Should one train in high reps vs moderate reps depending on the muscle? Im 6ft 167lbs and just finished with my cut. I plan to maintain the rest of this year but i will start my bulk next year.
I tried going 12 reps on my lifts and it was incredibly hard. Every set that followed, i was only able to hit 50% of the reps of the set prior.
For example, on pulldowns i did 220x12, then only managed 6 reps on second set. The 4 on the last set.
Does this mean my body works best at lower reps, or is my conditioning just shit? My muscles literally gave up on me.
Second question, how intense should we train in terms of failure?
Should one strive to go to absolute failure like mike mentzer recommends, or should we go just shy of failure?
From what i read, going shy of failure allows more volume since you have nore gas in the tank for the next set. On the other hand, the best reps are the ones near and to failure.
I really want to grow. Ive only been gaining strength and nearly no muscle on my bulks. Doing curls and lateral raises with 60’s is cool and all, but i dont want to just look big without a shirt on. Is weight the main factor with muscle size over strength?
Training is going to be periodized. You don’t just pick one set and rep range and run it for the rest of your life. Sometimes high reps, sometimes low, sometimes high intensity, sometimes low.
How have you been training up until now? It’s time to do something different.
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About 3 years.
I never thought about periodizing my accessories and assitance lifts before. I should definitely start doing that too.
A lot of my training was powerlifting based with high volume accessories. I tried a volume program like fst7 for some time and had great success with size, but had significant strength loss.
Recently, I had to switch to a full body program due to work constraints.
Sounds like it’s time for Super Squats or Mass Made Simple
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Going from 12 reps to 6 is pretty uncommon…
How long are you resting between sets? Doesn’t sound like enough
That’s not enough. Try Atleast 3. He’ll just wait till you actually feel ready regardless of what the clock says.
Especially if you want to grow. Don’t make hypertrophy training into cardio. Leave that for the treadmill.
I’ll counter what others are saying about the drop in reps on a second set with a slightly different perspective.
I use a lot of DC style rest pause sets and it comes out very similar to what you experienced albeit, intentional. If 12 reps is my failure point on the first “set”, and I do the 15-30 second rest period and go to failure again, i often only get 4-5 reps on that second “set” then after another very brief rest, I often only get another 1-2 reps followed by a very controlled eccentric with a deep stretch under load.
All that being said, that’s how DC training is designed. You on the other hand said you’re cutting so your gas tank is kinda low so you just aren’t recovering as much between sets. Others recommended longer rest periods, which is a simple, good solution. Or adopt DC style rest pause and do it that way. Both work.
Last note, if you are doing laterals with 60 lbs at your height/weight, well, you aren’t utilizing that exercise efficiently and doing a poor trap exercise vs an effective delt exercise. Drop down to 15 lbs and from start to finish, move the weight in a 3 second concentric with a 3 second iso at the top, slow eccentric (stop 2/3 of the way down), pause, repeat. Report back on how your delts feel vs swinging 60 lbs.
And eat more. Lots more. If you are even remotely training correctly and consistently and still not gaining…there’s a simple reason why.
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