Dumbbell Bench Press
I remember a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger who was straining under a heavy weight to the point where he was about to have to terminate his set. Then his training partner whispered in his ear something like, “Keep going Arnold, Sergio wouldn’t quit, he would do three more reps.” When Arnold heard this, he somehow conjured up super human powers and managed to grind out four more reps. When he finished the set, he replied to his training partner, “Sergio does only three more reps, Arnold does four.” It sounds like an awesome story and motivated me to push myself to train to failure and beyond with forced reps, rest pause reps, and giant sets with no rest between sets. I figured that results were in direct proportion to how hard you pushed yourself.
At some point, I began to question the training strategy of training to failure. There were so many people who proclaimed it was the only way to train, but I heard many others warn that it would burn you out. This being the case, I began to experiment with varying degrees of training stress during a set of an exercise. Eventually I came to the conclusion that training to failure often appears to be more effective in the short run, but training short of failure delivers more consistent results in the long run. Even so, I didn’t know where to stop during a set until it dawned on me to stop when fatigue causes rep speed or rep rhythm to slow down. I call this the marker rep because it marks a stopping place during a set.
Even though I believe that the marker rep is a good place to stop during a set from a physiological point of view, there is a sense in which I also believe in other methods. One of them is called the mini set method. When using the mini set method, you stop well before the marker rep until you reach a set where rep speed slows down on the last rep. Let me explain how mini sets work.
Defining Mini Sets
A mini set is simply a partial set instead of a whole set. A whole set consists of pushing yourself to do reps until you reach your marker rep. When you do a mini set, you stop at a designated point before you reach your marker rep. For example, if you can use a given weight for 10 reps of an exercise before reaching your marker rep, you might only do 3 reps or 5 reps when doing a mini set, which is way short of your marker rep. If you continued using mini sets, you would eventually reach a set where fatigue accumulates to the point where the last rep starts to slow down in speed or rhythm, just like a marker rep. At that point, you would stop doing any more sets for that particular exercise and body part. You may already be familiar with the saying that you can use a weight that allows you to do 3 sets of 10 reps or you can use that same weight for 10 sets of 3 reps. The latter is an example of using mini sets.
The advantage to using mini sets is that they enable you to avoid fatigue because you always stop the set before fatigue sets in. For this reason, mini sets allow you to stay within the most powerful energy system within your muscles (the ATP creatine phosphate system) while you are training. Improving the ATP creatine phosphate system will help you gain strength better than by emphasizing other energy systems which include the lactate system and aerobic system.
Using a Series of Mini Sets
You can use the mini set system by using an equal amount of rest between sets for time periods of 45 seconds up to three minutes, or you can use very short rest periods within a series of mini sets. An example of a series of mini sets would be if you know you can do 12 reps of an exercise before hitting your marker rep, you may choose to do a series of 4 mini sets consisting or 3 reps each for a total of 12 reps. This would constitute one mini set series. Using our example of a series of 4 sets for 3 reps, the rest time between each mini set would only be 15 to 20 seconds (or whatever time period you choose). This would allow for the same training volume without as much fatigue. After the series is complete, you would rest for at least three minutes before coming back to the same exercise, at which point, you could repeat another mini set series. You can keep on repeating series of mini sets until you reach your marker rep, either at the very end of a series, or at some point during a mini set series. When you reach a mini set series where you hit your marker rep, stop doing any more exercise for that body part.
Using Mini Sets with Light Weights
In a few of my previous articles, I mentioned that light weights can help to build strength, but only if the light weights are used properly. In my opinion, using mini sets is the proper way to use light weights. For example, you could choose to work out with only 40% of your one rep max weight. If you push all the way to your marker rep while using only 40% of your one rep max, you will reach a very high rep number within a single set, and will be over emphasizing your lactate system. This can majorly work against you if your main goal is to build strength. However, if you use mini sets of no more than 10 reps per set, you can do several mini sets while staying within an emphasis on your ATP creatine phosphate system while avoiding a lot of fatigue within the lactate system. This is how to aid the strength building process when using light weights.
Using Mini Sets with Heavy Weights
Mini sets can also be used for heavier weights. For example, if you are using weights that will only allow you six reps before hitting your marker rep, you can use mini sets of 2 reps each and keep repeating them until you reach a mini set where your last rep slows down. If you use mini sets wisely, they can add training volume and variety, and help you to gain strength. Best of Training to you.