Nicholas Rolnick, The Human Performance Mechanic

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Nicholas Rolnick, The Human Performance Mechanic

Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS)
Doctor of Physical Therapy
Learning and growin

Physical Therapist
Strength and Conditioning
Personal Training
Optimizing Movement
Brookbush Institute Author
Adjunct Faculty for Concordia University-Chicago teaching Kinesiology
"The Human Performance Mechanic"

11/04/2025

I’ll probably be waiting a very long time.

Here’s a simple physiological reasoning as to why heart rate elevations are NOT something to aspire to in a session when is the main goal:
1. We reach muscle failure not because our muscle can’t produce more force, but we reach failure due to maximum tolerable perception of effort (MTPOE).
2. Many things can impact the brain’s bandwidth that can lower threshold to exceed MTPOE.
3. These include things like metabolite accumulation and cardiovascular strain.
4. In order to produce maximal muscle fiber recruitment, we should aim to largely avoid purposefully increasing metabolic stress and elevation of heart rate, as these both take up space in the brain that forms the basis of earlier muscle failure. This is not ideal.
5. Therefore, beating the out of your clients to conflate a good training stimulus to how hard your heart is working is in fact, doing the exact opposite.

11/03/2025

Saw this on Facebook from .williamwallace and loved it. Bookmark and save. This is going to be a good reference moving forward.

10/31/2025

Mainstream trainers say ‘train for endurance first, then strength, then size.’ But here’s the 🫖— muscular endurance has almost nothing to do with especially if it requires you to reduce your rest periods to optimize 🤦🏼‍♂️.

A 2022 study by Fliss et al. (Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism) put this to the test. Sixteen untrained women trained one arm and one leg with heavy loads (~85 % 1RM) and the opposite limbs with light loads (~35 % 1RM) — 3 times per week for 10 weeks, always to failure.

Results:
• Strength improved far more with heavy training.
• Muscle size via DEXA was similar in either condition
• Endurance gains were completely load-specific:
– Heavy training improved endurance only at heavy loads.
– Light training improved endurance only at light loads.
There was no crossover. Getting better at 30-rep sets didn’t help at 10 reps, and vice versa.

That means “muscle endurance” isn’t a highly transferable capacity to train. Endurance training doesn’t magically make you grow; it just makes you better at the loads specific to the task.

So if your goal is muscle size or real strength, stop chasing fatigue - it’s negative on performance. The physiology is this - hypertrophy is driven by mechanical tension and effort near failure, not by how long you can survive a set.

Train hard, heavy enough to challenge you within 6–12 reps, stay close to failure, recover (48-72 hrs), repeat.

Muscle endurance can improve simply by getting stronger and will not help you grow more muscle.

SOURCE:Fliss (2022). Higher- and lower-load resistance exercise training induce load-specific local muscle endurance changes in young women.

10/13/2025

The importance of programming in the initial stages of a training program can be summarized as follows:
1. Get used to exertion and discomfort beyond day-to-day movements
2. Begin to acclimate to different exercise-based movements
3. Don’t get injured

As a result of the baseline threshold for adaptation being low, stimulating muscular adaptations like is much easier given the window is much wider. Therefore, emphasis on programming in these earlier stages is not as important because you have a wider room for making errors. Really as a - and I can’t emphasize this enough - it is NOT getting injured by trying to add a tremendous amount of volume.

However, as training progresses, the window for adaptation gets narrower and narrower due to the increased tissue capacities generated through repeated stimulation. As such, the role of programming becomes more and more important because in order to stimulate further adaptation, you will need to be in closer proximity to muscular failure than in earlier states, typically within 5 repetitions in reserve. It must be said though, they you can be “trained” in one muscle but “untrained” in another. There is a huge specificity aspect to muscle hypertrophy because it is a local, not systemic process. Adapt your programming accordingly.

09/20/2025

Do only the last 5 reps before failure “count” for muscle growth? 🤔

The “effective reps” model claims that only reps in close proximity to muscular failure stimulate hypertrophy, since that’s when motor unit recruitment, bar speed, and mechanical tension peak.

But research tells a more nuanced story:
✅ Meta-analyses show similar hypertrophy with both low- and high-load training, as long as effort is sufficient.
✅ Blood flow restriction (BFR) studies found that stopping at ~75% of total reps (well before failure) produced similar growth to training to failure.
✅ Multiple repetition schemes across different BFR contexts yield comparable results.

What does this mean?

Proximity to failure probably does matter, especially for advanced lifters where the margin for error is smaller. However, to what end is still up for discussion.

For beginners, the “window” for effective hypertrophy is probably much wider than the simplified “last 5 reps only” idea. More room for growth while operating further from failure.

Training to or near failure is definitely a useful way to track effort and ensure progression, but it’s not the only way to grow (although I think it still is the best way).

I prefer lower repetition schemes as you will optimize strength and connective tissue as well. Personally, 6-12 reps is a nice sweet spot for me and my clients.

🔑 Takeaway:
Don’t obsess over hitting a magical number of “growth reps.” Instead, focus on training with sufficient effort, accumulating quality volume, and progressing over time. The hypertrophy window is probably wider than social media often tells us.

What are your thoughts? Let’s discuss.

07/29/2025

🔬 Does Having A Enhance Outcomes Associated with ?

A new 2025 RCT by Gavanda et al. compared the outcomes of supervised (in-person), app-guided, and self-directed (PDF) resistance training over 10 weeks in trained men and women (n = 79). Each group performed the same full-body training program 3x/week, differing only in the level of guidance and feedback.

📈 Key Findings:

Supervised training (SUP) led to the greatest gains in squat strength (+26.6 kg), fat-free mass (+1.4 kg), and well-being (+15.7 pts on WHO-5).

All groups improved bench press 1RM, but only the supervised group showed significantly superior squat improvements—highlighting the value of real-time technical feedback in complex, multi-joint lifts.

Adherence rates were highest in SUP (88%), compared to APP (81%) and PDF (52%).

Supervision satisfaction (S-SRQ) was also significantly higher in SUP vs APP.

Fat mass increased slightly in the APP group, possibly due to lack of nutritional control and/or compensatory eating.

💡 Implications:
Direct supervision from a enhances , neuromuscular adaptations, psychological well-being, and accountability—especially in technically demanding exercises. While app-based training showed promise for accessibility and moderate gains, it lacked the effectiveness of live coaching - which can be attributed to possibly many reasons, but most likely you want to be a beast in person and not embarass yourself. That’s motivation enough.

📱 Realistically, hybrid models combining digital platforms with periodic human feedback may offer scalable alternatives where consistent in-person coaching is not feasible. Thoughts?

📚 Source: Gavanda et al., J Strength Cond Res, 2025.

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