Once again, Doc, you’re the voice of reason. You’re 100 percent correct, we must keep an open mind. I’m guilty as charged for being too rigid and too defensive when it comes to my training beliefs.
For me, it stems from the fact that it’s hard to hear and accept that my nearly 50 years of training beliefs could be flawed.
Thanks for helping this skeptic adopt a more healthy mindset. Respectfully, Steve
Dr Darden is the voice of reason in a world gone mad!
Using one set to failure training has always left me feeling like something was missing. 8 to 12 reps to failure always left me feeling like I should be feeling something more. After trying 30-10-30 I think in road was what was missing. To get a similar feeling with one set to failure training i would need to do a 20 - 25 rep set to failure. So, in my personal experience, 30-10-30 fixes something that I knew was missing, but I just didn’t know what it was before.
After having done 10 second reps forever, Doing 3 second reps while controlling the weight is taking some getting used to.
I understand the 30 second negative at the end, but I don’t understand why the first 30 second negative is more effective than, say, just doing a “normal” set with greater emphasis on the negative.
That’s the thing, Steve. If we are talking about evidence in terms of research, there hasn’t been a lot supporting the absolute requirement of going to failure. Nothing in the literature truly identifies the “growth” light switch Mentzer used to write about. And if we are talking anecdotal, rarely I ever saw anyone going to failure in the gym for the many years I went before training at home. And yet, I saw a lot of guys, natural, who were bigger than me despite my going to failure at that time. For recent years, I have been doing sub failure training and saw no loss from it. In some ways, benefits, as I was able to move away from that ultra infreq stuff where my physique started to suffer. I noticed many people on Darden’s older board conveying this as well in recent years. The new, or maybe proper “woke”.
Below is a link to Schoenfeld’s latest paper on the importance (or not) of going to failure. He also has some further discussion on his personal blog (Look Great Naked).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254621000077
Overall, the idea that you need to reach a true, all-out, nose bleed level of failure just isn’t born out in the academic literature. You just need to have some sets or reps which approach full effort.
And again, Arthur Jones stated that he didn’t believe that training to failure was necessary… but I think many in the so called HIT community took that as dogma, and fell prey to the same “more is better” mistake with intensity that others were making with volume. And how to define failure? your quote above about “all out, nose-bleed” or “carpet time” is one way, but I’ve heard Skyler Tanner state that as soon as his clients can’t complete a repetition without making any kind of faces or grunting, he calls that failure; Gary Knight who advocate a standardized rep speed of 4-4, defines failure as when a positive rep takes longer than 4 seconds despite every effort to do so… way back in 1945 Thomas Delorme stated 3 sets of 10 with set #1 being 50% of 10 rep max, #2 75% of 10 rp max and set #3 being 100% of 10 rep max… so failure…as with many things… too much of a good thing…
Negative only training was often touted as the most powerful stimulus, but the caveat to use sparingly as it would soon lead to overtraining… is 301030 that happy medium?
For those of you who might be just doing 30 10 30 with out all the other aspects of the 4 week growth explosion plan as listed in the new book I thought this might interest you. At the moment I am doing 30 10 30 not to failure push alternated with pull workouts instead of what I used to do months ago which was the same exercises of 10 typical reps to failure and sometimes two sets which were usually pretty draining and would take several days to recover from. This morning I did my pull workout of 30 10 30 which felt like a piece of cake. I was ready to do it again in minutes I felt so good. The best part is that I increased reps ( sometimes 3 or 4 ) in each of my last 4 30 10 30 not to Failure workouts. It’s been a long time since I’ve made that kind of consistent progress. Imagine how good the plan would be if I did all the other facets of the plan with its Plazma , etc!!
Scott
I get it. With any good idea, there will be those to take it too far.
On the other hand, there are plenty of stories about Jones making famous bodybuilders or athletes vomit via the intensity of a Nautilus workout, presumably to make a point about what hard training felt like. Hear enough of those stories, and impressionable people might decide that gut busting intensity was the standard.
== Scott==
It you followed and lived for every word Jones wrote in Ironman and other places like I did it was easy to get the feeling that anything less than a near death experience while working out was not giving it your all. I protested that notion of working till you puke but never really protested not stopping a set until you couldn’t do a rep in good form . Now even that may be overkill? Interesting times!
The lack of consistency and agreement about “what works” is perplexing and frustrating for the consumer, but if there were a consensus there would be no reason to promote a new style or method…
Common sense would dictate that the method is effective if you see an increase in strength by applying the promoted method. If you are not progressing, it would seem to me something is not working for you…Maybe the method? Maybe overtraining?..Maybe undertraining?..Personally, I have stuck with methods for years without great results because I did not question the validity of the method. I trusted the author of the method because it made sense to me or I was to busy or lazy or afraid to try something different.
== Scott ==
Exactly ! It’s also sort of like fishing, sometimes you catch something and sometimes you don’t . You just keep using the same lures you like hoping to catch something , success or not. You get in the habit of doing something you like and once in a while you might go up a few reps or pounds but progress isn’t something that’s got to happen to keep you lifting . There’s so many variables in life that could interfere with progress that you tend to write off progress as you’re lack of sleep that week or poor diet or whatever instead finding what might be the real problem like consistently over training or some other simple reason. You just keep plodding along progress or not.
As per above, best guess is all we can do, but on occasion after final 30 second negative if one was to attempt another rep, perhaps that could be a gauge as to how close you came?
Want to buy/try Plazma and Mag-10. Sent a mail to Biotest Europe in London a week ago, re delivery to Sweden - No response. Not sure whether Biotest US can/will deliver? Us swedes (vegetables) will have to please ourselves with X-force only…
On a scale of 1 to 10 (highest) in terms of effort/intensity I’m usually around 8…once in a while closer to 9. The days of 10 are long gone.
So I just read Arthur Jones how to two sets of curls that will make you puke! After that follows the add for the new 30 10 30 Extreme hit . If this new 30 10 30 is extreme HIT what does that make Jones way of doing curls??
Scott
Killed by death curls?
Triple X HIT: only Xander Cage can survive it!
I don’t mean to be contrary but 30 10 30 is some of the easiest HIT I’ve done over the years , not the most extreme. To make it sell better maybe it should be called Extremely Easy HIT. Jones curls are extreme HIT , 30 10 30 is many notches under that. I might say get extreme results of HIT with out the extreme workout. The new HIT won’t put you in the hospital like in the old days. It’s not exhausting any more. You can enjoy your workouts again and make better gains than ever before !!
Scott
Tip: The Barbell Curl That’ll Make You Puke
Using 30-10-30 protocol the past 6 weeks I’m seeing real good results on all upper body muscles…however my legs aren’t responding good (no difference)…2 or 3 times a week I do treadmill sprints tabata style and wondering if the sprints are hampering leg progress?