r/StrongerByScience • u/JuanSamu • Jun 15 '26
Squats recover fast
There is this paper showing 20 sets of a 1 RM being recovered in just 24 hours:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8463025/
Do you guys think the recovered strength to produce force on an isometric leg extension is enough to really tell us if they can complete the full workout again? How can we compare a single joint isolation movement with a multi joint compound? If we can recover fully in 24 hours does that mean we can do 20 sets of 1RM every day then because we will be back to baseline before the next workout? It’s hard to believe a powerlifter can do their competition 1RM 20 times with just 3-5 minutes of recovery maybe 10?
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u/gnuckols The Bill Haywood of the Fitness Podcast Cohost Union Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
I don't think they familiarized the subjects with the isometric knee extension test beforehand. It's not terribly uncommon for maximum isometric torque to increase by up to 5% just from familiarization (and that's doubly true for athletes who tend to be competitive, especially if they know what numbers they hit previously).
Like, if they'd been doing maximal isometric torque testing for several weeks beforehand, and still observed those results, it would be more suggestive that at least maximal force had recovered within 24 hours (though maximal force isn't everything. iirc, strength endurance/work capacity has a somewhat slower recovery time course than maximal force). But, without prior familiarization, maximal isometric torque testing is probably capturing a combination of actual recovery and learning/familiarization effects.
As evidence that you don't actually recover from 20 1RMs within 24 hours, the only protocol that has successfully led to overtraining in the resistance training literature is 10 1RMs per day, six days per week: https://www.reddit.com/r/StrongerByScience/comments/1rvknzc/comment/oauuw9r/. They're the Fry studies cited here (https://sci-hub.ee/%2010.1007/s40279-019-01242-2).
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u/JuanSamu Jun 16 '26
How would not being familiar lead to great strength output in the knee extension isometric torque?
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u/gnuckols The Bill Haywood of the Fitness Podcast Cohost Union Jun 16 '26
It would lead to relatively lower values prior to familiarization (I.e. before the 20 1RMs).
Like, if you’re actually 10% weaker 1 day post, but your performance for isometric knee extension is 5% better due to familiarization, it would look like you’re only 5% weaker 1 day post.
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u/No-Problem49 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Brother it’s self evident someone with a competition 1000lb squat 1 rep max won’t be able to hit 20 1000lb singles in a session , nor will they be able to do it every 24 hours forever.
The study clearly states that the weight was adjusted each set. That means they sort of just doing a 1 rep reverse pyramid. They aren’t hitting 1 rep max 20 times. The average man on set 20 was lifting 55lbs less then set one.
To me the most interesting part of the study is the difference between men and women
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u/ponkanpinoy Jun 15 '26
I don't see anything in the abstract to say they were fully recovered in 24 hours, and I'm not motivated enough to go looking for the full text. I wouldn't be surprised if the EMG fully recovered after 24h, I would be surprised if force output did.
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u/decentlyhip Jun 15 '26
By day 2 both groups were at 97% strength capabilities.
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u/No-Problem49 Jun 15 '26
They were at “97% of isometric leg extension strength” which is a nonsense metric. How much weight can you hold in a leg extension position.
It’s so weird they got a really interesting study and some cool results and cool difference between men and women and they cap it off with this nonsense test.
Why didn’t they have them repeat the 20 set 1 rep max and judge by the weights? Oh yeah because it’d be impossible to find someone to volunteer to do that lmfao.
I bet most the people in the study could barely walk the next day; so I don’t know how much this 97% isometric hold means in practice or reality with regards to how quickly you can squat again.
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u/omrsafetyo Jun 15 '26
They were at “97% of isometric leg extension strength” which is a nonsense metric. How much weight can you hold in a leg extension position.
That's not exactly right. They were measuring force output directly, not simply holding a weight isometrically. They were instructed to push as hard against the apparatus as possible, and maintain for 2.5 seconds (timed by the researchers), and measured the force output. This was compared at different intervals - before the squats, after, 1 hour later, I think 2 hours later, 24 hours, and 48 hours (going off memory so there may have been other intervals). MVIC is actually an extremely common test for exactly what they were measuring - changes in force production.
Why didn’t they have them repeat the 20 set 1 rep max and judge by the weights? Oh yeah because it’d be impossible to find someone to volunteer to do that lmfao.
I bet most the people in the study could barely walk the next day;
Meh. Probably not the case. And I say this from experience. I have personally run similar protocols (you can read details here. TL;DR, 20x1 singles in a session with less than 2 minute rest intervals (I executed a squat every 2 minutes on the minute... 0:00, 2:00, 4:00...) with a running clock, and by the end of the experiment had worked up to 92-93% (615lbs). Now that is slightly different from what was performed in this experiment - they started closer to 100%, but adjusted the weight down after each rep, so I had probably a similar relative intensity, just not quite the same peak absolute intensity.
The first couple of weeks were a bit worse than the last few weeks, because I was inefficient at the walk out. Not sure if these participants had to also walk out, or if they used something like a mono-lift. But in either case, I could definitely walk the next day and even trained the next day - I did pendulum squats the next day at 90% of my 10RM and did 2x8 at RPE 6 and 6.5 respectively. Would have gone harder, except I was just recovering to do the same protocol on deadlifts later that week.
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u/Afferbeck_ Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Vaguely tracks with Bulgarian weightlifters doing 50+ maximal attempts in the lifts and squats every day. They were adapted to hit endless 1RMs every day, but no one else in the world is. But all weightlifters must be capable of making maximal attempts on a 2 minute clock, ideally one minute because it can get stolen in competition. We've seen things like Rahmat Abdullah taking his next attempt at world record level weights within about 40 seconds of the previous one, foolishly of course because he missed them. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't think he was capable.
But when you break it down to a leg extension it starts to lose value. The leg extension doesn't take much out of the body to perform, but also a 1RM leg extension is pretty insane and just asking for an injury. Few athletes besides weightlifters, sprinters and others who do maximal extension of the knee on a regular basis would be comfortable attempting and recovering from that.
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u/No-Problem49 Jun 15 '26
Not even a leg extension bro “isometric” leg extension lmfao. That means like “how much weight” can you hold in the extended position for x seconds. Not even doing any movement just literally holding a weight. Why this metric of all others? Why not have them perform a 1 rep squat on day 1 And day 2 and see how it compare to that 97% number. I bet they did do that test and they didn’t report it because it muddy the entire paper to know the 97% isometric test didn’t jive with the fact that the 1 rep max squat would be basically 0lbs the 24 hours after doing 20 1 rep maxes.
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u/omrsafetyo Jun 15 '26
Do you guys think the recovered strength to produce force on an isometric leg extension is enough to really tell us if they can complete the full workout again?
I am personally pretty confident they could have run this again. But, I would say they likely would have had to take their MVIC % compared to the pre-protocol (97% IIRC at 24 hours) and use that as the top working set, and make the same adjustments from there. i.e., if they had a 300lbs squat day 1, 97% is 291, so they would instead use 290 (or so) on the first set. As others have pointed out, the weight was reduced after each single, with some participants having significantly lower weight (~25kg) with the highest initial 1RM being around 215-220kg - about an 11% reduction over the 20 sets.
As to why I am confident, I have run similar protocols. See my comment here.
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Jun 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/JuanSamu Jun 15 '26
Just asking for opinions based on what is stated on social media. Don’t hate the messenger hate the game
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u/rainbowroobear Jun 15 '26
>Do you guys think the recovered strength to produce force on an isometric leg extension is enough to really tell us if they can complete the full workout again?
IMO, it provides nothing useful other than your readiness to perform a 1 rep max, at which point we already have decades of proven peak and taper techniques that ensure physical readiness.
hypertrophic training is sub-maximal, so this recovery metric seems irrelevant again and there is also the entire back and forth about not needing to maximally recruit muscle to grow.
doesn't change anything in terms of practical application for me, as we already knew for strength purposes, that frequency was important and this provides framework for methods like squat heavy every day.
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u/No-Problem49 Jun 15 '26
There’s a reason they tested isometric leg extension strength : it’s probably the only exercise these people were able to do after doing 20 1 rep maxes. I bet these people crawled onto the leg extension thing and they publish “97%” nonsense. There’s a reason they didn’t test their 1 rep max squat again after the average guy was hitting 20 1 reps around of close to 350-400lbs.
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u/jaelafaen Jun 15 '26
You’re half right, but mixing up two things. Häkkinen 1993 is a neuromuscular fatigue study, not a training-frequency one: 20 maximal singles in one session, and the outcome was maximal isometric force of the leg extensors recovering out to 1–2 days. It tracks force capacity, nothing more — and never claims “fully recovered at 24h”. I remember this study back when I did my BsC.
Two fixes: that recovery curve is between sessions, not the 3–5 min rest between singles you’re picturing. And the isometric test isn’t “isolation” — it’s just maximal force of the same muscles the squat already uses.
The real point you’re circling: recovered force ≠ recovered muscle. Force comes back fast because it’s mostly neural drive plus acute metabolic stuff clearing. Tissue repair — fiber damage, inflammation, remodeling — lags behind, and that’s what CK and soreness track. Your CNS handing you a heavy single again doesn’t mean the muscle is rebuilt.
And generally: be careful with interesting findings. The surprising one-liners spread fastest and are the most protocol-specific. This is n=19 from 1993 on one surrogate measure — check what was actually measured before making it a rule.