Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Brad Schoenfeld on Training For Strength Versus Hypertrophy

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for a new episode on the differences between strength training and hypertrophy training and the similarities, the overlap between those two things. And I wanted to record this episode because I am often asked if strength training is good for hypertrophy, if it works at all for hypertrophy, will strength training, like pure strength training, will that make you bigger? And then I get asked the other side of that coin, which is, will hypertrophy training make me stronger? And if so, how much stronger can I get with pure hypertrophy training?

Starting point is 00:00:43 And then, of course, there is the middle path, the hybrid approach, the power building approach, as it is often called, where you have a base, a foundation of strength training, and then you have some hypertrophy training added to the program. How does that compare to pure strength training or pure hypertrophy training for the purposes of gaining strength and muscle? Well, those are just a few of the questions that you are going to get answers to in today's podcast. And you're going to get those answers not from me, but from somebody who knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. Somebody whose work I have benefited a lot from in my understanding of all things getting jacked. And that is Dr. Brad Schoenfeld, who is an internationally renowned fitness expert,

Starting point is 00:01:32 author, educator, lecturer, and researcher who has published over 200 peer-reviewed research articles on exercise and sports nutrition. I think most people in the evidence-based fitness space would agree that Brad is the preeminent authority on all things related to improving body composition. And so, if you want to learn the current weight of the evidence on various things like rep ranges and how they relate to gaining muscle and strength, one rep max calculators and why they don't always accurately predict your true strength, the usefulness of machines compared to free weights, the utility of compound exercises versus isolation exercises, whether deadlifts are overrated or underrated for hypertrophy and much more. Listen to this episode. Hello, Brad. It's nice to see you again.

Starting point is 00:02:25 My pleasure, Mike. You too. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. So we're here to talk about strength training and I guess you could say versus hypertrophy, but particularly about strength training and how that differs from hypertrophy training. And I think maybe a good place to start this discussion is almost like a definition of terms. What does that really mean? Practically speaking, how does your training, your programming differ if you're primary goal is to get stronger versus to get bigger muscles? And the confusion that I see that people reach out to me and they ask about

Starting point is 00:03:06 is usually it's something along the lines of, well, Mike, aren't bigger muscles stronger? Like generally speaking, isn't that the best way to get stronger is just get bigger. So wouldn't hypertrophy training naturally just make you stronger? And so that's the type of question I often get asked. And then usually there are follow-up questions when they look at strength programs. They don't quite understand why they're set up the way they are and how that produces more strength than maybe a typical bodybuilding program over time. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. So first of all, I'll answer the question as to the transfer of hypertrophy to strength. And there certainly is a relationship between hypertrophy and strength. So if you get bigger, as a general rule, you're going to get stronger

Starting point is 00:04:01 to a degree. However, it is certainly also not, this is quite clear, it's not a linear improvement. So if you get X amount of hypertrophy, it's not going to mean you get X amount of strength. Generally, strength has other components that go into it, so it's going to be X plus for strength. And, I mean, there's multiple factors and mostly neurological factors. So the recruitment aspect, but rate code, things like the firing frequency, coordination, the synergism between muscle synchronization, not only muscles, within muscles as well, within fibers.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Again, it's a highly nuanced, most applied research and applied aspects of training are nuanced. And certainly that's the case. So now to answer your question as to what are the general differences, there are some. I mean, it's not, the differences aren't huge because a certain amount of quote unquote strength training is going to get you bigger and a certain amount of hypertrophy training will get you stronger as well. So if you want to maximize, like if you're a powerlifter, you're not going to train like a bodybuilder. And if you're a bodybuilder, you're not going to train like a powerlifter. And again, now I want to also go down different rabbit holes here, but strength depends upon what your definition of strength is. Yeah, is it maximal strength? So the maximal amount of your maximal

Starting point is 00:05:26 ability to move a weight once and maximal dynamic strength versus isometric strength. So the ability to push against a immovable object, you know, produce force maximally in that context versus dynamically moving something concentrically and or perhaps eccentrically. And also, is it endurance strength? So the amount of the, which is the ability to have submaximal force carried out over time. So there's different, even with that, qualifications of strength, assuming that most people do take the opinion or take the focus of saying that strength is the maximal amount of

Starting point is 00:06:08 dynamic movement that you can accomplish once and not more, which is equivalent to a 1RM. Generally speaking, you're going to need to train with very heavy loads, one to five repetitions. And the amount of volume needs to be less as a general rule. Whereas for hypertrophy, it's going to have more to do with the volume that you're performing. You can achieve maximal hypertrophy across a very wide spectrum of loading ranges. And hypothetically, training within different repetition zones might be an optimal strategy in that regard. So again, that's kind of a short course, but there's certainly a lot of other factors that if you're looking to maximize your maximal strength, that would go into it versus maximizing hypertrophy.

Starting point is 00:06:58 I'd like to take one of those things you said, and let's focus on that briefly, those things you said, and let's focus on that briefly, just because it's a question that I've gotten many times. And it has to do with that specificity point of doing a lot of, let's say, ones to fives. People will ask me, why is it that if I do a lot of more traditional hypertrophy training and I'm gaining strength in that rep range. So I could squat X pounds for 10 reps close to muscular failure. And then I work at it for six months and now it's, you know, whatever, plus 10% or whatever I've whatever I've gained. But then I plug my numbers into an estimated one RM calculator and I try to go do a triple or a double, not even necessarily a one or M, just a heavy set.

Starting point is 00:07:45 And I have not been training in that rep range. And it's too heavy. I can't. It says I should be able to get three or maybe four and I can get one and I have to grind it out. What's going on? Yeah. So first of all, those regression equations are highly individual. And there's a lot of problems.

Starting point is 00:08:03 First of all, they're exercise. They're not specific to exercises. So a squat would be different than a bench press, which would be different than a leg extension, let's say. Multi-joint versus single joint in different individuals. And just to give you a, for instance, our lab carried out a study years ago now, but we looked at the leg press in resistance-trained individuals. I think they had an average of five years resistance training experience, and everyone had over a year. They did two conditions. One was 75% of their 1RM, so we tested their 1RM initially in the leg press.

Starting point is 00:08:47 Then we did 75% 1RM, and we did 30% of 1RM. So basically we were looking at EMG activity in light versus heavier load training. The range, this is really just opened my eyes, but the range of repetitions that they got at 75% was seven to 21, I believe. So it was, I think, 12 subjects. So one of them only got seven reps at their 75% 1RM, another got 21. And at 30% 1RM, it was something like 20 to 72 reps. So the spectrum of, you know, so just shows you that regressing, these regression equations are very, they look to, they look to have the means. So they'll say this is what the average person's going to do. But there's a lot of issues when you're looking to use that for the general public. Especially if somebody is just not average, they're below average or they're above average,

Starting point is 00:09:38 and it doesn't work well for them. That's what average means is that you're combining people at the low and the high. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a point that I like to make sometimes for people who don't spend much time with scientific research and they don't think of that, that we're looking at averages here and sometimes looking at outliers can be just as informative. I mean, with an average, you're generally going to get a cluster around the mean. So if you have a mean of, let's say, 10 reps at a given load, you're going to get, you know, 60% of the subjects will be within a very close proximity. Then you start going out a little more and you'll be between 8 to 12 and then 6 to, you know, 15 or something. So, and like you said, there are quote unquote outliers that are going to be extreme ranges of these values. So with that said, the mechanistically as to why, so if you're then

Starting point is 00:10:33 asking what are the mechanisms, why you're not going to necessarily see that, it's not entirely clear, but it does seem that training with heavy loads can give you, from a speculative standpoint, that training with heavy loads can give you, from a speculative standpoint, feeling a weight, a heavy load, just has a different, when you feel a weight and then train with it, you're able to generate a certain sense of how to move that weight a lot better than you are when you're getting submaximal, when you're using a submaximal load. And that seems to account at least for a good portion of that, is that actually, well, certainly your 1RM will go up in our research and all research. I mean, it shows clearly that training at a 10RM will improve your 1RM, at least on average. But to really maximize that,

Starting point is 00:11:18 you're going to need to train with heavier loads. And the more well-trained you get, the more important it is to train at heavier loads, at lower percentages. I'm sorry, higher percentages of your 1RF. Yeah, lower reps per set. Lower reps, exactly. And as far as volume goes, another question I often get is, okay, so if let's say doing a lot of 4s and fives and sixes is good for getting stronger, and it also can produce hypertrophy just as well theoretically as more traditional hypertrophy training, higher rep, why don't I just do a bunch of fours and fives and sixes to get the best of

Starting point is 00:12:00 both worlds? Well, first of all, it's not clear that you can, on a set-equated basis, that that is going to be the case. Within certain loading ranges, when you start getting over six and probably eight, then you start to see somewhat of an equating effect. But certainly, we've done a study out of our lab that showed that training with two to four reps at an equal set number did not provide equal hypertrophy. It produced greater strength, but the hypertrophy was less. So there does seem to be something to an effect of a quote-unquote time under tension, and certainly at very heavy loads. And it is possible there is some evidence that there might be additive effects of training at,

Starting point is 00:12:44 from a hypertrophy standpoint, training with somewhat heavier loads and somewhat lighter loads. So doing maybe some rep ranges within the 15 to 20 plus range and some reps within the, let's say, 6 to 10 range. And why might that be? So again, when you're asking mechanistically, not entirely clear, but speculatively, there might be differences in fiber type specific hypertrophy. So it could be that the lighter load training is stimulating the type 1 fibers to a greater extent because type 1 fibers are more endurance oriented and maybe need higher TUTs to develop optimally, and vice versa, the heavier loads may target the highest threshold motor units to a greater degree.

Starting point is 00:13:33 Again, that is not well-defined, but I'm speculating on mechanistically, because we have some evidence from some of the research that I've collaborated on. I want to also make clear that it's not you're going to get huge doing one versus the other. We're talking more nuances where a bodybuilder, it would be more important to a bodybuilder and probably of little relevance to your average gym goer. So this is where context comes in. If you're just the average guy or gal who's looking to increase their muscle and gain some strength, one of the things that I love as a bro and as a former bodybuilder,

Starting point is 00:14:13 to optimize hypertrophy, just aren't going to be that important. When we talk about these things, they might think that it's going to be very important for them when it's, again, context-specific. The difference in getting an extra pound of muscle over time probably has little relevance to a stockbroker or a insurance salesperson versus a bodybuilder. Yeah. Yeah. That's an important point. I would say that at least most of the people who are in my orbit, people I've heard from over the years. These are, like you said, these are people who fitness is not their entire life. They don't do this as a full-time job. And on average, the average guy who finds their way to me is probably looking to,

Starting point is 00:14:56 if you take a normal body comp, he's looking to gain 25-ish pounds, maybe 30 pounds of muscle, and that's it. That's the look he wants. He wants to bring his body fat probably somewhere between 10% and 15% look athletic. And females, maybe 15 pounds of muscle in the right places on their body, 20% and 25% body fat. And what's great about that is those goals represent physiques and fit healthy physiques. And there are many different ways to get there. You could get there with just pure strength training if you enjoyed that the most,

Starting point is 00:15:32 right? Do you agree? I do. And another thing I'd say, at least from a hypertrophy standpoint, is that you can accomplish, if your goals are more modest, when I say even more modest, certainly when your goals are not to be a bodybuilder or optimize your genetic potential, fairly minimalistic basic routines can be quite effective in that regard. So then it starts depending upon where it's a spectrum. It's not this or that, not bodybuilder versus very minimal routine. But when you start saying, you know, this is my goal, how far in that spectrum do you need to go? How much more time do you need to spend? And I would say that with a very minimalistic routine, you know, three days a week or probably 45, half hour, 45 minute workouts can get you a good majority of your genetic potential.

Starting point is 00:16:20 So you can accomplish a lot with quite a modest time investment. So you can accomplish a lot with quite a modest time investment. Whereas if you then want to take your body to its ultimate potential, you need to increase, I don't want to say exponentially, but you're going to need a lot more involvement. And generally, you're going to need also a lot more strategic planning that goes into your workout to get your body to that. So yeah, and then to your point, a strength-based workout can accomplish certainly, number one, like I said, you're going to need less volume to maximize strength. That seems pretty clear by the literature. And can you speak to that point in particular,

Starting point is 00:16:54 so people understand specifically, what does that look like? Well, when you say, what does it look like? Again, now, if you're asking about maximizing muscle strength, then again, you're going to need more planning, like if you're a power lifter. But to just get high levels of strength when you have a strength-focused workout, I mean, doing a three-day-a-week type workout for, let's say, three sets in your lower rep ranges, your one-to-five rep ranges, or even three-to- five, you probably don't even need to do your one RMs unless that is a real goal. Three to five, three to six, you can probably stay in that rep range and achieve 98% of your strength goals in that respect. And then look, and then it's going to come down to some people. A lot of times go in to training like I did when I started training. I had a goal. Yeah, I just want to get tone. You know, I want to.

Starting point is 00:17:51 And then all of a sudden I started seeing results. And then I was like, you know what? I think I like this. I want. Then all of a sudden I started having bodybuilder aspirations. So my goals consecutively started to increase. my goals consecutively started to increase. And thus, the effort that I had to put in and the time investment had to get greater as well.

Starting point is 00:18:16 And when you say three sets in a workout, do you mean three sets per exercise? Yeah, not three sets total in the workout. Yeah, three sets. But again, the focus would be more on compound type movements so you can reduce uh the generally speaking now so again i don't know how deep you want to get into this but um for basic strength type goals you're doing your your big three your squats your deadlift and a press and probably a four and you do some type of pull like a row that can give you the vast majority of what you're looking for then if your goals start getting a little more lofty adding in

Starting point is 00:18:51 some accessory movements can be beneficial and also with some wider loads too because hypertrophy as we talked about if you want to increase hypertrophy that can add to your strength so this is where you get into the weeds. And I don't like giving cookie cutter prescriptions for this reason because it gets taken out of context and how far you want to go. Can you get a very nice physique and very good strength gains just from doing your, I'd say, big four type movements, a pulling exercise, a pushing exercise, and, you know, a squat and either regular deadlift or perhaps Romanian deadlift. And that, that, the, the exercise, um, that was one of the next exercises. One of the next questions I wanted to ask you is, um, why, why are those exercises best for maximizing strength versus taking any of those exercises and breaking them down? Let's say that time isn't really an issue. They don't really, somebody doesn't care

Starting point is 00:19:54 whether it's a 30 minute workout or a 60 minute workout. Why not take any one of those exercises and break them down into the different muscle groups and maybe do some isolation exercises for each of those. Well, there's nothing wrong with that. And to your point, it is time. So I was kind of referring to the fact that, yeah, you can just do if you want to just do a basic type workout, you can get by with, let's say, 12 sets and a workout three days a week and achieve your, you know, very good gains. But yeah, absolutely. If you want to, there's, you said this earlier in the podcast that the many roads lead to gains is a phrase I like to use. And absolutely, that is an option. And there are substitutes. So is there anything

Starting point is 00:20:47 magical about a squat? No. Do you have to do squats? No. I would say if you do, if you're a powerlifter. And there is somewhat of a functional transfer to, let's say, activities of daily living. But even that, it's very, we've actually done research on this and others have as well, showing that the functional transfer of a leg press is highly relevant. It's not like you're not going to be able to pick up packages if you're doing leg press. So, I mean, then it comes down to what functional tasks you want and how necessary is it to have that specificity associated with it? So if you're an athlete and there are certain things you're doing, a squat might be a more

Starting point is 00:21:30 beneficial routine. But again, we're talking minutiae here. So for the average person, I would say it would have virtually zero relevance. And people, I think, there are people in the field who, in my humble opinion, way overstate the specificity aspects, because specificity is much more generalized in these contexts than some people want to give on to. Yeah. Something I've always told people is it's mostly this point of time efficiency, right? It is very time efficient to do a deadlift, to train all the muscles in the backside of

Starting point is 00:22:06 your body versus breaking that down into a few sets of four exercises or whatever it would be. Does that mean you have to deadlift? No. But if you can do some sort of deadlift, as you mentioned, there are variations if for whatever reason a conventional doesn't work well for you. It's just a it's it's a time efficient way to train and since we're talking about dead lifting a quick little aside

Starting point is 00:22:31 that i would love for you to comment on is dead lifting and hypertrophy i don't know if you've seen i've just seen this on social media as one of these little controversies that pops up and it burns for a bit and eventually eventually burns out but it's still burning from what I'm seeing. And that is, is the deadlift overrated for hypertrophy? Some people say it's just bad for hypertrophy, period. It's just for getting strong. Yeah. So the deadlift's a good exercise and certainly it's going to or can promote hypertrophy. So with that said, generally, I don't program the deadlift as part of a hypertrophy block. So if the focus is on hypertrophy, and there's a couple of reasons.

Starting point is 00:23:19 The primary one is that the stimulant in my, again, I'm speaking my humble opinion. I'm not saying you can't use it in a hypertrophy routine. I just think it's not the best movement for hypertrophy routine specifically because it has a poor stimulus to fatigue ratio. So it takes a huge amount out of you. And thus, when you put it into a generalized program, it can impair your ability to have the energy to properly perform, when I say properly, to put the effort into other muscle groups that you're doing, other exercises. So I just don't think it's a great movement in that context. And the other thing is, it's somewhat difficult to get a good eccentric on. Certainly the way most people perform it is they just do it as a concentric movement. And there's some quite

Starting point is 00:24:03 good evidence that the eccentric portion is extremely important. Now, with that said, other exercises can serve as your eccentric. It's not like every exercise has to serve the exact same purpose. But I think in total, I think the primary reason is just its effect, again, in my opinion, negative effect on other movements in your routine. I just think that the impaired recovery that it generates makes it not the best movement for hypertrophy routine. And would you say that that, what you just said, applies equally to somebody who is new versus somebody experienced? The reason I ask that is

Starting point is 00:24:45 you take the experienced person who has to do quite a bit of volume just to continue to gain any muscle at all versus somebody new who is hyper responsive and they don't need to do that much more than there are a couple sets of deadlift and then maybe they're doing like two other little pull exercises and that gives them basically all of the the potential pull muscle group growth that they can squeeze out of an individual session you know yeah look when it comes to uh beginners so i i guess then it depends upon where in the spectrum you're talking about but if you're talking about people let's, in the first several months of training, in my opinion, again, I think that the most important thing is not focusing on those things.

Starting point is 00:25:33 It's focusing on getting their form right. So it's focusing on the movement patterns. The hypertrophy is going to come. So focus on trying to focus on maximizing hypertrophy within your first few months of training, to me, is not the way you should be programming. And I'll say this as well, that generally speaking, periodization, while I think it's a very important factor, especially as people get more advanced, you want to go the opposite. So regression with newbies is more appropriate. You want to keep doing the same types of workouts.

Starting point is 00:26:10 So some variance certainly can be beneficial as you get more experienced in your training. And particularly if hypertrophy is your goal, so working muscles from different angles. At the beginning phases of a routine, you want repetition. So you want the same movement patterns so that your body gets used to doing them. And particularly when it comes to free weight movements, which are performed in three-dimensional space and thus involve more neuromuscular aspects to them and for people who again whose primary goal is strength who can't or don't want to do the big four the proper big four the barbell lifts what are your thoughts on some workarounds what are like you mentioned a leg press let's say they they can't they can't do a barbell back squat because it hurts them because of some situation

Starting point is 00:27:10 and and let's assume the same thing for a barbell deadlift or let's say a bench press maybe their shoulders are kind of jacked up and what are your what are your thoughts on using other exercises similar movement patterns with, with the heavier loads? And again, I'm, I'm, I'm asking you that because people ask me this because, you know, there, you mentioned there's a bit of a dogma in the, in the strength training space, so to speak, that if you are not doing a barbell, sometimes it's just the barbell back squat. Sometimes even the barbell front squat is shit on as that's not a real squat, right? So if you're not doing a barbell sometimes it's just the barbell back squat sometimes even the barbell front squat is shit on as that's not a real squat right so if you're not doing a barbell back squat

Starting point is 00:27:49 a barbell deadlift the sumo deadlift is okay if it better fits your anatomy but that's the only that's the only other option you have and a barbell bench press and a barbell overhead press sometimes those are separated and a barbell row if you're not doing those things you're not really doing strength training. Like if you're using machines or dumbbells, you can't really say that you're strength training. Well, that's silly. Now, that would sound like someone who's a powerlifter. So yeah, if you want to compete as a powerlifter, you need to do your big three.

Starting point is 00:28:22 That's the essence. That's where the specificity becomes very specific. By the way, if your goal is to get strong for activities of daily living, strength endurance is generally your most important thing there. So most people aren't lifting the heaviest object they can once. They're looking to move packages and carry them from the supermarket to their car. Pick up kids and run around with them and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So that's restraint endurance. And so I think that's silly. Now, one of the,

Starting point is 00:28:54 to me, machines are fine. Well, obviously machines have some drawbacks from a total strength standpoint in the sense that certain stabilizer muscles aren't going to get worked. So if you're looking to pick up something from the floor, like your spinal erectors aren't directly worked, if you're doing a leg press, it's not going to do much for that. Doesn't mean you can't then do some, as you were talking about before, accessory movements to work the spinal erectors. But the one real issue that you have with a lot of machines, so it depends on the machine, is that heavy loading in machines that start from a biomechanically inefficient position can be an issue. So let's say you're doing a bench press, you're going to unrack it and you're in a biomechanically efficient position, you're going to start with an eccentric and then move up.

Starting point is 00:29:42 Whereas if you're taking a, let's say most chest presses, you're starting from here. So starting from a position of inertia and then trying to move that heavy load. So you don't get the effect of the eccentric, you know, which makes it a more biomechanically efficient movement to then transition to the concentric from the eccentric component. I also find it a little bit uncomfortable sometimes, like on my shoulders, if it's just poorly designed and it really puts you in a stretch, like you would, it's even beyond touching your chest with a bar and then it's heavy weight and it can be awkward.

Starting point is 00:30:19 Well, that's another issue as well, that machines are built for the quote-unquote average individual is the general rule. And if you're taller, shorter, thinner, fat, I mean, it's... Limb length, right? Long arms, short arms. Absolutely. So anthropometry.

Starting point is 00:30:35 So multiple factors can influence that. That you have to find a machine you like. But I was talking about purely from a, can you use it for heavier loads? And then if those are issues, you might need a spotter to help you off with the first rep. If you're going to be doing, let's say three to five reps, where it's not really an issue if you're doing higher rep work. So if you're doing eight, 10 reps, it's not going to be an issue to get the weight off. It really is an issue when you're in that one to three range or so. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me keep doing more of it, please do check out my sports nutrition company,

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Starting point is 00:32:09 every one of those products this week only over at buylegion.com, B-U-I-L-E-G-I-O-N.com. Can you talk about set intensity? And by that, I mean proximity to muscular failure. And maybe even you want to start with helping people understand what that actually looks like. I mean, you could say, oh, well, it's like when you can't move the weight anymore, right? I just have seen though that over the years, many people, they seem to think they're closer to muscular failure than they actually are, where you'll see a set and they'll say they had one good rep left, but you didn't see the bar or dumbbell or machine really slow down at all. And so they're mixing up just perception of difficulty with actual proximity to failure. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And then proximity of failure in the context of strength training and how that, or if that should be

Starting point is 00:33:10 different, treated differently than in hypertrophy training. Yeah. So it's a great question to answer your first question, or maybe it was your second question first to answer what is proximity to failure. That's actually interesting in that there is not necessarily a consensus even in the literature on this. So generally speaking, like in our research, we would classify it as the inability to complete another repetition with good form, concentric repetition with good form. Some people, I mean, I would say that sometimes it's certainly a trained individual knows when they are, can't do another rep if you've been training long enough.

Starting point is 00:33:52 Although I'll say if you haven't gone to failure, I ran, I've run into this. Yeah. That's my point. Yeah. Yeah. A high, so a highly trained individual who, right. Who has trained to failure before, who, who knows what it's like to fail, can say, you know what, I just don't have another rep. I know that. Oh, yeah. No, sorry to interject. I was just saying, for me, by not pushing to failure, like I've done it many times, but by not doing it for a period of time, and then realizing I should be putting some more of this into my training just so I don't lose again, my reps in reserve. So I keep it honest, so to speak. I found that with some exercises, yeah, I was pretty

Starting point is 00:34:31 accurate, but with others, and I'm sure you'll be speaking about this. There are certain exercises I wouldn't push to actual failure. I don't think it's worth the risk, but certainly with some machine, like I think of a machine pole or something like that. There were some exercises where because I hadn't gone to failure in some time, I lost a little bit of my accuracy in my perception. And I could do, I can think of a couple instances where I was a little bit surprised. Like I was able to do two or three more reps than I thought just because I hadn't pushed myself like that in several months. Yep. All fair points. I will say that some people say that regardless, you need to attempt another rep.

Starting point is 00:35:18 And then until that weight does not move and it comes back to your chest on a bench press, or your ass is on the ground on a squat, you have not actually failed. asses on the ground on a squat, you have not actually failed. So there is, like I said, even in research, and by the way, like you say, in our research, really it's volitional failure because when we're training individuals, we're trying to push them as hard as we can. A lot of them just say, you know what, I can't do it anymore. You can't argue with them. Make them do another rep. Now, your question is to how relevant is failure? So I come from the old school of, you know, you got to train hard, go hard or go home. I used to actually. So that opinion has really softened over the years because the literature has, I don't want to say conclusively, but I think quite compellingly shown that certainly you don't need to spend all your sets to failure. And the question as to whether any sets need to be to failure is called into question. I'd say this for maximal

Starting point is 00:36:17 strength gains, probably not. Maybe just, yeah, for your one R if on a one RM, you might need to do that. Even that is still somewhat equivocal. But if you're training, let's say, your 3 to 5 rep ranges, 2 to 5s, certainly you don't need to go to failure. You could be a rep maybe even more away from failure. From a hypertrophy standpoint, the majority of sets, you've got to train. Look, and with saying this, you have to be training hard. It's not like you can – you need to be really pushing your body. That's the...

Starting point is 00:36:47 You can't be on your phone doing your leg extensions. Correct. If you're putting the weight down and it wasn't challenging, then you haven't taxed your muscles in a way that they're going to adapt. But I would say certainly within a one to, from a hypertrophy standpoint, if you're one to two reps away from failure, the majority of literature, we've done meta-analyses on this, shows that that will get you the majority, if not all the effects. Now, with that said, I wrote a whole blog post on this. The literature itself is somewhat lacking in that there's just many things we haven't studied. So the literature

Starting point is 00:37:26 either looks at all sets to failure versus no sets to failure. Could that be a confounder that all sets to failure ultimately is having negative effects over time on your volume load, when if you're just doing the last set to failure, you might achieve a greater stimulus from that. No study really has looked at a very advanced subject. We have some trained subjects. One of our studies looked at failure in trained subjects, but they weren't high-level bodybuilders. And you could make a case that when you're close to your genetic ceiling, that some failure training might be a better stimulus, at least in certain respects. And you kind of touched on this earlier,

Starting point is 00:38:06 which I think is another very important thing. The type of exercise becomes important. Going to failure on sets of squats or rows is going to have a much different effect on your recovery than going to failure on a lateral raise or on a leg extension. And then also risk of injury, right? I mean... Well, that too. Yeah. Now, I know if you have good spotters, I mean, you know, then a lot of people don't.

Starting point is 00:38:33 But yeah, certainly from a gain standpoint, I think that you want to be more... You could be more liberal with your use of failure in your single joint movements, your machine, generally your machine type movements, and your structural movements that involve the lower back and even just more complex movement patterns, squats, particular deadlift, presses, rows, done in free weights. That's where you want to be more conservative. Again, in my opinion, but there's not good evidence. No studies, if you then say, well, show me that literature, this is just kind of extrapolating. That's when we talk about evidence-based practice. When you don't have

Starting point is 00:39:17 evidence on something or objective evidence, you then look to your expertise in combination with what the literature shows. And that would be my takeaways, given my experience. And when you say ending, so let's think about you're doing your big exercises, your strength building sets, so to speak. And you say ending one or two reps shy of failure by that. So like one rep, do you mean where if you were to try the next rep, you would fail or one good rep left and then it's going to get bad? Basically, it's called repetitions in reserve, which is your proximity to failure. In the

Starting point is 00:39:58 literature, that's been disputed too, is what is actually does an RIR mean? But let's take it at that. So an RIR of one would mean you could have had one more rep. You could have performed another rep in good form. An RIR of two would be you had two more reps. And that seems to me, based on my takeaway, and again, even this, the literature hasn't quantified. So you have to try to extrapolate from the studies that have been done on the topic. So that's kind of my takeaway. I know some of my colleagues think it's more like three to four or such. In strength training?

Starting point is 00:40:35 For hypertrophy. Yeah, which, again, maybe it's my bias as a, like I said, as a former bodybuilder. But yeah, to me, I'm more comfortable. I wouldn't necessarily go that far, but I wouldn't also discount it. I just don't think we have enough good evidence on it. And certainly I would think that just logically, as you get more well-trained, that you're going to need to have a somewhat closer proximity to failure to continue to make gains because it gets harder and harder. I mean, let's face it, when you're, you've been training 10 hard years, you're lucky to make a couple of pounds of muscle per year if you're an Addy. Yeah. Yeah. Something that I try to apply in my training is I try to err on the side of being a little bit closer to failure rather than, than far away from failure, just because I know that whether I like it or not,

Starting point is 00:41:27 my tendency is going to probably be to work a little bit less rather than a little bit more, or my perception is going to be that it's a little bit harder. Maybe that's a better way of putting it, because I like to go in the gym and train hard, but I still, I've seen this practically my perception of difficulty and how that relates to proximity to failure tends to unfortunately move in the direction of, I think it's a little

Starting point is 00:41:55 bit harder than it actually is. I can do a little bit more than I think I actually can. actually can. And so my little solution for that was to tend to push myself, particularly with the isolation exercises, a little bit harder rather than a little bit less hard. And I've found that that helped me recalibrate my understanding of what it feels like to actually be one rep shy of failure or two reps shy of failure and what that final rep of that set feels like. And it's, it's very difficult always, no matter what the exercise is, it's like high level of difficulty. The rep has slowed down and I'm grimacing and I can't, I can't just like stoically do the, you know, the final couple reps. And so for, for whatever that's worth, that's something that has helped me a little bit. From an applied standpoint, I generally now have more lean to taking failure on the last set of a

Starting point is 00:42:57 movement so that you're going to kind of reduce some of perhaps negative effects on your volume load, the reduction that you'd get. And then perhaps even using some drop sets too on the last set. So you got a failure and then you do one or two drops from there on selective exercises. But yeah, I do think to your point that number one, I think it's beneficial, again, at a very advanced level, as well as the fact that keeping that feel, like you said, knowing what it's like consistently, because I don't think you completely, quote unquote, lose it, especially if you've been training as long as we have. But there is, I think, a sense that you, I think it can promote some degree of lack of days, lack of days, lack of

Starting point is 00:43:42 days reality. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Even if it's not intentional, like, you know, wacko, daisy, wacko, daisy-ality. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Even if it's not intentional, like, you know, I'm not, I'm not a lazy person by nature, but I just, I just noticed that. And I have found that there seems to be a little bit of transference. So when I was 10 years ago, I was more comfortable squatting, not necessarily to intend to squat to failure, but squatting to failure because i think i'm like you know grind out a rep and then be like yeah i think i can get one more uh no definitely

Starting point is 00:44:12 could not have to have to bail and i don't i don't do that i don't like to do that now on a squad or on a deadlift just because well i mean at point, I've pretty much gained most of the muscle and strength that's genetically available to me. And I'm now just as interested in staying healthy, not getting injured. So I can, can do that. So I can do this for the longterm. I'm 38 now versus 28. So there's probably a somewhat of a difference there in terms of what I can recover from and so forth. Um, however, what I've found is for, for. However, what I found is for some time, my training was set up in such a way where I did AMRAPs every four months.

Starting point is 00:44:49 I would do one set. So I'd be building, you know, it was a periodized program and I'd be kind of building up to a heavy AMRAP on a squat, a heavy AMRAP. So putting 90% of the one rep max, 90 to 95 of when I started the block. So maybe that's actually more like 85. Now, hopefully I've gained a little bit of strength and push close to failure, not pushing

Starting point is 00:45:12 all the way. But I found that because I had gone all the way or close to all the way on maybe a leg press, it just helped me, I think, have a pretty good understanding in that squat that I think that was, maybe I could do one more, not even sure if I could do one more. I think it's time to call it here and be pretty right with that as opposed to thinking, yeah, I think that was maybe one more, but I could have actually done three if you would have been there with a gun to my head, you know? Yeah, look, and to your point, too, that as you get older, longevity is the most important thing in this game, that when you're injured, you're not training and you're going to actually regress.

Starting point is 00:45:55 And by the way, as you get older, too, your recovery is what starts becoming impaired. So you have to be in tune with your body. And as your body changes, you need to adjust. You can't expect to be doing the same thing at 40 as you were at 20. people perceive that to be an obstacle, that they think that any type of strength training, lifting heavier loads, any exercise, everything we've discussed, isn't that more for 20-year-olds? You know, I'm 40, I'm 45. Isn't that just going to get me hurt? Certainly, you can't make that generalized comment. But what I would say is that a lot lot of people as they get older will start to have joint related issues where using heavier loads is going to be burdensome on their joints so that's

Starting point is 00:46:51 specific to the individual just doing some heavy load lifting now by the way a lot of that is due to people who've lifted a long time with poor form and and doing too much volume with heavy loads etc so i mean it's brought on by themselves or work-related things they've done. So you have to know your body, but having some strength training, if it's done smartly, it all comes down to how smart your training is. And I know people who still power lift in their 60s, but again, they have to manage that over time. So they're not going to be able to do what they did when they were 20. If they're smart about it, you still

Starting point is 00:47:30 can lift real heavy without having the negative effects. But how that ultimately plays out is always specific to the individual. Making a cookie cutter or giving a cookie cutter recommendation on it doesn't does an injustice. But on on average, and this is the question I get is strength training. Many people perceive it to just be bad for the joints. They maybe would liken it to running. You know, if you run enough, your knees just don't need anymore. If you if you squat enough, eventually your knees don't knee anymore. That's a little different because running is a repetitive motion task. So it's just cumulative

Starting point is 00:48:11 effects. Again, with strength training, if you're doing very low volumes and you're doing a few sets of heavy load, and it doesn't have to be an either or thing either. It's not like you can do strength training or hypertrophy. You could just do a set, let's say, have a set or two of heavy load training and then do other light load training. So it's not one necessarily one versus the other. So you can get at least some of the benefits or a lot of the benefits of training with those heavy loads from selected performance on, let's say, one or two sets and then mixing in some lighter load training. So

Starting point is 00:48:45 again, this is where people, I think, often go off the tracks is that they have tunnel vision. So their thinking is, I do this or I do that, when training can be carried out in just so many different ways to train and so many possibilities for how to get to a certain end point that really is not appropriate for me to make that type of comment. That this is how strength training is bad, hypertrophy training is good when you reach a certain age. is good when you reach a certain age. Because like I said, if you do, let's say one, a set of three, and then the rest of your sets are with lighter loads, can you still get a good amount of strength with that? Yeah. Yeah. And unfortunately, in the age of social media, that's where people get a lot of advice. And generally speaking, short and simple messages work better on Twitter or on TikTok or Instagram than longer, more nuanced messages that just sound more complicated.

Starting point is 00:49:54 And you got to think more and it's more appealing. It can be more appealing to listen to somebody who is more doctrinaire about. It's very binary. It's yes or no. It's this or that. People want to be told what very binary. It's yes or no. It's this or that. People want to be told what to do. There's two things there. Number one, people think that people who are very definitive and confident in their opinion

Starting point is 00:50:14 know more when that's generally the opposite. The people that have their very defined opinions is this is what you need to do. Don't appreciate the nuances of exercise science. And number two, the people who are listening to them, like you're saying, they want to be told what to do. They don't want to have to think. They don't want to have to be told, well, here are all your choices. You could do this, this, this.

Starting point is 00:50:40 And now you have to understand the theory behind it. It boggles people's minds in a lot of respects. And it's like, just tell me what to do. Yeah. They want the, how do you pronounce it? I can spell it. The pre-fee, the fixed price menu, you know, they just want to just give me the, whatever the, whatever the chef, just, just give it to me. I'll just eat it. Last question for you. And then I know you have to run, you've been, you've mentioned 1RM tests a couple of times, and I wanted that one final thing I wanted to get your comments on. How necessary is that?

Starting point is 00:51:11 Let's say somebody, again, they're primarily training for strength. And like you mentioned earlier in the podcast, a lot of people, when they think of strength, they think of putting a lot of weight on the bar and doing maybe no more than three, probably one to three reps. Like that's how you express strength. And what are your thoughts on doing true one rep max tests? Should, is it, is it necessary? When might it be appropriate? When would it not be appropriate? And when it is appropriate, how would you go about doing it? How often, again, something I get asked about, and I have my opinion, but I'd

Starting point is 00:51:46 love to hear yours. Yeah, I do not think it's necessary. And the vet, no, it's necessary for a power lifter, but outside of that for athletes, I think the, then you have to weigh the danger, the risks of doing that, of injuring your, uh, your athlete, uh, For the average individual, I think it's just nothing there. It's certainly not necessary. If you want to maximize strength, yeah, lift. You want to know your, like I said, you certainly want to know where failure is, but you just want to be able to train with a weight that's very heavy, that's going to allow you, let's say, three to five repetitions, and you could have gotten one or two more, where you think you could have gotten one or two more, as long as you have a decent idea. Now, that's where this is the slippery slope.

Starting point is 00:52:35 You kind of mentioned some people might be six reps away, they're doing three reps. Or they wonder, they're like, well, I think maybe I had two, but I don't know, maybe I should do a real one RM to see. Yeah see yeah so if you're if you just don't have a good concept of your where failures but i would say even in that respect you don't necessarily need to do a one rm do a three rm or a five rm it is somewhat safer in that respect and you will get the same benefit from it so if you want to be able to train in the three to five rm range at a RIR, then having a insight into your three RM can be somewhat beneficial. But certainly doing one RM, now it's very beneficial in research because it gives you an objective measure of maximal strength, which is why we do it. But outside of research or powerlifting, some maybe very other narrow subsets, I just don't think it's needed.

Starting point is 00:53:46 between four and eight reps. That was the, and I was pushing pretty hard. So I'll say that it was maybe a zero to one good reps left. If let's just call it a one, I could probably have done one more, but it was always at least four reps just for this reason. I just didn't see a point to load it up even heavier when knowing what my four or five RM, maybe six was just as useful for my programming, just so I can update my numbers and understand approximately how strong I am. Yeah, I totally agree. Well, we're coming up on time. And that was actually, that was the last question that I wanted to ask you before we wrap up. Is there anything else that I should have asked you or that you want to say before we sign off?

Starting point is 00:54:25 No, just if people want to follow me, I'm all over Instagram. Just Google me or search me on Instagram and Twitter, the two main platforms I use. So I give out free content and my goal is to educate. So give me a shout. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously you have books if people want to check out your books. That too.

Starting point is 00:54:44 me a chat. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously you have books if people want to check out your books and that too, uh, an Amazon, just Google me an app or search me an Amazon and I have a number of books. Yeah. Well, um, I, I have always appreciated your work. I came across your work early on and in my journey of educating myself and it really helped me understand the science of training and hypertrophy training in particular. And so I will continue to follow your work and thank you for doing what you're doing. Thanks so much, Mike. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which, of course, then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you.

Starting point is 00:55:34 And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Brad Schoenfeld on Training For Strength Versus Hypertrophy

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