Just because an exercise is harder does not necessarily mean it's better for muscle growth. Before you just start doing an exercise, do some research and make sure that some research studies validate their claims that an exercise is more effective. If the person is truly evidence-based fitness, they will provide you with some peer-reviewed studies validating what they say is true.
HOW MANY SETS IS TOO MANY? JUNK VOLUME LIFTING SUMMARY
- Junk volume involves performing ineffective sets that do not result in greater increases in muscle growth
- Just because an exercise is harder does not necessarily mean it’s better for muscle growth.
- Instability ball training is harder than a traditional bench press, but it results in less muscle growth than a traditional dumbbell bench press.
- Junk volume involves performing ineffective sets that do not result in greater increases in muscle growth.
HARDER DOES NOT ALWAYS MAKE IT BETTER FOR MUSCLE GROWTH
If you scroll thru Instagram, you will see some pretty crazy exercises that people are doing. Doing biceps curls with plates instead of bars and dumbbells, one-armed chest presses, upside down squats on the smith machine, doing a military press with a hexagon deadlift bar. The list goes on and on.
The person doing the exercise will always tell you it’s more effective than the traditional way of doing the exercise, but rarely will they ever have actual research showing the effectiveness of the exercise. It is easy to see a person in good shape doing an exercise and think this person knows what they are talking about; look at their physique! Based on what research is this coming from?
I watched Pumping Iron and read the Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, and did dumbbell pullovers for about ten years as a chest exercise. Why? Arnold said it was a great exercise for expanding the ribcage and building a big chest. Today, it is known that the dumbbell pullover is a poor activator of the chest muscles compared to the bench press.
The dumbbell and barbell pullover results in greater activation of the lats and triceps and cannot be recommended as a complementary exercise for the chest(1). I did pullovers for about ten years, and it’s not even a chest exercise, and it’s classified technically as a back exercise, but when I did dumbbell pullovers, I felt my chest being exercised…because Arnold was my idol and he said it was a chest exercise.
JUNK VOLUME: MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER
People believe that if an exercise is harder to perform, it must be better! If you can remember, there was a workout trend in the gyms for getting a bigger chest by using a balance ball. Balance ball training involves performing an exercise on an unstable surface, which proponents claim results in greater muscle activation and greater increases in muscle mass. If you have ever done a dumbbell bench press on a balance ball, it’s harder than a dumbbell bench press on a regular bench.
Tension is a key part of muscle growth, and if you place less tension on a muscle, you will get a less-than-optimal muscle growth response. One study found a decrease in force production by 60% in exercises in the bench press when performed on a stability ball. (2) Performing exercises on a stability ball can diminish the tension placed on the muscle, leading to a subpar increase in muscle growth. Instability exercises emphasize core strength. They can be used for general fitness and may be helpful during periods of recovery and recuperation. Still, instability ball training is inferior to traditional resistance exercises for increasing strength or muscle mass. (3)
Instability ball training is not recommended for hypertrophy (i.e., muscle growth) or strength training because it does not provide a sufficient stimulus to induce muscle growth. Muscle growth is the process of progressively increasing muscle tension.
Junk volume involves performing ineffective sets that do not result in greater increases in muscle growth.
WHAT IS JUNK VOLUME
There is a term called junk volume. This means you are adding sets but not meeting the minimum expectations for exercise intensity. Repetitions performed with insufficient weight, which do not meet a high-intensity threshold, do not stimulate muscle growth. It’s not uncommon for some Instagram fitness models to brag about their 2-hour workout. How many of those sets meet the minimum threshold for intensity after the first hour? More than likely, most ultra-marathon workouts incorporate a large amount of junk volume. The workout is harder, but it’s not building more muscle!
JUNK VOLUME STUDIES
Another example of junk volume would be if you are training a body part once a week and doing 20 sets for chest total. By the time you get to those last few sets at the end of the workout, you will be significantly fatigued, and the intensity threshold may not be big enough to stimulate muscle growth. It would be much wiser to do ten sets broken up into another chest session over the week than try to do it in one workout. Therefore, training a body part once per week is not the best way to train because the fatigue is too great. Trying to perform an entire week’s training in one day will lead to increased fatigue and excessive junk volume, which will inevitably lead to reduced gains in strength and lean mass.
The sets performed in the latter part of the workout will not be as effective as if you were to cut the workout in half and perform it later in the week. Excessive sets performed in any one workout will lead to diminished exercise intensity, resulting in junk volume. An example of junk volume would be the study by Haun et al., in which subjects gradually increased their set volume until they performed 30 sets per bodypart. Still, the mean average of the group showed no further increases in muscle growth after 20 sets.(4)
JUNK VOLUME: GERMAN VOLUME TRAINING
Another example of junk volume is the German Volume Training study in which 5 sets of 10 repetitions in the squats resulted in greater increases in lean mass in the legs than 10 sets of 10 repetitions.(5) These studies suggest that sets beyond a certain point led to no further increases in muscle growth. Making a workout harder is not necessarily going to result in greater increases in muscle growth!
Social media influencers have a major impact on people exercising and buying sports nutrition supplements. This has led to the mentality to copy celebrities’ routines or an Instagram star’s routine on social media to build muscle or buy a supplement that they are using. A recent study of regular gym participants found a negative relationship between comparing others’ physiques on social media and their body image. This led to greater body dissatisfaction and dietary supplements (i.e., protein, creatine, pre-workouts, etc.) and anabolic steroid use. The study found that 65% of the participants use the internet, and 32% use social media as their primary source of information on dietary supplements.(6)
Before you just start doing an exercise, do some research and make sure that some research studies validate their claims that an exercise is more effective. If the person is truly evidence-based fitness, they will provide you with some peer-reviewed studies validating what they say is true.
KEY POINTS
- Just because an exercise is harder does not necessarily mean it’s better for muscle growth.
- Instability ball training is harder than a traditional bench press, but it results in less muscle growth than a traditional dumbbell bench press.
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