The Muscle-Building Tierlist - what really matters and what's just overrated

10:50PM Dec 21, 2021

Speakers:

Abel Csabai

Keywords:

training

muscle

reps

exercise

people

sets

gym

movements

squat

matter

building

volume

bit

important

overrated

muscle growth

injury

split

super

failure

Hey guys, Abel here. Welcome back to another video a long time no see, and in today's video, I want to do something pretty cool, at least I hope it will be cool.

And that is talking about the order of importance or the tier list of muscle building hypertrophy training. What are the things that really matter for building muscle? And what are the things that just don't matter as much, even though a lot of people think that they do matter a lot.

By the way, if you notice that my voice sounds like that of someone who has a cold it is because I just am coming out of a cold. It's been bugging me for about a week. But luckily now I'm really at the end of it. And also, I think I will have to stop this video right now. Because my cat is going crazy, Lizzie Kate, I'm going to show her to you. The last time you saw her, she was like half the size, she's growing like a weed. And she's a little bit crazy, but she is beautiful. But aren't all the best women in the world.

So I'm going to begin with the things that just don't matter a whole lot. And people put a lot of stock into these things, even though as far as the end product is concerned, which is of course building as much muscle as we can, these factors just really don't matter a whole lot.

As usual, I categorize things into different categories. So I have a category that is called very overrated. If you don't know about these things, then it just wouldn't matter. So you could build all the muscle that you want, even though you don't even know that these things exist. The second one is just overrated. So these are stuff that, you know, they have some value, there is definitely some good stuff in here. But they just don't matter nearly as much as a lot of people think then we have another category with the title matters. So these things matter, but just not as much as people think. So it kind of similar to the previous one, maybe these things have a bit more value to them for more people. But still, it's not nearly the end all be all, then we have things that are important. So maybe they are not essential. So it perhaps shouldn't be the absolute focus of your training. But they are definitely important factors, and you should definitely know about them. And then we have essential things. So without these things, you will just not get anywhere. And that can pretty much be guaranteed.

So without further ado, let's jump into our tier list. So first thing that I'm going to mention in the very overrated category is periodization. Now that might come as a shocker for a lot of people. And I know that a lot of very smart trainees actually periodized their training very heavily. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with it.

But I will also say that if you never knew that periodization is a thing. And that you can even do such a thing as periodized your training into different phases, you would still build all the muscle that you ever want it to build, it is just highly, highly overrated for muscle building. In fact, I would say that it is just not needed for muscle building. And I would say that's the majority of the literature also supports that. And anecdotally, we also see that that a bunch of people have reached their genetic potential, even though they didn't have any form of periodization. In their routine, it would be a whole different discussion, if we were talking about strength sports, such as powerlifting. In those sports, yes, periodized in your training is very important - for Muscle Building, no, it's just a much, much simpler process in the sense that the muscle is just a dumb piece of meat, you need to stimulate it over time, you need to increase the stimulus as you're getting bigger and stronger. But beyond that, there is just really no need for this kind of thing.

Okay, so the next thing on our list here still in the very overrated category is very, very closely related to the previous one. And that is phasic training or the phasic nature of your training. So maybe having a block of training where you're doing heavier loads, lower rep ranges, and then having another phase where you're doing a lot higher reps. And you're doing a lot of these special training techniques like drop sets and super sets, and you're really focusing on that metabolic conditioning aspect of your hypertrophy training, things like that.

These things can be fine, and there can be some use for it. For one for enjoyment sake, like it's nice to have some variation in your training. But also, for example, doing some higher rep phase can have some utility, if you're really banged up, you want to heal some injuries and things like that. Yeah, it can have its uses. But it's far from being a requirement, like you could train with the same rep ranges, same rep targets from the first day of your training journey till the last day, and you would still get to the same endpoint.

Okay, so the next thing is, again, almost the same as the previous two concepts. And that is just a variation. And here, I don't mean varying the phase of your training or periodized. Your training here, I mean, varying things like your exercise selection, rest periods, rep ranges, things like that, like modifying certain key or core components of your training, and doing that on a set schedule. So a lot of people would say that, okay, if in this training block, you're doing flat bench presses and incline dumbbell presses and PEC deck flies for your chest, then you know, after maybe two three months, you should should change those exercises because, you know, variation is good.

And I would say that variation can be good if there's a good reason for it. So I think changing these things like rep ranges, rest periods of exercise selection, like these things can happen in your training, and they will happen from time to time. But they should always happen in a reactive fashion. So for example, changing up an exercise, is there a good reason to do it from time to time? Yes, absolutely. But if you don't need to, and if there is just not a good reason to do it, then why do it, you know, if the flat benchpress is working great for you, it fits your body, you're billed for it, you're gaining strength and your chest size is improving as well. And there are no joint issues, then why should you change the benchpress, just for the sake of changing it up? I don't agree with that. And I think, once again, there can be good reasons to be mentioned against it. And the reasons for it are just never super, super compelling. It's always some sort of vague argument, which, if you really dig down kind of just sounds bro sciency at the end of it. So variation, I would say is highly overrated.

Okay, so with that, we arrive to the next category, which is the overrated category. So there are some good stuff in here, but they just don't matter nearly as much as a lot of people would like to think.

So the first thing that I'm going to mention here is actually a collection of a couple of overrated concepts. And that would be the feelings and sensations, Subjective Sensations that you have during your training, such as pump soreness, how much your muscles are burning, and things like that. These are things that I like myself, so I can only say positive things about them. I like getting a good pump in the gym just as much as anybody else. When I get a nice satisfying feeling of soreness in my muscles after a training session. I also love that.

But these are not things that are going to be drivers of your progress. And I also would say that it's not like it's very, very questionable to say that these are key indicators that you're on the right track. If you're getting sore, for example, in your muscles, does soreness indicate something good? Yeah, of course, it at least does indicate that you have worked with that muscle, like if you're doing heavy squats, and you're getting sore in your quads. Yeah, I mean, at least that tells you that you didn't train your triceps, or at least you did some exercise that really does work the quads. But the lack of soreness definitely does not indicate that your training is not productive, and is not highly effective. For example, my chest is one of my better body parts, I've been treating my chest for years.

But for the most part, I've been doing very similar exercises. And on those exercises, I'm just not getting sore anymore. Because soreness for most people is highly correlated with the newness of an exercise. Okay, so if you're new to exercise, your nervous system still has to figure out how to perform that movement the most efficiently. And so oftentimes, that comes with a lot of needless movements and redundancies in the way of your execution. And oftentimes, it's actually the connective tissue surrounding the muscle that is getting a bit inflamed. And that is what's giving you that feeling of being sore. Is that a good indication of your training being effective, I would say no, you know, my chest has improved over the years a lot. I'm basically never sore in my chest.

But I can guarantee you, if I went down to the gym tomorrow and started doing some completely new exercise for my chest, even though it would be far inferior to the movements that I'm doing currently, at first, I would get sore, probably the second time I'm doing that exercise, I would also be sore, maybe the third time as well, after maybe four sessions, I would just stop getting sore from that exercise as well. So it just doesn't tell you a whole lot. And now there are some other people who get consistently sore, even if they keep doing the same movement year after year. But you know, it probably just has to do with individual genetics and how their connective tissue is put together, much more so than the actual value of soreness, the same thing could be said about getting a good pump, there are a lot of things that you could do in your workout, which would result in you getting a better pump.

And a lot of those things would have nothing to do with building muscle more effectively. In fact, a lot of these things would actually hinder muscle growth based on our best understanding currently, for example, you could shorten the range of motion and that would result in a better pump. But would that result in more muscle growth? No, it would probably result in less muscle growth. Based on our best understanding today, full range of motion and getting a full stretch in the muscles that you want to train is better than having partial range of motion, even though that could result in you getting a better pump.

The next thing is sort of related and that is the mind muscle connection. So how much do you feel that a certain muscle is working during an exercise? This can definitely have some utility especially on more isolation single joint lifts. So for example, on a bicep curl on a lateral raise, I would say it can have a good use, if anything because it tends to just automatically correct your technique and execution which is a big factor, but on a lot of other movements such as squats, bench press There's chinos, basically any type of big compound press or pool for the upper body or lower body, the mind muscle connections, the utility is just going out the window, basically.

And actually, there is good research on this, like up to a certain intensity. And by intensity, I just mean a percentage of your one RM that you're working with up to a certain point, you can actually influence which muscle is more active during the movement and which muscle is less active. Probably that also changes as you're approaching failure, but above at about 80% intensity. And again, probably also above certain proximity to failure. This changes, basically, your nervous system is not able to consciously activate or deactivate some muscles relative to one another. So basically, your brain is really good at aiming for maximal performance. And it's choosing the path of least resistance effectively. So your brain knows what's the best way for me to get this bar from here to here. And whatever muscles I need to activate for those, they are going to get activated, and you have no more control over that consciously. So my muscle connection, if you're really, really obsessing over it, it can actually set you back because you will try to do funky things in your training. And that will eventually get in the way of other more important things, such as how much actual effort you're applying to your training.

And I would say that for the most part, if you just focus on good execution, then mind muscle connection is going to take care of itself. And if you do a movement, and it doesn't feel bad, so it doesn't hurt your joints, but the form looks textbook and you're able to apply yourself, give good effort to the exercise and overtime be progressive with it, I would just take that as good enough. And if you're not feeling it in your muscles that much still, then I would just not worry about that too much.

Okay, the next one is training tempo. So basically, how many seconds is the concentric phase of exercise, how many seconds is the lowering phase, the eccentric phase of an exercise, there was a period where people were obsessing over this stuff, there were a couple of training splits, fads, programs that came out. And they were really, really focused on tempo training. Basically, the long story short is, as long as you don't let gravity do the work for you on some exercises. So for example, on the chin up, you don't just like drop down into that hang, or on a squat, you don't dive them down, but you actually control the movement with your muscles.

As long as you're doing that, basically, your training, tempo just doesn't matter. Because ultimately, you come out at the same place anyway, like you can do slower reps. And that way, you will simply fatigue more quickly, and you will be able to get less reps. But because the reps are slow, the total time under tension, so the total duration of a set will be still quite long. Or you can do faster reps, that way, you will be able to do more reps. And even though each rep is quite fast, because you're doing a lot more reps, the time under tension is going to be just as much as in the previous case. So basically, it all balances out and it just doesn't really matter. In some cases, it can have some utility, but in some cases, everything can have some utility.

So when you're injured, actually, it seems like a lot of these things only have really good utility when you're injured. But during injury, yeah, it can be really, really useful to slow down the reps, because that way, you're able to control your technique much more, and so you're a lot less likely to reactivate an injury. Also for people learning a new movement and just trying to figure out the technique and the execution, it can be a useful thing. So for beginners or for anybody who is learning a completely new and relatively technical lift, focusing on tempo, a bit more can be useful.

Okay, the next one is warming up might be a little bit controversial. And I'm not saying by any means that warming up is not important. I do think it is important. Although you would be surprised just how well you can do and how safe it is on a lot of exercises to not warm up. I would say that warming up has basically two purposes. For one elevating your body temperature, there are a couple of mechanisms by which warmer muscles are just more effective at doing work. And the second thing is refining your technique. So on certain more technical lifts, such as squats, if you just walk into the gym, load up your heaviest weights and you start squatting, then, you know it might end badly just because there is a certain groove of the squat that you kind of have to refresh each time you're doing the squat. So that's why doing some warm up sets with the squat can be a really useful thing. You will refine your technique before you get into your work sets.

And that way your workout is going to be more effective and safer. So warming up is definitely important. The reason I'm putting it in the overrated category is because some people have such amazingly complex warmup protocols that honestly I don't know if this is their workout where they are still warming up where they just came for some prehab session to the gym. It's just a way way over killing it. So your warmup doesn't have to be anything fancy. Honestly, something like hopping on a treadmill and walking at a moderate pace until you break a sweat and then just Doing some warm up sets with the exercises that you're actually going to do with lighter weights, of course, is going to be plenty for warming up. So I don't think that you need to foam roll, you need to do all kinds of special stretches. And all of these things before each workout is just wasting time, honestly. And I'm sure once again, there might be a person who really, really benefited from this kind of stuff. But for the most part, it's honestly just wasting time, the next thing is actually quite related.

And that would be special prehab protocols. So basically doing all kinds of corrective exercises and drills before each workout to prepare the shoulder joint and elbow joints and whatever joined. And, again, I'm sure there can be cases where this is actually needed. But I think for the most part, this just comes from physios that are trying to make themselves useful when a lifter goes to them with an injury, I can tell you that anytime I have a client who has some sort of really mild niggle, like a my elbow is acting up a little bit, in these cases, a simple modification to their exercise selection, or execution, or maybe just a slight shift in exactly how they're performing the left like okay, don't do chin ups with a supinated grip. Now try a neutral grip. Honestly, many times this can be a perfectly valid solution to a lot of these things. But I can tell already, if they tell me that they're going to go to a physio, I know that they will come back with a buzzing head because the physio told them that, oh, you have like, whatever imbalance in this muscle and like that muscle is not activating and that one is overacting, and whatever, of course, they're gonna say that because they are trying to be useful.

And you know, they don't just want to tell the person like oh, well, I don't know, be careful, maybe arrest a little bit, you will be fine. But I don't lift myself. So I don't know what the fuck you're doing in the gym. So maybe just go don't go to the gym for a while, they don't just want to say that. So they are going to going to come up with some really, really fancy diagnosis. And the client is of course freaking out. So I would say that learn about injury management. If you're a lifter lifting for muscle growth, it's really really not that complicated. For the most part. Of course, there are extreme scenarios like a severely herniated disc or something like that. But for the most part, honestly, injuries are something that you can just work around and manage. But actually, I'm going to touch on this a little bit later in this video. So for now, I'm just going to say these special prehab protocols, corrective exercises, for most people is just way way overrated.

Okay, the next one is special training techniques or advanced training techniques. So this would be things like drop sets, rest, pause, training, whatever super sets, all these kinds of stuff. I like these things. And I mainly like them as a time saver. So for example, doing drop sets, or super setting things like it can be a good way to save time response training as well. But there's definitely not a requirement for them.

So the reason I call them overrated is because a lot of people look at these things and think that this is like a more advanced, more effective training technique that is only reserved for unique cases, because they're just so effortful, that a beginner or an intermediate like me could not tolerate this, the reality is no, like, these techniques are definitely not any more effective. Probably they're actually less effective than traditional straight sets and normal ass weight training. But a lot of people just think that because they are a bit more unique or complex or just unconventional, then they must be more effective. They aren't, they absolutely aren't. If anything, they are less effective. In fact, a lot of in a lot of cases, these special training techniques, the only real question is, how much of it can we do and get away with it and still get maximal results, even though, you know, on a lot of levels, they are actually suboptimal. So I could go into a lot more, but let's not waste too much time. So the point is special training techniques. They're cool. I like them. But don't think that you're missing out on anything if you never use them.

Okay, so the next thing here, I actually just wrote down death zone. And what I meant by that is, there is a crowd out there that is really specializing in absolutely maximizing your training effort. So it's not just the case that you should train hard. It's not just the case that you should train close to failure sometimes to failure, but no, like, we are going to teach you how you can channel your inner hatred and frustrations and childhood traumas into getting yet another rep. Even though you thought that there is no way you have another rep in you. The thing is training hard is cool. I do like higher training efforts. I actually do recommend training harder than a lot of people recommended these days in the evidence base circles.

But training efforts just like anything else in life and in training as well has diminishing returns to it. So yeah, training card is good. I think for example, getting all the reps that you can in a set and not leaving any reps in the tank is cool. But is there really value in somehow still getting another rep and absolutely dying in that squat rack or in the tech squat? I don't think so like sure you can do it. But I would say that there are potential issues with it. Like at some point it is actually an opportunity cost. Like all that energy that you're channeling into that like you could Do a frickin other set where actually you could perhaps focus on getting in a bit more training volume, and not absolutely just trashing yourself with each set that you're doing.

So I think over emphasizing something usually backfires in training, like no matter if you're a big proponent of super high training volumes, or absolutely maximizing the training efforts, or finding the absolute perfect previous exercises for each muscle group. If you become too one dimensional and focus too much on one thing, usually it ends up being counterproductive. And this is no exception, in my opinion. So I think it's highly, highly overrated. If you're training pretty hard, you're pushing yourself close to failure, close enough, killing yourself. And in some ways, still finding a way to do another app is just not going to result in much of anything, it's going to look good and Instagram, and maybe it will make you feel good. And sometimes that can actually be a good reason by itself to do it. But still, it doesn't change the fact that it's highly, highly overrated.

Okay, so the next thing is, since I actually mentioned it is the perfect movements and finding them and the pursuit of finding them. So don't get me wrong. exercise selection is important, it is very, very important. One of the absolute fundamentals of hypertrophy training, and it's actually going to be mentioned later in the not overrated category. But some people are just so focused on it. And they are just so set on finding not just movements that are good, effective, and they have a lot of the qualities that a good movement has for stimulating muscle growth. But no, like, they really have to find the the perfect angle, the perfect resistance curve, D perfect, whatever. And they focus so much on it, that they actually end up overlooking other really important factors in training such as efforts actually being consistent with things logistical convenience, you know, like if you have an exercise that is great on paper, but it takes like half an hour to set it up.

And so you're actually never going to do it, then, what's the point really, I would say, just like I said before, get a good basic cursory understanding of anatomy, biomechanics and functional anatomy in the muscles. Once you have that, you will be able to select really good effective movements, and then don't obsess over finding the perfect movement, you can nerd out on it. Of course, there's nothing wrong with it. But I would recommend that you actually do that outside of the gym, like don't experiment in the gym with all kinds of stuff when you're in the gym train.

And also, I would say, while nerding out on finding these awesome exercises, just don't start overhauling your program, like every weekend, including new movements in it, you know what that's called program hopping, okay, program hopping is not good. being attracted by shiny new toys all the time is not good. That leads to people spinning their wheels and not actually getting anywhere with their training. So the perfect exercise, don't chase it so much, you know, Chase other good things in life. So again, highly overrated stuff.

Okay, so with that, we arrive to the next category. And these are things that definitely matter. So I wouldn't call them overrated, although I guess I could, because the sense continues with, but not as much as you think. So they matter, but just not as much as you think.

Okay, so the first thing that I'm going to mention here is rest periods. I think there was a shift in this in the industry definitely a few years ago. So it used to be believed that short rest periods are required for building muscle, and then long rest periods are required for gaining strength. Now it's relatively well established, simply just resting enough to feel ready to perform, and to not be limited by things like cardiovascular fatigue, and just being out of breath. Like that's a thing that's going to benefit, strength and size equally.

So whatever your goal is just rest enough, you know, don't make not being recovered between sets the limiter of your performance. If you have that basically, your rest periods just don't matter that much. And sometimes it can be worthwhile to actually try to cut down or your own your rest periods and preserving performance, because that can be a good time saver, even though there are other smart ways to save time in the gym, such as pairing of exercises, but anyway, rest periods matter but just not as much as you think. Okay, so yeah, it's just not very exciting. I'm going to move on to the next thing.

Okay, the next thing on this list is your training split. So are you following a bro split? Are you doing upper lower or push pull legs or full buddy? This is something that I think every trainee is obsessing about at a certain period. I think maybe in the first like two, three years of our training journey. All of us like to look at other people like Okay, so like, what are you doing? Oh, you're doing a push pull legs, huh? And like, what is this other guy doing? He's doing upper lower like shit. And like both of them have good physiques. Like, which one should I pick? I don't know, like that guy has a bigger chest. So I guess I will go with his. A lot of people have this mindset.

And the thing is, that's what exact training split your following is completely irrelevant. Like it literally doesn't matter. Because what actually matters is other variables in your training, which are far more important. And your training splits is simply a function of arranging your exercises, your training, volume, certain lifts that you're doing with higher or lower intensities, arranging all of that and organizing it in a way so It facilitates good performance in the gym, as well as good recovery. So it's actually more so about certain things that your split doesn't have them, but it does have.

So your split, for example, ideally shouldn't have a day, which is just absolutely trashing you with like, all kinds of super demanding compound, full body lifts, and you're barely able to walk at the end of it, and your performance sucks by the end of it. But then you have other days, which are like, super, super easy, and like you barely break a sweat. Like that's a badly organized split. In most cases, you should do something which has a more even distribution of the workload. So these are the things that you should pay attention to when you're looking at a training split. And then what it actually is like, is it an upper lower push, pull legs, like these are just completely made up arbitrary terms, like there's no reason why you couldn't have a day where you have a lot of pressing exercises, but then you also have a bicep curl, which technically would be a pole, I guess.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with starting out with a template like this. The issue begins when people start asking questions like, okay, so like a tricep extension, like is that a push or a pull? Like, because like, I guess the triceps is used for presses more so but I mean, I guess I could call this a pool in a way, like, it kind of looks like a pool. So like, this is the kind of stuff that has no value whatsoever. And it only serves as just messing with your own head. So I would say get out of the splits mentality and actually learn about programming a little bit. So learn how to smartly organize exercises, which muscle groups overlap, what are things that just don't work that well together? If you do them back to back in a session, if you understand these basic things, then you just won't fret about what split you should be following exactly ever again.

Okay, the next thing is actually somewhat related, and that is training frequency. Okay, so training frequency, how often you train a muscle group per week. That is how I'm using training frequency here are that's the context. It is important, like, it definitely does have some value. But it is mainly a facilitator of other things, just like a training split is okay. So if you're doing a higher volume of training, then having a higher training frequency is going to be useful. If you're doing low volume training, that is basically just not going to be very important at all, even though I do like for example, higher training frequencies, because it makes tracking your training and tracking your progress much, much easier.

And also, it can have some nice logistical benefits psychological benefits. For example, if you hate having leg days, then spreading your leg volume or your quad volume, let's say out over multiple days can be a nice thing. So for things like this training, frequency can matter. But for the most part, it is secondary to other things such as training volume training efforts, and stuff like that.

Okay, so training frequency is not unimportant. But it just doesn't matter nearly as much as we think there was a period a couple of years ago, when we thought that training frequency and higher training frequency can be basically almost like a stimulus on its own, it most likely isn't the case. And there's pretty good research supporting that as well. Now, and with that, the last thing on this list or in this category is rep ranges. Or I could also say training intensity. So are you lifting heavier weights for lower reps or lighter weights for higher reps, the thing is that it can matter.

But it mainly matters for fatigue management, for example, doing a set of 20 in a squat is just going to murder you because you're going to be out of breath. And you will just feel like doing weighted cardio, and it's just going to be held. So don't do that do more like five to eight reps on the squat. But something like a lateral raise, doing sets of five to eight is probably pretty silly, because it's just going to feel super, super awkward. The shoulder joints can easily get injured if you're not being nice to it. So maybe doing something like 15 to 20, even 30 reps is going to be more viable. And beyond that. Now, actually, there is pretty good research supporting that your rep ranges doesn't matter a whole lot. So you can build all the muscle that you want, using higher rep ranges, lower rep ranges, lifting heavy or light. So long as you're going close enough to failure, it basically just doesn't matter a whole lot.

And with that we arrive to the next category, which is the important category. So these things without question will matter. And we'll have a need to squeeze. Okay, that was a satisfying sneeze, but I call it out. So this is the important category. So these things, not only matter, they are not only things that matter in certain contexts, like these things will unquestionably have a significant impact on your muscle building progress. So you have to pay attention to these. And so let's get into them. They are not essential things by the way. So you don't have to pay attention to them above all, but you have to be aware of them. And you always have to know that if things are not going well. One of these things being off could actually be a big factor.

So the first thing here is a training volume, of course one of the sexiest topics in training. So training volume is often touted as the main driver of hypertrophy. And that might be true in a statistical sense. So there are a lot of studies where they keep volume constant between in different groups, but then they change other variables in their training such as the rep ranges that they use. And they see that they make the same amount of gains. So in that sense, we could see that, okay, like, it seems like volume is the main driver here, because if that's the same, then the other things just don't matter that much.

But the reality is that there are other variables in your training. And this is not even debatable, which has to be in place before you could actually benefit from volume. Okay, so it might be the main driver. But this is just not a useful statement to make. Because in practice, if you just focused on volume, and you didn't focus on those other things at all, you would still not gain an ounce of muscle. But anyway, the point is that training volume is important. And you have to be aware of that. So once you become an intermediate lifter, and then a late stage intermediate, slowly getting to the advanced stage, your training can be only so minimalistic, I am actually a big believer in training volume, not having to be nearly as high as a lot of people say. So I think there are four or fewer people that really require something like 20 sets per week to maximize hypertrophy. But this is something that is difficult to study.

And while we have a lot of research, very little of that research is actually super relevant for people like us, who trained smartly with good exercise selection with high enough efforts. If you look at those things, and if those things are in place, then the actual volume amount needed to maximize hypertrophy is probably going to be a lot smaller than what's shown in these studies. So even if you see in a study that okay, like 30, or 40 sets was better than only 20 sets, like you have to keep in mind that those people are not training, like your training, okay? Like the better your exercise selection, the higher the efforts, the better the intentionality in your training, all of those factors, the better you are about optimizing those variables, the less actual sets you will need in your training to really, really start making things happen. Okay, but nevertheless, training volume is important.

Okay, next thing is not going to spend too much time on this, but technical execution. Okay, so if you're butchering your left, if you're doing partial range of motion, you're heaving the weights and doing all kinds of funky things, then for one, you're not going to stimulate the muscles as well as you could, because you're going to cut down on parts of the range of motion. And that part of the range of motion is not there as a joke, like it actually does something to the muscle, such as growing it if you do it under load, but also you're just going to risk injury, and it's hard to make progress if you're out of the gym injured. Okay, so technical execution, I think it's a no brainer. Of course, it's important.

The next thing is it relates to an earlier concept that I mentioned, and that is injury management. Okay, so what do you do if something starts hurting in the gym, you have elbow pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, your back hurts, a little bit is going to happen, these things will happen to all of us at a certain point. The question is, are you going to be dumb about it and make it a lot worse by aggravating gates and actually turn it into a serious injury. Whereas it could have been something that's over in a week. So are you going to do that are you going to take like two weeks off, if you have a tiny bit of niggle in your elbow tendon or something like that? Are you going to do that, because that's going to be a problem too, because you're just going to slow yourself down.

Things are going to hurt here and there in the gym, it's the nature of the beast, like you're lifting heavy weights, it's a lot safer than a lot of other sports, but it's still heavy weights, it still has a risk. So little niggles will happen. But serious injuries in most cases are basically completely avoidable, unless it's like some complete freak accident, which from time to time also happen, unfortunately.

But the point is, learn how to manage injuries, it's really nothing complicated. Many, many times, you can actually keep training very productively if you just modify your training set of a bit, either your exercise selection, the rep range, the tempo, the way of executing certain lifts. Like if you just do those things many, many times, you don't need to take any time off and the injury heals, and you can keep training productively. So learn this, it's going to be very, very valuable.

And the last thing here, of course, is exercise selection. Okay, so I did mention that there are diminishing returns by trying to find the perfect exercise. But that's not to say that you shouldn't be picking good exercises. Okay. So once again, learn a bit about functional anatomy. Watch that video that I did not that long ago about exercise selection. So you have to pick movements that are good enough that are going to do a good enough job. And you know, there are some movements that people love doing in the gym, that are fatiguing, they may look cool on the camera, but if you actually look at the range of motion and kind of just like the alignment of the exercise to certain muscles and how they are stimulating them, you will see that actually like they just don't make a whole lot of sense.

Okay, so like learn a bit about that kind of stuff. It's really not that complicated. Avoid doing silly stuff in the gym, spend your time well, if you drag your ass down to the gym and you're willing to spend there an hour, hour and a half, then you might as well do things that actually hit the muscles really well. Okay. So, exercise selection, definitely very, very important. And finally, we arrived to the last category and that is the essential category, essential meaning that if somehow these things Were just completely off in your training, you would not go anywhere. Okay?

I see this all the time. Like, it's not something that I'm just making up, like there are people who just don't get anywhere for long periods of time. These are people usually in their intermediate stage, early intermediate stage, they already made their new beginnings where basically anything works. And then they just don't know where to go. And they try all kinds of stuff. And it's just not happening, like six months later, a year later, like, they're just as big as they were before. And many times these are the factors that are off. Okay.

So, first thing is intensity of effort. Okay, so I mentioned that the death zone is overrated, like, you don't have to die. You don't have to think about your family being killed in war or something to make good gains, like, No, you don't have to overdo it. But you need to train with high enough efforts. Okay, effort is essential. So this is what I meant when I said that some variables have to be in place for you to benefit from training volume. If your effort is way, way off, then it doesn't matter how many sets you do, like literally, it doesn't matter. It could be 20, it could be 30, it could be 1000 per week, if you're like 10 reps away from failure, you would not build muscle, like I'm pretty confident in saying I don't think you will build a gram of muscle that way.

So the effort has to be high enough, there is a debate now in the industry, the general consensus so far was like, Okay, try to be at least within like four reps of failure. I think that's that's a decent guideline, I personally recommend training zero reps away from failure, I don't recommend training to failure as in, I don't want you to fail reps.

But I think there is nothing wrong with getting all the reps that you can in a set, I don't think it's like somehow disproportionately super super fatiguing. Except maybe some movements like a squat or a deadlift. But on those, basically nobody's training your reps to failure anyway, because their training would inevitably start breaking down. But I will also say that there's nothing wrong with leaving like one, two, even three reps in the tank, I don't think you would get much worse of a training stimulus. I like training a bit harder and training closer to failure, mainly for other reasons, such as tracking progress, but that's a whole different topic. There are opinions out there that you can even maximize hypertrophy, you know, like six reps away from failure. Now, I'm very, very skeptical about that. But I'm open minded, I actually want to have Dr. Mike Zardoz on the podcast to discuss this. So definitely keeping an open mind. But at this moment, I'm very, very skeptical.

So intensity of effort has to be high enough, okay, so you cannot just be flailing around in the gym. That's what a lot of people do. Those people that I see in the gym who come there year after year, and literally just look the same each year, like there's no changes. And in a way, I really admire them because they keep up with something that is clearly not yielding results. But it could yield results if they just trained a bit more effortfully. Okay, they wouldn't even have to track their training, which would also be recommended, but that's not really a training variable, per se. So it's not discussed here. You wouldn't even have to track anything. You wouldn't need a split just train hard. Okay. Probably it still wouldn't be optimal, but at least you would get somewhere. Okay, so effort is essential.

And the other thing is actually what was the other things totally forgot. Maybe that was the only thing. Oh, of course. progressiveness. Okay. So this is actually where tracking progress can be really valuable, because then you actually see how you're progressing.

But the point is that over time, you should be getting better at your training. Basically, that's what it boils down to, if your training is good. If it's set up well, if the training volume is not way off, if the rep ranges makes sense. If the effort is high enough, then over time you getting stronger, lifting more weights or doing more reps, is going to be a natural consequence of your training. Okay? It's not the case that progressive overload and trying to get as strong as possible is what drives muscle growth. You didn't get the bigger in your chest this workout because you lifted two kilos more than in the last workout. No, you're lifting two kilos more this time, because your last workout was successful and your muscles adapted to it. And that's what you'd happen over time.

So that's how you go from benching, you know, 60 kilos to eventually lifting, you know, 120 kilos, so progressiveness. It's something that you have to monitor and watch out for. And if you're seeing that you're not progressing over time, and you're not considerably stronger than you were six months ago, then, like something is way off. Okay. Like, you should never have that, except at the highly advanced level, like, yeah, of course, like, if you've been training well, for 15 years, then you're not going to be hitting PRs left and right. But for a long, long period of time, PRs in the gym and getting stronger should be a regular occurrence.

Okay, so that will be the last thing and, boy, this video was long, but I hope it was informative. And basically, that's, that's, that's the whole thing. I think I covered most of the things that people prize really highly and think are super important for hypertrophy, but I really overrated and also the things that a lot of people overlook, but are actually quite essential for building as much muscle as possible. Nevertheless, let me know what you thought of this video. If it was informative, please drop a like and so cry for more videos like that. Also just want to say that my Instagram got disabled the old one so SSD Abel is dead but SSD dot Abel is alive on Instagram. Okay, so follow me there please, I would love to have you on there. And beyond that check out the show description if you want to be coached by me. If you want to do a consultation there are also ways to do that. And other than that's what I thank you for your attention for today and I will see you in the next video.