Is Maxing Out Effective for Building Muscle? (One-Rep Max Training)

Regularly maxing out isn't completely uncommon, especially in the strength world.

For instance, the Bulgarian method, based on my limited reading, appears to have involved maxing out daily on the snatch, clean & jerk, as well squat variations.

In the powerlifting world, it seems modifications of the Bulgarian method exist. In this scenario, maxing out is done with the back squat, deadlift, and bench press.

Some reasons as to why regular one-rep max training may be great for strength gains involve improved motor learning with heavier loads and greater neural adaptations.

But, what about muscle hypertrophy?

Two research papers can help us here.

Dankel et al. assigned the arms of 5 trained men to a one-rep max arm and their other arm assigned to a volume arm. Both arms were trained for 21 days.

With the one-rep max arm, they worked up to a one-rep max on the unilateral dumbbell biceps curl each day. They also performed a maximum isometric contraction of the biceps at 60 degrees of elbow flexion using a dynamometer. This was done for 2 contractions, each lasting 3 seconds.

With the volume arm, they did exactly what was done with the one-rep max arm. However, in addition to this, the arm performed 3 sets of 10 reps on the unilateral dumbbell biceps curl with a 70% one-rep max load.

Increases in one-rep max strength and maximal isometric contraction strength were similar between both arms.

However, increases in elbow flexor thickness at all measured regions throughout the 21 days favored the volume arm versus the one-rep max arm. Looking carefully at the data, it's quite evident the one-rep max arm experienced virtually no growth.

Now, this study had subjects train daily and the study was only 21 days in duration. What about rest days in between and a longer duration study?

Mattocks et al. can help us. 17 men and 21 women, all untrained, were assigned to either a testing group or hypertrophy group.

Both groups trained the unilateral knee extension and chest press, twice per week for 8 weeks.

The hypertrophy group, each session, performed 4 sets to failure with an 8-12 rep-max load and 90 seconds of rest between sets for each exercise.The testing group, each session, warmed up and worked up to a one-rep max, 90 seconds of rest was given between attempts.

Increases in unilateral knee extension one-rep max for both legs and chest press one-rep max were statistically similar between both groups.

For all the measurements of anterior and lateral thigh thickness, the results favor the hypertrophy group. Looking at the testing group results, for nearly all measures, there were virtually no increases, rather slight decreases. Conversely, the hypertrophy group experienced increases across virtually all measures

To sum up, the study by Dankel et al. and Mattocks et al. appear to suggest that one-rep max training, although effective for strength gain, isn't' effective for building muscle.

These findings would support the idea that one-rep max training likely produces significant strength gains through neural adaptations and/or improved motor skills, rather than muscle growth.

For building muscle, the current evidence indicates that reps between 5 and 35, roughly equating to loads between 85% one-rep max and 30% one-rep max, produce similar muscle growth, provided repetitions are performed to failure (the point at which no more repetition can be performed).

Music:
Lakey Inspired - Warm Nights
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https://open.spotify.com/artist/3zDGj...

References:
Dankel et al. - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27875...
Mattocks et al. - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28463...