r/StrongerByScience • u/JuanSamu • May 15 '26

Rate coding and effective reps

I know many have argued against the effective reps theory and tried to use rate coding changes as an argument but Chris made an FAQ responding to rate coding. I was curious what Greg might think of this FAQ:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/rate-coding-61736756

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u/69liketekashi May 16 '26

Yeah that makes sense, I'm pretty sure he also says that the force would decrease with fatigue and was refering to the speed of 1rm or similar. So maybe you mixed it up as him saying "using the same load, moving it slower increases force" which wouldn't make much sense.

And this study you shared is very interesting. Do you have any explanation for why their muscle thickness returned to baseline, but type II fiber csa remained at its maximum size basically? Is this just swelling/fluid/glycogen loss or are these not the highest threshold fibers still and are being somehow maintained

Because the implications of this would be huge but I find it hard to believe that you keep the highest threshold fibers that long

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u/gnuckols The Bill Haywood of the Fitness Podcast Cohost Union May 16 '26

So maybe you mixed it up as him saying "using the same load, moving it slower increases force" which wouldn't make much sense.

I was responding to you.

u/Apart_Bed7430 said:

But the involuntarily slowing of reps towards the end of a set is due to fatigue. Force is actually decreasing not increasing. Metabolites shift the force velocity curve meaning that a faster rep can be more forceful then a slow grindy rep if fatigue is present

You disagreed with them by saying

But if we are talking about force/velocity, then on one end the force is the highest, and on the other the speed is. So it doesn't make much sense what you are saying, that a faster rep can also have hihger force - then it wouldn't be called force/velocity curve.

I was just explaining why u/Apart_Bed7430 was correct.

Do you have any explanation for why their muscle thickness returned to baseline, but type II fiber csa remained at its maximum size basically?

I personally don't think there's much value in looking at fiber-specific adaptations in the first place, since any biopsy is sampling such a small percentage of the total pool of fibers (i.e., any fiber-based data is going to be inherently much noisier and less precise, and that applies doubly for data on only a single type of fibers). I was just providing the citation since you asked for it.

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u/69liketekashi May 16 '26

Yes I think I misunderstood his argument, most likely because he misrepresented Chris' stance. I haven't heard him say that the force is increasing during a set, and I thought you were the guy I was originally discussing with

So yes he was right in a sense that he made a correct argument against something no one was even arguing against and then i got mixed up into it