@jamesgregory786 Both of your examples fall within recommendations based on research. 10-20 sets with 0-3 RIR is a standard recommendation.
Some of the anti-science crowd (not you) don't understand research is descriptive, probabilistic, contextual and constrained. There's stuff that lacks a formal research basis, but that doesn't mean it's 'against the science', which is how they portray it. I honestly don't understand how the anti-science crowd squares researchers and science-based practitioners
loving John Meadows.
There are two primary ways I see research used:
- To give ballpark ranges you can use as a jumping off point for n=1 experimentation—after all, research gives you averages but no person is "the" average lifter. For example, 10-20 sets is a common recommendation based on research. But a high-level triathlon athlete or the like may be better-suited to 30 sets per week. But this recommendation came about in a context where people were doing anywhere from 6 to 80 sets per week. There are low- and high-responders to different training paradigms and that it gives you a ballpark but you have to engage in individual experiment to find what works best for you. This was pretty clearly demonstrated when other researchers noticed odd data patterns in Barbalho Et Al specifically because there wasn't enough overlap between intervention groups.
- To back up mechanistic arguments through indirect evidence. The expansion of rep range recommendations is an example of this: there was a mechanistic rationale for why higher reps/lower intensities may work as well as lower reps/higher intensities, and it was borne out by the research. Rep ranges have expanded a lot from the classic 8-12.
In both these cases, advice is given with the assumption that you want to maximize and optimize. But
muscle growth is a bunch of logarithmic curves in a trench coat. Each additional set per session/per week provides less ROI than the one before it. Moreover, the more muscle you have the slower you'll add more muscle and the more difficult it will be. That means that the person who gets 100% of their maximum potential gains is only months ahead of the person getting 80% at the start of their training career (which takes farrrrrrr less than 80% the work), and that gap only shrinks over time. The result is a million different routines and training paradigms from 5x5 with 5x5 with 5x10 accessories at 60% 1RM 2x/week per muscle group, to 8x8 with 50% 1RM 3x/week per muscle group, to 20x8-12 with 75% 1RM 1x/week per muscle group, etc. with people swearing by each and every one.
