The Craziest Pre-Print Drop I've Ever Saw Happened This Week
Milo Wolf, the Lead Author, Might Be My Favorite Scientist
This week a pre-print dropped in the field of exercise science. It was the first study looking at lengthened partials vs full range of motion in an ecologically valid workout plan among experienced lifters using within subject controls. If you understood the previous sentence, you’ll know how crazy that is, but what happened after is even wilder. Let me try and explain what happened.
Range Of Motion
When you perform any movement in resistance training, a key element of your form is your range of motion (ROM). This can be thought of as, while lifting the weight, how far along the line or arc do you move. In a bench press, the top of the range of motion is “full lock out,” the part where your arms are straight and the weight is at the highest point. The bottom of the range of motion would be where the bar is physically touching you, either at your chest, collarbone, or neck1.
The extreme ends of the range of motion are referred to as the peak contraction and the stretched position2. If this is your first time thinking about this, you probably assume that you want to do the full range of motion for each exercise but, depending on your goals, there are often good reasons to limit your range of motion3. But a lot of coaches will advise their athletes to limit their range of motion to avoid injury, get a better pump4, better mind muscle connection5, or some other reason.
Modern research only started to confirm full range of motion as better for weight lifting in the last decade6, comparing two sets of lifters, those who engaged in full range of motion vs those who did a partial range of motion.
But What About Lengthened Partials?
So why is anyone even talking about lengthened partials, didn’t we just say that full ROM is better? Yes and no. When full range of motion was studied, it was compared to all sorts of partial lifts bucketed together. This includes partial range of motion focusing on the shortened position, as if you only lower the bar half way to your chest on the bench press, and partial ranges of motion focusing on the lengthened position, as if you only lifted the bar half way up on the bench press before lowering it again. A lengthened partial is the second type. Enter Milo Wolf PhD7, here pictured showing off his latest research.
Milo Wolf recently acquired his PhD in Sports Science, specifically range of motion, specifically studies on lengthened partials. He does a lot of things related to lengthened partials:
He hosts a podcast about exercise that often discussed lengthened partials8
He contributes to that podcast’s blog which writes about lengthened partials9
He has a YouTube channel where he talks about exercising various muscle groups with lengthened partials10
He does online coaching with programs emphasizing lengthened partials11
He is launching an exercise app to complement the coaching to help people do lengthened partials12
He trains exclusively with lengthened partials13
This year, he conducted a study at Leeman College to study lengthened partials. It was a very unusual study.
The Study
Most studies in exercise science use untrained lifters14 and do one exersize instead of a full program. This study had experienced lifters as participants and had them each doing a full program. The study was preregestered and blinded.
They also used within subject controls. This means that each test subject would train their right and left sides seperately, using lengthened partials for one and full range of motion for the other (sides assigned randomly), then at the end muscle growth on both limbs would be measured by ultrasound. This allows the scientists to control for genetics, sleep, nutrition, etc. This is common practice in exercise science these days.
The participants trained for 8 weeks, every set to failure, every set under observation by the researchers. This is exactly the sort of study that could tell if experienced lifters should use full range of motion or lengthened partials. It’s a big bet that this new line of lifting will prove better than the old conventional wisdom.
The Results
Null hypothosis confirmed. The two groups training programs showed the same growth on average. When you dig into the data you can find that this muscle group did better with lengthened partials, and this muscle group did better with full range of motion15, but no total effect.
The Aftermath
Then the crazy thing happened. At least three of the study’s authors put up YouTube videos talking about the study and how it showed the null result161718. These guys don’t have the most academically inclined audiances. They could have just ignored it. They didn’t.
They do have a little cope in the videos, saying “this shows how important the stretch is,” “one paper is never decisive about an issue,” and “two years ago no one thought any sort of partials could compete with full range of motion,” but they do show the failure of the study to show the superiority of the techniques they have been selling.
Milo, the lead author, even has a graph in his video showing how he updated his baysian belief that lengthened partials are superior to full range of motion downward.
I’m not sure a graph is needed here, but he needed something for a video.
I don’t see things like this very often. I don’t see people trying to build a brand annoucing information against interest this hard. I wish more people investigating truth would act like this, and in areas more consequential than how to build muscle most efficiently.
There are LOTS of ways to do the bench press.
If you’re not super familiar with the ins and outs of human skeletal muscle, the peak contraction is when the weight is up and the deep stretch is when the weight is down.
Injury recovery is the most common.
Bro science thing. it’s the feeling of increased in the blood flow to the muscle.
Another bro science thing. It’s what it sounds like.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Title-%3A-Full-range-of-motion-induces-greater-muscle-Baroni-Pompermayer/0094d5a707baae9616628508d0f0f1ea5a8556cd
On his podcast they refer to him as Dr Milo Wolf, but all the people with PhDs I know personally feel mocked when I call them Doctor.
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast/
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@WolfCoaching
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/coaching/
https://myoadapt.com/
No citation for this one. He just says it on the podcast sometimes.
Most studies in exercise science use college students who have too much free time (like most studies with healthy human subjects). The applicability of their findings to more exerpeinced lifters is questionable.
Leaning on this result is a type of academic fraud.
super interesting article. you might want to use spell check
What I find most interesting here is that if lengthened partials are at least non-inferior to full ROM, you should be able to load considerably more weight on a lengthened partial, and presumably build muscle/strength faster?