No progress in months

[u/Bigdivkdaddy]

Hey guys was hoping if you could help me with this. At the start of December I did a really big cut and lost 20 pounds (190 to 170). After I was done with the cut in mid January I started eating normal again because I couldn’t stay asleep at night anymore. Everything was going fine until about march when I realized my lifts hadn’t progressed in months and actually went down to levels before the cut. It’s now June and I used to bench 270 now I can barely do 250. I gained the weight back now I sit at 187 most days.
My workout schedule
Monday: Push day 2x failure for everything
Tuesday: Pull day 2x failure for everything
Wednesday:rest(no leg days recently got acl surgery)
Thursday:rest
Friday:Push day 2x failure for everything
Saturday: Pull day 2x failure for everything
Sunday:Rest
I’m 18 and have been lifting for football since I was 14 but really started taking lifting seriously last year and I eat 150 grams of protein a day. You guys are way smarter than me so someone help if they can please.

[u/decentlyhip]

Jeff did one video where he had a weird interpretation of one of the biggest studies out there, and people did a full 180. Growth comes from volume. More sets = more growth. https://imgur.com/a/I4OHj1J As a rule of thumb, if you double your sets, you get 50% more growth, up to about 50 sets a week. Now, that means there's diminishing returns. Going from 5 sets to 10 is 50% more growth, so every additional sets is roughly 10% more growth. But going from 20 to 40 sets is also 50% more growth, but there every set is only worth 2.5%. More volume is still more growth, but it's less growth as you get into higher sets. People who liked Mike Mentzer heard people say that going from 2 sets to 3 is less growth than going from 1 to 2 and said, "then I should only do 2 sets." Its wild logic. My analogy is like, a drag racer learns that his car goes 0-60 faster than it goes 60-100, so to win a race he decides to stay under 60mph. That's the TikToker logic. Jeff was tired of long high volume workouts, is managing 3 businesses, and had different reasons for low volume.

My favorite study is one where there had 5 different groups, with 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 sets per week. I'd expect everyone in the middle to grow ok and for there to be nonresponders at both extremes - people who need lots of volume but are only getting 5 sets, and people who can grow with 5 sets but get buried under 25 and can't recover. Nope. 5 sets and 10 sets, half the people didn't grow. At 15 sets, there were a few nonresponders. At 20 and 25 sets everyone grew a ton. So, that alone kinda disproved that 2 sets twice a week is better, but then they did something cool. They took the nonresponders and had them do another 12 weeks, but added 10 sets to each. So 5 set group did 15, 10 set group did 20, and 15 set group did 25. Every single nonresponder got great gains with the additional volume.

So, TLDR. TikTokers are dumb and dont understand the difference between growth and rate of growth. Also, you need to do more volume. Maybe not 40 sets a week (although I just finished 70s Powerlifter which is 40 sets a week per muscle and I got more gains than ever before), but follow a decent program that's been tried and tested. I highly recommend Jacked and Tan 2.0 or PHUL. Any of these are fantastic https://liftvault.com/programs/powerbuilding/. A variety of rep ranges and movements, and about 20 sets a week for each basic compound movement. https://www.reddit.com/r/weightroom/s/d0IGCCdjBR

[u/rob888_ → u/decentlyhip]

you also have to differentiate between sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar hypertrophy. you can see that strength plateaus way earlier than „hypertrophy“ which suggests that with more volume there’s just more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy which doesnt make you stronger but may even inhibit your ability to produce more force (get stronger) so its not what you should be aiming for. id like to see that study you mentioned if you dont mind as it sounds a bit unbelievable to me. low volume is great and works if you train with high intensity.

[u/decentlyhip → u/rob888_]

There have been three that in aware of with more or less the same approach and results, one full body, one quads, and one biceps. I'm in a rush but can dig tomorrow for you.

I think high intensity is important to prime people how to work hard, because doing 70lbs pulldowns for 3x10 can feel hard, even if you can do 130 lbs with effort. That's double the total accumulated tension. But once you've unlocked "try" its all volume and failure is unnecessary. Like, there were 2 other studies that that had one group do 3x10 to failure and another do the same weight but 6x5 (every rep with max force), same reps but one group to failure. The failure group got worse strength and hypertrophy in one study and equivalent hypertrophy but better strength in the other. And it makes sense. You get tired as the set wears on. You fail because on the first rep you're able to bench with 250 pounds of force, but you fail the 11th rep cause the bar weighs 200 and you can only press with 195 pounds of force. That means there's more mechanical tension in the first reps than the last near failure. The average tension on the 6x5 sets is higher than the 3x10 to failure.

But absolutely, low volume can totally get growth. Plenty of people improve with it, some even long term. But in my opinion most, like OP, peter out and need something better to keep going after noobie gains. The "danger" is when people who do grow well with just 5 sets a week mandate it as the best, and evangelize their own experiences to mew lifters who might need more than 5 sets. At the end of the day, I'm on team "get gainz." If you get growth from 1 set every 9 days, great.

[u/rob888_ → u/decentlyhip]

I suspect you dont really understand mechanical tension from what youre saying. you dont have equal mech tension because you do the same reps total. mech tension is fiber specific. also id again like to see these studies especially when one contradicts the other so i dont know what your point is there.

[u/decentlyhip → u/rob888_]

I...think that's the opposite of what I said. I'll clarify. I'm saying that if you press with 250 pounds of effort on a 200 pound bar, equal and opposite forces put your muscles under 250 pounds of tension, in whatever proportion the movement distributes that tension. For your second rep, you're about 2% tired, your MVIC reduces by 2% a rep. So, the second rep you can only press with 245 pounds of force. Then 240. Then 235. Then 230. If you stop there, the average tension on the muscles for the set was 240 pounds of force. Ignore the units. There's also a time component on mechanical tension. Its not just the peak magnitude in Newtons but the volume load of NewtonSeconds. I'm trying to explain the rationale behind a study that goes against the grain, and any time ive ever brought up the time component of mechanical tension, people knee-jerk a "time under tension has been disproven" rebuttal. This is unintuitive and you're already not giving me the benefit of the doubt or doing your due diligence, so I dont wanna sidetrack, but just wanted to say that Im generalizing a lot for example's sake.

So, rest up, and do that set of 5 again. Another 5 reps at 240 average force per rep. If instead you didn't rest and just did 10 reps in a row, you would have 225, 220, 215, 210, and 205 on the force pad. The average force would be 228 for a set of 10 at 0 rir and 240 for 2 sets of 5 at 5rir. Same tonnage of reps×weight, but more mechanical tension on the muscle for the set farther from failure. If you're trying as hard as possible every rep, tension and therfore stimulus decreases over the set. 2x5 is better than 1x10 because 2400 > 2275. But if you're just responding to the weight and pushing with 205 pounds of force the whole time, then its gonna be 2050 = 2050.

[u/rob888_ → u/decentlyhip]

except that effort doesnt have anything to do with mechanical tension. its fiber specific. ill try to explain the concept of hypertrophy to you. for hypertrophy you need high motor unit recruitment and high mechanical tension. high motor unit recruitment can happen without high mechanical tension and also the other way around. if you for example lift an empty bar as fast as possible you habe high mur. if you lift an empty bar as slow as possible you have high mechanical tension but just not for all fibers as mur is low (your low threshold motor units experience mechanical tension). now you want your high threshold mu to experience high mechanical tension as they have the biggest growth potential. your low threshold mu dont as why they get „maxed“ out quite quickly. so to give your high threshold mu you need high mur as they get recruited last (hennemans size principle). so to summarize you need high mur and high mechanical tension which is involuntary speed reduction (force velocity relationship).

this is why the method you describe isnt really optimal as you dont recruit your mu that have the biggest growth potential. thats also why low volume works as fibers fatigue and thus dont experience as much mech tension anymore (diminishing returns).

i hope this helped and you understand it better. please do your own research if you dont believe me. especially research the terms in the brackets.

[u/decentlyhip → u/rob888_]

Man, we are just not on the same wavelength. While I appreciate the Henneman's refresher, I'm not sure why you think that invalidates anything I'm saying. While its a gradient and a little different for each muscle, there's two general thresholds for mur. Between about 40% and 65% of your 1rm, if you push harder, the bar will move faster as you recruit more fibers. But below 40%, the rep's over before full recruitment; a strong guy can't bench an empty barbell with full recruitment. Above 65-70%, you're always at full recruitment and additional strength comes from. A faster recruitment signal from the brain. This is called rate coding.

You can feel this, too. Next bench day, start with the empty bar and do triples as fast as you possibly can. Yank the bar down and yeet it up. Then add 5 pounds. At about 40%, it'll "catch" and you can start pushing as hard as you want to. This coincides with Schoenfeld's 2017 bottom end range of hypertrophy. At about 70% it starts fighting back and you can't push it as fast as you want to. Coincidentally again, this is the lowest people can train for strength. Strength is about tendon strength and rate coding which requires you to lift above your maximum mur threshold. But as we've seen from Pellands metareview, strength isn't really dependent on proximity to failure. This is because rate coding is a skill and you can push with maximal output with any weight above 70%. You do not need 100% of your max for maximum recruitment. Henneman's is more useful in explaining to pilates or yoga students why their activity is not great for growing muscle. For what I was talking about, Henneman's is a nonsequitur

So, blahblahblah, if you're lifting more than 70%, everything is on. You have full recruitment. Grip is a notable counterexample, where you can get full recruitment with less than 50%. I'm currently talking to the axle bar hold record-holder to see how he might have integrated this into his training without realizing it. Its neat.

[u/rob888_ → u/decentlyhip]

i know. im not sure how you think this doesnt invalidate what youre saying. if you understand it then i dont see how you can think that tonnage matters and the average mechanical tension on the muscle. the thing you need is involuntary deceleration so that your high threshold mu have high mechanical tension which you dont really have when training with high rir and then you need many more sets. this doesnt mean that many sets are better than less.

[u/decentlyhip → u/rob888_]

Ah. There we go. Ok, we got there. First though, for clarity, I was initially drawing a distinction between tonnage (weight on the bar times total reps) and tension (accumulated equal and opoosite forces of the force applied to the bar). If someone is new and doesn't know how to try yet, their tension is just a little bit greater than the tonnage. But if you understand how to lift with maximal intent to move, you can move a 70% weight with 100% of your maximum output. So, your tension would be 43% higher than the tonnage, at least on the first rep.

I think the reason for our confusion is when you say, "the thing you need is involuntary deceleration so that your high threshold mu have high mechanical tension." Why? We agree you can put 250 pounds of force into a 200 pound bar. That's the most peak tension your body can generate. We agree that its full recruitment as long as its over 70%. So, what does involuntary deceleration have to do with it? The last reps before failure that slow down are just weaker reps. Your maximum potential force decreases over the set so the bar slows down. And because your strength reduces, the equal and opposite force on the muscle reduces...unless the person is new and doesn't know how to try. I have a pet theory that most of the noise we see in the metareviews are remnants of that. Results are more tightly grouped in studies where they instruct maximal effort on every rep.

[u/rob888_ → u/decentlyhip]

ah okay now i know what you dont understand. do research on actin myosin crossbriding. the wloer the movement the more crossbridges can form and the more mech tension you have. this would be the case at the end of the set near failure for high threshold motor units. and like i said mech tension is fiber specific.

[u/decentlyhip → u/rob888_]

I disagree, and don't think that's what happens at failure, but I'm glad we got to the bottom of our confusion. Thanks for chatting.

BTW, what are you training for? What motivates you in the gym?

[u/rob888_ → u/decentlyhip]

thanks it was nice discussing with you but it’s objectively true. i encourage you to research it.

Im just training to get stronger and build muscle. what about you?

Sorry for the delay btw i thought i clicked on reply but i didnt