The BBM general model

[KyleSchuant]

My gym has 20-24 people at any time, which is as large as most exercise science studies; you can dismiss that as too small to care, of course. Kurisko's has 100-120, last I checked. Bryant's twice that number. @madmax from RBT says the same here. Several others I don't talk to as regularly or exchange numbers with. I keep stats, they generally don't, so it's their unscientific observations. You can dismiss coaches' observations, too. But if you dismiss most ex sci studies (because of their 20-24 number) and most coach observations (because they didn't keep exact data) then you're not left with anything.

We can quibble over exact numbers, but the point is indisputable: many black iron gyms have women showing up more regularly than men, but the reverse is true for the SS forums and SSOC.

This is not true of all black iron gyms, for example there's a chain of competitive lifter gyms in Australia and they do great with their guys. Why does PTC HQ here retain males well, but Westminster S&C in the US doesn't do it as well? So I think culture is a big part of it - much bigger than programming.

[mgil]

My gym has 20-24 people at any time, which is as large as most exercise science studies; you can dismiss that as too small to care, of course. Kurisko's has 100-120, last I checked. Bryant's twice that number. @madmax from RBT says the same here. Several others I don't talk to as regularly or exchange numbers with. I keep stats, they generally don't, so it's their unscientific observations. You can dismiss coaches' observations, too. But if you dismiss most ex sci studies (because of their 20-24 number) and most coach observations (because they didn't keep exact data) then you're not left with anything.

We can quibble over exact numbers, but the point is indisputable: many black iron gyms have women showing up more regularly than men, but the reverse is true for the SS forums and SSOC.

This is not true of all black iron gyms, for example there's a chain of competitive lifter gyms in Australia and they do great with their guys. Why does PTC HQ here retain males well, but Westminster S&C in the US doesn't do it as well? So I think culture is a big part of it - much bigger than programming.

Point being is that “we” needs to be clear.

To up the level of me being pedantic:

If we can quibble over exact numbers, because the observations are not well documented, then the point is not indisputable. It’s possibly and maybe even probably true, but you can’t have unclear data with clear results. That be science.

Based on my observations, women are more inclined to practice good form and not rush progress, but I’ll still hold that as anecdotal.

I’d also add that if the observers are male, then there is possible observer bias. That is, a (specifically heterosexual) male is probably going to take note and recall female attendance better than male attendance as a result of biology.

Reason I’m being picky is because you’re falling into the same trap as Rip et al with their observations. There’s got to be some semblance of rigor to the data collection effort for the results to be informative. Specific to the context here, there are conflicting results.

[KyleSchuant]

Well I've kept the data. Of course, it could just be that women can't resist me. But probably not. It matches what we see in globogyms, and they certainly keep stats.

*shrug*

I would suggest that a male gym-goer has the same interest in believing that males have poor adherence in the gym as an oilfield geologist has in believing in climate change (thus Rip). But such is facts, bro. Unless you're going into the gym industry it doesn't matter if you believe them or not.

[Marenghi]

He's saying(correct me if I'm wrong @Marenghi ) that load increase is NEVER a driver of adaptation. This is not analogous to "is not necessarily or always". Load increase is done in response to adaptation, to keep relative intensity the same/similar. You got strong due to the real driver of adaptation(which I'm not sure is what, but hypertrophy is the visible result?), you just now have to increase the load to keep the same fatigue/relative intensity to continue adapting.

This is me trying to interpret what I've read, and if even close to correct, this is absolutely mind blowing to me and has given me a lot to think about with programming.

Said it better than me. The "real driver" would be simply the fulfillment of the two conditions (recruitment + slow velocity). It even hasnt to be a "weight" as a means to achieve that - thats why EMS (to the chagrin to "us real trainees") works more or less. The magnitude of the adaptation is the volume of that state. How to define volume and what goes on on a physiological level that determines the magnitude is still unsolved.

Also, fatigue is in some kind of "range", so maybe I can get the same level of fatigue by doing an 6 sets of 5 at 65% instead of 5 sets of 5 at 70%. This means that, over time, I don't actually have to increase the load constantly to drive adaptation. I could use bar speed, or RPE, or "I can do 2 more" as the gauge for when to increase the load, rather than an arbitrary load increase schedule. Eventually, though, the intensity will be too low to ever fully recruit/fatigue the muscles, and therefore an adaptation will not occur. So a load increase has to happen in response to the adaptation that has already occurred.

That sounds plausible. The range of effective %1RM has widened with ongoing research. It´s down to 30% now, with 20% probably only being not effective due to central/aerobic fatigue setting in before local fatigue can lead to full recruitment.

You bet it has blown my mind, too. Its the greatest heureka-effect Ive had when thinking about training. Probably because of we have perceived the nature, and above all the direction of effect "weight" vs "adaptation" directly the other way round during our training career.

[Marenghi]

- we still cant measure fatigue and strength adaptations on a physiiological level very well. Only by measuring strength - which unfortunately is on a practical time scale during training ...masked by fatigue. Or fatigue ...which is masked by the onset of strength adaptations (see the 2-factor-model of adaptation).

There is the heart rate measurement thing as used by RTS

I have also seen it suggested, on YouTube, possible by Jeff Cavaliere, that grip strength is a good indicator of fatigue state.

Relative grip strength, as opposed to absolute.

Take a set of old style spring bathroom scales, grip in the hands and squeeze. Note the reading.

Check the reading you can produce on training days and take a reduction as an indicator of fatigue.

This does assume many things, but does have the advantage of not depending on workout performance as a fatigue indicator.

I wonder where we could find a group of free thinking people who train regularly who might want to compare this method with the heart rate system on RTS

RTS doesn’t really use heart rate. Mike’s own advice is to skip the HR test. It’s a subjective questionnaire in TRAC.

Thanks for the info. I think the problem is that most tests measure more neurological fatigue. Whereas the "test" to measure muscle fatigue or damage often just is a strength test of that muscles. A bit unsatisfying imo.

[Marenghi]

@EricK @RobUK @Travis @damufunman

That's my assumption, too. Agree that it's a confusing. Still trying to figure out what it's saying.

Yeah, I found it adequate to open my original post with the disclaimer its gonna be very confusing at first. In a sense Im very happy that its confusing for you guys as well, cause that means youre getting it and find it interesting. I was pretty mind-blown that some researchers obviously are aware of the mechanism and drop it casually as something trivial. I guess theyre maybe too tired to shake deeply held beliefs of laypeople that belittle their work anyway. Or they dont leave their ivory towers, as legend has it.

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The specific example said identical twins, so that helps alleviate the problem of insertion angles, but that would be a significant consideration otherwise (weight on the bar is not enough to tell us the tension experienced by individual motor units or fibers). But I think the point was that the one twin was capable of 240 x 8 because, by virtue of the nature of his program, (emphasizing increased intensity), means that he needed a heavier load than his brother to produce the same hypertrophic response. At least that's what I think the point was.

Exactly!
This hypertrophy mechanism helps to understand both intraindividual progress and meaning of different strength levels as well as interindividual ones. Why one trains with higher absolute loads/volume defined by tonnage, but may have less hypertrophy than another trainee - or vice versa.

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One question I have still have is the 200 x 8 vs 240 x 8 example given. Obviously the muscles (and assuming 100% motor unit recruitment, possibly not the case) see the corresponding tension based on the weight, how is this going to cause different local fatigue? I would guess (again, assuming 100% motor recruitment for simplicity) that each motor unit is experiencing more tensile load for the higher weight, or is the force to the bar the same, with the 200 lbs accelerating faster than the 240? In which case you would have a non-trivial difference in TUT between the two.

Did you mean "how is [different weight] NOT going to cause different local fatigue?". That would be the typical question. The answer to that are the mechanisms how strength is increased. https://medium.com/@SandCResearch/how-d ... 85d7bb8c73 and https://medium.com/@SandCResearch/what ... 0b5d9a792 give some examples.

As muscles and the neurological system adapt in these ways, different/same loads can represent same/different resistance for muscle fibers. For example, "rate coding" describes the frequency of activity of a muscle. If your rate coding increases from 30Hz to 33Hz, you need 10% less force per action.

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That example is confusing as hell. If everything is equal & you're training for performance/strength, wouldn't you want to be the guy doing 240x8 instead of 200x8? I'm assuming he's saying they're both at the the same RPE, not 200x8@6 & 240x8@9.5.

Yes, same RPE. Of course, in this case you want your strength as high as possible. The altered understanding of the hypertrophy mechanism and the role of the weight has some other conclusions for programming which some of them I collected in the original post.

[quark]

"progressive overload is not the action of adding weight to the bar per se but the progressing of imposed physiological stress over time that results in positive adaptation."
Brian Minor summarizing Eric Helms
http://myojournal.com/load-progression-hypertrophy/

[perman]

I don't believe the notion that relative intensity is all that matters for the same reason I don't think strength per BW is a better metric for strength than Wilks or allometric scaling.

We know strength per bodyweight roughly follows the square-cube-law (look up Nuckol's excellent article on allometric scaling and Wikipedia), so the functions of the models we create should be non-linear for varying BW. Including functions with relative intensities in them, which should be dependent on size and strength. Perhaps the percentages will barely change at all for a single lifter who gains 10-20 kg over years, but I suspect sufficiently dissimilar BWs should have some effect on optimal relative intensities (beyond less volume/frequency tolerance for larger lifters).

Claiming loading has no effect at all sounds completely preposterous to me when all creature are subject to scale-varying laws, you can't just scale an ant up for instance. Perhaps those differences are subtle for small factor differences <~3, but they definitely aren't non-existent.

[Marenghi]

Claiming loading has no effect at all sounds completely preposterous to me when all creature are subject to scale-varying laws, you can't just scale an ant up for instance. Perhaps those differences are subtle for small factor differences <~3, but they definitely aren't non-existent.

Are you referring to my posts with that? Just asking cause there are some parallel discussions going on in this thread.

If yes, then I dont see any contradiction between strength/weight/hypertroophy relations as demonstrated by Nuckols and the hypertrophy (HT) mechanism (and its possible consequences on training). As Nuckols has the same stance on the HT mechanism and wrote the article you linked, I think its safe to say he agrees with that.

Many factors determine your current status of strength and hypertrophy or your potential. The HT mechanism simply states that you then need an adequate weight (and/or fatigue) to secure recruitment and slow velocity in order for HT to happen. Of course it follows that this resistance varies due to strength levels.

[mgil]

Well I've kept the data. Of course, it could just be that women can't resist me. But probably not. It matches what we see in globogyms, and they certainly keep stats.

*shrug*

I would suggest that a male gym-goer has the same interest in believing that males have poor adherence in the gym as an oilfield geologist has in believing in climate change (thus Rip). But such is facts, bro. Unless you're going into the gym industry it doesn't matter if you believe them or not.

You do understand that you’re being hand wavy just like Rip?

I’m not saying you’re full of shit, I’m saying that without evidence, especially in the face of a confounding result, the claim lacks substance.

If the globogyms have metrics regarding attendance, that would be somewhat interesting. Do they track classes as well? My suspicion is that most of the folks go to the gym to do LISS cardio and fuck around. They aren’t “training” by the definition of Rip.

I’m glad you’ve tracked your data. That’s excellent. How well does this extrapolate to other black iron gyms? You mention PTC does well with men and consistency. That’s a confounding result.

Hazarding a guess, I’d say most black iron gyms aren’t tracking metrics well other than payment. Iron Sport Gym might be a data mine since Steve P just instituted a card swipe for entry.

Point being, when small gyms are considered in the context of strength training, a lot of data is needed to figure out compliance metrics and remove biases like the gym owner and training environment before a general statement like “women are better at DTFP than men”.

I’m saying this in light of knowing Seattle Strength and Power is a great gym with a huge track record of success with women at elite levels. Todd Christensen has something figured out with certain demographics. But I wouldn’t extrapolate his results to Barbell Brigade or Orange County Strength.

[quark]

My sense is that card swipe gyms in the US track attendance, in part because some insurance companies reimburse for attendance, but card swipe is just for entrance. I don't know of any gyms that have a way to track what people are doing, beyond some classes that have sign-in sheets (often ignored) and staff trying to get a sense (so they can put more resources towards what's popular).

I have no idea if what I've seen or heard about is representative.

I tend to agree with @@mgil, at least in the absence of seeing data and hearing why that data should be considered representative.

[mgil]

My sense is that card swipe gyms in the US track attendance, in part because some insurance companies reimburse for attendance, but card swipe is just for entrance. I don't know of any gyms that have a way to track what people are doing, beyond some classes that have sign-in sheets (often ignored) and staff trying to get a sense (so they can put more resources towards what's popular).

I have no idea if what I've seen or heard about is representative.

I tend to agree with @@mgil, at least in the absence of seeing data and hearing why that data should be considered representative.

Yeah, the card swipe isn’t conclusive, but at a gym like Iron Sport, you can probably make some decent assumptions since the training environment is heavily biased.

[quark]

This http://www.ironsport.com/about/? Yeah, based on the web page and IG it looks like you can make some decent assumptions.

I'd still like to understand the data collection methodology, etc.

[ithryn]

Wait, why the question of women vs men? Also wouldn't the women who go to a "black iron gym" be pretty narrowly self-selected and more likely to adhere?

I know my wife hit the wall o' dread fast on SSLP. She hated the grind. When I conferred with Schudt about this - and I think he trains quite a few women, athletic and non-athletic - he seemed to think that was normal. Women are somewhat less likely to have had an athletic background or to have performed max limit effort work. In my wife's case, the only time she'd hit the limit of physical effort before that was in labor. So that association certainly didn't help.

(I'm not sure what the answer for this is. Do a single month of SSLP and then go right to a light template of RPE@7 work?)

[perman]

Claiming loading has no effect at all sounds completely preposterous to me when all creature are subject to scale-varying laws, you can't just scale an ant up for instance. Perhaps those differences are subtle for small factor differences <~3, but they definitely aren't non-existent.

Are you referring to my posts with that? Just asking cause there are some parallel discussions going on in this thread.

Yeah.

If yes, then I dont see any contradiction between strength/weight/hypertroophy relations as demonstrated by Nuckols and the hypertrophy (HT) mechanism (and its possible consequences on training). As Nuckols has the same stance on the HT mechanism and wrote the article you linked, I think its safe to say he agrees with that.

Many factors determine your current status of strength and hypertrophy or your potential. The HT mechanism simply states that you then need an adequate weight (and/or fatigue) to secure recruitment and slow velocity in order for HT to happen. Of course it follows that this resistance varies due to strength levels.

Well, this contradicts your earlier statement that absolute load has no relevance or whatever it was (can't be bothered to fish it up), only relative intensity.

Now it's possible the numbers on optimal relative intensity/sets/reps remains the same as you scale people up, but if nothing else, strength per body weight changes on average.

I'm just skeptical that relative intensity is necessarily an intensive variable (to borrow handwavily from thermal dynamics).

[Marenghi]

Well, you should fish up my statement then.

[EricK]

(I'm not sure what the answer for this is. Do a single month of SSLP and then go right to a light template of RPE@7 work?)

I have no dog in the better/worse program adherence across sex, but, as I understand the BBM general model, women are part of the population that is generally less anabolic, which means that they require more volume to build muscle, and that moderate intensity sets (@7-8) are the "best" for accumulating the most "useful" volume because you're recruiting/fatiguing/slowing velocity and you can do more sets without killing yourself compared with higher intensity.

[damufunman]

@Marenghi I'm curious about the velocity thing; that we want slow velocity for crossbridging to occur. I would guess that this doesn't go against @Hanley's approach of keeping bar speed up with lower intensities because he's not looking for ballistic movements, just the right speed so that all the type 2 MUs are being recruited, right? Or is the volume (in the case of the Montana Method, more lower-rep sets to get the total number of reps up, and looking for bar speed drop off as an indicator of fatigue) accumulated in order to decrease the bar speed from the beginning to end of the workout?

[KyleSchuant]

I'll reply in the gym industry thread, since retention and adherence of men vs women is more a topic for there, @mgil

[mgil]

I'll reply in the gym industry thread, since retention and adherence of men vs women is more a topic for there, @mgil

Sounds good!