Today I went to my old college gym, as the “workout room” I’ve been training at is no longer sufficient (doesn’t have heavy enough weights).
So I see a classmate from high-school. I get in there, take maybe 30-40 min to bang out my lower body routine. This entire time he’s doing nothing but squats (and taking looong breathers between sets). I guess I follow a more traditional approach, sometimes doing “heavy sets” where I pick a weight I can do between 5-8 reps, or more moderate sets where I do like a set of 12, then 10, then 8, with limited recovery between. Feel free to critique.
Anyways, he’s not doing that much weight, looked like 90ilbs + bar for the first half hour I was there. Doing sets of four-five, then taking a min or two rest. Then another set of four-five. After about a half hour he added some tens to both sides, then right before I left, did his final set @ 160+bar. Four reps.
Is there anything to training like this? It seems like a lot of time spent doing one activity in a way that neither forces you to build strength (too light weights), or build muscular endurance (doing four reps at a time, then min rest). Just found it intriguing that someone would spend that kind of time doing something that appears that ineffective. What am I missing?
IMO I would have to agree that investing that much time into an exercise session that you described is a waste of time. Even if he is trying to rehab himself using low-weight in order to strengthen the connective tissues he should be using a higher rep range.
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Anyways, he’s not doing that much weight, looked like 90ilbs + bar for the first half hour I was there. Doing sets of four-five, then taking a min or two rest. Then another set of four-five. After about a half hour he added some tens to both sides, then right before I left, did his final set @ 160+bar. Four reps.
[/quote]
Maybe that weight is heavy for him? I wasn’t exactly the strongest dude out there when I started squatting. I remember having to struggle with 135 when I first learned to squat properly.
Define “traditional”. For a lot of guys doing strength sports, it wouldn’t be strange to see a set of 1-3 reps and then a 3,5, or even 7 minute rest period before hitting it again.
Maybe I should say conventional, rather than traditional.
I guess I buy into the idea that there is a difference between working hard to get a conditioning effect on muscle, and just tiring it out. Like, I could do a ton of two rep 150lb squats. Eventually I’d get tired and be unable to do any more. Eventually. I don’t think that I’d see gains too quickly though taking that approach. I’d just be fatiguing myself.
I really was just curious if anyone saw any merit to more or less, fatiguing yourself slowly. I mean, if after doing a bunch of four rep sets at x weight for thirty min… if you can bump the weight up 25% and still do a four rep set, what the hell was the first thirty min for?