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Barbell My thoughts

Spartan Agoge

Spartan Agoge

Level 6 Valued Member
Hello everyone. I wanted for some time to start a thread with my thoughts on training. Not to teach anyone, but mostly to learn from everyone. So feel free to disagree and put forward your objections, as this is the purpose of this thread. Of course, feel also free to agree, or to ignore.

The first topic I want to discuss is the obsession of the last years: training to absolute failure with low weekly volume. At least in my country, the last years, all the fitness influencers and all the fitness youtubers preach this training style as the absolute truth and the Holy Grail of fitness. If you don't train to absolute failure, you are wasting your time. If you do more than 8 sets per muscle group per week, you are overtraining and you are gonna die a horrific death ROFL

Yesterday, I saw a young youtuber, with not really much muscle(skinny but ripped I would call him), doing 1 set of overhead press on smith machine, to absolute failure and then some forced reps with the help of his friends. And, as he said, that was it. Just this 1 set for shoulders for this week.

Is this training style nonsense? In my opinion, yes, absolutely nonsense. I have some people I know telling me that when they reduced the weekly volume and reached failure with every set they saw better results, but this was never the case for me.

When I tried to train to absolute failure, even with low volume, I always ended up with symptoms of overtraining and too much fatigue. I also didn't have any progress at all. If anything, I lost some strength and became unmotivated to train.

On the contrary, when I follow Pavel's recommendation of 1/3 - 2/3 of max reps in every set, it always works great. I increased my muscle mass by doing many sets of 3 reps with my 6rm. For me it is fixed: sets of 6 with 70% 1rm, sets of 5 with 75%, sets of 4 with 80%. If I want to increase the volume I do more sets. All reps are smooth and (somewhat) explosive. No grinding, no screaming, no failing. And it works for me. I think the Soviets produced some amazing athletes by training like this.

So, what is all this hype with training to absolute failure until you puke, or until your head explodes? Is it just some nonsense of young fitness influencers who worship Mentzer as their god, or it actually works for some people? Or it actually works for everyone and I just did it wrong?
 
I follow Paul Carter's work. He still advocates training to failure/close to failure, but it's not set in the stone. The more closer to 1RM of that exercise, the more less require to training to failure that it need. It bases on the size principle.
Also, to failure means that you cannot do another rep with that weight, not means going until you die...
 
Hung said:
I follow Paul Carter's work. He still advocates training to failure/close to failure, but it's not set in the stone. The more closer to 1RM of that exercise, the more less require to training to failure that it need. It bases on the size principle.
Also, to failure means that you cannot do another rep with that weight, not means going until you die...
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This is what it means, but many people follow Mentzer's suggestions of forced reps and/or partials beyond failure, overlooking the fact that they are not Mentzer, or even close to Mentzer's level.
Thanks for the article, I will read it.
 
I'm not a huge fan of training to failure. I think for some isolation exercises and in small doses it's fine but, for me personally, I've never found it sustainable. You say "absolute failure" but if you're really doing exercises to absolute and total failure (and continuing past it w. partial and/or forced reps), I've found it can quickly become a self-sabotaging effort.
Hung said:
I follow Paul Carter's work.
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PC is, umm, interesting...
 
I suppose that is how a lot of strictly body builders may train. I know I was listening to Tom Platz one day on YouTube and he basically said he only did legs like 1x every 12 days. I can’t remember the exact number. But it was because in that one workout he absolutely destroyed his legs to get them to grow.
I believe Pavel noted in several of his books how it was recognized that doing 100 reps of an exercise built muscle very quickly. So I see many of the body builders doing 100 reps per muscle or so.
Personally I follow more of the strength focus. All of my training is done in a rep range that I know I will complete each rep. It’s no where near failure and I know I’m getting stronger. I have recently added in body building movements because the thought process is if you build muscle you will be able to be stronger with more muscle. So I’m doing the strength training and then some exercises to achieve some muscle. I think Bromley on YouTube and Dr. Mike put out some really good information they are my go to for geeking out on strength training.
 
Luis T. Gonzalez said:
I suppose that is how a lot of strictly body builders may train. I know I was listening to Tom Platz one day on YouTube and he basically said he only did legs like 1x every 12 days. I can’t remember the exact number. But it was because in that one workout he absolutely destroyed his legs to get them to grow.
I believe Pavel noted in several of his books how it was recognized that doing 100 reps of an exercise built muscle very quickly. So I see many of the body builders doing 100 reps per muscle or so.
Personally I follow more of the strength focus. All of my training is done in a rep range that I know I will complete each rep. It’s no where near failure and I know I’m getting stronger. I have recently added in body building movements because the thought process is if you build muscle you will be able to be stronger with more muscle. So I’m doing the strength training and then some exercises to achieve some muscle. I think Bromley on YouTube and Dr. Mike put out some really good information they are my go to for geeking out on strength training.
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This is exactly the way I train and this is also exactly how I see hypertrophy: a way to become sronger and overcome plateaus.
I think that total reps 60-120(@60-85% 1rm) for a muscle group, without reaching failure, is more than enough to make someone grow.

This is what I am trying to say: many fitness influencers with millions of subscribers and followers(mostly young novice lifters), preach that low weekly volume with every set to failure and beyond, is absolutely the only way to grow. They disregard decades of training knowledge (periodization, overload etc) and they practically say "just destroy the muscle with 1 set to failure+ drop set+ forced reps+ partials, bro".
 
Spartan Agoge said:
So, what is all this hype with training to absolute failure until you puke, or until your head explodes? Is it just some nonsense of young fitness influencers who worship Mentzer as their god, or it actually works for some people? Or it actually works for everyone and I just did it wrong?
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I think like usual it depends on two things: goals and training history.

Goals - avoiding failure seems much better for strength development. If your goal is to get stronger - or more powerful - avoiding failure is much better. There is good evidence that training to failure is a successful mode for growing muscle size though. A mode not the mode.

Training history - The people that seem to have really good results with training to failure are doing that on the back end of months to years of training with volume. Likewise, it seems that folks do great on volume on the back end of high intensity training.

Final thing is I would almost always say that one set to failure per week for a bodypart or movement is going to get you less results than more sets.
 
Spartan Agoge said:
This is exactly the way I train and this is also exactly how I see hypertrophy: a way to become sronger and overcome plateaus.
I think that total reps 60-120(@60-85% 1rm) for a muscle group, without reaching failure, is more than enough to make someone grow.

This is what I am trying to say: many fitness influencers with millions of subscribers and followers(mostly young novice lifters), preach that low weekly volume with every set to failure and beyond, is absolutely the only way to grow. They disregard decades of training knowledge (periodization, overload etc) and they practically say "just destroy the muscle with 1 set to failure+ drop set+ forced reps+ partials, bro".
Click to expand...
Yeah, definitely not the best way to go. I somewhat trained like that when I was a teenager and trying to do Arnold or Jay Cutlers workouts from magazines.
But I think even those body builders understood strength came first. Arnold, Franco, Ronnie Coleman all deadlifted in like the 700’s, there bench was well into the 400’s and squatted a lot of weight too. Then they did the show muscle stuff. I haven’t followed any body building stuff for more than 20 years but it seems like today people in that arena are less focused on strength and go straight to a bunch of machines that help you target a muscle better than a bench press or deadlift. I could be totally wrong about that. I saw Brian Shaw training with Jay Cutler on YouTube recently and just kind of got that vibe from their discussion.
 
John K said:
I think like usual it depends on two things: goals and training history.

Goals - avoiding failure seems much better for strength development. If your goal is to get stronger - or more powerful - avoiding failure is much better. There is good evidence that training to failure is a successful mode for growing muscle size though. A mode not the mode.

Training history - The people that seem to have really good results with training to failure are doing that on the back end of months to years of training with volume. Likewise, it seems that folks do great on volume on the back end of high intensity training.

Final thing is I would almost always say that one set to failure per week for a bodypart or movement is going to get you less results than more sets.
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I want to add two more things:
1. The tool. Failure on barbells seems to be much harder to recover from/sustain than failure with dumbbells or machines.
2. The range. Failure at 5 versus failure at 15 also seems to be much harder to recover from/sustain.
 
John K said:
I think like usual it depends on two things: goals and training history.

Goals - avoiding failure seems much better for strength development. If your goal is to get stronger - or more powerful - avoiding failure is much better. There is good evidence that training to failure is a successful mode for growing muscle size though. A mode not the mode.

Training history - The people that seem to have really good results with training to failure are doing that on the back end of months to years of training with volume. Likewise, it seems that folks do great on volume on the back end of high intensity training.

Final thing is I would almost always say that one set to failure per week for a bodypart or movement is going to get you less results than more sets.
Click to expand...
Great post.
 
Luis T. Gonzalez said:
Yeah, definitely not the best way to go. I somewhat trained like that when I was a teenager and trying to do Arnold or Jay Cutlers workouts from magazines.
But I think even those body builders understood strength came first. Arnold, Franco, Ronnie Coleman all deadlifted in like the 700’s, there bench was well into the 400’s and squatted a lot of weight too. Then they did the show muscle stuff. I haven’t followed any body building stuff for more than 20 years but it seems like today people in that arena are less focused on strength and go straight to a bunch of machines that help you target a muscle better than a bench press or deadlift. I could be totally wrong about that. I saw Brian Shaw training with Jay Cutler on YouTube recently and just kind of got that vibe from their discussion.
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I have also more than a decade to do conventional "hypertrophy" or "bodybuilding" training.

But every year I do at least 1 high volume mesocycle. I never get to failure and I have great results. For example If I want to do a high volume mesocycle for chest, it will be a 2xweek frequency, like this:

Tuesday
-Barbell bench press: 10 sets of 6 @ 70% 1rm

Friday
-Incline dumbbel bench press: 10 sets of 6 @85% of Tuesday's weight

It is 20 sets of 6 @ 70% basically. Not even close to failure. I would suggest every "low volume beyond failure" enthusiast to try it just once and see if it works for him. For me, it does.

ps I would't do so many sets for intensity more than 70% 1rm though. My experience is that up to 70% I can do very high volume and have no recovery problems, as long as I stay away from failure. This is not the case for 80%+ though.
 
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My best hypertrophy responses came from pyramid up/APRE/DeLorme type training.

Last set to failure or beyond. I far prefer to use DropSets or Rest Pause, so technically not training to failure, hypothetically "beyond failure". Cluster Sets as well dep on how they are used.

The use of several very easy lead in sets increases the response to that last high effort set tremendously. This approach is simple

During these periods I simply eliminated the set extenders from my last set by way of a deload every two or three weeks. The increase in metabolic whack from these extenders is difficult to overstate - they increase recovery demand by a factor of 2 or 3, increase working HR by 15-20 BPM over a few additional reps. The body is stripping ATP from glucose and chucking a lot of the pyruvate, while struggling to rephosphorylate Creatine, creating an anoxic and high lactate environment. Low oxygen environment is protective of harm from low pH, and both are potent anabolic signalling inputs. The residual systemic lactate increase is yet another input both through cellular use of lactate and Cori Cycle...yet another anabolic input (you see where this is going).

Strength always tracked with increase in size or uninterrupted training over a given time period. Ability to perform well on off days was hit or miss, one is always about 3-4 days removed from full recovery, by design. Over time you get to feeling plenty strong on your off days. Keep in mind this was primarily for size, but strength gains were only a little off from a lower intensity effort.

Can basic HIT do the job? I believe it can but not until you get some goodly mass on you and helps to have a training partner. Being dogmatic about "1 set only" is counterproductive.

Can training to failure be an effective strategy? Who is seriously going to argue with Dr DeLorme? The guy rehabilitated polio and war injured subjects and literally wrote the book on progressive resistance...with volumes of case studies.

My experience using different strategies is simple:

- Tension & Metabolic Stress

Mix and match, have fun out there, people!
 
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Steve Freides said:
Define fitness.

-S-
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I could say bodybuilders, but is someone who doesn't compete a bodybuilder?
Nevertheless, they are people who influence many young people. This is what i consider to be the issue.

Think of the 16 years old teenager who has no knowledge on training and just started going to the gym. He sees a 20 years old "bodybuilder" on youtube, telling him to train beyond failure in every single training session.
This is a great way to destroy the potential of many young lifters.
 
Spartan Agoge said:
I could say bodybuilders, but is someone who doesn't compete a bodybuilder?
Nevertheless, they are people who influence many young people. This is what i consider to be the issue.

Think of the 16 years old teenager who has no knowledge on training and just started going to the gym. He sees a 20 years old "bodybuilder" on youtube, telling him to train beyond failure in every single training session.
This is a great way to destroy the potential of many young lifters.
Click to expand...
Bodybuilding is related to strength training but they are not the same thing. As I've said here before, proper strength training will put muscle on any newbie's frame, all the more so if they're 16, but I continue to add muscle to my frame in my late 60's. I choose to remain in my original weight class because getting bigger in order to lift more weight is not the kind of strength I want - I want whatever happens when I focus on strength.

-S-
 
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