Helix Gym Podcast: Ep 1: No BS Muscle Gain Advice & The Science Of Getting Jacked

Welcome to the Helix Gym podcast where we dig deep on the latest fitness news, debunk common myths and help you make informed choices about your fitness journey. I'm your host, Tim Frey. And as always, before we dive deep, I want to give a massive shout out to our sponsors, Flex Fitness, which are Australia's number one equipment megastore. Honestly, if you're just starting at a home gym or upgrading your gear, they're going to have you covered. Check out their extensive collection@flexequipment.com let's dive into today's episode. So the first section on the podcast today is called Gains on the Internet. And I know this is a brand new podcast. So what I've done is I've gone through and I've collated and looked at basically what is trending at the moment on the Internet and I actually found a really interesting study and it was a study slash fitness story that caught my attention and was shared by a lot of fitness enthusiasts all over the Internet. So essentially there's a guy called Meno Henselman and he shared a study slash headline that said, hardcore static stretching induces as much muscle growth as strength training. Okay, that's a recent study. So let me say that again. Hardcore static stretching, AKA just stretching statically, induces as much muscle damage and growth as strength training. So essentially what he's saying here is stretching gets you as much muscle growth as strength training does. Which, you know, if you're hearing that for the first time, you're probably like, which when I did hear that headline or read that headline for the first time, I was also thinking, so I'll go into it sounds pretty incredible. But now some people are thinking they can stretch their way to eject a dream physique. But before you get rid of those dumbbells, let's go into the details of this study and actually go through the methods and then I'll probably prove to you that it's probably not going to happen for you if you think you can stretch your way to a jack physique. So every I'd say not lazy, but I'd say like most people out there, if there was a magic pill that you could just take and you could be in incredible shape, most people would just take it. But the truth is, anyone that has a great physique has worked their way to a great physique. Your body or your physique is something that you cannot lie about. It keeps score. And I don't know what the quote was, but I'm gonna try to Recite it on the podcast. Just off the bat is your current state or physical performance is a direct reflection of the choices you have made. And you know before I even get into this study, that stretching is not gonna get you an incredible physique. So the study compared gains from strength training, strength training to those of a very intense stretching protocol. And when I say very intense stretching protocol, I mean it was intense. So intense that no one would do it. So there were no significant differences between the groups in their strength and size gains measured by a voluntary contraction, muscle thickness, penation angle and ankle, ankle flexibility. So, you know, penation angle, muscle thickness, voluntary contraction, these are just essentially scientific speak, or the scientists that are creating these studies are popping those variables in there for things to measure. Interesting measurements. Are they relevant to you? Probably not. And these weren't untrained individuals. They were strength trained at least twice a week and most were athletes. These results of the study did highlight how effective purely passive strength stretch mediated hypertrophy can be for muscle growth. They did a lot of stretching. And then the other thing is how effective full range of motion strength training is for flexibility. They trained full range of motion on a calf raise. Okay. However, the protocol to get these results was hardcore. Whereas the strength training was conventional, the strength training consisted of five sets of straight leg calf raises in a leg press. So imagine you're in a leg press, you're just doing calf raises on it. I don't think this was single leg. I would assume that was bilateral. And they were doing a 12 RM. So they're working up to a heavy 12 three times a week. Okay. And it was a respectable 15 sets of calf work. The stretching protocol consisted of a tool assisted calf stretch. So there has to be an image for this. I don't have one on me right now. But it was one hour per day and the pain score was 7 to 8 out of 10 intensity. So imagine stretching your calves for one hour per day at a pain score at 8 out of 10 intensity. That would be fucking agony. So the protocol here, the differences we're looking at is three times a week, training basically 15 minutes, doing calf raises on a leg press, and then the other protocol, stretching for an hour a day. You know, my question to you here is they're saying you can get equal benefits from either of these two is would you rather do, you know, a couple of sets of calf raises three times a week, or would you rather stretch your calves for one hour? For me, like the protocol isn't valid or reliable or like an equal Measure because you're not doing one hour of strength training versus one hour of calf stretching. Therefore, you know. Yeah, the results they found are pretty similar, but it's not the same thing. It's a completely different thing. You know, they said this study is another win for stretch mediated hypertrophy. But in terms of actually the use of stretching to get jacked, the researchers concluded the practical application seems to be strongly limited as a weekly stretching duration of up to 7 hours compared to 3 by 15 minutes of resistance training is a lot of time spent. What do you guys think? Let me know on Instagram. Send us a message at Helix Gym. Let me know what you think of this study. For me, I'm just going to stick with calf raises to get massive carbs. I'm not going to sit there and stretch my calves in a fucking medieval calf stretching torture device. Literally that it's like a, I'd imagine it's, it's kind of like a stiletto style thing, an opposite stiletto or reverse stiletto where you're in that position where your knee is over your toe or past your toe. You're doing a, let's say you're doing like a knee to wall stretch. You're kind of holding that thing with some medieval torture contraption for an hour. That sounds fucking aids. That sounds terrible. My. Yeah, my final question on this is like, are the scientists bored and trying to prove stretching is the goat, or should we just stick to conventional ways of getting jacked, AKA doing weights? Alrighty guys, we're going to get into the main topic on the podcast today. We're talking about muscle hypertrophy training volume. And this is all about sets, reps and intensity. AKA how many sets do you need in a week to build muscle? Is it better to go for higher reps? And what's the deal with hitting higher loads of 70 to 75% of your 1 RM? Let's dive deeper into some of the questions that I get literally on a daily basis about training. So we're going to talk about sets to start. How many sets do you actually need to build muscle? So the research is pretty clear and this is not one of these scientists that's trying to prove that calf stretching is the same as doing single leg calf raises for calf growth. But nine to 18 sets per week per muscle group seems to be the magic number. Number. There is a point of diminishing returns according to science on this. It's like any more than 18 sets a week on a muscle group, you know, the returns are negligible AKA you're wasting your time. But there is a school of thought on this where there's a lot of top bodybuilders around the world that do way more than 18 sets a week, and they are massive. Yes, they may be taking some anabolics to assist them with their growth, but growth, growth. But nine to 18 sets is generally key. So let's look at a TR program. So if you've got an A series and we're doing squats four by ten, let's say the muscle group we're trying to target is quads. So we've got four by 10 and then we have a B series. Let's say we have a split squat, three by 10 and then a C series. Let's say we have a leg extension three by 10. So we've got four sets in the first A series, we've got three sets in the B, three sets in the C. That is 10 sets total. So if you just did that one leg day per week of that 10 sets, we would be within that nine to 18 sets per week category. So what I want you to do, listening to this podcast, I want you to think about is your goal to build muscle. If so, count out right out how many sets you're doing of each muscle group per week. Does it fall between the nine to 18 sets? That's how you're going to know if what you're doing is on the right track to build muscle. Okay, Training, mechanical tension, hypertrophy, all these types of things are obviously precursors to building muscle. The whole nutrition component is a topic for another podcast. Next up, let's talk about reps. So it has been found the optimal rep range for building muscle is 6 to 20 reps per set. Higher reps generally are more efficient on time. Depends how busy you are. I personally am not one of these people that can just hang out at a gym for three hours a day. I used to be when I was in my early 20s, but then, you know, I got a life family. I don't have kids, but I got fur kids. And I've actually got responsibilities now. So that's not for me. So 60 minutes a day is, is my absolute tops for training. So I'm in there to get the most I can out of 60 minutes. Therefore, doing higher rep sets generally is better for hypertrophy. For me right now in my phase of life, I'm 33, so training for hypertrophy, I'm essentially doing it while I can while my body is still capable of building muscle. I want to build as much as I can before I get older. Then I won't be able to build muscle anymore. So it's just a game of holding on anyway. Higher reps are more efficient on time. So for hypothetical example I'm going to prove this to you. So we've got 10 sets of one. So 10 sets, one rep and you have a 90 second rest between the total time of that. So that's an a series is 20 minutes. Okay, and then you want to flip the script here and then we're going to do one set of 10. Essentially you're only doing one set 10 reps. You're doing the same amount of quote unquote work. Obviously the load's going to be a little bit different that you could do for 10 verse 1 and then the total training time is 2 minutes. Which of those two hypothetical examples are more time efficient? Obviously doing higher reps is more time efficient. That is the point I'm trying to get across here is if you want to get hypertrophy and you want time efficiency, higher reps, less sets is going to be key for you. Higher reps, more sets between nine and 18 is going to be key for muscle mass or development on this. And then my final teaching point here as I actually learned this when I was doing my masters of strength conditioning I think about like eight or nine years ago, but I actually did a was it 25000 word paper on muscle fibers. And if you think about how much 25000 words is, it's a ton. This was before you could just cheat and do use ChatGPT or any AI tool to write essays and stuff for you. But it thousand words on muscle fibers and I had to produce 80 references for that, 80 individual references, which means you had to read 80 studies around muscle fibers. And it was pretty fascinating for me. But what I did learn doing this master's program, that you have different types of muscle fibers and each of them essentially does different things. So you've got type ones and type twos. Type ones are low and slow. So you know someone, an athlete or someone that does more long distance running would be type one dominant. So they would be able to go for longer distances and produce less power. Then you've got type twos, Type twos, strength power, people that are good for a few reps, they're really strong, really powerful and they're really shit at long distance stuff. AKA me. I'm really bad at running, really bad at holding on for long amounts of time. But I'M quite strong and quite powerful. So if you think about me, if you know me, if you don't know me, just imagine a strongish guy, blonde, 100 kilos, a 65 kilo guy who's really long, lean and can run like for, for quite a while. But the point I'm trying to get out here is to target type 2 fibers which are responsible for more growth, more strength and more power, you need to be lifting loads of 70 to 75% of your 1 RM and above. Okay? And this recruits higher levels of type 2 fibers. So my three points here is 9 to 18 sets. We want to do higher rep training between 6 to 20 reps and then we want to be lifting loads eventually between 70 and 75% and above to target the type 2 fibers. So they are my 3. No, no BS muscle gaining advice. And I gave you a little bit of science of getting jacked there. So I want to give one of our clients a shout out at Helix Gym. His name is Andrew Savage and he has managed to drop a whopping 31 kgs. 31 kilos. That is an astronomical amount of weight. Honestly, it's been nothing short of inspirational. So what he did was he hits our Adonis program. Adonis is named after Adonis, after a God. Great God is carved out of stone. Obviously. You know, most guys want to look like Adonis. Girls not so much, but you know, they like the saying as well. He hits that program four to six times a week. So, you know, some days, depends on how much the man's running or doing cardio, et cetera, usually does six days a week. Now, complimenting that he, during this time he was doing 75 hard. So he was doing a lot of walks and runs as well. So actually on 75 hard he lost 16 kilos. And then in his total journey at my gym, Helix gym, he's lost 31 kilos, which is incredible in terms of his nutrition. He's just doing macros and calories and that's basically just within, within the last 12 months he's hit those. So Andrew's a really good, I guess, beacon of motivation. So if you follow us on Instagram, you would seen his transformations or before and afters. But honestly, like, it's been super incredible to see. Just getting into a listener question now before I wrap up and we have a section called Questions with Tim. And this is a question from a listener who has been battling some shin pains. So shin S H I N shin. I think it might be some shin splints, but I'll give you the question and I'll tell you what I do. So it's. Hey, Tim, over the last few weeks, I've had some pain in my. My shins, which has worsened over the weekend, which I'm assuming are shin splints. I don't plan on seeing a doctor and paying them, obviously, to tell them what I already think I know. Anyway, what should I do to help this? Do I rest my lower body? Do I keep going? Or am I just being a little bitch? I love that. Most of my clients come to me and they ask if they're being little bitches, which, you know, sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. Jade's a bit of a baddie, so I don't think it's that. But anyway, many thanks from my little weak legs. So usually shin splints are something that happens from too much impact. So if I think about Jade, I know her training, we're doing a lot of running, we're doing a lot of jumping, and we're doing a lot of impact stuff. If you've got calves and tibia that aren't used to taking that load. So injuries happen when you get a sudden increase in training volume. So what I mean by sudden increase in training volume, if you start doing heaps of reps, if you start doing heaps of running, if you start doing heaps of jumping, if you start doing heaps of stuff that you. You wouldn't normally do, your body can't adapt to that. So this is what has happened with Jade. What I think has happened, she's had a sudden increase in running volume or jumping or whatever the fuck she's doing, and this has caused her shins to flare up. So the advice I gave to Jade was keep training, just take out the stuff that's aggravating it, and that will be running and jumping, etc. Once it's calmed down, what you need to do is you need to get. Yeah. Two muscles in your calf, gastroc and the soleus. So gastrocnemius and soleus, they need to get strong. Then the other muscles on the front, you've got your tibialis anterior, which is kind of your shin muscle that needs to get strong. So what I would be doing, I would be starting with some isometrics. So I'd be doing isometric calf raises to strengthen that higher end, that higher range of motion. And then I would be going into slow eccentrics, which is low and slow on the way down. And then I would be progressing that into normal reps as well. Concentric, eccentric and you could do isometrics on there as well. So heaps of ways to do that. You got seated calf raises, you've got single leg calf raises and you've got tibialis raises with a tib bar as well. So that's my advice for Jade there. Finally guys, if you're not currently training with us at Helix Gym, we have a intro program at 93% off. It's disgusting, disgustingly cheap. That is disgustingly good for results. So that is going to be in the show notes. Finally guys, if you got anything from this podcast, don't forget to subscribe, follow the show, share it with someone that could find this valuable. Word of mouth is how we grow these podcasts. Actually I think it's 64% of podcast growth comes from word of mouth. And lastly, leave a review if you got some value. It's been epic up until. Yeah, it's been epic. I will see you guys next week.