The importance of training load, volume, tension and rest for hypertrophy

Question 1

What did Henneman et al (1965) discover?

Answer 1

Mechanical tension with low load lifting is insufficient to recruit type 2 fibres, unless the lift is performed to fatigue

Question 2

What does a heavier load require?

Answer 2

greater mechanical tension in the muscles

Question 3

What does tension generated with heavy loads require?

Answer 3

maximal recruitment of muscle fibres, reaching the maximal threshold for protein synthesis

Question 4

What was Burd et al (2010) methodology to experiment what muscle protein synthetic response to acute low vs heavy load RT?

Answer 4

15 males (12y/o) completed a single bout of RT:
-90% 1RM to fatigue x4
-30% 1RM x 4
-30% 1RM to fatigue x4- matched to 90%

Question 5

What did Burd et al (2010) find?

Answer 5

rates of protein synthesis were lowest in the 30% 1RM x 4 group showing that you can lift low weight to fatigue to reach the elevated mitochondrial protein synthesis

Question 6

What does a shorter rest between reps elicit?

Answer 6

greater hormone response

Question 7

When are rates of muscle protein synthesis greatest? (McKendry et al, 2016)

Answer 7

in groups that had the longer rest

Question 8

What does a short rest do?

Answer 8

slow down muscle protein synthesis

Question 9

How long should you place a muscle under tension to maximise the anabolic response?

Answer 9

slow lifting movement performed to fatigue (12 seconds) resulted in a greater increase in muscle protein synthesis than the same movement performed at 2 seconds