Comment by eudamoniac

I know this is not in the spirit of HN, but I feel it's my ethical duty to say something about this topic because of the impact the topic has on the psychology of young men. This study is misleading or more likely just false. I do not know what the flaw in their methodology is, but I know it is false, regardless of how many peers may have reviewed it. Please do not start lifting 20-25RM to gain hypertrophy, because it will not work well, and you will not achieve your goals.

No one in the history of lifting has ever achieved an impressive physique via light weights. It simply does not work. The literature, to the extent it exists, is wrong on this and on many other related topics. The traditional view, taken in general, is correct: lift big to get big. Strongmen and powerlifters are very hypertrophied below their fat. They do 3-5RMs. Bodybuilders may do up to 12RMs. No one successful, even moderately, does or ever has done 25RMs because that weight is too low to drive adaptation in the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle.