Should You Cut Before You Bulk?: How Body-Fat Levels Affect Your P-Ratio
It’s commonly believed that people with higher levels of body fat will struggle to build muscle (or that building muscle will require a larger caloric surplus, leading to more fat gain per unit of muscle gain). We performed a subject-level meta-analysis, suggesting that’s not the case.
Periodization: What the data say
Periodized training leads to larger strength gains than non-periodized training, and undulating periodized training leads to larger strength gains than linear periodized training. When stratifying by training status, periodized training leads to larger strength gains in both trained and untrained lifters. However, undulating periodized training only leads to larger strength gains in trained lifters, but not untrained lifters. When stratifying by lift, periodized training and undulating periodized training lead to significantly larger bench press strength gains than non-periodized and linear periodized training, respectively. Periodized and periodization style don’t seem to significantly affect squat strength gains.
Strength training for women: setting the record straight
Relative (%) strength gains tend to be larger in women than in men. When stratifying by age relative strength gains are larger for young women than young men, while relative strength gains aren’t significantly different in older men and women. When splitting upper and lower body strength gains, relative gains in upper body strength are larger for young women than young men, while relative gains in lower body strength aren’t significantly different between sexes. Relative hypertrophy is similar in men and women. Obviously, absolute strength gains and hypertrophy are larger in men.
