
Building muscle doesn't require lifting heavy weights - cwan
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/mu-bmd081110.php
======
scott_s
People who regularly strength train already take this into account. Hence, you
will see body builders focus more on high rep workouts, whereas powerlifters
and olympic lifters focus more on low rep workouts. (They all incorporate both
kinds of training, but what they focus on differs.)

I'm surprised this hadn't already been experimentally established. Verifying
this experimentally is good, but it's certainly not a "new paradigm." And I
don't like the recommendations from the press release: the kind of training
you need depends on what you want to do.

Hmm. I'm not sure if they address the different _kinds_ of muscle that is
built. The generally accepted model among strength trainers is that low
weight, high rep training builds red "twitch" muscle and high weight, low rep
training builds white "slow" muscle:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_muscle#Muscle_fibers>

The only mention is in the conclusions:

 _In contrast to recommendations [31], that heavy loads (i.e., high intensity)
are necessary to optimally stimulate MYO protein synthesis, it is now apparent
that the extent of MYO protein synthesis after resistance exercise is not
entirely load dependent, but appears to be related to exercise volume and, we
speculate, to muscle fibre activation and most likely to the extent of type II
fibre recruitment._

If I understand correctly, they're detecting a protein associated with muscle
growth. But they're speculating on what kind of muscle is actually grown.
Since it's already assumed that high-weight, low-rep training does not lead to
significant muscle hypertrophy, it would be worthwhile to find out if the
muscle that's developed is, indeed, different. If it is, then there's still
value in doing both kinds of training. (Personally, I assume this is the
case.)

~~~
Alex3917
"Hence, you will see body builders focus more on high rep workouts, whereas
powerlifters and olympic lifters focus more on low rep workouts."

Bodybuilders usually do sets of 10 or 20 at most, not the sets of 100+ that it
would take to reach fatigue at 30% of max. I've done sets of 100 with
95-115lbs, and it definitely does not bulk up your muscles. The only reason to
do workouts like that is to improve your muscle quality.

~~~
scott_s
What do you define "muscle quality" to be?

~~~
Alex3917
Well with rowing the goal is to generate the greatest sum total of force with
your legs over roughly 6:30 at roughly 37 reps per minute. So it's being able
to maximize that stat given a fixed amount of muscle weight.

~~~
scott_s
Then you basically mean what I would call conditioning, or maybe just
endurance.

~~~
Alex3917
Maybe. I'd tend to think of conditioning and endurance to both refer to
cardiovascular fitness. And while doing 4-6 sets of 100 squats will give you
some cardio, it certainly isn't the most efficient way to gain cardio. So if
there is any real reason for doing the activity, it certainly must have
something to do with the actual leg muscles rather than overall cardio
wellness.

~~~
scott_s
There's such a thing as anaerobic conditioning. That is, you can condition
your body to better and longer well while anaerobic. Think of football
players, or combat athletes (boxers, wrestlers, MMA fighters, etc).

Further, there's more to conditioning than just your cardiovascular system -
muscle endurance matters for most sports.

------
joshklein
This headline is misleading. The answer is not that you need to be lifting
light weights. Rather, you need to focus on progressive load.

Repeatedly lifting any weight just gets your body used to lifting that weight.
This is how our minds work too. If you do a task enough times, you just get
good at that task.

It's not that lifting a light weight would suddenly make you better at lifting
a heavy weight, nor that repeating a single simple task would make you better
at more challenging complex tasks.

What you really want is your body to get used to progressively lifting heavier
weights, just as you want your mind to get used to progressively more
challenging tasks.

This translates to starting with light weights and progressively increasing
your load over time. Ditto your mind.

Where the body is different is that there are physical limitations. You can't
increase weight forever.

Training programes like HST (Hypertrophic specific training) solve this with
periodic strategic de-conditioning.

I personally recommend anyone interested in weight training spend some lime
looking into HST.

~~~
desigooner
I followed the HST routine for all but the last 2 weeks. Started out with 2
weeks of 15 reps per set / 2 sets per exercise and then on to 10 reps a set
for 2 weeks and then on to 5 reps per set for another 2 ..

It not only helped me put some muscle on, it helped me knock down 3-4 percent
of body fat as well and increase my strength by quite a bit. i ended up
benching out at 240 lbs in the last 2 weeks where as my previous max was 170
lbs. I highly recommend the routine.

~~~
joshklein
Great work! One of the advantages this program has to me is also
psychological. I don't get to choose how much weight to lift or how many reps
to do; it's all determined by my progression in the program (which is figured
out at the beginning of my 9-week cycle).

For anyone with ADD, executive dysfunction, or just general procrastination,
this is a great way to reduce the number of "decision points" that give you an
opportunity to break your new habit.

Also: I recommend following through with the final 2 weeks. They can be really
hard, but when you then take 14 days off and see yourself get in noticeably
better shape during a period of sitting on the couch, you buy into the program
big time.

------
augustflanagan
Three or four years ago I was really into powerlifting. I always weighed about
165-170, but over the course of a year I got up to about 200lbs, and was
lifting a ton of weight. I did a mixture of low rep/high rep workouts, but the
emphasis was definitely always on lifting heavier and heavier weights.

Finally after about two years of this my body was completely shot. I was
having all sorts of problems with my shoulders, elbows, and knees. I stopped
lifting all together and just started swimming and running instead. Eventually
I got into crossfit and now do a decent amount of weights every week. But, the
huge difference is that now when I weight train I do 30-40% of the weight I
used to do, but 3-5 times the number of reps. The difference is incredible.
I'm way healthier now, have no problems with my joints, and my weight has
stabilized at around 175.

Back in the day I could never imagine working out like I do now, but these
days I can't understand why I used to put my body through all of that.

~~~
wake_up_sticky
I don't want people to get the impression that weight-lifting inevitably leads
to injury. This guy was seriously overdoing it or had poor form if his body
was "shot" after two years. If you want to do low-rep, high-weight lifting,
make sure that you get plenty of rest and don't do tons of volume. Find a
program designed by a reputable strength-training coach (such as Mark Rippetoe
or Bill Starr) and don't modify it. If your form is good, you don't do more
volume than you should, and you're eating properly, your body certainly won't
be "shot" after two years.

~~~
augustflanagan
You're right "shot" may be a bit of an over statement, but I was definitely on
my way to being there.

That said I was following a great program and training with coaches and
athletes at the University of Washington. In hindsight I was probably pushing
the weight farther than I should have been, but I think that is the natural
tendency when you are trying to continually lift heavier and heavier weight.

------
jdc
Recommended reading:

Starting strength <http://books.google.com/books?id=hq4kAAAACAAJ>

Practical Programming for Strength Training
<http://books.google.com/books?id=A5iWRAAACAAJ>

Both are by Mark Rippetoe.

------
kenjackson
I don't get why do marathon runners have skinny legs, while sprinters and body
builders have huge muscular legs? You'd think marathon runners would have big
legs too, since they regularly train to muscle fatigue.

~~~
nandemo
Fatigue means that you cannot lift the weight anymore without resting first.
Marathon runners don't train to fatigue. They run 10 or 20km. They could still
run more if they wished.

The reason sprinters are more muscular is that they do a lot of strength
training outside running, while marathon runners don't -- although there's
some evidence that doing more than they do now would improve results.

------
ryandvm
Makes sense, but I'd still rather lift something heavy 10 times than something
light 30 times.

~~~
cageface
Heavy weights are harder on your joints though. As I get older I notice this a
lot more. Better to focus on a lower-impact, more sustainable regime.

~~~
sbov
Unless the pain is due to repetitive stress, which tends to be my problem. I
can easily do heavy squats, but riding a bike for 30 minutes kills my knees.

~~~
silentbicycle
You might want to talk to people at a bike shop. When a bike fits you and is
adjusted properly, pedaling should be very gentle on your knees. You might
have your seat at a bad height, point your toes in or out while pedaling
(twisting your knees), etc. If you're using clipless pedals, they'll probably
need to have their float adjusted.

(If you're riding a fixed-gear bike with no brakes and slow down by
backpedaling / skidding, that's another issue entirely. Just get a front
brake.)

~~~
silentbicycle
I forgot the most obvious thing: You might be riding in too high a gear!
Pedaling should be relatively smooth, more like swimming than weightlifting.

~~~
jules
This is the most probable cause. Professional cyclists pedal at about 90 rpm!
If you are doing 30 rpm that is almost certainly the cause of knee pain.

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desigooner
it is very well accepted that low rep/heavy weight sets build muscle/strength
vs. high reps/lower weights.

the sample set is small to suggest anything empirical and to challenge the set
notion that i just described above ..

a nice read on the role of lactic acid w.r.t. muscles:

<http://www.csmngt.com/lactic_acid.htm>

~~~
leftnode
To be honest, there's no such thing as muscle toning. Lower weight at higher
reps won't do this. Muscles respond to resistance, and you need to
consistently and constantly increase that resistance if you want to get
larger/stronger.

This is why all of the abdominal infomercials you see are bogus.

~~~
desigooner
i think the more correct statement would be: there's no way to spot reduce
fat. that's the reason most ab informercials are bogus. You'll see the abs if
the overall body fat percentage is low.

When i say toning, i mean aerobic exercises to lower body fat and weight
training to firm up muscles. maybe i put it incorrectly in the original post.

this is a nice read: <http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Myths.html>

~~~
finnomenon
local fat reduction:
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1463-1326.2006....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1463-1326.2006.00600.x/abstract)

search for aminophylline.

~~~
desigooner
the 1200 kCal diet for the study is very alarming in my opinion. That's quite
a lot of deficit compared to one's BMR and coupled with exercise, the study
was bound to be a success. this following post pretty much dismisses the
validity of the experiment you just linked:

[http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/miracle-thigh-
cr...](http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/miracle-thigh-cream-new-
medical.html)

------
AaronM
I think one has to realize that being strong does not equate directly to
having large muscles. Lifting heavy weights allows you to life heavier weights
over time.

I think I would rather have the benefits of being strong, rather than just
having large muscles

------
ellyagg
This is already well known. There's a whole school called High Intensity
Training (HIT) that promotes doing one set at very low weight to failure.

Periodized powerlifting training starts a cycle off with lower weight and
higher reps to build a little muscle and gradually reverses this over 2 or 3
months to train the new muscle to increase one's 1 rep max. Whether doing
classic periodization or not though, powerlifters know they need to build
muscle, and that means higher reps, and they put that time in somewhere.

I used to do 5 sets of air squats to failure twice a week, and my legs got
huge.

~~~
scott_s
Cyclists often have better developed legs than many guys in the gym.

~~~
anew
This is true. However I find most guys at the gym rarely do squats, lunges or
leg presses. They tend to focus on their glamour muscles and foolishly ignore
the rest of their body.

~~~
scott_s
This is _also_ true. But I do squats, cleans and deadlifts [1], and most
cyclist have much more defined, and often bigger, legs than me.

[1] Well, I used to. These days I don't do much heavy strength training, and
mostly do conditioning as a part of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practice.

~~~
jules
When a cyclist trains he is doing 2+ hours of constant hard leg exercise. It's
not a surprise that he has bigger leg muscles.

~~~
scott_s
Yes, I know. I provided another example to support ellyagg's point.

------
seanalltogether
Many programs have been pitching this idea for years, some take it to the
extreme and tell you that a single rep should last 20 seconds, (10 up, 10
down).

One thing to keep in mind is that you have 2 types of muscle, twitch and
power. Sprinters overdevelop their power muscles, long distance runners
overdevelop their twitch muscles. Your best bet is to try to find workout
strategies to find a good balance between those two.

------
akeefer
Very interesting study, if small.

My two questions about it. 1) What's the plateau state and the initial fitness
level/muscle density? Many weight-lifters have experienced that after a
certain point, they start to plateau and don't gain further muscle density. Is
the plateau point roughly the same for the two styles? 2) How does that
correlate to strength? It's been hypothesized (but I'm not sure if it's been
proven) that strength is a combination of muscle density and motor
coordination (i.e. neural connections to allow muscle fibers to fire
simultaneously), and that lifting heavy actually leads to additional nerve
ends that help coordinate those things (or something like that, at least). So
I'd be interested to know how the different lifting programs affected both
maximum lifts and the number of reps that can be performed at, say, 70% of
that max.

------
patrickgzill
In my experience, you will get better results doing 5BX for just doing day to
day stuff.

I have done lots of weights, sometimes being at the gym 1.5 hours/day for 5
days a week, but that is basically unsustainable once you get busy with other
parts of your life.

Hershel Walker's exercise regimen not only made him look good and fit the part
of a big football guy, but he remains one of the least-injured players. He did
add weights but only after getting into the pros.
[http://www.2fit4you.com/index.php/bodybuilding/herschel-
walk...](http://www.2fit4you.com/index.php/bodybuilding/herschel-walker-
workout-herschel-walker-exercise/)

------
freshfey
I'm not sure about these results. Lifting until failure (also with low
weight!) taxes the CNS heavily. So I'm not sure about the long term effects of
this type of training. Going to failure with lighter weight is usually only
recommended once per month exactly because of this reason.

I don't see why people are backing down from lifting heavy weights. Yeah, they
can be heavy on the joints, but not so much when your form is good. Look at
this guy: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUJFRd4NMvM> (40+, lifts more than
500 pounds, easy.). Once again I argue that people are generally misinformed
about lifting weights and think they are too old or too weak to begin with, so
they are looking for excuses ("I can't lift weights because, you know, my
back/knees/shoulder/eyebrow" ...) or easier routines. That is exactly why we
see hundreds of machines in the gyms which are a lot easier to handle than
some weight on a barbell.

Rules for heavy lifting: 1.use proper form 2.warm-up properly (too many guys
neglecting this!) 3.stretch once in a while - your flexibility will increase
and a lot of pain you had will vanish (google "foam roller") 4.use knee straps
when your knee is involved in any way (i.e. squats, deadlifts) 5.follow a
smart routine (lifting heavy every day isn't going to make you stronger, pal).

------
joelangeway
Nothing in this is new or unexpected. See Ripptoe and Kilgore's Practical
Programming for Strength Training for a comprehensive guide in deciding how
much weight to lift how many times.

~~~
Perceval
I like Starting Strength, but this study seems to contradict Rippetoe and
Kilgore. They recommend 3 sets of 5 reps, whereas this study seems to indicate
a higher number of reps with lower weight is just as good.

~~~
warpwoof
Not true. The measure of success in Starting Strength is 100% based on
linearly increasing strength, with zero consideration to appearance aka
"muscle growth."

As other posters have mentioned, it's well known that high-rep lifting will
increase muscle mass, and that's what bodybuilders do. However, powerlifters
don't care about anything but strength, so they use low reps, just as Starting
Strength recommends.

So if strength is your main concern, like it is for Rippetoe and Kilgore, you
would follow their recommendation. A higher number of reps with lower weight
is certainly not just as good for strength development.

~~~
ashconnor
>The measure of success in Starting Strength is 100% based on linearly
increasing strength, with zero consideration to appearance aka "muscle
growth."

Strength increase and muscle growth go hand in hand.

------
gaustin
I've been lifting without gains for a long time. Switched to German Volume
Training a while back and am getting good gains in strength, speed and muscle
size/tone: <http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/luis13.htm>

Currently doing cycles of two months GVT and one month of more traditional
lifting.

Note: I don't do any legs stuff aside from my ultramarathon training.

~~~
desigooner
when I started HST, someone told me to look into OVT: Optimized Volume
Training. It was supposed to be an upgrade to GVT. You might want to look into
that once you're done with GVT. There's a nice writeup on tmuscle.com

------
noelchurchill
It seems like the biggest gain came from lifting until failure. Even bigger
gains were made from lifting more reps of lighter weights to failure than from
lifting fewer reps of heavy weights to failure.

Personally I prefer to lift fewer reps of heavier weight and just get it over
with. The high rep workouts take more time and are somewhat masochistic.

------
crazydiamond
Any possibility for a thin, lean 50 year old on a low protein diet building
some muscle ? I do use a parallel bar 2-3 times a week (3 or 4 reps of 15). Is
there a regimen that does not use weights and bars that one can do at home to
build some strength and muscle.

~~~
joubert
To build muscle you need protein.

------
henry81
I may be off but I don't think it's about "low rep vs high rep" or "light
weight vs heavy weight", it's about working your muscles to fatigue.

Separately, I know Tim Ferriss wrote a piece on this too.

~~~
AlexC04
IIRC - Ferriss' point was to go as heavy as you possibly could. Or at least
that was my read of it. I've been doing the program myself for the last few
weeks and love it.

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-
to...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-
i-gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/)

~~~
ashconnor
There's not a chance in hell a human can develop 34 pounds of muscle in 4
weeks. That article in pure snake oil. Maximum sythenthesis of muscle is
around 3-5 pounds/month.

------
alexyim
This article leaves a lot missing. When was the last time you saw someone who
looked ripped but couldn't lift some heavy weights?

Lifting high rep low weight certainly doesn't prepare you for that.

------
knipknap
15 people seems like a rather small sample size, but still... looking through
the study I don't see any obvious problems with it. Good to know if I ever get
any pain in my joints.

------
proee
If you're an ectomorph like myself, this is good news. I think I'm going to
change my lifting routine to 20 reps and work more on good form.

~~~
jongraehl
20 is too many[1] reps, except possibly when beginning (or for certain
exercises where you can't safely do more weight[2], e.g. for legs if you're
afraid/unable to bear more load through the spine/knees). Try 12-15 at most.
The point is to keep the number of reps nearly constant while significantly
increasing the load over time, while getting enough sleep/protein/etc. (of
course you'll plateau without steroids).

[1] unless you don't want larger, stronger muscles, but rather more endurance

[2] you should first look for alternative exercises or improved technique,
rather than decreasing weight and increasing reps

~~~
desigooner
another myth out there is "i don't want to bulk up too much like the
bodybuilders and don't want such big muscles" .. the size of the muscle is
determined by hormone levels and certain nutrients + the diet.

------
DennisP
In the military they've been doing this for decades. High-rep pushups and
other calisthenics to failure. It sure built muscle on my brother.

------
ck2
Doesn't one method build fast twitch and the other slow twitch?

So it's not the same kind of muscle.

------
aaront
Yay! My friend at McMaster was a part of this test. Go Mac!

------
napierzaza
Guess what. People who work out regularly aren't about to lift a light weight
100 times when they can still keep it at 10 repetitions by increasing the
weight. There are studies that say working out for longer than an hour or so
decreases gains. So really, don't make your workout any longer just because
you don't want to lift heavier weights.

