Really? That’s your objection? Sounds like I am having an argument with my wife - she lost, but still wants to win lol. It’s cool man, let’s just leave it here.
Go on? what does the literature say on it?
My objection is that I never lowered a weight where I counted to 3. I can count to 3 in less than half a second. You are most definitely not a STEM.
Here is the argument. You said, “3 seconds” and I commented that we never ever did a 3 second negative at all, and much less as a rule of thumb. “A nice smooth descent, but not significantly slow” is and has always been, less than 3 seconds.
Ok, sounds good. Sounds we can file that under “preference” and leave it alone and not muddy the waters. I use, and have used, around 3 seconds negatives. It helps protect me against injury, gives consistency, and takes away momentum. That is enough for me. If you want to just “control” the decent and it isn’t 3 seconds, that is great too. You sound like you are trying to train safely as well. Apart from that, I don’t think we differ very much on opinion around the point. Fair?
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I prefer to do my ‘assistance’ work similar to those discussions. I think 5x5 FSL type work helped my bench last year but I was probably closer to SSL weights. 5x5 with something I can do 10 times seems like a waste of time. 5x5 with a 7-8 RM is closer to that 80-87% range that is supposed to build strength (according to CT).
I think it’s silly that after all these years coaches will still call something different than their method inferior. I don’t quite buy into the neuro typing stuff, but we know everyone is made up of a different amount of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers (and the in-between). That means some people are naturally good distance runners while others are better at sprinting. It’s not a stretch to think those same differences might mean one person does well with junk volume while another does better with a DoggCrap method.
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Through the decades I have seen a number of people develop significant muscle in completely different methods. This begs the question: Did the person just pick the correct method for him, or were these people going to put on muscle regardless of the training method?
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I think most cases are examples of people finding what works for them through trial and error and a bit of personal preference. There are a few rare people who can just suck it up and work hard no matter what, but most of us mortals want to enjoy what we’re doing at least a little bit. I know I do. If I don’t enjoy the training, or worse, if I loathe the training then there’s a good chance I’ll hold back, skip something, miss a session, or just quit altogether. That’s not going to work. But if I pick a different method and show up every session and put in the work, then I’ll get results.
I think most of us can get to 80-85% of our potential with moderate effort. Those that wish to step on stage have to trade a lot of time, energy, and life to squeeze out the rest (whether natural or not).
This is a mindset I have never been able to achieve and I am realizing that this is the way. I have always tried to micromanage anything I do. I always have to get the best possible outcome for as little work as possible. Actually ironically the only thing I didn’t do that with is learning to play guitar which is one thing I’m actually good at because I practiced it 6 hours a day every day for like 5 years without telling myself “I need to do it this way” or “I can’t do that fun thing on guitar today, I have to do this other thing to be optimal”.
Lot of mindset gains in this thread
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Any half-assed program consistently followed works for beginners.
After you have hit a good chunk of your potential, doing something completely different sometimes works very well and sometimes doesn’t do much at all.
For me, things that were not worth the aggro included: super slow movements, maxing out a single set, sets using under 50% of RM, single sided movements, passive stretching before the workout (with a few exceptions), using rollers or squash balls, CrossFit gymnastic stuff and CrossFit high jumping for speed (high jumping, with bigger pauses between reps, is useful with much less risk of injury).
Things which paid off handsomely included: loaded carries, overhead work, heavy rows, Kettleball volume, GVT, Bunch Of Skilled (Heavy) Singles, Nautilus circuits, pelvic thrust machine, Weighted Dips, Pull-ups, sprinting, the climbing (rope pulling) machine, Viking presses, ab rollouts, Jacob ladders and adding some CrossFit stuff (Olympic lifts, burpees, EMOM) to powerlifting workouts.
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I think maybe there’s just a lot of roads to Rome
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Yup. Many roads, lots of horses will take you there, but you only have 1 ass to ride them with.
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Exactly. This is a good analogy. Then we get into “well that other road might actually be faster” but it’s still silly to go backtrack and try to get on it (at which point you’ll second guess yourself again); just ride on to the next crossroads and make whatever choice then.
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It says everything that I can disappear for a couple of years and every thread talking about training methodologies still circles back to this predictable conclusion.
I fully believe a majority of any training talk outside of the gym or actual lifting is just a coping mechanism to try and get the same dopamine we get whilst actually doing the damn thing. And when things aren’t working, or the modern era gets more and more irritated and impatient, coming up with 1001 ways to fix it or move the dial faster is just another way to create the illusion of getting better.
I love reading about things some of the strongest guys to ever walk did. Six month long programs just to peak with an extra 5-10lbs. Yet we get one bad workout and question everything we know.
Somebody once said something along the lines of, “I’d put more faith in the guy with the terrible plan but a 100% buy-in, than the guy with the best plan that’s always second guessing”.
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“1000 ways to skin a cat.” Pick one and skin it.
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K.I.S.S principal is king.
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I’m not sure that you understand “effective reps” properly.
In your first set you do 10 reps, with the last 5 reps being the “effective” reps.
You say in your second set you can only do 5 reps, so “no effective reps”.
No, Jabroni, if you could only do 5 reps those were 5 effective reps.
Myo-reps is one example method that takes advantage of maximizing effective reps while minimizing volume that can help you understand the concept better. They do their heavy lifting first for a few sets, then finish with a weight in the 12-25 RM range, do a set to failure (5 effective reps), rack the weight and rest for 3-5 deep breaths, then unrack the weight and continue for another 3-5 reps, rack the weight, 3-5 deep breaths, 3-5 more reps, 3-5 more breaths, repeat, repeat, until failure to complete 3 reps, or until you’ve completed 5x5 after-failure mini-sets.
In my own training log I would write this as: (weight used) x 25+5+5+5+5+5 – that would be the point where you add weight. That’s 5 effective reps if 25 was to failure, then 25 more effective reps from the 5x5 if they were all to failure, for 30 effective reps. It’s not likely they were all challenging, so it’s more like 1-3 effective reps per set for anywhere between 6 and 15 effective reps.
At the other end of the intensity-volume spectrum, it would only be something like this: (weight used) x 12+5+3+2 - So in the 12-reps I got 5 effective reps, then 5 in the first “myo-reps”/rest-pause set, then 3 effective reps, then only 2 which is failure to complete 3 reps meaning the set is over. That’s 5 effective reps from the 12 reps to failure, +5, +3, +2 for a total of 15 effective reps.
TL;DR - The effective reps are the last 5 reps before you reach failure so even if you only did 5 reps, all 5 reps were effective reps.
Does that actually work? I never really researched myo-reps. I thought it was just broscience or for steroid users. It would make sense why I always burned myself out in the past because I would do for example, 25lbs 8-8-8-8 and try my absolute hardest to keep getting 8 (obviously it got harder as the sets went on). I thought if I didn’t get 8 every time then I was wasting the set. In my recent workouts I have actually reduced weight to stay around 3rir in the 8-12 rep range and it’s a ton easier and producing good results.
Well in 10 days I have gone from 10 pullups being my absolute max to 9 being my 3RIR. Went from doing 1 set to failure 2x a week to 3 sets to 3RIR 2x a week.
edit: actually all of my lifts are increasing even when on a cut and I am not fatigued at all
Good stuff man. Just don’t get too stressed when you hit the inevitable slowdown or even a few sessions of regression - this is a long game
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