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berserk
08-16-10, 2:28 am
hi there bros i was just wondering since im going to do less reps (6) can i do 1 more set? for example if im going to do 4 sets of 8-10, can i do 5 sets? is it a bad idea?

Many thanks

Sprint
08-16-10, 4:44 am
What're your goals bro?

illustrator
08-16-10, 5:27 am
If you wanna do it for power and muscle mass, give it a go.
Only I would do the last set negative and only 2 - 3 reps, max weight, with a training partner watching YOU closely (and not the girl doing some hyperextention in front of you), lol.
I did it once for a few months with only the basic exersices and gained some solid mass and strenght.
Always surprise your muscles with something new for a while.

Sprint
08-16-10, 6:07 am
There are no numbers of reps per set, sets per exercise or exercises per muscle group that are set in stone. Just basic guidelines that everybody should tweak to find out what works best for them.
I asked what your goals are because different goals warrant different basic guidelines to be tweaked. But if you fancy throwing in an extra set, by all means do so. Just listen to your body, and pay attention to what it's telling you. That way, as you get further along your own journey you're able to cut out stuff that isn't working and keep stuff in that is.
The result, much more efficient workouts, less overtraining and more time spent making gains via nutrition & rest.
It'll take you a lot longer to really find out what works best for you individually if you start thinking "that's my 10th rep on this set, 1 more set of 10 to go and I'm done."

If you think "that's my 10th rep, fuck it Im going to try and squeeze out a couple more" and get another 3, you know you wanna be thinking about putting more weight on the bar. And that, my friend, is progress.

Ph3n0m
08-16-10, 8:05 pm
Typically lower reps (4-6) are used by advanced lifters for maximal strength training. I found 5 to be a perfect number for pure strength training but all bodies are different. Usually with the lower reps, I tend to do 4-5 working sets as well. So try it out and see how the lower reps work with higher sets. Only you can tell how well it works.

Legacy
08-16-10, 10:01 pm
If you think "that's my 10th rep, fuck it Im going to try and squeeze out a couple more" and get another 3, you know you wanna be thinking about putting more weight on the bar. And that, my friend, is progress.

Beat me to it. Why stop at a number if you can continue? Unless you are on a specific program where you need to stop, don't let the mind beat your body.

Sprint
08-17-10, 7:44 am
Beat me to it. Why stop at a number if you can continue? Unless you are on a specific program where you need to stop, don't let the mind beat your body.

Exactly. I stopped having "x amount of reps" in my head a while back now. I shoot for a ball-park figure & aim for the top end of that figure, & only use that ball-park for a rough guide as to 1 rm %'s.

Mrranger1987
08-17-10, 10:30 pm
one problem with going until you cant go anywhere is a huge chance of overtraining. going to failure on your chest on monday, then going to failure on your back on tuesday, and then your legs or something on the next day... think about what is happening. say it takes a muscle 48-72 hours to recover. now imagine training 3 bodyparts over 3 days to failure on all of them. by the 2nd day your still recovering from the first day. by the 3rd day your still recovering from the first day. by the 3rd day your 3nd day hasnt recovered and your 1st bodypart to failure is slower to recover because your body is trying to repair everything all at once. we are talking massive calories needed, awesome genetics, and possibly performance enhancing drugs to recover from failure training like most of you are talking about. failure training is good to push past walls but training to failure all the time is a lost cause. yes a few time bodybuilders have trained to failure on all sets and did good, but they were on steroids. show me how many guys training to failure all the time "naturally" make it to a good level of gains without feeling injured and so runned down it feels like torture to keep training. again, training to failure is great if your trying to break past a certain weight, rep or possibly enhance a bodypart for a short time. but based on every example i just gave you should most of the time be keeping 1-2 reps in the reserve to allow your natural bodies to recover. because who really wants to chance getting injured, killing themselves in the gym, and eventually feeling like total shit torture going to the gym for minimal to no gains?

ronald1919
08-18-10, 12:32 am
Beat me to it. Why stop at a number if you can continue? Unless you are on a specific program where you need to stop, don't let the mind beat your body.


I think you guys are missing the point. A lot of powerlifters train low reps with tons of sets never going to failure. Read some of Pavel tsatsouline e-books he advises against going to failure and a lot of huge ( and natural) eastern europeans lifters never bothered depleting themselves going to failure.

Sprint
08-18-10, 9:00 am
one problem with going until you cant go anywhere is a huge chance of overtraining. going to failure on your chest on monday, then going to failure on your back on tuesday, and then your legs or something on the next day... think about what is happening. say it takes a muscle 48-72 hours to recover. now imagine training 3 bodyparts over 3 days to failure on all of them. by the 2nd day your still recovering from the first day. by the 3rd day your still recovering from the first day. by the 3rd day your 3nd day hasnt recovered and your 1st bodypart to failure is slower to recover because your body is trying to repair everything all at once. we are talking massive calories needed, awesome genetics, and possibly performance enhancing drugs to recover from failure training like most of you are talking about. failure training is good to push past walls but training to failure all the time is a lost cause. yes a few time bodybuilders have trained to failure on all sets and did good, but they were on steroids. show me how many guys training to failure all the time "naturally" make it to a good level of gains without feeling injured and so runned down it feels like torture to keep training. again, training to failure is great if your trying to break past a certain weight, rep or possibly enhance a bodypart for a short time. but based on every example i just gave you should most of the time be keeping 1-2 reps in the reserve to allow your natural bodies to recover. because who really wants to chance getting injured, killing themselves in the gym, and eventually feeling like total shit torture going to the gym for minimal to no gains?

It depends on your split. I've used a 5 day split for a long, long time and it works better for me than other splits I've used. I break the bodyparts down into the following..
Back
Chest
Shoulders
Arms
Legs.

Now, I accept that due to the biceps being hit with back, they get a couple of beatings. I accept the same issue with triceps due to chest. I'll also say that my rear delts get hit twice due to back and shoulders. (I'll take this opportuity to quote one of the guys at my gym..."You fucking animal, you've got the rear delts of a horse") So it can't be said that this split has resulted in minimal to no gains.

All of your examples come straight out the textbooks. You need to think outside the box, and try some new shit out. You might just learn something.
Your examples didn't include me. I've been told I should consider stepping on stage at some point (By a competitive bodybuilder). My training works FOR ME. I used the textbook stuff, had it set in stone when I started out. As I grew more experienced, and started thinking for myself, I grew more physically.

Aside from a few muscles getting a couple of workouts a week due to them being involved in other movements which are focusing on larger muscle groups, each group gets hit ONCE every 7 days. My chest gets hit typically on a tuesday (depending on work). It then does zilch until the following week, apart from chill and recover. Back, the same. Delts, the same. Legs are slightly different because they get hit with weights once aweek but also get 2 track sessions a week seeing as Im a track athlete as well as a bodybuilder.
The only other way around this problem is to use for example, a 3 day split. I've tried this for myself, and found that by the time Im hitting the 2nd or 3rd muscle group in a workout I can't generate the same intensity as I can at the beginning, so I started a 5 day split and broke the bodyparts up in order to focus on them individually. It works for me, it's worked for others, it may not work for everybody.
As for feeling like total shit...I like DOMS. In fact, I fucking love DOMS. If you don't have at least some sort of morbid affection for DOMS, and if you consider going to the gym as being torture (the sort you don't like. When we describe this stuff as torture, we mean it in a postive light) then I think you need to find yourself a new hobby bro.



I think you guys are missing the point. A lot of powerlifters train low reps with tons of sets never going to failure. Read some of Pavel tsatsouline e-books he advises against going to failure and a lot of huge ( and natural) eastern europeans lifters never bothered depleting themselves going to failure.

Depends on your goals. I'm not a powerlifter. I'm not a competitive bodybuilder. I'm a competitive track athlete who's found that training to failure in the gym, using a mixture of bodybuilding & plyometric styles has worked for me on the track. It's the track where I want results, & I'm getting them. And I enjoy the training that I do, in the manner in which I do it.

Therefore, "Im cumming day & night. Can you imagine how happy I am?"

LegendKillerJosh
08-18-10, 12:15 pm
one problem with going until you cant go anywhere is a huge chance of overtraining. going to failure on your chest on monday, then going to failure on your back on tuesday, and then your legs or something on the next day... think about what is happening. say it takes a muscle 48-72 hours to recover. now imagine training 3 bodyparts over 3 days to failure on all of them. by the 2nd day your still recovering from the first day. by the 3rd day your still recovering from the first day. by the 3rd day your 3nd day hasnt recovered and your 1st bodypart to failure is slower to recover because your body is trying to repair everything all at once. we are talking massive calories needed, awesome genetics, and possibly performance enhancing drugs to recover from failure training like most of you are talking about. failure training is good to push past walls but training to failure all the time is a lost cause. yes a few time bodybuilders have trained to failure on all sets and did good, but they were on steroids. show me how many guys training to failure all the time "naturally" make it to a good level of gains without feeling injured and so runned down it feels like torture to keep training. again, training to failure is great if your trying to break past a certain weight, rep or possibly enhance a bodypart for a short time. but based on every example i just gave you should most of the time be keeping 1-2 reps in the reserve to allow your natural bodies to recover. because who really wants to chance getting injured, killing themselves in the gym, and eventually feeling like total shit torture going to the gym for minimal to no gains?

I agree with some of this. If I train say chest and tris til failure on monday, I wouldn't hit up back on tuesday because my chest and triceps haven't recovered yet, and I don't want to hit more muscles before my other ones are recovered. That is why I rarely train 2 days in a row, I like atleast 36-48 hours between workouts. If I do train 2 days in a row I'll train in the morning one day and wait til the next night to train again.

LegendKillerJosh
08-18-10, 12:19 pm
On another note, if you are training with heavier weights so that you fail in a lower rep range, it should take less sets to reach failure. The more reps you complete in a set (which would be with a lower weight) the faster your body recovers. It takes longer to recover from heavier, lower rep sets.

Legacy
08-18-10, 12:44 pm
hi there bros i was just wondering since im going to do less reps (6) can i do 1 more set? for example if im going to do 4 sets of 8-10, can i do 5 sets? is it a bad idea?

Many thanks

Do what works for you bro. The only way you are going to find the exact answer you are looking for is to try it. If you don't go in the gym and try out the problem for a good 4-6 weeks you won't know if it matters. You always gotta go back to the drawing board and try new things to find out what your body responds to. Trial and error is the name of this game.


Therefore, "Im cumming day & night. Can you imagine how happy I am?"

"Its great right?" hahah