Is Stretch-Mediated Hypertrophy Overhyped? (Episode 132)

In this episode, Milo, Greg, and Pak sit down to discuss the concept of stretch-mediated hypertrophy, from the foundational animal studies, to human stretching studies, to present day hype around stretch-mediated hypertrophy and lengthened partials. They also discuss how they're currently implementing lengthened training into their workout routines.
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Time Stamps
00:00:00 - Intro and Plugs
00:11:33 - Stretch-mediated hypertrophy and hyperplasia in animals
00:44:59 - Stretch-mediated hypertrophy in humans/how muscle fibers grow
00:56:08 - Impact of stretching interventions on hypertrophy in humans
01:44:23 - Results vs lengthened resistance training
02:11:03 - Recap/takeaways from resistance training literature
02:42:43 - Audience questions
References
www.strongerbyscience.com/str...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
sportrxiv.org/index.php/serve...
link.springer.com/article/10....
www.mdpi.com/2073-4409/9/7/1658
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/e...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34319...
journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fu...
#stretching #workout #scienceexplained
"Is Stretch-Mediated Hypertrophy Overhyped? (Episode 132)"

[@GVS]

Excited for the rebrand to "A little less stronger by science but still pretty strong"!

[@SaulFemm]

Please, for the sake of God, make the podcast longer

[@tomjones8235]

Kein Scheiss.

[@Mylada]

If they go on much longer with this podcast stretching intervention, we will soon experience podhyperplasia and have to watch two casts simultaneously

[@richardtrass]

My only criticism is Greg constantly using the phrase “I don’t know”. The dude does know. A lot. Incredible intellect. Great podcast Gents

[@SchmittsPeter]

I don't know if I already said it (probably yes) but I just love you rolling with the 3h+ episodes. Heroes fighting the emergence of short form content by increasing the mean (through not the median :-D ).

[@Ray-bd1os]

The stretchmaster is back✌️

[@gerym341]

What a blood bath of a debate. Thank you for another interesting episode, gentlemen.

[@garytaylor6410]

Well I might be over simplifying things but longer muscle length trading makes sense and I don’t see why it’s being over complicated Muscles attach close to the joint (fulcrum) therefore at longer muscle lengths at the greatest mechanical disadvantage. This means greater force required to move the load ie greater mechanical tension during the lengthened portion of an exercise. Isn’t mechanical tension the main driver for hypertrophy?

[@volkshandel]

Hi, it is being done in Hospitals in south Africa, where people can't move or use their muscles, the nurse stretching the limbs the person can't use to combat muscle loss.

[@TheSnoringGamer]

Is the muscle fibre size reaching a maximum in 6 months a decent hypothesis for some of what makes up 'newbie gains'? It seems reasonable that when you stop experiencing an increase in fibre size and then have to rely more or solely on (assumed) hyperplasia, growth would slow, possibly considerably.

[@kren4449]

What is the max spatial resolution of current mri machines and what is the theoretical max (and what causes it)? Is it possible that one day counting muscle fibers with an mri will be possible.

[@Narenc007]

I am here to mainly listen to Dr. Wolf talk about LENGTHENED FUCKING PARTIALS.

[@XanEli1]

It's not only getting weak that is the cause of older folks falling, it's their muscle actuation speed like movement speed and reaction time of how quickly they can generate force. They mainly move too slow to catch themselves. Peter Attia was talking about the research on this and another guy I forgot his name.

[@omegaman_]

Im here for Dr Milo Wolf..👊🏻

[@WolfCoaching]

I SEE YOU KING

[@strongerbyscience]

Glad you're enjoying the show!

[@bluntforcetanya]

people who bitch about podcast length... what if I told you you don't have to listen the whole thing at once

[@faithnfitnessguykk9569]

Nice one! Thanks

[@mc80466]

In the study where we observed bicep fiber size in untrained individuals grew to equal that of trained individuals after the intervention despite much lower biceps mass and strength, Greg gave a few possible inferences. Either the number of muscle fibers was set beforehand, so the untrained lifters must have reached their hypertrophic maximum (that the trained lifters had already reached) at the end of the study, or hyperplasia occurs over many years of lifting. But doesn’t this assume hyperplasia is the only other explanation for larger total muscle size? Couldn’t there be an increase in intercellular components or something else? I’m not an exercise scientist so forgive me if I’m asking a silly question here or using the wrong terminology. Thanks!

[@greglnuckols]

Not a bad question, but there actually tends to be a decrease in intercellular components as training status increases (just in general, if you have a lot of space within a muscle that's not comprised of muscle fibers, most of that space is filled with intramuscular adipose tissue - think marbling in a piece of meat)

[@killerkhatiby009]

SBS team, during an RDL/SLDL, if your only goal is maximal hamstring and glute hypertrophy, would you recommend keeping the barbell close to your shins or letting it drift forward with your arms on the way down? Everywhere I can find says the ideal technique is to keep the barbell close to the legs/shins, but that seems like it would be optimized for strength and maximizing the amount of weight lifted but suboptimal for maximizing tension in the hamstrings/glutes with any given weight since letting the arms drift forward would increase the moment arm and allow you to use lighter weight while maintaining the same tension on the target muscles as heavier weight close to the body. Basically, it seems to me that reducing the weight and letting the bar drift forward creates a similar lever arm and forces to a Goodmorning and a better stimulus-to-fatigue ratio, but nobody talks about doing it this way. Am I missing something here if I am not concerned with lat engagement or grip strength or stimulus to any other muscles during the RDL? Would love some clarity and explanation for your reasoning on the subject!

[@ianlewis5910]

If you change the movement too much your back might become a limiting factor and you won't get as close to failure on your glutes/hams. But if you care about stimulus to fatigue ratio, just do good mornings. Even better work on your mobility and do butt elevated pancake good mornings. Keep your legs closer together and it's a lengthened partial.

[@killerkhatiby009]

@@ianlewis5910 But why would the back become more of a limiting factor? If you're comparing keeping the bar closer with heavier weight to further with lighter weight, aren't the forces on the back the same if you adjust the weight accordingly since the moment arm changes to compensate? So if you have a heavier weight but keep the bar closer it decrease the moment arm but since you're using heavier weight the forces on the back, hamstrings, and glutes will still be high due to the heavier weight. Conversely, if you lower the weight proportionally but allow the bar to drift further forward from your legs the moment arm increases so the forces increase to match the heavier weight scenario due to the larger moment arm despite lighter load on the bar. The reason I typically prefer RDL's over Goodmorning's is RDL's seem quicker to setup and safer to fail since you can just drop the weight and I don't have to setup any safeties. Also having a bar in my hands with straps is often more comfortable than on the upper back/traps/shoulders. Nothing against doing Goodmorning's for variation but I'm just looking at more of a theoretical discussion of why RDL technique everywhere I've found seems to recommend keeping the bar close to the shins when it seems to me like that would have a worse SFR for hypertrophy of the glutes and hamstrings, but people then recommend also doing Goodmornings which, as far as I can tell, would basically result in similar forces to a setup of an RDL that allows the arms to drift forward. If the SFR of a Goodmorning is better then why not just modify the RDL to get the same SFR while being a little more time efficient and/or possibly safer, seems like the best of both worlds and generally the superior option but I've not seen any of the experts talk about it this way so I feel like I must be missing something! Hope all that make sense! Not trying to be combative or anything, just genuinely curious and trying to make sense of something I've come across with my own analysis and training that doesn't seem to match anything I can find online.

[@moog5260]

everything is lengthened

[@MiguelVillasenor365]

Including this three and a half hour episode..

[@moog5260]

ha I did think "do we really need a 3 hour discussion on this?" but I haven't watched yet

[@hayesdelezene4590]

I definitely am

[@Yupppi]

"People don't train properly hard in studies" got a new meaning with the plantar flexion training study.

[@ryanfleming2049]

What is the opening song?

[@mrddcass6540]

The song Title is Genericintro by the Artist Acomputerbutton off the album Golistentoactualmusicinsteadofthiscrap

[@billymixon5336]

"I'll be Pak"

[@danielscott3178]

Myocytes are a syncytium and I was under the impression that syncytia don't divide in adulthood?

[@greglnuckols]

Division of mature fibers isn't the only way hyperplasia could occur

[@Type-IIx-zz4bn]

Milo is was probably the principle purveyor of the term "Stretch-Mediated Hypertrophy" early on because he was the one conflating and misusing the term in his communications on lengthened partials and training at longer muscle lengths.

[@AlphaLionTrillionaire]

To summarize what I got from this: eh it's kinda whatever, but as far as isolation exercises go - just fucking do it bruh, fuck it

[@tntcheats]

34:23 paused the video here and Pak looks seconds away from getting a sexual harassment claim.

[@MisterHui]

Yup, you do get a sword in Finland.

[@Heyght]

Dr Milo when no lengthened partials: 3h30min

[@volkshandel]

stretching like Probably gymnastics compared to Gym weightlifting.

[@azulsimmons1040]

Greg is an empiricist and not a rationalist? Damn, all this time I thought he was a rationalist. What was I thinking?

[@MagicTurtle666]

Yes or no, haha

[@Type-IIx-zz4bn]

So does Milo want to retract his response to Paul Carter where Milo asserts that the biceps DO benefit from ""stretch-mediated hypertrophy"" - Do the biceps respond to "stretch-mediated hypertrophy"? [Response to Paul Carter/LiftRunBang)

[@strongerbyscience]

Technically, yeah. In spirit, no - Paul's claim (conceptually) was that lengthened training doesn't benefit biceps growth. Rather than diving into a 3.5 hours rabbit hole on whether the term was correct or not, I just decided to leave that matter for another day (aka TODAY) -Milo

[@d3rpn1nj47]

​@@strongerbyscience much agreed Milo, nobody is perfect but I hate how much people have ragged on you as of late. It's not deserved at all and you've done an excellent job helping communicate applied biomechanics, lengthened partials, etc and increasing their popularity. With that being said let's get an iron culture/SBS crossover with everyone including Greg and Trex, haha

[@mattb4251]

⭐⏹️⏹️⏹️⏹️ too much jargon 😉

[@yourmomtwice]

Read a book

[@user-cz5qu8vw3q]

Please, for the sake of God, keep the podcast shorter

[@sirnobbylad]

Shortened podcasts are inferior for brain hypertrophy

[@mattb4251]

I only listen to podcasts of maximal length. When is Hardcore History coming back?

[@watsonkushmaster3067]

You mean longer

[@YASAIMAN9000]

Listen to the podcast at 2x speed

[@ohiomp7606]

@@watsonkushmaster3067I think he meant longer too. Typos plague me ash while ate teams.

[@ignaciosaezdelaplaza4687]

it is overhyped

[@MiguelVillasenor365]

Spoiler alert

[@mrjonjoe1895]

Gay

[@dieandgoaway]

Could it be that training in the stretch lengthened portion of the lift cause more actin and myosin cross bridges to form and that is what generates more mechanical tension and thus more hypertrophy? Also what is your take on Chris Beardsley saying that training in the lengthened portion causes more recovery demands causes more muscle damage?