Why is this article showing up on New Year's Day like the flock of newbie gym customers attracted to the gym only to quit 30 days from now? Every year without fail.
Let's ignore this article for a moment.
Overall factors that REALLY matter building muscle:
1. Consistency - Working out each muscle group at least once a week....every week.
2. Diet - Making sure you are consuming enough protein in your diet, approximately 1gram/pound of body weight...or near it or even best you can. Total calories consumed a day should match any online calculator for your age and activity level.
3. Sleep!
4. Sleep!
5. Vary your workout - some weeks high reps low weight and some weeks low reps high weight. Why? Never let your body know what you're doing and shock it as best you can. Always try to exert yourself enough to be sore within 48 hours of a workout.
Now multiply this over a few years.
Stop reading these studies thinking there is some optimal way! It's just hard work over time.
BTW: In winter I bench press 350 pounds or 159KG. I run 10KM or 6.1 miles twice a week and increase it a little bit in summer. I pull my body in two different directions because I love both.
This is a physiology research article published in a physiology journal, not a Tiktoken influencer peddling "get ripped fast" schemes.
In an ironic twist, you then proceed to peddle your own. In a single paragraph you added more contentious "advice" than in the entire article you're dismissing.
> Stop reading these studies thinking there is some optimal way! It's just hard work over time.
"Hard work" and "learning new things" are not mutually exclusive. Stop presuming you know what I think while I'm reading these studies.
To be charitable to both the article and the OP - his advice of “hard work over time” is still good advice.
I think many people tend to get stuck in premature optimization, which can take the fun away and thus you end up quitting. I did that a few times, so it might be a me-thing.
Nowadays I exercise 4x/week without really worrying about a strategy or about optimal protein intake etc.
But then again, nowadays my goal is just to live healthy rather than gain strength.
Going further, you don't even need to count your reps or track how much weight you're lifting. Literally just do any exercise with any weight per muscle group to near failure for 2-5 sets. Rest the muscle groups you targeted the next 1-3 days, and be consistent every week. Bodyweight, free weights, machines, bands, kettlebells, etc. are all fine. That gets you 80-90% of the benefit with no stress.
Still, a "given all else, this optimal thing giving +1% growth" is negligible percentage, when all the other mentioned factors are several orders of magnitude more important.
My point is, simply doing it consistently, even if slightly less optimally, will trivially surpass anything else in the long run and there are no "silver bullets" in training.
The only importance is safety, avoiding injuring oneself.
Also, the article also states this: "RET-induced hypertrophy is mediated to a far greater degree by inherent endogenous biological factors"
> The muscle "shock" broscience has been disproven many times:
Variety isn't to shock or confuse the body, it's just to make sure you actually hit all the muscles in as many ways possible. Take your average push/pull gym rat to a yoga class or a climbing wall and they'll be more sore the next day than they've ever been before, because they'll activate muscles they didn't even know they had.
Yes, because the stimulus is novel if youve never done yoga before (e.g. a bunch of isometrics). That is not an indication of it being useful exercise for the outcomes of interest.
Indeed. It is really just tension x time under tension within a sensible rep range (probably around 5 - 30 reps or so). Menno on Youtube has a bunch of videos on this, the link below being the latest one.
Basically work the muscle harder and get more jacked. It isn't that hard. Full body workouts are also great for this reason: you can hit a muscle more times per week and be fresher when you hit that muscle, so both the tension and time under tension can be higher vs a body part split.
Time under tension is an imperfect measure, it's just less bad than other measures we could use. Sort of like lines of code in software engineering. Given that, saying it's "just TUT" is misleading.
It could turn out to be that the brain is coordinating hypertrophic biochemical cascades in muscles, and TUT is just a fairly reliable method for inducing this.
I was a competitive powerlifter and trained around pro bodybuilders for years, and in my experience, the only commonality between them was the intense all consuming drive to be absolutely monstrous (and they ate a lot). Some would train for 2 hours a day, some would train for 45 minutes 3x a week, some would use high volume in the 50-70% range and others would focus on 70-85%, some were explosive some were slow and steady, really it was all over the map.
Well... I didn't say "time under tension". I said tension x time under tension. It's the integral. So high volume 50-70% can equate out to medium volume 70-85% for hypertrophy, all other factors being equal.
I'd guess that drugs come into the equation if you were training around pro bodybuilders and that unlevels the playing field between each person because of how much they might have been on. And amongst the pro's, you're going to hit those genetic Mentzer-like freaks that can somehow grow on 45min 3x a week.
100% agree that drive and intensity is key, and there is more than one way to get big from a program POV.
This is what I've found after 15 years of working out and athletics. Think of it this way: doing the same thing over and over again is what is proven to lead to workplace injuries. Doing the same thing over and over again in the gym is no different.
I like to do a weight training as the consistent foundation, with a mix of heavy lifts, calisthenics, volume (bodybuilding) training and mobility training. Add in some yoga, rock climbing, biking, soccer. I feel this sort of mix balances movements out which helps with injury prevention and also makes sure you always have something active to do that you enjoy, which is definitely #1.
Is there any evidence this is at all bad in the weight room? It isn’t repeated at enough volume and if you have a diverse enough full body routine making everything stronger including connective tissue it would not matter. Changes in load are a better predictor for injuries in studies I have read.
I’m mostly talking from personal experience. I imagine an actual well powered study on this sort of thing would be hard to do, for similar reasons a lot of fitness / nutrition studies are not great. I agree that a good diverse full body routine would help mitigate injury risk vs a less diverse routine. Obviously diminishing returns but expanding outside of the weight room is IMO also helpful for injury prevention if not quality of life. Pertinent video: https://youtu.be/rb2DPHi39FU
Not true, no one is symmetrical or fully balanced in strength. outside of extreme cases, so called imbalances arent a problem on a population level, at least as far as we know today.
I live in a population where 90% of physical therapists will do placebo manual treatments and susbcribe to unscientific ideas about imbalances and "moving wrong".
All this advice is mostly harmless and not contraindicated, though some of it is incorrect, but point 5 in regards to soreness is harmful advice. Soreness is not a goal and does not indicate anything other than that you did a lot of eccentric lifting to which you were not recently adapted. Soreness means you waited longer than what was necessary to exercise that muscle group again. If you are getting sore beyond the first few workouts, it is a sign that your programming is suboptimal.
Progress is the weight on the bar increasing. Progress is not you being sore. Excess soreness is counterproductive during training, and should only be sought after if you are exercising as a penance for sins instead of training for some goal.
For more information read "Practical Programming for Strength Training".
+1. Point number 5 is probably the worst part of their post.
Beginners should focus on form, consistency, and linear progression of weight. If you can stand the boredom do the exact same program for a year. Probably 2-3 full body workouts that hit each body part twice.
For intermediate+, hitting a body part once a week is suboptimal for most. People who care about results and progression/growth should be progressing from 5 up to 20 hard sets per muscle per week across the span of a few years. (Compounds hit multiple, so it's not necessarily 20 hard times the number of muscles!) What's "hard"? in the 0-2 RIR range, ideally some to failure. Most people do not know what 0RIR is until they actually go to failure on a weight, compute their 1RM and start to use the computed reps/weight load. For many people "0 RIR" is actually 3+ RIR because they stop themselves short. This is why I mostly only trust studies that take people to true failure (either an inability to move the weight any more, or a coach saying the person significantly broke form and must stop)
For advanced, as i understand it, they need to focus on weekly periodization like hitting 3RIR, 2RIR, 1RIR, 0RIR (test new 1RM), Recovery week kind of cycles. Plus more that advanced coaches can teach.
0RM: One rep max. This is the (actual or theoretical) maximum weight / resistance which can be moved on a given lift. ExRx has a good calculator as well as several tables for calculating resistance at specified reps:
I believe this should be lean mass, not total mass. I think people tried to calibrate this metric since most people don't have scales that can measure composition... but if you're obese, you're going to be consuming more than you need to, which is counter productive if you're obese.
I truly believe that satiety is dependent entirely on 1) what you're used to eating and 2) what you expect/culture. Years ago I was watching a video that interviewed a guy who owned an international fast food franchise somewhere in Asia, a burger place, like a McDonald's. He was saying a big difference between America and wherever they were was that they absolutely, positively MUST serve rice because in their culture most people don't find that burgers produce satiety, you need the rice otherwise you're still hungry.
I've never had rice with burgers nor do I have an "Asian eating expectation/culture", but I absolutely do avoid McDonald's and the like because I feel hungry and lethargic shortly after eating there.
However, after a nice home-made burger I won't feel hungry again until the next meal and am full of energy. This isn't a tiny burger, either, I'll usually slap an egg on a 150g patty with some cheese for good measure. Since this is an "I'm too lazy to actually cook" meal, this tends to go with some kind of potatoes. I think the only difference between the two is the quality of the ingredients (added sugar in ketchup = bad, tomatoes are plenty sweet).
I think the difference absolutely comes down to what I eat. I don't put sugar syrup or whatever makes the McDonald's sauces so sweet in my burger, just basic boiled tomato sauce (so that it's thicker and doesn't make a mess). And I think that not only typical fast-food places are guilty of this. I've had similar outcomes after eating in "regular" brasseries around Paris what, on the face of it, wouldn't be considered "fast food".
I think there was a study last year or so that investigated whether protein rich meals actually made people consume less calories, and i think it didnt really, despite the fact that it feels more satiating and the TEF is also higher than for carbs.
So i think for long term weight changes it doesnt really help, at least not via its satiety response. Probably more through displacing other stuff from the diet and improved body composition.
Protein is more satiating "if and only if you are not getting enough protein for optimum body recomposition" which Menno in another video puts at 0.8g per lb of body mass.
Agree 100%. But lemme tell ya, "protein fluff" make from 150g skim milk, 10g protein powder, and 3g Xanthan gum whipped into a still meringue by a stand mixer is the most satiating thing I've ever eaten and it isn't even close. It is like the meringue doesn't collapse back down right away in your stomach so it is like eating (tasty) closed cell foam. I used to make it from a full cup of milk but had trouble finishing it. It's crazy filling and a godsend when cutting.
I found it needs to be skim milk. Otherwise the fat in regular milk seemed to prevent the meringue from setting up.
Practically speaking it doesn't matter. Just use your healthy (men 15-20% fat; women +8%) weight and calculate based on that.
If you are healthy fat percentage, just use your own weight. If you are a bit highter, and can financially and practically afford it, just use your weight as well. Won't hurt and might actually help a bit.
So it is only a concern for severely obese people. If you are 50+kg overweight, you can scale it down a bit.
Similarly, these obese people shouldn't use the "my current diet - 500kcal a day reduction" which is sensible for already lean bodybuilders. They should just use the "my maintenance diet if I were of healthy weight".
Yes! The "lean mass" caveat is oft ignored by bro scientists, and even LLMs have incorporated the error due to training on bro science forums.
I use this as a bit of a canary. If you see somebody making this basic mistake (like the post you're replying to did), you should be highly skeptical of their other claims too.
Why you’d actively argue to ignore a study with interesting outcomes and peddle platitudes that i see on a daily basis about everywhere is one thing. But for it also to be the top comment in this thread is a real pity
I just got back from the gym and it was surprisingly empty. Actually, more empty than normal.
My experience from lifting now for 30+ years and seeing thousands of people lift is it is:
1. Genetics.
Everything else is a distant second or third. This was actually something that was widely understood in 90s bodybuilding magazines. Lifting is mostly a display of genetics. That worked when you could sell magazines of genetic freaks working out. Without the magazines you have to sell all this nonsense like 1 gram per lb of protein. Even though I know the early research was 1 gram per kilo and then Americans just changed that to 1 gram per lb. I mean it is just such obvious nonsense that the optimal amount would happen to be the exact integer amount vs body weight that is easiest to remember, how convenient for people who sell protein lol. duh.
It really is just mostly this, and social media has tricked people into thinking otherwise.
I was looking at some photos of myself about 10 years ago. At the time, I had been hitting the gym hard, consistently, and intelligently. I had a huge bench press, squad, and deadlift, and was lifting 4-5 days a week, and managed every facet of my diet.
Now, I'm older, have kids, don't sleep as much, and definitely don't make it to the gym as much. I might lift twice a week - and don't try very hard or do progressive overload at all - and try to get in 3-4 days of cardio.
And I honestly don't look very different. Muscles are roughly the same size. In clothes, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Counter argument, muscle maintenance is a lot easier than muscle growth. Of course you don't look that different now, you have done enough work to significantly change your physique, but done plenty to maintain.
Gaining it is hard and slow, but once you do it, you can easily maintain it with very low volume (1 time a week with very reduced volume/weights). And even if you don't train for years/decades, you still rapidly get it back once you start again.
That's why one of the best investments in people health should be weight training during the teenage years/20s. Getting muscles and strength is the easiest at that point of life, and you will reap the benefits for the rest of one's life.
You've lost your sense of perspective. You might lift twice a week and try to get in 3-4 days of cardio? You're in the top <1% people on this planet by fitness.
Genetics play a factor, but you can still look pretty good, feel great if you consistently go to the gym, lift heavy weights and eat your calories.
You won't look like Arnold as there are genetic factors at play but people shouldn't be discouraged in thinking they won't be able to achieve a good body.
Another factor, that I think many men forget (I can't speak for women), is their testosterone levels. If you are following everything and have no results I recommend that you have your levels tested. Many men are suffering from Hypogonadism without realizing it. I had this issue for years and when I did my tests, I was at 7.6 nmol/L !
My doctor put me on HCG and it was like night and day.
Can sort of confirm. I wouldn't say so much "genetics" as "constitution". That is, you're born with a set of attributes, and those can also be affected by circumstances outside of your control. Those come together to determine how you respond to exercise and whether you can exercise consistently at all. Someone with active and athletic parents who was affected by undiagnosed childhood diseases and poorly managed injuries (*cough*) is going to have health and performance problems that keep them out of the gym. Someone who builds muscle very slowly but who can just keep at it for 10, 15 years is going to be jacked.
We also don't account for the role of money in these things. Do you make enough to buy good food, afford a decent gym that you can visit regularly, afford a good doctor who can help you manage issues (such as, ahem, low testosterone)?, afford a low-uncontrolled-stress lifestyle? You're good. It's a lot harder when you get hit by roadblocks and don't have the money to resolve them before you've detrained.
> My experience from lifting now for 30+ years and seeing thousands of people lift is it is: 1. Genetics.
Also in first place: steroids.
The bodybuilding magazines loved to talk about genetics because they didn't want to say the quiet part out loud. Nowadays people are more willing to talk about it.
Steroids, the main excuse of lazy people who are searching for excuses, without realizing that the main problem is their own attitude based on the mistaken pattern of comparing yourself to unreachable elite instead of to ordinary folks and to your former self.
1. Compare only to former yourself (you can't even know your genetic potential until you start training). Did you improve? Yes? Great, continue. No? Change something.
2. Go 2-3 times a week consistently for years, hitting major muscle groups 2-4 times a week.
3. Work as hard as you can (with safe technique). Consistency and effort is the biggest problem why people don't see results. Most people in the commercial gyms are not training hard enough.
4. Progressive overload. Once you get stronger, your weights/reps/sets should also increase.
5. Eat enough protein. Eat calories according to your goal (gaining muscle or losing fat).
What are you even responding to? I go to the gym and lift and cardio for my own health, but this is this and that is that. If you want to look like the guys featured in the magazines you need steroids. If you want to make a body transformation like actors do you definitely need steroids.
Looking at the genetically elite people in a magazine, imagining that self can become just as good if only by using steroids, is beyond dumb.
Imagine thinking that the only thing stopping self of become a new Michael Jordan is lack of access to dynamite attached to feet (in order to jump higher).
The dynamite aspect is not the biggest stupidity, even deciding to compare self to elite athletes is moronic. Use celebrities as inspiration, not as a manual.
Ordinary people thinking that they need steroids to look like celebrities is wild for many reasons. For one, no amount of steroids in the world is going to help an average ordinary person to be like people in magazines, let alone compete against elite (with or without steroids).
Nobody said "if only by using steroids", everyone knows those people featured had all of steroids, hard work, and genetics. But to stick our heads in the sand about 1/3 of that does no one any favors. I'm not sure if the current climate of more acceptability around discussing it is a great endpoint, given how many young people are taking some pretty nasty steroids before even turning 20, but let's not pretend a reality doesn't exist.
Bodybuilding as a sport now is in probably the worst place it's ever been. You now have "who can take the most drugs" as part of the contest and you're competing with people who aren't afraid to die at 30.
I learned this young. Our smallish high school had several exceptional athletes who achieved all-state level in their freshman years. They were great but they had to work for it. In basketball we had the usual mix. But one day Dan showed up:
Dan was short but extremely muscular. He was "recruited" by our all-state level fullback who lived in the same neighborhood (circa 1960's). Dan worked at his dad's gas station and didn't want him playing basketball b/c that was one less worker. but Dan loved basketball and played every chance he got, even though his dad would beat the crap out of him regularly for being away from "work". Coach didn't have to be asked again once he saw Dan play - he was a fricking Bob Cousy on the court. Nobody could lay a hand on him - a truly phenomenal player. Coach talked to Dan's dad, worked out a deal and got permission to try a few games.
Our first game with Dan was incredible: like being a soldier alongside Achilles as he slaughtered Trojans! "Pass the ball to Dansy" and the magic happened!
Dan showed up for two games (Dan won them both) but his dad wouldn't allow more.
So Dan was inherently muscular and strong and very coordinated, far more so than any person I'd ever met, with astonishing reflexes, and also a hell of a basketball player. I asked him if he lifted weights and he said he never did.
I concluded that people are different, sometimes very different. Other than that, maybe regular hellacious beatings can make you an incredible athlete.
What? I mean.. seriously, what? There are people with great genetic potential that lives like couch potatoes. What good is having the potential of you don't use it. Genetics is important, but there are many elements and just dropping this here is, IMO, irresponsible, because some people will read this and go... Ah, I'm out of shape because of genetics, nothing I can do, oh well.
No one claims you can do nothing, exercise has numerous benefits that extend beyond hypertrophy or even strength. i think the point is that you have way less control over the outcome than youd like, because individual responses vary so wildly. You can improve your odds by ticking the usual boxes and finding and following a custom program that works for you, but none of that is going to make as big of a difference than your genetic base.
Total nonsense. You've taken a very specialized observation and presented it as general truth. Can't do that.
Yes, once you get to the level of being able to compete with others, genetic factors will determine who will do better. This is true in any sport.
But that has no bearing on your average person deciding to go to the gym or not. Just about everyone will experience massive benefits from going to the gym regularly. Most don't have the capacity to compete, but that's not what 99% of people care about.
So the #1 factor is not, in fact, genetics, but doing the thing consistently.
As such, this is irresponsible nonsense to be spreading around.
Muscle soreness is not necessary for hypertrophy, but often enough (but not always) it is a good measure of the effort/volume/weight/technique (so a proxy for the mechanical tension, the thing that we want, but it hard to measure directly).
Depends, its also an indicator of novelty, and that by itself isnt useful. Once you are used to a movement and training volume, getting sore is difficult unless you ramp up the volume continuosly.
id say, never being sore at all is maybe a sign you dont do enough for optimum results, but frequently being sore means the load is too high. And for health outcomes it probably matters less.
I designed my led system at home in the basement which is not as big but same principle. It all depends on:
1. Distance
2. Type of LED: W, RGB, RGBW, RGBWCCT
3. Brand of LED manufacturer
4. Number of LED per meter aka amperage draw
5. 24v verse 12v
If this is a loop, like a rectangle, you can inject from beginning and end since that is the same point, otherwise, you'll need power injected at some distance. For long distances you'll need to calculate the power loss to figure that out. I used quinled.info site to get all this information and decided upon an RGBW LED setup using 24 volts and injecting at beginning and end of rectangle. This was for 20 meters, fyi, not 50 meters. RGBWCCT was too much amperage draw over distance and this was my first time doing it. Learn how to solder because using the snap-on connectors suck...I am redoing those connectors by soldering b/c two have failed so far.
Genetically, I've dealt with myopia on the -2.x range most of my life till I had lasik around 20 years ago. However, now my eyes have diverged in the weirdest of ways. I have 20/20 in my right eye but can't read up close - due to being in my late 40's - and my left eye can read up close but I have around 20/80 for near-sightedness. I guess it's "good" I can handle any situation with one of the eyes but playing pool with depth perception sucks! Anyway, I have a new problem this article never mentioned. Floaters. My left eye is full of them and reading anything with these blobs blocking my vision is a game of moving my eye so it "shakes" things up so I can read where it was blocked. I have not found a therapy for it. Floaters is protein waste broken off in the eye and mine never settle to bottom of the eye. Don't take your vision for granted.
I have been trying to tackle this type of "Feature" but object detection and action detection seem to be a totally different problem. Use case: I want to "detect" when a car does not stop at a stop sign. I have researched this over youtube, reddit, etc and other than training it myself there are no models already out there, including YOLO. Can anybody offer advice on how to achieve this use case?
Try building up a method iteratively. Start by calculating the speed of a car as it crosses the camera frame.
Then try calculating the speed between two points (in car length in front of and a car length behind the stop sign).
Then set a threshold for how fast is too fast for a car to realistically go between those two points without stopping. Get notified with a video snippet when a car is above this threshold. Adjust the threshold based on the videos you are capturing.
It won’t work if your object detection is not running at your camera framerate.
My reolink cameras indicate on the clip the length of time the object in motion was recorded. One can probably figure out a way to bin these clips according to this length of time as a proxy for speeding through the stopsign.
Then you have LG’s MLA with WOLED really competing with QD-OLED. Man, I just eat this stuff up! Bring on more affordable MicroLED, Samsung, like Apple is doing in its Vision Pro. I love competition.
What type of AI? AGI? Textual based AI? Computer vision AI? What kind of bubble - the kind that has happened before in the history of AI…a slow evolution of progress just like now with fits and bumps but always progressing over time. It will never fit a business or persons agenda but it will always get better.
I recently came to a fork in the road of being sick and tired of subconsciously picking up my iPhone for no good reason. I turned my colors to black and white. It has made a world of difference. I find it detestable in the best way. I also bought a CAT S22 flip phone and after I figure out how to remove the TMobile bloatware I’ll swap SIMs and try that. People look at me weird but feeling addicted is my answer for tolerating these changes. FYI S22 has Waze which is a requirement for me or some alternative.
I have received almost the exact same message, but not from Coinbase. I’ve never fallen for a scam, but I fell for this one. I was in a rush at work read the message, called the phone number and realized with all the background chatter it was a scam call center and hung up. I was so shocked I had fallen for it, I wrote my family a summary laughing at myself that even a tech guy who watches YouTube scam revenge videos can get fooled.
Sure, but it certainly counts as a close call, and if you are serious about preventing failures, you should be alerting on and tracking close calls, not only actual failures.
E.g., factories used to have big signs about "XX Days Since A Time Lost Accident". I've seen more advance factories now posting "XX Days Since A Close Call". Important distinction because studying the close calls and taking action will prevent accidents better than waiting for an actual accident. Same for security failures.
I have always been involved with lifting weights (4 times a week) and running 10km twice a week. This is pretty intense, I know, but I gravitate to it based on burning cortisol from anxiety and the calming effect it has afterwards. It didn’t stop a full blown two week anxiety episode six months ago but I added therapy and keeping a journal. This helps focus me but nothing is a cure..it’s just a lifestyle to find temporary balance.
Most supermarkets sell veggies loose, but even most people avoiding the standard plastic bags will put them in nylon mesh bags instead, not sure what your option there would be, but there's probably some cotton based bag you could find. Meat can usually be bought at larger stores from the butcher counter in butcher paper. However some butcher papers are treated so might be some more research needed three.
However many studies that make headlines like this are flawed bunk, so I'm not sure I'd waste my time with such efforts until there's clear consensus.
We used to think Teflon and the like were fine, until we found these compounds lasting basically forever in the environment and interacting with proteins.
In my opinion, a better default is to avoid when possible although its difficult to escape them everywhere. We are surrounded by plastics, and for good reason. They've done amazing things especially in the medical field.
Find a local butcher who wraps in paper? That paper coating may be plastic, though, unless they use waxed. Veggies are often loose at eg Whole Foods. You can get your milk in glass bottles pretty easily.
It’s likely easier in Europe, but it’s feasible in at least some parts of the US, depending on where you live.
It takes paying attention, but once you adjust your habits, it gets a bit easier.
You can probably get a lot of mileage out of just not heating your food in contact with plastic. You’re not going to eliminate all exposure, probably want to focus on the likely highest impact parts.
Let's ignore this article for a moment.
Overall factors that REALLY matter building muscle: 1. Consistency - Working out each muscle group at least once a week....every week. 2. Diet - Making sure you are consuming enough protein in your diet, approximately 1gram/pound of body weight...or near it or even best you can. Total calories consumed a day should match any online calculator for your age and activity level. 3. Sleep! 4. Sleep! 5. Vary your workout - some weeks high reps low weight and some weeks low reps high weight. Why? Never let your body know what you're doing and shock it as best you can. Always try to exert yourself enough to be sore within 48 hours of a workout.
Now multiply this over a few years.
Stop reading these studies thinking there is some optimal way! It's just hard work over time.
BTW: In winter I bench press 350 pounds or 159KG. I run 10KM or 6.1 miles twice a week and increase it a little bit in summer. I pull my body in two different directions because I love both.