5 Weight Training Tips and Myths

Here are some interesting things I've learned over the last few years of training.

.5) Building up your glutes and quads means that it will be very, VERY hard to find jeans that fit. These are actually super stretchy jeggings. Very high percentage of spandex. Ha.

1. Fasted cardio is a MYTH. Yes, you heard that right. It is futile.

2. The majority of protein powder, preworkout, and supplements in general are absolute BS, and that includes the majority of multivitamins (cheap multivitamins will often contain synthetic vitamins that have the potential to be carcinogenic- you will also generally find a fun array of 'other' ingredients in your supposed 'healthy' supplement, from chlorocarbon, black mold bacteria excrement-derived artificial sweeteners to artificial coloring agents and preservatives) . You are better off eating whole foods, for both your macro and micro needs. Also, Brad Schoenfeld recently put out a tweet that ultimately stated that you should absolutely not spend another dime on BCAA's. The only 'supplement' worth investing in is a good creatine MONOHYDRATE that is free of any other ingredient. The 'Creatinereport' found online (and it's easily findable!) can answer all of your questions about it! The vast majority of athletes would most likely benefit from creatine mono supplementation, but it's not for everyone.

3. Less rest between sets is NOT beneficial to muscular growth; the contrary has been documented in recent studies. But, if you have ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE due to time constraints and can only be at the gym a grand total of 30 minutes (and I mean you are rushing in and rushing out), then fine, but accept the fact that you may be selling yourself short and even putting yourself at risk of injury. Take this quote from 'The Effect of Inter-set Rest Intervals on Resistance Exercise-induced Muscle Hypertrophy' by Henselmans and Schoenfeld- "The reviewers explain that although many previous authors have recommended short rest intervals of 30-60 seconds for achieving the greatest gains in muscular size, these recommendations are not supported by the findings of the limited number of long term trials, which show either no effect or a benefit of longer rest period durations. Interestingly, the reviewers raise concern relating to short rest periods. If short rest periods are not directly beneficial, then whether they are used is largely a matter of personal preference or workout duration... In fact, the reviewers did note some safety concerns..." "Previous studies have found that when using very short rest period durations, neuromuscular postural control and proprioception are negatively impacted by fatigue. Thus, short rest period durations are a higher risk strategy, particularly when using multi-joint, free weight exercises with heavy load. So, the use of short rest period does not seem to have a good risk-reward when the primary goal is hypertrophy." Another recent study showed that out of all the rest period durations tested, the 5 minute rest group displayed an increased amount of hypertrophic stimuli when compared with shorter rested lifters. Quote from 'Short inter-set rest blunts resistance exercise-induced increases in myofibrillar protein synthesis and intracellular signalling in young males'- "We demonstrate that short rest (1 min) between sets of moderate-intensity, high-volume resistance exercise blunts the acute muscle anabolic response compared with a longer rest period (5 min), despite a superior circulating hormonal milieu. These data have important implications for the development of training regimens to maximize muscle hypertrophy." But anyone with a dead-set goal of building muscle should make it a priority to find the time to be able to insert adequate rest period durations into their workout. I'm not trying to be politically correct here. The fact of the matter is that anything you deem important enough will cause you shuffling things in your life around to make time for it. At one point in my life I ditched college, found a place with $200 a month rent and a job that paid $60-100 per hour (a photography job for local high schools) but only worked 2-5 hours a week just so that I could stay home, study, and go to the gym whenever I needed. I scraped and scrounged so that I could afford to do what I loved. It took sacrifice but I made it happen.

4. Squats are not the king when it comes to glutes. There are many aspects to hypertrophy, but building the glutes requires one thing, first and foremost, and it is activation via 90 degrees of leg flexion with simultaneous hip extension. Nowhere in a squat do you find simultaneous hip extension and 90 degrees of leg flexion. Along with the fact that the glutes cannot fire to their maximum potential while the pelvis is anteriorly rotated (or, better yet, the glute fire hardest when the pelvis is rotated posteriorly, and posteriorly rotating the pelvis in a squat is very bad for business), AND the fact that when there is hip flexion to extension in a squat, the glutes are not maximally loaded lead them to being a very poor/mediocre position in their 'glute-building' role.

5. Too much cardio can actually eat up your gains. There is a certain intracellular signalling cascade dubbed the 'AMP/PKB switch,' whereby an overload of cardio can offset the catabolic (breaking down muscle) cascades (which is opposed by the PKB switch that is associated with growth spurred from lifting). The two pathways are in many ways overlapping and are not mutually exclusive, but for the simplicity of this explanation, we will just assume that they are mutually exclusive. Brad Schoenfeld suggests that, if you're embarking on a weightlifting routine aimed at growing your muscle, you should limit your weekly cardio no NO MORE THAN 2-3 weekly bouts of 20-30 minutes of MODERATE CARDIO. Of course, every person will have a different tolerance, but how can you really know what your tolerance is? It's best to undershoot and avoid the degradative cascades than to overshoot and have all of your weighlifting endeavors be futile. Please check out this last excerpt, taken from Brad Schoenfeld's article, "5 Muscle Building Mistakes"- "You see, the signaling pathways for resistance training and aerobic training are contradictory. Some researchers have coined the term “AMPK-PKB switch” whereby aerobic training promotes catabolic processes (AMPK is involved in pathways associated with protein breakdown, which for your sake can be considered “muscle wasting”) and resistance training promotes anabolic processes (PKB is involved in pathways associated with protein synthesis, or for you, “muscle gaining”). While the concept of a “switch” is a bit overly simplistic (most of the evidence points to anabolism and catabolism taking place along a continuum), there is little doubt that concurrent training has the potential to interfere with anabolism and thereby undermine your ability to build muscle. What’s more, adding extensive cardio to an already demanding resistance-training program can hasten the onset of overtraining, which brings muscle growth to crashing halt."

Thanks Brad! If you don't know Brad Schoenfeld, you should familiarize yourself with him and his work. He has some awesome stuff on hypertrophy that actually allows you to break it down to the cellular level. This is something I struggled with for years. How can we know something actually works unless we can break down its effects on the cell and its pathways?

Anyway, that's it for now! Hope you enjoyed my post and progress photos!

Hailey Harber
( @haileyharberfit )