## Highlights - Episode AI notes 1. Strength and muscle growth are two separate adaptations. Beginners experience rapid strength improvement due to neural adaptations, while muscular adaptations involve adding contractile units for force production. 2. Mechanical tension in muscle fibers is created through high motor unit recruitment and slowing of contraction velocity. This tension triggers the biological process of hypertrophy, leading to increased muscle force production. 3. Progressive overload, increasing the weight you can lift for more reps over time, is the key to muscle growth. 4. Using machines for hypertrophy training provides stability and allows for a focus on mechanical tension. Machines like the Smith machine squat or hack squat can help maintain consistent form and positioning. [(Time 0:00:00)](https://share.snipd.com/episode-takeaways/054b8af0-a4d3-4cf6-8dec-15175a29de14) - The Relationship Between Strength, Muscular Adaptations, and Neural Adaptations Key takeaways: - Beginners experience massive runups in strength before it slows down over time. - Neural adaptations lead to increased efficiency in movement patterns. - Muscular adaptations involve adding contractile units for force production. - Strength can be gained through neural adaptations rather than muscle tissue. - Hypertrophy does not necessarily equate to strength. - Bodybuilders can have impressive muscle mass but may not excel in specific lifts without training. Transcript: Speaker 1 And that's the reason why you see these massive runups in strength for beginners, right? Like a beginner comes in and over from the time they start to six months later, their strength improvement is like through the roof. And then it slows down over time. So the neural adaptations that, as you said from Pavlov, it's like it's a something that your brain learns. So here's these movement patterns, I want to become more efficient with it. So what are the muscular adaptations that I need to create in order to become more efficient at this and then what are the neural adaptations that I need to create to become more efficient At this? So it's really kind of an efficiency process. Whereas with muscular adaptations and we're actually adding contractile units to produce force, that is a completely different process. Speaker 2 Okay, so you can be strong, but not have that much hypertrophy because you've gotten strong more through neural adaptations rather than gaining muscle tissue. So this is why someone can deadlift 600 pounds and not look like John Cena, like they're not going to be huge. But then you can also have hypertrophy and not be super strong. I mean, you're going to be strong. I think there's this impression out there that bodybuilders look ripped, but they're not actually strong. They are strong from adding that muscle tissue, but they may not be able to deadlift 600 pounds or squat 500 pounds because they haven't been training those particular lifts and developing The muscular efficiency for them. [(Time 0:17:17)](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0a0cc748-4b96-4d5d-afdd-a9fc9394f3cb) - Understanding Mechanical Tension in Muscle Fibers Key takeaways: - Mechanical tension is created through a high degree of motor unit recruitment and a slowing of contraction velocity. - During exercise, the pulling force created by cross bridging between actin and myosin filaments is experienced as tension. - Mechanical tension triggers the biological process of hypertrophy, leading to the addition of more myofibrils and increased muscle force production. Transcript: Speaker 1 So mechanical tension, the best way that you can think about it is there's two things that got to happen. You have to have a high degree of motor unit recruitment and you have to have a slowing of contraction velocity. So I'll dumb this down the best that I can. Is if you think about going to failure and let's say you're doing a set of 10 reps and you're not gonna make the 11th rep, your repetitions start slowing down towards the end of the set, No matter how hard you're pushing. So during that time, there's a lot of things going on at the basically the microscopic levels. And that's gonna be at the sarcomeres where as you can have these cross bridging between actin and myosin. And it's like a pulling type force. So as the way that it's trying to pull against you, the actual sarcomeres themselves and the actin and myosin filaments, they're basically trying to, they do this thing called cross Bridging where they pull on one another opposing them. They're creating a high degree of force to oppose that external force. When that happens, that force is detected as tension. And then that is actually converted into the biological process where the adaptations for adding more myofibrils happens so that way you can produce more force. And that's essentially the hypertrophy process. So I get asked like, you know, how do you explain mechanical tension? I'm like, it's just simply a pulling force within the muscle fibers. And so if the external force is pulling one way and you're trying to pull the other way, then the muscles are trying to produce a high degree of force and that's experienced as mechanical Tension. [(Time 0:26:03)](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4e8288c9-9db2-4e6c-b82d-5aba1f7770bd) - Progressive Overload: The Key to Muscle Growth Key takeaways: - The speaker used a method of increasing reps with a weight to gain muscle size - Progressive overload is the key to getting larger muscles - Overthinking can lead to missing the main point Transcript: Speaker 1 That's been working for me. No, that was the exact method I used when I was younger. What's really weird to me at times is I figured out stuff through when I was a kid, like a teenager. I figured out a lot of these things just from what I felt like was just good critical thinking and just made sense and then stuff I read in the magazines. So that was the method I used forever was I figured if I could take a weight that I could only get maybe seven or eight reps with and I could get to where I was doing 10 or 12 reps with it, I would Be bigger. That was the basis of what I figured out and it's 100% true. Like you can get into the deepness of all the physiological mechanisms and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, if I can take a weight that I was doing eight reps with and I get to 12 and then I add load to something that brings me back to eight and I just keep repeating that process Over years and years and years and years and that's how you're going to get larger. It's really that simple. You can do that with, say I'm going to go from six reps to 10 reps or six reps to eight reps or eight reps to 12 reps. Just somewhere within that range where you just have some way of progressively overloading those motions and there you don't have any other outcome that's going to happen other than You're going to get larger. And I think that it's weird to me that so many people overthink this stuff and just miss the forest for the trees, right? [(Time 0:43:11)](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8bbac13d-86eb-4459-94b8-ff7d3b9b7d09) - Efficient Warm-up and Training Approach Transcript: Speaker 1 I've literally been training 34 years. Have I ever spent more than like an hour in the gym? Yeah. This belief that I think for years, or when I was in powerlifting, and I don't know how much you know about this, but there was definitely a long period of time. I think it was like when the Kelly start stuff was popular, the whole sub of leopard thing was going on was people would go in and spend half an hour doing warmups and then mobility drills And stuff like that. I've never done that stuff. I go in, people ask, how do you warm up? I'm like, I walk in, I find the first exercise that I'm doing, and I do like eight to 10 reps on it. That's how I like, I don't walk on the treadmill, and I don't like do a bunch of stretching or a bunch of mobility work or stuff like that. I walk in, whatever exercise I'm doing first, I find that machine, and then I put a load on it, and I can do maybe eight reps with it, and that's how I get started. Speaker 2 Speaking of programming, there's all different ways you could skin this cat, but just like for a starter hypertrophy program, what do you typically recommend? Do you recommend doing upper, lower body parts? How do you like to do it for beginners? Speaker 1 So I actually, I am starting a brand new, it's a beginner program. It's a tier one and a tier two based program under my trainer groups, and we'll be starting that next month. So the first way I would actually start that out is something as simple as three days a week, full body, because beginners are still going to grow great off that kind of stuff, and you don't Only need a massive amount of variety. And then to split it up from there would be more like a tier two after maybe six months where you go to [(Time 0:48:48)](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bb237c22-a954-45bb-9e80-c35fea6f50fe) - Benefits of Machines for Hypertrophy Training Key takeaways: - Machines are recommended for hypertrophy due to their stability and ability to focus on mechanical tension. - Using machines like the Smith machine squat or hack squat can help maintain consistent form and positioning. - While squats can still be used for hypertrophy, having access to machines like the hack squat or leg press can make it easier. Transcript: Speaker 2 Okay, so yeah, if you're looking at hypertrophy, machines are going to be the way to go because of the stability aspect and you're able to focus on the mechanical tension instead of thinking About, oh my gosh, I'm shifting here to the right. I need to like, you don't have to worry about that. Speaker 1 But many times, yeah, I think that's a good discussion, right? Because that's a really great one. I haven't squated forever, but you're bringing up a lot of stuff I remember thinking about. You go in on that squat day and then for whatever reason, like, why did I shift to the left there? Why did it, why is this filling off? Why is this wonky and that kind of stuff? Well, if I'm just trying to load my quads, why am I worried about all that stuff? You know what I mean? Like if I have a pendulum or I have a hack squat that's right there, or even a Smith machine squat, I think a Smith machine squat is even better because and it's Smith machine squat, you Can get set up in the exact same position over and over and over again. Like you're not having to think about it. In a leg press, if you exactly where you're feeding to be, you can get set up there over and over and over again. You don't have any of these things. Now, something could feel off or wonky that day because of overuse or maybe you did something previous day or you pulled something in a workout, but I'm saying from the aspect of doing The motion, I think that the squat is really far down on the list for being good for hypertrophy. Speaker 2 But that's not to say, like, let's say a guy's listening, he has a garage gym and he wants to do hypertrophy. It's like, you can still squat and you can do it for hypertrophy. It's just, you know, it would be easier if you had a hack squat machine or leg press. [(Time 0:54:52)](https://share.snipd.com/snip/97a72950-40b9-44ba-95d1-1d4c1fc515e7)