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"Go Hard or Go Home?" Study Reveals Different Anabolic Signalling in Response to "Heavy" vs. "Medium" Intensity Leg Extensions at Different Times Under Tension

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Working out ain't child's play, right? "Go Heavy or Go Home!" this is the mantra of true champions, but is it also the mantra of skeptical scientists? I guess, it's important to say this first: The results of the study Daniil V. Popov et al. conducted at the Institute of Biomedical problems of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow need to be interpreted to have any relevance in terms of the question all of you keep asking yourselves: "What is the best training intensity to make fabulous gains?" The data the Russian researchers offer is acute, not chronic. It's not based on muscle size measurements, but on the measurement of anabolic signalling proteins and the expression of MyoD, IGF-1, myostatin & co. We know that all of them are involved in the process of skeletal muscle hypertrophy, but even if all of them are elevated, this is not identical to muscle size increases as you would measure them in a long(er)-term study. Learn more about e...
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Time Under Tension (TUT) - Random Numbers or Forgotten Determinant of Training Success? What Does Science Say?

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"Go slow, grow fast" - does it really work this way? I have to admit that I didn't have time to write "complete" article, so I will just work out an introduction and a bottom line to a never-finished draft that discusses an - in my humble opinion -  still unresolved question:   "Does the time under tension, which must not be confused with the simple number of reps let alone the set, matter when it comes to strength or muscle gains?"  As I said, based on my knowledge of the contemporary literature this is still an unresolved issue. Mostly, because slow (by necessity) means "light weight" and is hard / impossible to distinguish from the rep-number. The methodological issues are probably also part of the reason that it would be an exaggeration to say that there are only "few" studies that investigate the influence of the time under tension (TUT) on hypertrophy or strength gains - but alas, I have collected the science-crumps for ...
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Time Under Tension (TUT) Another Under-Appreciated Determinant of the Protein Synthetic Response to Exercise?

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Image 1: Is it really time to buy some revolutionary new exercise equipment to time your time under tension? Or should you keep pumping away like there was no tomorrow? If you have been following the SuppVersity news for some time now, you know that I am a "fan" of the research Stuart Phillips and his colleagues at the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, are doing. Before I get to some details on their latest coup, I must yet express some concerns about Phillips' focus on immediate changes protein synthesis. Yes, amino acid ingestion and particularly leucine increase protein synthesis , yes, bolus ingestion of whey protein increases protein synthesis over sipping and yes, training with low loads (30%) and slow reps, as in the study at hand, increases protein synthesis ,... but hey. Do you really give a damn about protein synthesis? No, you don't. Either you want to gain muscle or you want to get stronger and exactly here I am m...
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Fast Paced High-Resistant Explosive Circuit Training Burns More Fat and Builds More Muscle Than Classical Weight Training. Trainees Dropped 1.5% Body Fat and Gained 3 Pounds of Lean Mass in 8 Weeks.

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Figure 1: Outline of the HRC protocol used by in the study. The beneficial effects of fast-paced (indicating short / no rest periods between exercises) circuit training on fat loss have long been established. With the original intention being the addition of an aerobic component to traditional strength training routines, the loads (weights) that are usually used in these types of exercise regimens are often to low to elicit significant strength or muscle gains . This, however, was different in the study protocol Pedro E. Alcaraz and his collegues from Spain and Australia used in their most recent study ( Alcarez. 2011 ). Alcarez et al. recruited 33 healthy men , who "had been regularly performing resistance training (RT) in a gymnasium (e.g., ca. 6–12 repetitions per set, 3 sets per exercise, 2–4 d/week" (in other words recreational weight lifters ) and assigned them to one of two training regimens: High resistance circuit t...
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Bis + Tris on a Single Day: Study Argues in Favor of Antagonistic Training Regimens

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Many of you, as well as many professional bodybuilders, do it: train antagonists (e.g. biceps vs. trips) in a single workout. A group of international scientists ( Robbinson. 2010 ) have now published the result of a study that investigated the effect of an upper-body agonist-antagonist resistance training protocol on volume load and efficiency in the September issue of the J Strength Cond Re. 16 trained men performed 2 testing protocols using 4 repetition maximum loads: TS (3 sets of bench pull followed by 3 sets of bench press performed in approximately 10 minutes) or PS (3 sets of bench pull and 3 sets of bench press performed in an alternating manner in approximately 10 minutes). Bench pull and bench press VL decreased significantly from set 1 to set 2 and from set 2 to set 3 under both the PS and TS conditions (p < 0.05). Bench pull and bench press VL per set were significantly less under TS as compared to PS over all sets , with the exception of the first set (bench...
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