> I actually started bulking up in my upper arms for the first time in my life.
No you didn't, unless you were completely and utterly detrained (i.e., previously bedridden or something) and even then, the stimulus would've only resulted in adaptation for a short period.
VR exercise is far too submaximal (in regards to strength) to result in meaningful strength adaptations past a short initial adaptation period.
I also build muscles in VR training and I've done a lot of stronglift so I know what progression is like. Pistol Whip is great for building leg muscles. Imagine doing that one more squat you didn't think you had in you when in the squat rack. In Pistol Whip you do that 20 times without noticing.
You don't need progressive overload to build muscles. High rep sets should not be underestimated.
The lower body musculature is too large to be effectively stressed by bodyweight exercise in people fostering any decent level of fitness, i.e., bodyweight squats don't make you stronger.
Just because an exercise is hard or makes you sore doesn't mean it's effective.
I doubt I'll convince the parent, but for the curious about why this comment is utterly wrong and uninformed let's look at how muscles work.
In a given set of muscles you have dozens to thousands of motor units. Each is activated by a motor neuron. When recruited the muscle fibers in a motor unit begin producing (or trying to produce) force. The interesting thing is that they arn't all recruited at the same time, when you use 'a muscle' your actually invoking a complex process of recruitment of sub units within that muscle. Moreover these units are not created equally. Some can produce force for a long period of time and are usually weaker, some can produce force very rapidly but tire quickly. This is why when you try to produce a small static force for a long period of time (e.g. hold your arms out straight) your muscles will eventually start shaking and eventually give out. As one set of motor units begin to fatigue the signal to the whole muscle increases, recruiting fast action motor units which are worse at slow holding, and eventually they and all the units are fatigued and you can't produce continued force.
If you'd like to play around with a simulation of the above process you can, it's older code but it may still check out:
And to specifically address the issue of 'building muscle', as I've noted there are lots of sub components with different roles. Each of those can grow over time for different reasons and fatigue is one of the main signals for growth. Not the only one, but the notion that the only way to build muscle is to 'tear up' your muscles with huge lifts is both outdated and wrong.
I'm having trouble understanding how your comment refutes mine; could you clarify?
> Not the only one, but the notion that the only way to build muscle is to 'tear up' your muscles with huge lifts is both outdated and wrong.
I think you're misunderstanding my point. The bodyweight squat is ineffective because you cannot change the stimulus; the only training variable you can adjust is the number of squats you do. Because it's a relatively easy exercise, this quickly means that you cannot subject yourself to sufficient stress with it, both for myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy purposes. Nobody in the history of the universe has ever gotten big and strong on bodyweight squats. It has never happened and it never will happen.
You sure can change the stimulus. Three options immediately come to mind. First, you can increase the power with which you explode out of the bottom, that is push at the ground harder and faster. Second, you can pause at the bottom for a variable length of time, adding an isometric element and increasing the difficulty of the concentric movement. Third, you can do one legged squats to greatly increase the weight per leg.
Have your heavy barbell back squats made your legs and core strong enough to do explosive pistol pause squats?
I should've written more explicitly: bodyweight squats don't make people who harbor a decent level of fitness stronger. Like any novel stimulus, they will make you stronger for a short while and then it will stop once you've adapted.
It's pretty obvious that the target audience for VR exercise is not 'people who harbor a decent level of fitness'. You're looking at the wrong baseline.
I'm curious about the precise interpretation here. Are you saying increased strength be lost and I will return to baseline before I started exercising? Or are you saying I will get a certain amount of increase and I will maintain it, but it will plateau there?
Because I'm just fine with the 2nd scenario. The first would be weird and contradicts my experience (nearly 2 years in ...).
I've only ever done body weight and know that get more muscle when training. I think you are doing premature optimizing. I know nothing about exercise theory but I know what gets me fat and what makes me strong, I do not care about what is optimal since I do fun things for exercise, not for strength.
Do you think this is the difference, the mindset we have in our training.
Well, I'm not sure if this is about differences in definitions .... I don't know what adaptation means. All I can tell you is it had a significant impact on the actual physical bulk of my upper arms.
The main driver of that was SynthRiders, where you get points for punching targets as hard as you can. To get to the top of the leader board you have to pretty much hit targets with all your strength for 3-4 mins. 30 mins of that a day over several months was enough to make a significant difference.
No you didn't, unless you were completely and utterly detrained (i.e., previously bedridden or something) and even then, the stimulus would've only resulted in adaptation for a short period.
VR exercise is far too submaximal (in regards to strength) to result in meaningful strength adaptations past a short initial adaptation period.