[Music] welcome to the house of hypertrophy what if we convinced someone their training program was perfectly optimized for them but didn't reveal that it was a lie could their belief alone lead to better results what if we gave someone a placebo pill telling them it was an anabolic steroid or caffeine would they feel more energetic lift heavier and see better gains and what about other underappreciated questions relating to the power of the mind could positive selft talk or even just imagining your training lead to more progress in this video we'll explore the fascinating research Behind
these questions some of the findings might surprise you let's dive in this study had 40 athletes trained for 10 weeks one group was told their training program was individualized for them based on their force velocity profile don't worry about what this means it's not essential but you can check out the pin comment if you're curious the other group was told they were doing a generic non-optimal training program in reality both groups followed the same training program the results showed that the group who believed the training was individualized experienced greater gains in back Squatch strength and
muscle thickness of the rectus humorus so even though the training was identical the belief that it was personalized led to better results summoning the spirit of scientific accuracy this study is not flawless and is considered just a pilot study the training focused on strength and power and Sprint and jump performance did not differ between the two groups also the muscle thickness increases were fairly small with measurement error and other potential confounders possibly in play regardless this study relates to the placebo effect which is a beneficial outcome that happens because you believe you were given a
beneficial treatment the mechanisms behind the placebo effect are unclear perhaps being told your training is individualized makes you put more effort and intensity into your training and Recovery other currently unknown factors could contribute too this isn't the only study on the power of the placebo effect with lifting weights there are even more surprising studies if you followed the house of horty for a while you might remember these two studies but let me briefly revisit them as they still blow my mind the first paper was published back in 197 three 15 trained Varsity athletes trained normally
for 7 weeks then for the next 4 weeks six of them were chosen and given a daily 10 mg pill of Dianabol an anabolic steroid unknown to them it was just a placebo after the initial 7 weeks without the pill these were the average strength gains they saw on four exercises after the four weeks where they took the pill these were the strength gains they saw the subjects experienced two to 10 times more strength gains in just over half the time simply by being tricked into thinking they were taking anabolic steroids the second paper was
published in 2000 and the author was actually a powerlifting coach who noted that some of his athletes who were 11 nationally ranked powerlifters asked about the effectiveness of steroids which inspired the author to run this study here were the subjects Baseline one red max strength on the bench press back squat and deadlift they were pretty damn strong in the first test before testing strength on these three exercises again the subjects were given two tablets and told they were immediate acting anabolic steroids but they were just Placebo pills this resulted in all the subjects hitting personal
bests lifting an average 9.5 kg more on the bench press 12.2 Kg on the squat and 10.9 Kg on the deadlift the authors noted that these Gams were significant enough to elevate the athletes from National to International rankings subjects were given two more tablets to take for the upcoming week of training and all reported increased Vigor lifting heavier or performing more reps than ever before in the next testing session some of the subjects were told the pills were just placebos these subject strength dropped down to their Baseline levels while those who weren't told this roughly
maintained their impressive gains tricking people into thinking they've consumed caffeine or even an amino acid supplement has also been shown to improve training performance the effects aren't as large as being deceived into thinking you've taken anabolic steroids but the effects tend to result in squeezing out a couple more reps there's actually a pretty respectable effect from preconditioning which makes sense once you understand it imagine someone does as many reps as they can with 100 kg on the bench press after a few days of rest we give them a pill telling them it's a special caffeine
supplement and then test their Max reps again this time without them knowing we reduce the weight down to 90 kg while making it look like 100 kg perhaps we use fake weights because the weight is lighter they'll do more reps than expected thereby preconditioning and convincing them that the supplement is highly effective a few days later we give them the same pill and test their Max reps with a real 100 kg their performance will typically be much better than it would have been with without the preconditioning for a detailed description of a preconditioning study and
how it controls for confounders check out the pinned comment summoning the spirit of scientific accuracy once again not every study has found the placebo effect in the weightlifting world but most have and again the effects appear to be larger when people believe they're taking something with a bigger impact the opposite of the placebo effect also exists the nobo effect where a negative outcome happens because you believe you received a negative treatment for example this paper found that electrical stimulation of the quads which the subjects were told would increase their fatigue but was just a sham
led to reduced performance on the leg extension so what could we do with this Placebo and nobo literature while it's tough to trick yourself into believing you're taking the ultimate muscle building pill this highlights the potential benefits of being optimistic and confident as well as the potential dangers of negative thinking if you constantly tell yourself you have terrible genetics or you can't surpass a certain limit these thoughts might be holding you back more than you realize while making this video I was reminded of a section in Arnold's book titled the mind the most powerful tool
he shares a pretty cool story involving Franco Columbo that I'd thought I'd share here Franco and I were squatting in the Old Gold Gym Franco got under £500 squatted down and couldn't get back up £500 for even one rep was apparently just too heavy for him that day just then four or five Italian American kids from New York came in there's Franco hey Franco they were great fans and were looking forward to watching him work out I took Franco aside and told him Franco these guys think you're the king you can't get under £500 again
and fail all of a sudden his face changed he went out onto the street and spent a while psyching himself up he stalked back into the gym grabbed the bar and instead of the six reps he was supposed to do with £500 he did eight obviously Franco's muscles didn't get any stronger in that few minutes between sets what did change was his mind his drive and motivation his desire for the goal this is a perfect segue into our next topic Franco went out to the street to psych himself up there are different ways you could
psych yourself up such as talking to yourself with motivating words and even imagining your self-lifting what does the scientific literature say about the effectiveness of psyching up before moving on to this I actually have a potential way to create the placebo effect for yourself it's through our exceptionally highquality partner the alpha progression app the app can generate an evidence-based training program 100% custom to your needs based on what we've seen it may not be a bad idea to expect the best Gams of your life with the program this isn't necessarily deceiving as I genuinely believe
the app does a phenomenal job with the training variables aligned with the current scientific literature you can analyze your progress with clean graphs there's a huge exercise database with video and instructions and the app also has built-in Progressive overload recommendations that help you keep making gains try out all these premium features free for 2 weeks with a link in the description and pin comment if you choose to to continue the link gives you 20% off of subscription again I truly believe the app is awesome with a thousands of reviews echoing this a recent review paper
examine the effects of psyching up on maximum muscle Force production there are three main types of psyching up I'll mention here prepatory arousal is something you do to pump yourself up it could be screaming or pacing back and forth quickly motivational selft talk is talking to yourself with motivating words such as I can lift this weight and you may consider what Ronnie used to do as motivational selft talk wa wait imagery involves you imagining yourself performing an exercise with as much detail as you can must up visualizing yourself performing an exercise from your own eyes
in first person is likely more effective than a third person Vision the review found that most studies on these techniques found they successfully increased maximal Force production there currently isn't enough evidence to say if one is better than another and it could vary based on people's preference anyhow let me briefly overview two studies from the review so you have a better idea of all this this 1993 paper had trained varsity football players used prepatory arousal through watching aggressive football videos before bench pressing this resulted in greater bench press one R max strength so watching motivational
videos before lifting could be beneficial now this study examined the instant effect they psych up and then we test their strength nearly all of the studies in the review just explored the instant effect but how are gains impacted by using psyching up techniques week after week that is in the long term fortunately we have the second study that recruited 44 trained combat practitioners they trained physically three times per week with these exercises and variables the imagery Group after this session spent around 30 minutes imagining themselves performing the same exercises and variables from A firstperson View
these were the instructions given a combined imagery and selft talk group also spent 30 minutes Imagining the exercises but added positive and motivational selft talk during both physical and imagery sessions the researchers recommended identifying and rewriting negative selft talk into positive statements for example changing I can't lift this to I can lift this a control group just performed the physical training sessions with no imagery or selft talk but they did a 30-minute neutral cognitive task after so time was equated between all groups it was found that bench press and half squat strength tended to be
best for the combined imagery and selft talk group followed by the imagery group and then the control group selfefficacy and motivation scores followed the same pattern this is just one study so it's certainly not definitive proof pying up enhances long-term gains yet and there's no research yet on its effects on muscle hypertrophy 30 minutes of mental imagery is also a big time investment but positive selft talk is something more practical however shorter mental imagery sessions could still provide some benefits there's a lot of research on mental imagery and this is a whole other video itself
let me know if you'd like to see that for now at least we have solid evidence these psyching up strategies can instantly benefit your strength so feel free to try any of them individually or in combination even if it's just a placebo effect well we know that's not a bad thing thank you for making it to the end of the video here's the Key summary points feel free to check out the alpha progression app or another one of the videos at the house of hypertrophy
