I've been training for 5+ years ( not too long but longer than the average person) and if I take pictures at beginning of each month, I still see progress. And also if you stop for few weeks and go back to the gym, most wont even go back at all:) then whats the point of stoping:), so just train if you want, take rest when your body feels like it, gets back and train harder😁
No, we don’t need more and more studies and more on fitness. There are millions and millions of people who built a great physique naturally. It simply takes a few years of consistent training.
People who write fitness studies are typically not great scientists. The quality of most of those studies are low.
They are generated in masses because fitness studies are so popular these days.
I think well done studies are great, and there are many of them. The review study in this video, in my opinion, was not one of them :)
Explain natural body builders years of progress.
Without watching just yet, I say no way Jose!! How could that be true
Hopefully the video answered that :)
This seems to fly in the wake or common observations. slow and steady increases are obvious with many of my friends. Often it takes around a year for people to see significant improvements
Where are you getting your information from?
The studies are in the description :)
Goku did't know about this and his gains continued without limits throughout many Super Sayan levels.
Goku was right.
I choose Goku.
In Goko we trust
Notif squad 🔔
Appreciate that dude, as always. Hope all is good in the hood :)
@@HouseofHypertrophy LOL as always, dude, all good in the hood. How about you? Hope all is well with you too.
Thanks for posting another great video.
I'm all good bro! :)
Did the studies account for diet and specifically protein intake?
Haha, it seems to me you have not fully watched the video :)
I commented too early in the video...
Haha, no worries dude!
When you hit muscle growth Plateau does that mean you can’t get stronger ??
That would be a strength plateau :)
like would you define what a platou is? The graphs were still growing but just slower so what is a platou?
Yeah, a plateau is a full stop. None of the studies showed a true plateau, rather "signs of plateauing or notably dropping off"
better to do these kind of research by selecting twins , so to get a some what precise data, in kerala,india,there is a samll twins village over 400 twins are born there.