Ok, so in Muscular Tension Part 1 I looked at the topic of muscular tension in overview. What it is, what it represents and why it is important (i.e. as the primary initiator) in terms of muscle growth. This had to do with high-tension skeletal muscle contractions activating mechanosensors which turned on the protein synthesis pathway via mTOR .
This requires two factors which are recruiting the fibers and then exposing them to some (currently uknown) number of contractions to activate the mTOR pathway via mechanosensors.
This can occur in a number of ways including lifting heavy weights (80-85% of max or higher) which recruit all fibers from repetition 1 or by lifting lighter weights near or to failure. Both may end up achieving the same or a similar number of high tension repetitions.
All roads lead to tension. It’s just a matter of how you get there.
I ended up by addressing the idea of “effective reps” the number of reps of a set or workout that occur under full recruitment and activate mTOR. … Keep Reading