- Mar 1, 2005
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I know this is probably the wrong place to try and discuss this, but I'm at work and bored and it popped into my head.
In my exercise physiology class we've been discussing muscle contraction and muscle fiber recruitment. Muscle growth is stimulated when a fiber is recruited for work (which stimulates the fiber nuclei to add to the protein structure of the muscle), so it makes sense that maximum muscle growth would be achieved through stimulation of 100% of a muscle's fibers (doing that maximum amount of work possible for that muscle group). This of course considers that diet and nutrition are non-issues.
There seems to be a lot of negativity surrounding lifting to failure. Many people seem to think it can slow strength and mass gains because it puts too much stress on the body. In response, the current trend seems to be lifting a moderate amount of weight over a greater number of repitions. Am I wrong in assuming that this is an inefficient form of anaerobic exercise? Assuming a proper warm-up (don't want to hurt yourself), wouldn't it make more sense to lift a high amount of weight (80-90% of max) until failure? What about negative reps? Am I missing some serious issue that kills my logic?
In my exercise physiology class we've been discussing muscle contraction and muscle fiber recruitment. Muscle growth is stimulated when a fiber is recruited for work (which stimulates the fiber nuclei to add to the protein structure of the muscle), so it makes sense that maximum muscle growth would be achieved through stimulation of 100% of a muscle's fibers (doing that maximum amount of work possible for that muscle group). This of course considers that diet and nutrition are non-issues.
There seems to be a lot of negativity surrounding lifting to failure. Many people seem to think it can slow strength and mass gains because it puts too much stress on the body. In response, the current trend seems to be lifting a moderate amount of weight over a greater number of repitions. Am I wrong in assuming that this is an inefficient form of anaerobic exercise? Assuming a proper warm-up (don't want to hurt yourself), wouldn't it make more sense to lift a high amount of weight (80-90% of max) until failure? What about negative reps? Am I missing some serious issue that kills my logic?