Nope. I’m just going to chalk it up as one of those days.
Ever have days where it seems like everyone is acting a certain way towards you? Well, the common factor is you (or me in this case), and it turns out that everyone else is fine and you/I have the problem.
Guess it’s time for another cup of coffee.
lol i’ve had weeks like that. can totally relate. probably gonna go have a cup of coffee too now that you mentioned it, haha
Not trying to correct anyone mate.
If you want to do 8-12 sets per body part fine by me. I often do that myself.
Merely pointing out that the study paul is referring to quoted best results from 10 sets per workout not per bodypart, each workout once per week, upper push, upper pull, legs.
To me the take-home message of this thread is:
train balls-to-the wall ( not new )
no NEED to do 20 or more sets per muscle group (still, it may work!), shoot for 8-12
in case your weights, in order to progressively overload, kill you ( joints, ligaments, full or local recovery) rather increase recovery days/off days, instead of lowering the weight and needing more sets to fatigue/overload muscle
MPS is not the holy grail to chase
no difference training without or with gear
Schoenefeld knows nuts about proper research
You can easily ramp/pyramid up the weights for each set in smaller increments to accumulate some fatigue before taking the top set to failure if you don’t want to go too heavy. There are no real fixed rules to this. The objective would still be to gradually increase the weight or amount of reps that you can do for the top set while in a fatigued state. It’s still progressive overload.
I have read all 300 odd posts but I didn’t feel like this was answered, so Steph if it has been but do those 10-12 sets have to all be to failure for them to be ‘proper’ sets and not just junk volume?
What makes a set, a proper working set if not failure?
It’s a cluster set. Technically speaking. So it’s 1 clustered set if people want to get technical about this.
Someone can call it “3 sets” but if we’re being technical it’s 1 clustered set.
I don’t know if anyone was more annoyed by people “doing” powerlifting training and constantly chiming in on powerlifting topics yet never competed.
You’re a gym bro. Train gym bro style. I’m not even being a dick. There’s no point in training for a powerlifting meet if you’er not doing one. And yet for a while the net was full of guys chirping about this topic that never stepped foot on the platform. It was mind numbing dumb.
Yeah, that’s true. The only point of counting sets is to figure out an appropriate amount of volume so if you say 8-10 sets for whatever muscle group then you wouldn’t want to count rest pause sets as a single set because if you do a few of those you will likely end up doing too much. Just like if I’m doing CAT bench with 70%x5x5 I would count that as equivalent to about 2-3 hard sets.
Does the Instagram division count?
I think the main point has been “hard challenging” . Also taking it to failure has been mentioned as technical failure meaning you can’t get another rep without changing the lift in some way like arching more on bench or turning a squat into a good morning. At that point you’ve fatigued the targeted muscles and are compensating.
I’ve seen this else where that RPE 8-9 is a good muscle building range if you’re a RPE guy. This is 1-2 reps left. Me personally I’d think RPE 9 would be the target at least.
I think they thought they did. MAybe it was the Reddit division? It was full of blowhards that never once stepped foot on the platform but sure had a lot to say about powerlifting.
And that’s my confusion. A “push” day 10 sets or an “upper” day 10 sets looks much different for volume than a chest/triceps only or a chest only day for each muscle group. It’s mentioned both ways in the thread. And when it’s being said you only need 8-12 sets a session, but not clear how many muscle groups really count as the session you get some super different interpretations.
Significantly less confusing if it’s presented as 8-10 per muscle group, or else something like “4-5 sets chest per week, 2-4 shoulders, 2-3 triceps, 2-3 biceps, etc” because even after my question it’s been interpreted 2 different ways by you and @Frank_C. My initial reaction would be to read it like JMaier, but thinking about training logs I’ve seen and routines posted it seems to usually look more like your guidleines if we’re talking number of sets actually super hard as I don’t remember anyone ever doing 8-10 sets to failure or close to it for each muscle group. Because a lot of times when a program reads 3x8-10 the first set or two isn’t pushing yourself near your limit and you end up with 1 set that would count.
It’s 10 sets in a week. Not a single training session. And you don’t HAVE to meet those guidelines.
I do a total of 2-3 working sets for chest a week right now.
Back gets 4-6. That’s including traps.
Shoulders get 3-4.
Biceps get 1-2.
Triceps get 1-2.
Legs get 4-5.
Now most of those “sets” are comprised of a type of cluster set, or they have things like forced negatives (depending on the movement).
But generally speaking, I don’t even come close to 10 true working sets a week. Now that’s ME. Everyone has to experiment with this to find out what is best for THEM.
Let me also add that according to some people…I should be shrinking with the limited amount of volume I am using.
But my barbell row is back over 400 pounds for reps again. And climbing. My sumo leg press is 9 plates per side for sets of 12-15, and climbing. My RDL last ham/glute session was 500x5.
All of my single joint work is going up in terms of reps and loading, i.e. I’m doing strict side laterals with 55 pounders for sets of 10.
How is this working? It ain’t drugs. Unless 75-100mg of test a week falls under “drugs”. Can’t roll my eyes hard enough at that.
I agree with you re the confusion over sets per workout/per bodypart.
The optimal 10 sets per workout (push, pull,legs) are not MY guidelines. This is the conclusion of the study to which pauls article refers. If you refer to my post around number 135 in this thread and pauls answer to that you can find more detail.
I believe paul has further clarified his own position in the two posts immediately above.
Gazz
Bro, there comes a point in which one just has to use his own judgment, experience, experimentation and creativity for this. Training is not an exact science.
No it’s not exact science, but again 10 sets vs 2-3 for a body part in a week is vastly different. And some people just suck at experimenting and figuring it out that way. Telling someone to just experiment is great, but I think some people severely underestimate how other people see, learn, or interpret things.
Paul clarifying above was helpful for that. Thanks @Paul_Carter
Of course. That’s implied. Hence I referred to experience as well.
What you say is why a beginner should follow a cookie-cutter routine.
The thing about lifting is that it’s very similar to everything else in life.
If you suck at experimenting with it then you’re not ever going to be very good at it.
Wowsers from my side!!!
I have just completed my fist week of “changing my mindset”!
After a lot of 20 plus set, heigh volume work, I have dug out a plan I used years back when I started and what can I say!!!
My weights have skyrocketed, my mind- muscle connection feels rejuvenated and most of all: I have far shorter and much less frequency workouts!!!
I feel great doing 2 on 1 off, 2 on 2 off ( possibly a little cardio or active recovery on one day) balls to the wall and watching those sets to stay low and intense!!!
Too short for gains reflection, but sure feels good!
Paul, thank you very much!