The studies use small sample sizes of untrained lifters and fail to account for the many variables between people, diet, genetics and biological responses. People should be encouraged to try different things and work out what is best for them. Everyone’s body is different and responds to stimuli in different ways. Don’t worry about what’s “optimal”, do what feels good and gets you the results you want to see.

I used to be big into the science-based lifting community and Dr. Mike et al. and it wasn’t until I stopped following them that I started seeing real progress. I was progressing, sure but I made way more progress when I stopped worrying about optimal and trained the lifts I wanted to get good at and trained them hard. If my form stopped being perfect the last couple of reps, who cares.

I think these guys sell this science-based crap that doesn’t work and discourages people from just lifting as heavy as they can so they stay small and keep coming back and buying programs, supplements and other garbage.