High reps

[buck]

I have to think that as far as growing muscle for most people whether they choose reps in reserve or going to failure. Trying to add reps to either way of training or upping the weight over a period of time is what really causes growth over the long run. But maybe i am to old school and don't comprehend the new science enough. While using a high enough dose of anabolics trying to increase the threshold may not be as important.

 

[LATS]

I have to think that as far as growing muscle for most people whether they choose reps in reserve or going to failure. Trying to add reps to either way of training or upping the weight over a period of time is what really causes growth over the long run. But maybe i am to old school and don't comprehend the new science enough. While using a high enough dose of anabolics trying to increase the threshold may not be as important.

True.. failure is not " needed".. but most don't actually hit it when they are even trying. But the biggest thing is consistency.. do any program consistent enough and you'll get results.. and I do agree when super supplements are added to the mix most anything works if done on a regular consistent basis..

 

[Kaladryn]

ROM doesn't necessarily matter for hypertrophy.

I don't understand that "going to failure" thing, it's not a must, at all.

If this statement was true, all the high volume trainers shouldn't grow, since you have to leave 1-2 reps in reserve.

Training to failure or not: Impact on hypertrophy and strength

For some, training to failure is optimal for muscle hypertrophy and strength since such method assumes that all available motor units are recruited. But for others, this method could even have a detrimental effect. What does science say about it?

www.sci-sport.com

"this meta-analysis seems to show that there is no significant difference in strength and/or hypertrophy between non-failure training and training to failure"

References​

1. Grgic J, Schoenfeld BJ, Orazem J and Sabol F. Effects of resistance training performed to repetition failure or non-failure on muscular strength and hypertrophy : a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sport Health Sci, 2021

That said, I think that to save joints you have to reduce loads, so go for high volume (with 1-2 reps in reserve) and don't rush your set.
This way you will produce time under tension, metabolic stress AND cellular damage with a less weight.

They don't really leave 1-2 reps in reserve though, they train the target muscle to failure, what they don't do is then go on to recruit a bunch of other muscles to help them do 1-2 extra reps.

Also, muscles adapt from a neurological overload, it's a neurological stimulus, things like cellular damage triggering muscle growth is several decades-old theory.

That study was a meta-analysis done one OLD studies:

The authors finally selected 15 studies that met all the selection criteria. The total number of participants was 394 people (129 women and 265 men). All these people were young adults. Of these studies, 6 included regular resistance-trained participants, while the rest were performed with untrained individuals.

lol

 

[maldorf]

We have to remember ( please forgive me I'm repeating myself a bit) that reps don't matter.. its load.. 70 percent load can give you 8 reps max or 15.. depending on how you perform the reps.. if joints are the issue ( with me yes) there are numerous ways to make a " lighter" load feel heavier.. muscle rounds / cluster sets.. slowing down the negatives.. etc.. get to a load that joint friendly and play with the rep performance.. ill do 1 set in a pumping fashion and fail at 15 or 16.. next set I'll do 3 second down .. pause .. 1 second up.. and fail at 8.. ill do the whole workout that way.. it adds to the " fun" of it and gives a good mix..

Prexhaustion works good too. Do an isolation exercise before you do the big compound movement. Like doing flyes before bench, or leg extensions before squats.

 

[Stunt201a]

Its really the amount of weight you are pushing on your joints which is causing stress on them.. you could do high reps of a low weight with little to no impact on joints

 

[heavyhitter]

I have to think that as far as growing muscle for most people whether they choose reps in reserve or going to failure. Trying to add reps to either way of training or upping the weight over a period of time is what really causes growth over the long run. But maybe i am to old school and don't comprehend the new science enough. While using a high enough dose of anabolics trying to increase the threshold may not be as important.

You’re spot on. Progressive overload regardless of rep range is what matters

 

[Cerberus777]

Higher reps it's just harder to progress. If you are at failure at 20 reps. And the next time you add 5lbs or another rep, it takes much more determination to progress vs the 6-10 rep range. Adding 5lbs for 20reps the muscle moves 100lbs more weight. Vs 50lbs if the rep range was 10. I think more seasoned lifters will get more from the higher rep ranges.

 

[goback2013]

Higher reps it's just harder to progress. If you are at failure at 20 reps. And the next time you add 5lbs or another rep, it takes much more determination to progress vs the 6-10 rep range. Adding 5lbs for 20reps the muscle moves 100lbs more weight. Vs 50lbs if the rep range was 10. I think more seasoned lifters will get more from the higher rep ranges.

I've bought a 45° leg press spring 2021. I've just been repping out sets of 50.. i do this to improve leg strength for running. Stronger base.
Now when i squat I noticed im much more stable at the bottom. Much more power out of the hole too. Note I'm repping 20s with 225. Endurance is sky high since I started consistently running 5 to 6 miles multiple days out of the week.
When I was running while using up to 70mg of tren a week I couldn't lose weight nor strength.i wasn't even lifting weights that much. Just body weight exercises.. I looked like an obvious juicer. Even on these microdoses. Veins everywhere. Chiseled and exaggerated facial features.
It took me a little while into a run for my lungs to get into a relaxed state. But once there I was good.
Now without tren or any aas it doesn't take too long to get into a relaxed state.

 

[tornquad201]

Can one grow training in the 5-8 rep range .

 

[LATS]

Can one grow training in the 5-8 rep range .

Sure if form is tight and very controlled.. but how safe is that training in the long run ? Not very.. cycle the reps ranges .. give the joints a break

 

[buck]

Can one grow training in the 5-8 rep range .

That is what i used in my early years and worked great for me. Till the joints couldn't handle it any more.

 

[goback2013]

i've been hitting 30-50 reps in bench of late.. with only 25s, 35s, or 45s on each side.
good pump sets.
i also use the same weight and reps for barbell squats.
something about that burn is very addicting.

 

[tornquad201]

i've been hitting 30-50 reps in bench of late.. with only 25s, 35s, or 45s on each side.
good pump sets.
i also use the same weight and reps for barbell squats.
something about that burn is very addicting.

How’s are your gains

 

[goback2013]

How’s are your gains

at this stage in life, i'm not really focused on muscular gains. i'm more focused on endurance, stamina, general fitness.
i've had the 'steroid' body and look for the majority of adulthood. still do(delts and traps obvious giveaways).. so just trying
to tone that down a bit and end up looking like michael phelps.

that said.. i respond well to all AAS, so if i wanted to gain or looked like i've gained, it's just a simple matter of adding 25mg of drol to my daily supplement routine.

#team-swimmers-body

 

[astrosfan123]

i love reading training talk instead of drugs always lol. This always brings the question of those RIR guys and Dr. Mike
They start with like a rir3 week 1 and ramp up to true failure by week 4. I got a look at the book they put out that my buddy has on how they add sets as progression weekly. Sometimes add load and sets. Idk seems like you could work up to alot of volume and be in there forever. One thing those rir guys get wrong i think is how its so much better than going to failure every workout. I think you can find a study to promote anything so if its even all even i will choose the one im not in the gym for 2 hours for. Maybe i will read that book and set up a mesocycle one day lol.

 

[FK86]

i love reading training talk instead of drugs always lol. This always brings the question of those RIR guys and Dr. Mike
They start with like a rir3 week 1 and ramp up to true failure by week 4. I got a look at the book they put out that my buddy has on how they add sets as progression weekly. Sometimes add load and sets. Idk seems like you could work up to alot of volume and be in there forever. One thing those rir guys get wrong i think is how its so much better than going to failure every workout. I think you can find a study to promote anything so if its even all even i will choose the one im not in the gym for 2 hours for. Maybe i will read that book and set up a mesocycle one day lol.

I dislike those guys and anyone who has made training complicated. The best and simplest way to utilize reps in the tank is to simply adopt a sets across approach. Yeah...the one people were using 70 years ago before the three-hour podcasts and e-books analyzing everything to death.

I followed failure-based programs for 20 years: Max-OT, Darden HIT, Mentzer HIT, Dorian style, DC, and Jordan Peters style. Back in September I decided to drop it and utilize sets across. I use the 24-50 principle (modified to 24-60), meaning that the amount of sets I do is dependent on the amount of reps I do. I took Dante's two-way split and am able to train each body part twice a week with the same three-exercise rotation. An example of how I would set up a quad exercise rotation:

Squats - 8 sets of 3 using a 6-rep max (80-85% ORM). Rest periods are 60 seconds. For anyone who does a top set of 6 to failure, the load selection is the same so an argument about injury risk is invalid.

Leg presses - 3 sets of 15

V-squats - 5 sets of 5

Rest periods are 90 seconds on everything except for movements where I use 8x3 where it is 60 seconds. These are done after proper warm-up sets and my workouts are 75 minutes. When you're not training to failure, you'll see how your work capacity isn't destroyed. I'm almost always ready to go again beforehand but don't to let fatigue subside. I no longer feel like I got hit by a bus after training. I used to think that was normal, it's not. I'm sleeping better and seem to process food better as well.

Sometimes I do hit failure and when I do it's intentional. It becomes a tool that aids my training rather than a goal that must be met every time. For example, if I've set up 4 sets of 10 as my set/rep scheme for an exercise:

Set 1: 10 reps
Set 2: 10 reps
Set 3: 10 reps (failure)
Set 4: 6 reps

It takes time and experience to know where failure is to discern between pussing out or not. I would have known on the third set that failure would have occurred. So I would have rather done it like this: 10, 10, 8, 8. The next time this exercise came up if I got 10, 10, 10, 9 but 10 on the 4th set meant failure, I would do it. Then I could move up in weight and hitting failure sparingly enhances my training. Had it been 10, 10, 10, 8 and 9 would be failure, I wouldn't because I can't move up in weight anyway until I make reps on all sets. It's the same approach of progressive overload, but across multiple sets instead of just one. It also lets you strategize and auto-regulate accordingly.

It's still hard and productive training when sets are close to failure and you're getting after it. There's an old saying in powerlifting, "training is not testing." With training styles revolved around failure, every day is game day. This caused me more harm than good. I'd always make good initial progress, but hit the same plateaus and feel fried all the time, so I made the necessary changes.

I didn't meant to go off on a tangent. I'm just tired of Mike and his programs that sound like a big guessing game when I'd rather just be as basic as possible. Relevant to the original point of the thread; with sets across your load selection is going to be lighter. If you set up 4 sets of 8, you might select a 12-rep max. So you can use the lighter load for safety or pain purposes individual to you without having to do 12-20 on everything all the time. Shortening rest periods is another parameter that can be adjusted.

 

[alfresco]

We have to remember ( please forgive me I'm repeating myself a bit) that reps don't matter.. its load.. 70 percent load can give you 8 reps max or 15.. depending on how you perform the reps.. if joints are the issue ( with me yes) there are numerous ways to make a " lighter" load feel heavier.. muscle rounds / cluster sets.. slowing down the negatives.. etc.. get to a load that joint friendly and play with the rep performance.. ill do 1 set in a pumping fashion and fail at 15 or 16.. next set I'll do 3 second down .. pause .. 1 second up.. and fail at 8.. ill do the whole workout that way.. it adds to the " fun" of it and gives a good mix..

Hey LATS,

How long does it take you to perform a typical set?

Repeating myself here (prior post) but 30 seconds seems to be the sweet spot for muscular hypertrophy.

1 rep maxes, lasting about a few seconds more or less, and when compared with the above, are far less than ideal and in some minds do nothing for muscle hypertrophy, and are in fact a skill that obviously must be practiced but not in the absence of again, the above. More succinctly, purely single reps do not build muscle but they do build skill in performing that single repetition.

Sorry, got off on bit of a tangent there.

 

[CafeL33]

My legs really grew when I started incorporating sports conditioning. I would try to do 500 air squats as fast as I could. My best was 16 mins at a bodyweight of 240lbs at the time. I would also do sets of 24 jump squats + 24 air squats + 24 Split Squats + 24 Lunges back to back. I personally believe that legs should be trained 2X week and everything else is secondary. 1 workout with weights and another one using sports conditioning. I do bridges and other things for the posterior chain as well as stiff leg deads.

 

[comedycentral]

At 47 with disc issues I now have gone to a true 3-4 second lowering and about 2-3 to reverse it. Weights have dropped right down but I have been experiencing consistent DOMS in the target muscle. Like Lats said one of the hardest parts going to true muscular failure is the mind telling me I’m done as everything is burning.I was doing higher reps for a long time following dantes advice however the slower cadence has me failing often now around 9-10 reps but joints so far feel ok

 

[krman]

I mostly stick to high reps. It does well for me. I try to hit failure very often