Originally Posted by Madcow2

First TUT - don't get caught up in this. TUT is not the stimulus or causality - it just sort of falls out correlated under normal conditions. If it was causality, it would matter in all conditions. Case in point, you need to get a decent amount of mechanical work in for hypertrophy (i.e. the microtrauma thing) or perform a given number of reps with a weight heavy enough (intensity) to do the job. There's an inherent balance in there. Flat out, the more you do, the more microtrauma you get (pretty much, I guess it could get rediculous at some point but the relationship is fairly linear for all practical purposes). So stimulus for a given training session = workload (sets X reps X weight). It just might not be the best idea for consistent progress to arrange your training with a single massive day and then curl up in a ball for a week paying for it. So thinking about this - how does TUT fit in? Real simple, it flat out takes more time to do more work. This is why TUT is correlated. If TUT was the causality though (not workload), super slow reps would be great all the time, or less reps but same amount of total time. Well once you get extreme like that TUT falls appart because you break it away from workload (basically you aren't doing more mechanical work for microtrauma, you are doing less work more slowly). It's not all that simple but that's the big chunk. Also, if you are interested in getting strong using maximal force results in maximal concentric contraction and bar speed - this is not a negative aspect, it is very positive even though the affect on the TUT calculation is negative (workload is still equal though). So workload is king, don't distort TUT. TUT looks good largely because it's correlated with workload and a lot of the big TUT guys are low volume guys so the last thing they want to hear is about workload of which volume (total number of reps or sets x reps) is the major component as intensity/weight on the bar has to stay in fairly fixed bounds for resistance training.

For 5x5 - thinking about workload, it's not your top set in a ramped group that is the only important one. All of those other sets contribute also to workload and TUT. You don't need to be working close to failure. The advantage of the ramped sets is it serves as a warm up, provides additional mechanical work, and saves some resources for a big final set. That's the whole deal. And that's not the only way to do it 5x5 with straight weight is used also plenty of times (weight is slightly lower) but workload is much higher especially when you figure relevant workload might only really include sets at 60% or greater so in ramped you maybe count the top 3 sets whereas in straight accross 5x5 you basically have 5x5 at 80% or so and they all count and are significant. But it's not volume for volume's sake, the goal is still to push up your best lifts whether it's best set of 5 or 5x5 or whatever. The volume is a means to an end (as you noted volume and intensity are inversely related but for hypertrophy and strength development intensity is within some pretty narrow bounds so to really move and manipulate the workload equation you have to add sets which has a double multiplicative effect vs. a fairly constant weight). Think of it from proficient to efficient which mirrors deloading and loading. You have a max set of 5 at 300 so you start to hammer your 5x5 starting at 250 and then raising it up to around 290 for a PR (this is efficient and mirrors loading - you get good at doing a lot of work), then you deload and push up your best single set of 5 and generally you might get it to 320 range (this is proficient where you leverage that efficiency into getting good a less work). That's kind of the idea anyway.

As far as the two types of hypertrophy - I don't know. I wouldn't really concern myself with sacro (and by the way, that doesn't mean an increase in the number of muscle fibers, it's fluid - there's really no evidence that fibers split as far as I know, maybe in rats). I don't really have it in my head that it makes much difference in the end all. Sure, maybe after pushing really hard on on core lifts for a while and getting big and strong you can drop the intensity and do a bunch of pump stuff and get nice and swollen up a tad. Okay, whatever. It probably does help marginally with strength just as much as leverage/water weight/more volume in the muscle helps. Basically, I wouldn't make this a long-term goal or priority in your training unless you just like to train that way.

Also - historically you have to think back to the origins of HIT and low volume. The period from the very 1970s was the golden age of volume (way way way way higher than what people consider volume or HVT today). First, every one of those guys got big and strong before that in an era of olympic weightlifting where physique contests were basically spun out from OL competition. Powerlifting had started. But all those 1970's guys built their foundation the old fashioned way. Squats, pulls, presses etc... Now at that point they started doing these outrageously long pump marathons with hours in the gym doing isolation work. And to do all those reps you need very low weight (intensity/%1RM), so to get the microtrauma from very low weight, you need to do a ton of reps. Also, they already had their base, they still kept up their lifts and basically just refined. I think Arnold's weight used to increase for a competition from 220ish to 240s (very different steroid use than todays pros who cut down from 300+ to 260-270). Anyway those workouts were outrageous and all the isolation volume (sarco) didn't do a whole lot for the normal man looking to build his foundation (myo). But I guess I helped them with weak points and to a degree probaby resulted in some myo hypertrophy too. Anyway, this is where the "efficiency" in low volume came from, focusing on the weight lifting and improvement rather than just doing a bunch of aimless shit. The problem is that HIT came from Bodybuilding so it really had no idea about what else was going on in the world and it and bodybuilding became very sheltered which is why everything non-HIT is "HVT" but in reality no one with a brain is using volume for volume's sake, if they increase workload it's to get a lift up not to just do a bunch of work and most programming outside of BBing is organized quite well. Hopefully that's some perspective.

As far as where bodybuilders would be without drugs. Years ago I spoke with and met several Pros, watched them train (plus a bunch of amateurs and recreational). I can honestly say that every single one that I spoke with knew no more about training than the rest of the stalled pencil necks in the gym, didn't train any harder than most, and in my mind, drugs and genetics to respond favorably to drugs were the sole factor that allowed them to progress past where you average dedicated gym rat was. This was back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of them had never done a deadlift in their lives. None of them squatted or used it as a mass movement to develop their physiques. None ever did a barbell row. I think the closest one guy got to free weights was inclines in the smith machine. Now that's changed some since that time but the bottom line is that in all honesty, the only thing that separated them from the frustrated guys beating their heads in was the drugs. It had nothing to do with their training. It's been a dirty little secret for decades now and this is why kids and people get so frustrated and don't gain well on the advice of the Pro's. Because it's drugs - they are night and day for a shitty program and even for a great program when it comes to hypertrophy (they control the mechanism basically - it's a much bigger deal is BBing than it is in strength performance holding bodyweight constant). Maybe take a look at cows heavily drugged. No resistance program whatsoever but they put on a ton of muscle. Well, give them a program and manage their diet, now you have BBer cattle.