The MYTH of higher frequency for 'smaller' muscles b/c they recover faster?

[vsw874]

Beardsley, Krieger, musclephd and others have shown evidence its a myth that 'smaller' muscles recover faster even though the concept is so widely accepted nowadays. Mostly comes down to things like muscle fiber type, activation levels, joint rom, and yea size with the quads/calves/traps some of the fastest recovering and arms/chest some of the slowest. Your take? And as a side note some muscle sizes are misconstrued, for example the triceps being bigger tham the chest. It might suggest everything could be at more or less the same frequency, or the faster recovering ones aren't what we thought.

Krieger/Beardsley show more of the research but here is an article on musclephd that summarizes everything pretty well: https://themusclephd.com/training-frequency-2/

 

[tp243]

@vsw874 My experience suggests it is not a myth.

Obviously n=1 but my side delts never feel underecovered regardless of amount of volume but quads frequently feel like they need extended recovery times

 

[thepinkpreacher]

@tp243 I agree with the premise of those muscles recovery faster but I think it’s hard to prove also with the loads being very different! If you compare someone squatting 3 plates to doing the 20lb dumbells for later raises the workload is far different. If the work was the same I would suspect it to be similar recovery time. And something like the calves get more repetitive work throughout your whole life than the chest it’s almost more accustom to volume but that’s just my opinion

 

[trumpeter2]

@thepinkpreacher Also with dB side literally raises the tension curve is shit and the stretch component isn't there. Of course they will recover faster if you do a lighter workout.

 

[honoringintimates]

@tp243 I agree. I can do 3/4 sets of side delts all to failure + partials and next day I'm fresh and can do it again with same performance.

Instead, 3/4 sets of hamstrings curls or romanian deadlifts, and my hams are sore for one or two days and no way I can repeat the same performance next day.

 

[johnc101]

@vsw874 i take most exercise science studies with more of a grain of salt than i do anecdote at this point.

 

[jord1999]

@vsw874 You’re probably never hitting things like calves and rear delts like you do chest or arms. If you trained them all the same I think you’d notice the same soreness. I have in my past experiences.

 

[tarper]

@jord1999 yup i agree

 

[laura02375]

@vsw874 The triceps are one of the biggest muscles in your body and are larger than the chest. I think the largest muscle in the upper body are your shoulders. It’s a myth that the lats and chest are the largest upper body muscles.

 

[yearningforspirit]

@vsw874 I think small muscles are just harder to load so they recover faster since they don't really get worked out that much by the majority of the gym goer population. Most people have zero mind muscle connection so they can't target anything but the big muscle groups.

 

[mlenadc]

@vsw874 This is probably due to lower loading paradigms used in training the smaller muscle groups. You're far more likely to go heavier on "chest" (bench/dumbbell-bench) than when hitting "triceps" (cable isolations etc). This results in less cumulative fatigue to the tendons affiliated in these smaller groups, allowing rapid recovery. It's well-known "back" can be hit almost daily, and recovers rather quickly.

It ultimately comes down to experimenting with volume & frequency, to see what YOU best respond to. Like OHP & Bench once per week each isn't nearly enough for me to grow shoulders & triceps. So I OHP twice per week, bench in the middle, and do plenty of close-grip bench. My chest simply doesn't need more than 1x per week to respond, but tri's require 3x. Find out for yourself!

 

[audreyann]

@vsw874 I want to see longitudinal evidence and not theoretical takes based on theory for a question like this. There's enough frequency studies out there that you should be able to find some that measured hypertrophy eg in the quads and the biceps for both te high and low frequency groups.

If Beardsley is right, quads should see a benefit from higher frequencys and biceps should not.

 

[wedinn]

@vsw874 Fiber type and muscle functions in every day activities tell you which muscles can handle higher frequency.

Delts, Biceps, Calves can be named as "smaller muscles" but it's because they are working the whole damn time that they are resistant to a lot of volume and recover much faster than your chest/triceps/quads/hams for example.

The "small muscles" name is a bro science thing, period.

 

[tarper]

@wedinn that’s actually a myth. biceps triceps and lateral delts fall under the category of easily susceptible to muscle damage like chest, hamstrings, and back musculature. that’s because it doesn’t take much load to make significant damage to the muscles. while quads, forearms, calves, and posterior delt are resistant to muscle damage. it’s due to their fiber type being fast or slow twitch. Past a certain threshold, the more slow twitch a muscle group is, the faster it can recover.

 

[wedinn]

@tarper I would like to see your source of the predominant type of fibers of the lat delts and quads.

Morphology of the deltoid muscles in elite tennis players(Mavvidis et. al.), around 50/50 type 1/2. for delts.

this one measured fiber types in the vastus lateralis, and around 60% where fast twitch to 40% slow twitch.

Quads recover much slower than side delts.

You can do 3-4 side delt sessions a week distributing volume accordingly, but quads? Probably not sustainable at all.

Try to do a meso of 4 weekly sessions of quads and delts, and lets see which reaches its MRV more quickly and which gets to a higher weekly volume.

My personal experience counting only direct work was around 35 working sets for lat/rear delts and 22 for quads.

That was with 3x week delt work and 2x week quad work(i tried 3x but started to get recovery issues even doing only 3 sets in a day).

Biceps recover pretty quickly too, similar to side delts in my personal experience at least.

You can read about it in the RP hypertrophy hub

I agree on the rest of things you said tho.

 

[tarper]

@wedinn you’re basing your info off of ~2rir training and even then the weekly volume data is largely false and poorly executed. that’s what RP based their info off of. A while back Lyle McDonald disputed all of RPs training principles because inherently they’re not training hard which is why the volume is higher.

 

[wedinn]

@tarper Oh so you think 0-3 RIR is not training hard? Lmao

 

[tarper]

@wedinn not what i said i said ~2rir training and i would actually like to see your execution for true 0rir sets for multiple sets for multiple exercises. keep in mind true 0rir consists of a involuntary reduction of bar speed not when the pump gets too intense. another aspect of RP i do not agree with-high reps which gives a false sense of failure.

 

[wedinn]

@tarper Exactly, the point is training to true 0-3 RIR with good technique, it's really hard.

Also training to "failure" messing up your technique and cheating a bit like the bros instead if great technique to 0-3 RIR usually makes it really hard to standardize progress and increases your fatigue without necessarily a greater stimulus.

Of course movement speed reduced when getting close to failure, pretty basic stuff huh.

High reps only give a false sense of failure when you can't get trough the "lactate burn", but their are great for many movements as they give a better SFR than lower reps sometimes.

Lat raises for a set of 5-10 is nonsense most of the time as it probably will kill your joints in the long run and make it really hard to have good technique and really feel the muscle without ego lifting.

 

[tarper]

@wedinn have you seen james hollingshead train? that is 0rir training.

You can definitely train single joint movements with 5-10 reps and even more efficiently. bc training is about fatigue management something that RP doesn’t address as a whole rather they periodize it in a proactive manner when fatigue management should be reactive.