alt Hacker NewsThere's no way this works in practice. A lot of heavy lifting (maximums) is about neurology and mind-body training. You cannot develop the ability to deadlift 405lbs by spending 2 hours using a cable crossover machine every day. Picking up something that weighs 2x more than you do requires your brain to send an extremely strong, synchronized signal. This is something that takes a lot of practice to develop. You have to consistently push your maximum voluntary effort in order to expand this capacity.
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There is a minimum weight you must use to create a training stimulus, but yes, you can increase your 1RM with higher-rep sets (again, to a limit, they can't be sets of 100, the weight is too light).
To increase your 1RM at the most optimal pace, yes you need to specifically train the movement so that you can benefit from improved technique and neurological adaptation. But if I do tricep, pec, and front delt isolation exercises at higher reps, to failure, and see significant hypertrophy in these muscles, my bench press will be stronger, other things constant.
This is very interesting and explain why construction workers can lift 200kg but when they migrate to body building they lost that ability less that a year later.
Right, but this post is about hypertrophy (big muscles). Not about heavy lifts.