If I recall correctly he (Blade) is doing them on seperate days. This was also when he was doing some depletion at the time. I don't know if he would change it up during an all out bulk.
What I still question, when it comes to Lyle's comment is..........how important is high rep metabolic work.
I beleive that it is truly a matter of ATP tunover and not accumulation, More ATP will be turned over as force is increased, period.
The rep range isn't the main contributor or the difference. What the real difference is how many muscles and hence motor units are activated and at what level (rate coding) and for how long or how many times.
I know I've mentioned this before and I'm going to again, the Haddad and Adams guys are currently doing a study to ID the amount of work needed and what they are doing is
1 sec 100% MVC isometric
1 sec Concentric
1 sec Eccentric
20 sec rest
Wash, rinse, repeat
So far, when doing 4 sets, 10 reps are showing the highest molecular signalling but 7 isn't too different while 5 is inferior.
What's this telling us?
1. With the protocol they are using the muscles are being maximally stimulated IE optimal TTI
2. The rest in between each rep allows enough metabolic rejuvination to keep each successive rep at a near optimal TTI for repeated contractions
3. A certain number of reps is needed, not too many, not too few, but juuuuuuuuuuuust right
Now we aren't nearly producing an optimal TTI until either
1. You've already induced a certain level of fatigue
2. You are using enough load that each successive rep is near optimal.
Problem with #1
At this point you've also lost some force and hence strain
Problem with #2
You generally can not use this weight for enough reps (as the study is pointing out around 28-40 funny how this matches the other information I posted yesterday, coincidence
)
Solutions
1. Work to near failure with a light load then continue with intermitant reps past this point
2. Work with heavy loads and either cluster to near failure, wash, rinse, repeat.
3. Use heavy loads with brief rest between reps (just enough to complete another rep) but do enough of them.
In any case it's not metabolic accumulation that is the driving factor. Let me be clear that in this study they are looking at molecular signalling that is known to be in the pathway of hypertrophy. Whereas most other studies looking at whole muscle volume changes (MRI) are simply that and do not tell us how much of the volume increase is contractile, swelling, fluid shifts, or whatever.
Now because I'm naturally interested in this I had to ask Dr. Baldwin about the study by Schoot and Rooney and his response was
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">From my perspective the driving stimulus for increasing mass/size of individual fibers and hence the muscle as a whole is the volume of force that is imposed on the muscle. This stimulus signals to cascades that eventually control protein translational processes, net protein synthesis that exceeds the degree of degradation that occurs; hence increase in net protein in the fibers...............So I think that by having different
stimuli (force versus high contraction turnover of low
force) different regulatory cascades are turned on leading to bring about different effector responses, e.g., protein synthesis of the contractile apparatus versus biogenesis of mitochondria.</div>