Boys' Resistance Training: Strength Rose in 9 Weeks, Muscle Thickness Did Not Differ
Boys before and after puberty trained legs twice a week for nine weeks. Peak force rose more than in controls, while muscle thickness showed no clear difference.
Men vs. women strength gains flip depending on how you measure them
Women gained more bench press in percent; men gained more hex bar deadlift in kilograms. Same training, same people, and the yardstick changed the verdict.
Chest thickness predicts bench press far more than arm length does
Ultrasound on 26 Paralympic powerlifters found that one centimeter of pectoralis thickness mattered more than ten times as much as one centimeter of arm length.
Velocity-based 1RM estimates wobble most on lower-body lifts
A meta-analysis of 63 sensor studies and 38 prediction studies found relative reliability above ICC 0.90. But heterogeneity in lower-body exercises significantly biased the results, and error-size analyses were missing.
The resistance training dose that lowered HbA1c was 44% of 1RM
Across 633 overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes, the combination that cut HbA1c most was not heavy lifting. Light loads with a high weekly rep total came closer.
Eight weeks of sprinting lengthened hamstring fascicles by over 2 cm
Running alone changed muscle architecture, with no meaningful barbell work involved. Over the same eight weeks, sprint times, jumps, and maximal strength did not significantly change.
Eccentric overload: train it often for strength, rarely for power
A meta-analysis of 15 randomized trials in older adults found eccentric overload training improved both lower-limb strength and explosive power — but the best weekly frequency ran in opposite directions.
Flywheel training beat traditional weights for cognitive flexibility
Women averaging 66.8 years lifted twice a week for 36 weeks. Inhibitory control and working memory improved on both machines — cognitive flexibility only clearly favored the flywheel.
Strength divided by muscle size still carries a size effect
Ratio normalisation assumes strength and muscle size sit on a straight line through the origin. Working through NHANES data, this paper shows what the ratio hides when that assumption is never tested.
Lifting rewires the brain's output circuit, not just the muscle
A meta-analysis of 11 trials and 244 adults found resistance training significantly raised corticospinal excitability. This is why strength outruns visible size.
After ACL reconstruction the quad stayed smaller but 1RM matched
An average of 2.6 years post-injury, the reconstructed leg still had 7.5% less knee-extensor volume. Single-leg press 1RM showed no difference between legs.
Lifting twice a week tracks with lower depression odds — cardio did not
Among 7,278 US adults, meeting the strength-training guideline was associated with 29% lower odds of depression. Meeting the 150-minute cardio guideline showed no independent association.
Muscle growth slows itself down by design
A bigger muscle turns its own growth signal down. A multiscale simulation also shows why the same program produces different results depending on muscle shape.
Folic acid plus lifting added 4.79kg of muscle in eight weeks
Only the group taking 0.4mg of folic acid daily alongside resistance training moved both muscle mass and body fat substantially. It is a preliminary trial with ten people per group.
Two loads are enough for a force-velocity profile, if they are far apart
Instead of testing all eleven loads, two will reproduce nearly the same profile. There is one condition: the two loads have to be far enough apart.
An ejection fraction of 79% does not mean a stronger heart
A coronary spasm case report reads an ejection fraction of 79% with a markedly reduced end-systolic volume as a small hyperdynamic ventricle. The septum that looked thickened was scar, not muscle.
The growth signal that builds cartilage turns it toward bone when there is too much
An osteoarthritis review finds TGF-β builds cartilage at physiological levels and drives chondrocyte hypertrophy and synovial fibrosis when overactivated. The route the signal takes changes with the dose.
A bigger kidney is not growth — it is the nephrons that are left carrying the load
A chronic kidney disease review frames the compensatory hypertrophy of surviving nephrons as maladaptive. Proximal tubules run on fatty acid oxidation, not glucose.
Creatinine-based kidney numbers missed nearly half the damage
Among 117 patients living with one kidney, creatinine-based eGFR flagged 12.1%. Adding other tests brought the figure to 45.3%.
486 days without drugs: an osteoporosis diagnosis moved back to osteopenia
A 55-year-old breast cancer survivor declined anti-resorptive medication and ran a supervised loading and resistance training programme for 16 months. Lumbar spine density rose 4.3% and the femoral neck 4.7%.
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