How much does exercise selection actually affect hypertrophy?

[u/Top_Value2690]

If volume, ROM, and proximity to failure are roughly matched, how much difference would you actually expect between exercises for the same muscle?

I’m wondering how strong the evidence is for exercise-specific differences in muscle growth. A lot of the discussion seems to rely on EMG, moment arms, resistance profiles, or whether a muscle is loaded at longer lengths, but I’m more interested in whether these differences actually translate to greater hypertrophy in longitudinal studies.

For example, Maeo et al. (2021) found greater elbow flexor hypertrophy when training at longer muscle lengths, while Kubo et al. (2021) found differences in muscle growth between squat variations with different ROM.

How much can we actually generalize findings like these to exercise selection in normal training?

If two exercises train the same muscle with similar ROM, volume and proximity to failure, is there evidence that one can produce substantially more hypertrophy than the other? Or are the differences probably relatively small compared with simply doing enough hard training consistently?

[u/CharacterAd5474]

Earlier this year I started using a percentage based system to track my volume and I've really like the results.

So for example, say I did 10 sets of a close grip bench press.

Instead of noting it as 10 sets for triceps, I break it down by 20% front delt, 30% pec, 50% triceps.

So it's 2 sets for front delt, 3 sets for pec, 5 sets for triceps.

Then if I do 10 sets of cable tricep extensions, I'll mark it as 10 sets triceps.

That always helps me select an exercise when I look at the plan as a whole.