Depends in which place you are looking. In specialised gyms (powerlifting, weightlifting), yes, I would agree with you, most people know their shit and understand what they need to do to progress. But in your everyday commerical gym, hell no.
In my powerlifting gym, most people know the effort they need to put in. In my old commerical gym, most people’s workouts we’re half my warm up.
I think you have missed what Paul was saying. Most people are lacking effort not volume.
And those people don’t need to do “more” crappy sets and lazy reps. They need to learn how to generate a high degree of effort with the reps and sets they are already doing.
Correct. My article today goes into that. 10 sets for a muscle group a week is going to be enough for pretty much everyone. If those sets are done with a high degree of effort. Volume cannot make up for a lack of effort.
But how do you quantify effort?
Why does it need to be quantified?
How do you know if a client is putting in ‘effort’ behind their sets.
It’s your job as a coach or trainer to teach them that and ensure it’s happening. An
absolute piss poor job of coaching is to pour on junk volume to make up for their lack of effort.
3 sets of 2 exercises followed by 1 run of a tri/pump/metabolic set (whatever you wants to call it) per body part is a great sweet spot for me.
I don’t review studies, nor do I claim to have all the answers to scientific debates. Maybe you should discuss this with Israetel, Helms, Nuckols, and Schoenfeld since this is their line of expertise. All I can say is that one study concluding this or that doesn’t prove anything, you need to have multiple studies to actually reach a conclusion. If you can provide multiple studies showing that stopping 3-4 reps short of failure provides no hypertrophic stimulus then I would be inclined to believe you.
Who is to say that those same guys wouldn’t have had equal results if they had left a couple reps in the tank and done a few more sets? Israetel and his buddy Jared Feather train like that and seem to be doing well, Mike is more jacked than ever.
Nobody is claiming that pushing sets to failure, or the brink of failure, is not effective. The problem here is that you are making claims that run contrary to the opinions of the “leading sports scientists” of this present day so you need to do more than debunk one study and point at how some big guys trained. I’m not saying you are wrong, for all I know you could very well be right, but at this point I’m not convinced. What Israetel and co. are advocating might not be 100% optimal but I don’t see how you can argue that it doesn’t work when the results are there for all to see.
Another thing for people to consider, assuming that leaving a few reps in reserve gives similar results to pushing to failure, is the cost vs. reward ratio. If you have to do twice as many sets and spend twice as long in the gym to get the same results that you would have if you pushed each set a little bit harder I would not consider that to be a worthwhile use of time and energy.
there’s no meta analysis that shows the conclusion that training sub-failure is just as optimal. There’s not. And if you’re using “them” as anecdotal evidence then I will just use myself, and Scott Stevenson, and Dorian Yates, and Mike Mentzer, and Aaron Baker, and…on and on and on. I get what you’re saying though.
Here’s the thing. This isn’t HARD science. It’s not. It’s not like physics where it’s a hard science and it’s basically fact. Exercise science is a soft science and merely provides a guideline or recommendation. It’s not “factual”. And people shouldn’t look at studies and go “where here’s science and it’s fact”. You have to break down the study as well, and see if it’s even practical, or if it even applies to you as a lifter. And lots of times, they flat out don’t.
2 weeks ago I shed tears during my leg day lol
This seems to be “their” major shortcoming since for the past few years that is exactly what they have been arguing for. And I know that a lot of these studies have major flaws, plus using people who barely even lift changes everything. If you can prove them wrong then please do so.
Let me just clarify exactly what your opinion here is - do you believe that sets that are 3-4 reps short of failure have zero hypertrophic stimulus for trained lifters or simply that it is far from optimal compared with pushing to failure (or a rep short for squats/DLs)?
What if you just do all compound lifts with compensatory acceleration? Would that make a big difference?
Curious about this. I’ve had great success with 531 programs (like Krypteia) where you are doing quite a bit of sets but always leaving several reps “in the tank”. The heaviest set on squat day (for my training max) might be 5 reps at 245 lbs, and that would is less than my 10 RM weight. Everything is supersetted with things like weighted pull ups, but for these I use +25 lbs for sets of 10 (which is about my 15 RM). These workouts have really added to my strength and athleticism, despite always leaving several reps in the tank. Still, it takes a lot of effort and hard work to get through the workouts.
Conversely, when I do “Best Damn”-type workouts where things are taken to muscular failure, I tend to feel weaker and less competitive in sports. After a couple of weeks, I have to stop. Is this an individual thing, or am I missing something?
Are you focused on building strength? Because that’s what it sounds like. Maximal strength requires better neural efficiency with a movement. So that your body “knows” it better. If you’re talking about muscle growth, it’s entirely different. And I think that’s why a lot of guys get confused. If you’re trying to grow muscle as quickly as possible, then training for “some” strength gains is not the way to go about it. As far as feeling tired and weaker, then it’s probably some combination of too much volume with too much effort. The harder you train, the less you can do and recover from it.
Hi Paul,
First time poster, long time stalker … Wait that came out wrong.
Could you use the 10 sets approach on a five day split, or did you find the 3 days was optimal factoring in the extra recovery time? E.g. (Mon - chest 10 sets, Tues - back 10 sets, weds - shoulders 10 sets, Thurs - legs 10 sets, Fri - arms 10 sets, sat off, sun off).
Thanks
For growth? No. And we’ve more or less looked at that in another study. The impact of metabolic stress on hormonal responses and muscular adaptions showed the difference in basically equating volume (total tonnage) without the metabolic stress factor. So one group did 5 sets with a 30 second rest, then did the remaining 5 reps. This kept them far from a real failure point. Where the other group did sets of 10 closer to a failure point. The results? The avoidance of nearing a failure point or inducing serious stress prevented muscle growth.
In fact, it cut down the difference in change in the cross section by 2/3!
To be fair to Dr Mike, going 4 reps from failure isn’t the “best way.” It’s just the Least Worst. That many reps in the tank is like Week 1, Workout 1. Then you progress by going closer to failure, with fewer reps in reserve each week.
After awhile you got back to 4 reps in the tank as a deload. Again, it’s not the Best way. Its just a change in intensity, using the Least Worst way. So you can start building into even more effective workouts again.
I agree I’d consider 4 RIR rpe 5.5-6 and that’s deload/ warm up numbers at best.
I think the point with that is we’re trying to get stronger vs building muscle. 4 RIR has a place in a strength programs at a point like you said, week 1 workout 1 and deload.
For maximal muscle creation, besides a warm up I doubt it.
Hey Paul,
Thanks for sharing even more knowledge with us in this article! You spoke about a 4 day bro split that you used while taking this approach, can you share what this looked like? What each training day involved?
