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Good morning. A muscle physiologist on what actually drives growth, how a UFC strength coach adds size without killing speed, and the case that hard work shouldn't feel like suffering. Let's get into it…
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On Andy Galpin's Perform podcast, muscle physiologist Dr. Mike Roberts of Auburn walked through where the hypertrophy science stands right now.
The takeaways:
Mechanical tension is the king driver (~80%); within normal ranges, testosterone, hormones, and receptor counts don't predict who grows
You don't need damage to grow - soreness barely tracks with growth, and concentric-only training builds muscle about as well
True non-responders are rare (under ~5%); if someone isn't growing, the first lever is usually more volume, working up toward ~20 sets per muscle per week
Load is flexible: taken near failure, ~30% and ~80% of 1RM grow muscle similarly (heavier just adds more strength)
Train hard before any layoff or surgery - you lose the same percentage, but a bigger "muscle bank" leaves you with more, and the myonuclei you built stick around for the comeback
📸 Sorinex
Ahead of Max Holloway's jump to welterweight to face Conor McGregor on Saturday, his strength coach of 15 years - Darin Yap of Honolulu's Tactical Strength - told Aloha State Daily the plan is to add 15 pounds without dulling what makes Holloway dangerous.
The non-negotiables stay fixed - footwork, hand speed, endurance - and only then does he layer in size, slowly, for durability and punching power. His rule: "we never want to sacrifice our speed and our endurance for size."
In a new essay, performance coach and author Brad Stulberg pushes back on hustle culture's "grindslop" - the idea that if you're not miserable, you're not working hard enough.
Greatness still takes serious work, he argues, but the people who sustain it come to enjoy the grind, and joy and intensity coexist in the best performers. His framing for coaches: fit before grit. Without a good match between an athlete and what they're doing, hard work is just suffering; with it, the same work becomes meaningful. If pain is the dominant feeling, something needs to change.
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