We have more fitness information at our fingertips than at any point in human history, and somehow people are still confused about what works and what they should do.

Every week there’s a new special diet, a new training protocol, or some broccoli-headed Gen Zer who just discovered tank tops and is now filming TikToks about how you’ve been doing triceps pushdowns wrong your entire life.

It’s enough to make you do nothing at all, which, ironically, is the one thing guaranteed to fail.

So when researchers finally decide enough’s enough and analyse all the available research on a topic, it’s probably worth paying attention. Well, that's what recently happened.

The American College of Sports Medicine put out a new position stand on resistance training in healthy adults. It synthesised 137 systematic reviews covering data from more than 30,000 participants to identify which factors actually matter for muscle growth and strength.

This is about as close to “current consensus” as you can get.

The short version

Most forms of resistance training work (surprise!), and you can build muscle, strength and power using all types of equipment––free weights, machines, bands, etc. The bigger, and arguably more important point, is that consistent training matters far more than obsessing over every programming detail, especially when there are only a handful of things that even make a difference in the first place.

So what are those things? Well, that's what the long version is for.

Strength gains

Most studies measured strength using a one-rep max (1RM). That is, the heaviest weight you can lift for...well, one rep.

This matters because strength is about specificity. Building a bigger muscle generally increases its potential to produce more force, but strength also requires practising the movement you want to get stronger in and lifting loads ≥80% 1RM.

With that out of the way, five variables were consistently linked to greater strength gains: heavier loads (duh), using a full range of motion, performing multiple sets, training at least twice per week, and putting your priority lifts earlier in the workout.

To briefly expand on these (I'm lying, nothing about this is going to be brief–but it's briefer than my usual word count, so fight me, bro):

Lift heavy: Training with loads of around 80% of your 1RM (or heavier) generally led to greater strength gains than loads less than 80%. This doesn't mean you show up at the gym and YOLO every time you're there–lighter accessory work still has a place even if strength is your primary goal. But if you want to get stronger, you need to spend time lifting heavier things. I know, I just blew your mind, didn't I?

Use a full range of motion (ROM): A 'full range of motion' means completing the lift through the largest range you can comfortably control. I intentionally said comfortably because 'full range of motion' means the full range you can perform safely.

Do multiple sets: One working set can still improve strength, particularly in beginners or people with very limited time. But additional sets give you more opportunities to practise the movement and accumulate enough 'work' to drive further adaptation. As a quick aside: This doesn't mean you just randomly add sets because some fuckface on the internet said so. A recent paper found that higher weekly volume and frequency were both associated with greater strength gains, but there was a point of diminishing returns. In fact, the diminishing returns appeared more pronounced for strength than for hypertrophy.

Train at least twice per week: Part of the advantage of training more frequently is that it allows you to distribute your weekly sets across several sessions. In turn, each session is more productive. This doesn't mean each session needs to be super heavy. You might perform a heavy bench press on one day, and a lighter variation later in the week. Generally though, a frequency of 2-3x/week trumps trying to cram all your volume into one session.

Put priority exercises first: Strength gains tend to be better in exercises performed earlier in the workout since you're less fatigued, so you can lift more and perform higher-quality reps per set. So, for example, if improving your squat is a priority, you should squat at the start of the workout, before you do things like lunges and leg extensions. If improving your pull-ups is a priority, you should do pull-ups before other back exercises.

Muscle growth (aka hypertrophy) is way simpler than social media makes it seem

Unlike strength, only two programming variables consistently made a meaningful difference for muscle growth.

1) Volume

Specifically, ≥10 sets per muscle group per week generally led to greater muscle growth (although there's nuance to this).

However, there's an important point to stress here. Volume matters because it gives you more opportunities to expose the muscle to meaningful mechanical tension. But tension still has to be there. If you’re just adding sets because you’ve heard “more volume = more growth,” you’re missing the point, like half of the social media hypertrophy bros.

More volume only helps once the sets are hard enough, the target muscle is loaded effectively, and you can recover well enough between workouts to repeat that performance consistently. In other words, if you're progressing on your current volume level, you don't have to add more sets until things genuinely begin to stall.

Relatedly, "hard" doesn't mean pushing every set to failure–the present review found no real muscle growth advantage to taking sets all the way to momentary muscular failure versus stopping a few reps shy.

2) Eccentric overload

The other variable highlighted by the paper was eccentric contractions/overload.

The eccentric is the lowering portion of an exercise, when the working muscle lengthens while producing force. Think about lowering the dumbbell during a biceps curl, descending into a squat, or lowering your heel during a calf raise. The concentric is the opposite: when the muscle shortens as you lift the weight, like the 'curl' half of a biceps curl.

In the context of this review, the authors compared eccentric-only training to concentric-only training, and reported greater muscle growth from eccentric-only training.

However, that previous paragraph oversells the results. A newer meta-analysis published after the position stand’s October 2024 search cutoff found no clear overall difference in muscle growth between eccentric-only and concentric-only training, and rated the certainty of the evidence as very low.

So eccentric training can certainly build muscle, but it’s far less clear that it builds meaningfully more muscle than other forms of training.

Practically speaking, if you're completing each rep with some degree of control, there's no compelling reason for most people to obsess over very slow negatives or specialised eccentric-only training. In fact, the same ACSM position stand noted that time under tension (and rep duration) didn’t consistently improve muscle growth.

Similarly, training to failure, equipment type, and advanced training techniques–like drop sets and cluster sets–or fancy periodisation schemes didn't provide any special benefits to muscle growth either.

That isn't to say these things don't matter–I love a good drop set on arms day and fancy periodisation–but they sit way down on the priority list compared to showing up consistently and training hard.

In practice

Most people don't just want to build muscle or strength; it's often a combination of the two. Fortunately, programming this is a lot simpler than social media makes it seem:

• Pick one or two priority exercises for each workout that are easy to load and allow for long-term progression. On an upper-body day, for example, you might start with a chest press or shoulder press and perform two to three sets of four to six reps for your strength-focused work.
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• You can then move on to three or four muscle-building exercises that effectively load the target muscles. These will often use moderate-to-high rep ranges and may include more isolation exercises, allowing you to train closer to failure while accumulating enough weekly volume for each muscle group.
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• From there, focus on progressing the exercises over time. That could mean performing more reps with the same weight, lifting more weight for the same number of reps, or some combination of the two.
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• Rinse and repeat forever.

TL;DR

• Most forms of resistance training work. The most important factor is that you actually train consistently rather than obsess over the perfect plan.
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• For strength: Train the lift or movement you want to improve, perform it early in the workout, use a range of motion you can comfortably control, aim for 2 to 3 sets, train 2-3 times per week, and regularly use loads around 80% of your 1RM or heavier.
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• For muscle growth: aim for roughly 10 or more challenging sets per muscle group per week. But remember that your personal volume needs might be higher or lower.
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• You don’t need to take every set to failure. Your sets should be challenging, but stopping a few reps shy can build just as much muscle.
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• Machines, free weights and bands can all work. Use the equipment you like, is safe for you to use, and allows you to train consistently.
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• Advanced techniques aren't special. Drop sets, cluster sets, complicated periodisation and other advanced methods are optional tools.
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• For a combination of strength and muscle growth: perform your heavier priority exercises first, use the rest of the workout to accumulate productive muscle-building volume, and gradually progress your reps or weights over time.
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• Rinse and repeat forever.

See ya.

–Aa

P.S. How did you find this week's instalment of the Vitamin?

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