The blog post had some decent information but I think it was a bit scattered to me.
Here are the key principles to gaining muscle with the least resistance (in my opinion):
1. Lift heavy as possible - you'll have a difficult time stimulating lots of muscle growth with light weights which I've personally tried.
2. Use proper form - tons of people get injured on heavy resistance exercises because of improper form or lifting too much without a spotter.
3. Go to muscular failure - the final rep where you can't lift the weight no more is the most important. It contributes the most to kick starting your muscle growth mechanism.
4. Don't overtrain - you need to give your body ample rest and recovery for your muscles to grow the most. (Personally I'm training once every 3 days and currently this is working well for me).
5. Train the full body - building stronger/bigger legs will help build mass everywhere in your body. Don't think you're get strong just doing push-ups. You need to work all the major muscles in some way - quads, hamstring, glutes, calves, pecs, lats, delts, triceps, biceps, etc.
6. You only need to spend 25 minutes 2-3 times a week. Tip: look into High Intensity Training principles from Arthur Jones, Mentzer, Darden and others. They promoted short, intense workouts (usually one set to failure per exercise) that stimulated arguably more muscle growth than longer workouts.
One quick note 1. Lift heavy as possible and 2. Use proper form. Part of the reason people often are started with lighter weights is to get proper form in a safer manner. This is why crossfitters (for example) often first are taught to perform the various olympic lifts using pvc pipes (and progress to bar with light weight at first). Learning form with heavy weights tends to encourage bad habits without someone there to coach form.
Training to failure seems like a core principle of HIT but is there consensus on its general effectiveness? I'm two months into the basic program of Starting Strength, lifting solo at home, so for lifts like the squat I don't really want to go to failure. Is this just something to apply if you want maximum return on time?
I wouldn't suggest going to failure on squats if you're lifting solo at home. Some people are advocates of HVT (High Volume Training) and it seems to have results as well. I think going to failure on one set is more of a preference thing if you want to maximize efficiency.
Here are the key principles to gaining muscle with the least resistance (in my opinion):
1. Lift heavy as possible - you'll have a difficult time stimulating lots of muscle growth with light weights which I've personally tried.
2. Use proper form - tons of people get injured on heavy resistance exercises because of improper form or lifting too much without a spotter.
3. Go to muscular failure - the final rep where you can't lift the weight no more is the most important. It contributes the most to kick starting your muscle growth mechanism.
4. Don't overtrain - you need to give your body ample rest and recovery for your muscles to grow the most. (Personally I'm training once every 3 days and currently this is working well for me).
5. Train the full body - building stronger/bigger legs will help build mass everywhere in your body. Don't think you're get strong just doing push-ups. You need to work all the major muscles in some way - quads, hamstring, glutes, calves, pecs, lats, delts, triceps, biceps, etc.
6. You only need to spend 25 minutes 2-3 times a week. Tip: look into High Intensity Training principles from Arthur Jones, Mentzer, Darden and others. They promoted short, intense workouts (usually one set to failure per exercise) that stimulated arguably more muscle growth than longer workouts.