Being that I was a practicing exercise physiologist for a time this
Was a frequent topic of debate at conferences and such. The science does have some key points that almost everyone agrees upon. But as far as which method is best, experts were kinda back and forth. But as Charley pointed out the first key factor is Consistency. Building muscle mass is a process, and it must be done in a consistent manner so that the body is constantly stimulated to lay down new muscle mass. Maintaining muscle is very expensive for the body and it will only hyperthopy as much as it has too and no more. As soon as the stimulation is took away then it starts to pull it back.
A second key point is time under tension or how effective the negative phase of the contraction is at stimulating or eliciting micro trauma to the myofibrals. The research is pretty clear that the negative phase of contraction is very important in hypertrophic training. How you accomplish that is a matter of personal opinion I think.
If you watch pro bodybuilders, sometimes you see the worse form ever on an exercise. I mean absolutely horrible and if you saw a skinny dude you would think well that's why he's skinny. Yet you see a pro do it, you're like, wow he seems to know what he's doing. You can't discount genetics, some people are just more prone to putting on muscle than others. I myself always responded very well to exercise and have nice shape. But I could never be 300 lbs of mass and 5% lean.
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