The Trouble with Diet and Exercise Studies
A wiser man than myself once said there are "...lies, damned lies, and statistics.", add broadly interpreted conclusions to that statement and it applies to the world of fitness pretty well. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in the role of both science and statistical analysis in the word of health and fitness; however, conclusions should be arrived at carefully.
So what's my beef with all these studies? Let me break it down:
Population
Typically, the survey populations in fitness studies are either high-level athletes or healthy, but completely untrained people. While both these groups are certainly worth studying, the results you get will lead you to conclusions that may or may not apply to everyone else. Untrained individuals will likely respond to almost any new stimulus added to a workout program. Conversely, high level athletes will require more stimulus, are motivated, have a higher pain tolerance, a higher work capacity, and are more likely to be genetically gifted.
For example: There was a study several months ago that showed muscle growth in 15 "recreationally active" individuals lifting 30% of their on-rep max. The problem with this study is twofold:
1. 15 people isn't exactly a massive sample size.
2. I take "recreationally active" to mean healthy, but untrained which means they could probably look at weights and improve strength and muscle size.
Based on experience and observation I have never seen anyone gain a significant amount of muscle or strength lifting that low a percentage of their max. To the credit of the researchers, the weights were lifted to failure which with training, would take a long time and just isn't that efficient way of training once you become somewhat conditioned.
Is this study completely without value? If it's your conclusion that you should be training with 30% of your max then yes. If your conclusion is that there is more than one way to skin a cat and that higher reps can sometimes be effective then no. I think there is something to be said for training with higher repetitions, just not that high, for everybody, all the time.
