Remain at Full Strength
It is my belief that most lifters who are focused primarily on building strength are best off if they repeat sets for a muscle group as long as the muscle group remains at full strength. When a lifter reaches a set where they notice that they begin to weaken they should stop training that muscle group. There are four ways that a lifter can determine that a muscle group is growing weaker:
- The lifter won’t be able to lift as much weight as he normally can when he is at full strength.
- The lifter won’t be able to do as many reps with a given weight as he normally can when he is at full strength.
- If a lifter is using the same amount of weight and reps from set to set, he will reach a set that will suddenly become more difficult than previous sets.
- If a lifter is using the same amount of weight and reps from set to set, he will reach a set where rep speed starts to slow down earlier in the set.
Developing Capacity For More Volume
Can a lifter develop the capacity to do more sets while remaining at full strength? I believe the answer to this question is both yes, and no. Let me start with the type of capacity that I think is hard to improve on.
Those Who Train To Failure
When a lifter goes for max reps to failure on his sets, he will probably find it difficult to improve his capacity to do more sets to failure at full strength. A lot of advanced lifters can perform one or two sets to failure at full strength, but they will start to weaken by their second or third set, even if they rest 5 minutes between sets. This is especially true of men.
Some trainers have observed that women often have the ability to do several sets to failure before they begin to weaken. Some believe that women simply have a greater capacity to repeat sets than men, while others believe that it is less common for women to be able to generate as much force into their reps as men. Since they aren’t lifting with as much force and power, they aren’t expending as much energy and can last longer before their strength begins to dissipate.
Sub-Maximum Sets
The most important part of all this discussion is that it seems to be difficult for lifters to increase their ability to perform more sets to failure before weakening, They may be able to improve a little, but usually not a lot. I believe the same thing is true when lifters push one to two reps short of failure, or when performing max effort single reps. On the other hand, I believe that one’s capacity to repeat sub-maximum sets before weakening can be improved quit a bit. More explanation is needed.
Serge Nubret had one of the most fluid well shaped bodies in the history of bodybuilding. He was also enormously strong. Oddly enough, most of his training was done with light weights that were 40 to 45% of his single rep max. Even though Serge could bench press 500 pounds, he used 225 pounds or less for his workouts, which is not very much weight for a 500 pound bencher. Serge’s training strategy was to perform 30 to 50 sets for about 12 to 15 reps for his major muscle groups such as back, chest, and legs. He was probably only pushing about half way to failure at the start of his bench press workout and was closer to failure as fatigue accumulated from set to set. I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing that over time, Serge improved his ability to perform more of these sub-maximum sets before weakening. This is in direct contrast to those who push each set to failure as they will find it difficult to perform more sets to failure before weakening. My own belief is that you can increase your capacity to perform more sub-maximum sets before weakening when training with lighter weights that are stopped half way to failure or well short of failure.
How To Progress Towards High Volume Workouts
The point that I want to emphasize is that the ability to improve your capacity to perform more sub-maximum sets can be taken into consideration for those who want to progress toward high volume workouts. For example, a lot of high-volume lifters may do 2 or 3 exercises and 4 or 5 sets per exercise, but they only push really hard on their last set of each exercise. The sets leading up to the last set are often done with less weight, or with less intensity. In the end, the lifter only does 2 to 3 high intensity sets that approach failure, but they also include a lot of sub-maximum sets in between.
Those who start out with low volume high intensity training may do 3 to 4 warm up sets for a muscle group followed by 3 exercises that are each done for 1 set to failure (or close to failure) for a total of 3 high intensity sets. If the goal is to increase to a high training volume, this can be done by still doing 3 sets to failure and adding in more sub-maximum sets in between the high intensity sets. These lower intensity sets may be stopped half way to failure, two thirds of the way to failure, or three fourths of the way to failure. You can start with just one sub-maximum set between each high intensity set and work your way up to two submaximal sets, then three submaximal sets, and up to four submaximal sets.
When using the strategy presented, you will increase your capacity to do more sub-maximum sets without weakening during the workout. For those who want to work their way up to high volume training, the goal is to eventually reach the point where you can do 3 to 4 sub-maximum sets between 3 high intensity sets in order to get your total volume up to 12 to 15 sets.
If you are interested in high volume training, I recommend that you watch videos of Lee Haney, Jay Cutler, or Phil Heath as they usually work their way up in intensity for each exercise. They do not kill themselves with 12 to 20 high intensity sets for each muscle group. These bodybuilders do go hard and heavy, but not on every set. If they use the same weight for several sets of the same exercise, they leave enough in the tank on their early sets to still be strong by their last set of the exercise.
If you want to develop your capacity to do more sets, do it the right way by improving your ability to perform more sub-maximal sets because most lifters will find it difficult to increase their capacity to do more high intensity sets. Best of training to you.
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Start the video at about 10:30 to hear Jay’s discussion on how often to train to failure during a workout.