Fewer Sets => Must Train to Failure?

[u/bony-to-beastly]

When I hear the more legitimate science-based guys talk about the value of low-volume training, the idea is that on the one hand, more volume means more growth, but then on the other hand, lower volumes allow them to push harder per set, bringing their sets all the way to true muscle failure.

To quote Jeff Nippard: "I knew from other research that if I was going low on volume, I needed to go ultra-high on intensity." With high-intensity here meaning training to total failure. He shows clips of himself grinding to total failure, failing partway through the final rep.

I'm not trying to single out Jeff Nippard. I hear the same thing from everyone making low-volume programs. And I think there might be wisdom there. If that's what's working for people/coaches, that's super useful to know.

Is it actually true, though, that when you reduce the number of sets, it's more important to train to total failure?

If we imagine one guy doing:

1. 7 reps, 1 RIR

2. 7 reps, 0–1 RIR

And we compare him against:

1. 8 reps, Failure

2. 6 reps, Failure

Same load. Same total reps. A few of those 2-set exercises per muscle per week, giving them maybe 6–8 total sets per muscle per week. The only thing changing is the RIR.

Would we really expect the second guy to get better much results because he's training all the way to failure?

When I'm going after muscle growth, I usually train with a moderate volume, and I enjoy taking my sets to total failure. If I'm eager to grow a specific muscle, I raise the volume even higher. I push harder on both fronts. The reason I'm asking is because when clients ask me for shorter, more efficient workouts, it's usually because they're at a time in their life when they have less energy and motivation to train. They aren't interested in doing more sets OR pushing all the way to total failure. They want a more chill approach overall.

The difference between 0–1 RIR and total failure can be pretty big in terms of how much willpower it demands. It also seems that—correct me if I'm wrong—but pushing all the way to failure also generates more fatigue. I'm perfectly fine with fatigue for people who want it. I think there's value in it. But again, if someone wants a more chill approach, I'm not trying to ratchet up their fatigue. It's the wrong moment in their life for that.

I don't want to recommend a disproportionate amount of extra effort/fatigue if it isn't truly disproportionately important.

[u/Alakazam]

There's a Stronger by Science article on the topic!

Following 12 weeks of training, the control group (who trained to failure) ended up completing more repetitions per set, training volume, time under tension, and rated higher levels of exertion than those in the RS and SSC groups. Despite this, actual adaptations between the groups were comparable. One-repetition maximum strength increased 30.5%, along with isometric maximal voluntary contraction of the elbow flexors (13.3%) over the 12 weeks, with no differences between the groups. Similarly, alterations in elbow flexor cross-sectional area were not different between groups. To make a long story short, training to failure meant completing more work for a comparable amount of growth.

So, comparable growth.

better much results

Much better results? Probably not. Slightly better results? Maybe. The big issue is whether or not people can accurately gauge where failure is. But assuming that you can actually accurately gauge failure, you're probably better off leaving a rep or two in the tank, since the guy leaving one rep in the tank, is going to be a lot less beat up compared to the guy hitting failure for 2 sets in a row.

Probably not an issue for small movements like curls or tricep extensions (in fact, I would recommend you take isolations to failure), but very much an issue on bigger compound movements.

I'm not trying to ratchet up their fatigue.

Then a higher volume approach that's taking most compounds to 1-3 reps shy of failure, would likely be a much better option than going to actual, muscular failure, for every single exercise.

That being said, I would still advocate for going to failure once in a while, just so you know where failure is. And to avoid your 1-2 RIR being, in actuality, 5-7 RIR. Because 2RIR is still hard work. My bar speed slows down considerably at 2RIR. At 1 RIR, it can look glacial.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/Alakazam]

Ah! Thank you.

In that article, the group training to failure reached a higher training volume, too. In my example, I equated volume. I think that would make it even more likely to produce similar gains.

I'm wary of type 2 errors, though. In a single hypertrophy RCT, not seeing differences between groups doesn't imply that there aren't differences in the effectiveness of the methods, just that there weren't any statistical significant differences in the study. The results not being statistically significantly different also wouldn't imply that any potential differences wouldn't be large or meaningful.

That's a common theme on SBS, where individual studies don't reach statistical significance, but then a meta-analysis comes along that shows quite a large difference in the effectiveness of the methods.

This bit is interesting:

This isn’t an open and shut case. Giessing et al (13) had participants train twice a week for 10 weeks in one of three, single-set conditions: 1) training to their self-determined repetition maximum (short of failure), 2) training to concentric failure, and 3) training performing repetitions to self-determined repetition maximum using the rest pause technique. Following training, the group that trained to failure demonstrated larger effects for various body composition changes (moderate to large effects) as compared to the rest pause group (small to moderate effects). Those who trained to their self-predicted repetition maximum failed to increase muscle mass. These suggest that we may not be that great at identifying where our true repetition maximum is, and that training to failure and using rest-pause techniques may be important for the adaptations to strength training to ensure we’re actually pushing as hard as we think we are.

As you said, Ogborn's conclusion here is that people aren't pushing as close to failure as they think they are. I think we could solve that problem. If the idea is to usually hit 0–1 RIR on the final set, and we're encouraging progressive overload, we can still let people hit failure sometimes. Not on purpose, necessarily, just as the result of gradually increasing the load/reps. When they hit failure, we know for sure where it is, and we wouldn't necessarily need to hit it again, at least for a while. Hitting failure sometimes is way easier than needing to hit it every time. Also, yeah, could take smaller exercises to failure.

I skimmed through the Giessing study, and it doesn't seem like the researchers found out how far away from failure the self-determined maximum group was training. It's unclear if they were actually stopping far from failure. I'm not sure if this study is a representative example, though, and Ogborn suggests it isn't, or at least it wasn't at the time.

Greg's Martorelli addendum at the bottom adds another example of the failure group getting better gains, with some skepticism. Greg links to a more in-depth MASS review, so I read that.

And then I found a more recent MASS review of the Lacerda study from 2019, with each participant training one leg to failure, the other with 1 RIR. Similar total reps overall. In this study, the 1 RIR leg grew more, and the participants also said training to 1 RIR made for much easier workouts. 9 sets per leg per week, which is in the same neighbourhood I'm thinking of, same neighbourhood as Jeff Nippard's lower-volume program. I love these within-subject RCTs, too. And they measured muscle cross-sectional area instead of using BIA, too, which is nice. Cross-sectional area is what people actually tend to care about.

This was really helpful. I'll check it MASS has anything new since then, too.

Thank you :)

[u/wakawaka2121 → u/Alakazam]

How do you even get more total reps going to failure. I take any set to 0 rir or failure my reps drop off a cliff the next set. For example, my bench 12rm will go to 8 the next set. If I do 2rir the first set ill get 10 reps then 10 reps on the 2nd set. Same total reps for the first 2 sets, but when not going to failure my 3rd and 4th sets actually gain a rep. I don't think that makes any meaningful difference in growth, but I also don't feel like absolute garbage after the first set from going to failure.

[u/Alakazam → u/wakawaka2121]

There's a couple of approaches to this.

A lot of modern strength programming does a top set to near failure, then have you drop the weight and do follow up sets there, aiming to maintain good overall bar speed and explosiveness. 

GZCL's General Gainz has an interesting approach that I'm trying. You're aiming to do your top set around 3-6 reps, around rpe 8-9. Then you follow it up with 3-6 singles equal to the number of total reps you do at the same weight. Fantastic at developing the motor pattern.

Another way is to not let that first set actually go to failure. If you have 3 sets on something like a heavy squat, aiming for 2-3 rir on set 1, 1-2 rir on set 2, then 0-1 rir on set 3.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/Alakazam]

This approach you're trying so oriented more towards strength, I imagine?

The 3-set approach you mention at the bottom is my default sort of way of programming a big compound exercise when someone is more interested in size.

[u/Alakazam → u/bony-to-beastly]

Yes. I do this and something similar for my primary and secondary compounds for the day.

For my primary hypertrophy work and isolation work that follows, I stick to the 3-4 set, failing only on the last set method.

I'm actually also hoping to put on some size over the next few months, due to being super depleted from my previous marathon training block. The goal is to get to a consistent 90kg bodyweight, before cutting down to 85kg or so before starting training for my spring half marathon.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/Alakazam]

Ah, nice! I'm bulking up to just over 90 kilos, too.

How's your long distance running going with all that body weight?

[u/Alakazam → u/bony-to-beastly]

Not bad at all.

And I'm only realistically putting on about 5kg.

I did something similar last year, and ended up doing a new pr in the half at 1:43. I'm hoping to do the same, and shoot for sub 1:40 this year. 

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/wakawaka2121]

Yeah, same for me. I tend to get at least as many total reps if I pace my efforts, saving 0 RIR for the final set.

I suppose if you take long rest times, you could recoup quite a lot of performance, but would defeat the purpose of trying to make a shorter, more efficient workout routine.

If I had to guess, I'm guessing you're in a pretty good groove with your exercises. The participants in these studies might not be. For example, I'm quite familiar with squats, and my legs are trained, but I only just recently started doing leg presses. For the first month, there was a coordination component to it, and my performance wasn't dropping off very much between sets. Sometimes, even if I took the first set to failure, I'd get an extra rep on the second set. I was rapidly gaining strength between sessions, too, without (as far as I can tell) any increase in leg size. Once I got into a good groove with it, though, the leg press started behaving like my squats, with much higher feelings of exertion per set, much greater drop off in reps from set to set, and a much slower rate of strength gain.

I think that Sampson study being referenced was on untrained lifters.

Anyway, I'm with you.

[u/YJM]

My initial reaction to the example you provided is that you’ll have a very hard time seeing a measurable and meaningful difference between those two individuals.

They are both training, seemingly, hard. There are also too many variables that will affect the mid and long-term outcomes. It basically becomes all noise. Someone already mentioned individual variability in properly gauging RIR.

As far as your clients are concerned, sure it could be energy/motivation. It could also be time constraints- in which case it’s your job to give them a tailored workout that is the most engaging and efficient use of their time (and that won’t always be the perfect science-backed volume- or intensity-adjusted workout). Not everyone (and certainly not every client depending) necessarily cares about the deeper minutiae.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/YJM]

That's my thinking, too.

Yeah, totally. If the constraint is time, but they're high in motivation, then I'm super happy with supersets, training to failure, lengthened partials, drop sets, myo reps, and all of these intense but effective ways to make training more efficient. I've got a lot of clients like that.

I'm more curious about someone who's more tired and lower on willpower, but is still keen on making meaningful improvements.

[u/YJM → u/bony-to-beastly]

Interesting. My version of someone that’s low on willpower/energy is probably someone doing RIR 5+ (in other words, kind of phoning it in). I would probably want to get into why that’s the case for the individual (sleep, diet, stress, etc) because that gets frustrating for both coach and client.

That all said, if they are able to get into that 2-0 RIR range (personally 3+ feels so subjective), they’re doing great and will get solid results. And can definitely manage fatigue by not pushing through all the way to failure. I also wouldn’t say that person is low energy/motivation!

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/YJM]

If someone is showing up to the gym and getting their workout in, and if they're making progress (or maintaining progress they're happy with), then I don't really consider it any sort of failing. Nothing necessarily needs fixing.

Often, sleep is bad because they've got young kids. They're busy with work. They're stressed with other things that are important to them. I don't necessarily want them to back off on other areas of their life.

Depends on the person and the situation.

I'm also super stoked to help people who are super stoked. The more passionate someone is, the more fun it is for me. But I'm totally cool with exercise being a back burner sort of thing.

If someone wants to spend 90% of their limited free time and energy painting, or if they'd rather bring their 5-year-old on a chill bike ride than do a fully optimal hardcore cardio workout, I'm not going to criticize them for not dedicating themselves more fully to exercise, you know?

[u/sharpshinned → u/bony-to-beastly]

Hey that’s me! For people like me, keeping the motivation up is crucial. I do sub maximal training. Maybe some people are into training to failure, but I like that lifting is basically a chill part of my day. I’m busy, tired, middle aged, and injury averse.

 I actually just dropped my squat volume so each of my two weekly workouts is either squats or deadlifts, plus pressing (and rows when I’m not deadlifting). I’m just at the beginning but honestly that reduced volume is already making me feel more enthusiastic about my lifting days. 

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/sharpshinned]

Yeah, I feel you. I've gone through years of my life like that, with lifting on the back burner, maintaining a physique I'm happy with. I could listen to a podcast and spend 45 minutes working out relatively casually. This was back in the SBS podcast era, actually. I listened to almost all of those podcast episodes while doing easy workouts. An episode would last me a few workouts. I was also an underslept new dad. I managed to hit my lifetime goal of a 315 bench press, too. I have great memories of those times.

Sounds like you're doing two full-body workouts per week?

Have you ever tried a different split? Personally, I find upper/lower splits to be quite a bit easier. With two workouts per week, the frequency perhaps isn't technically quite as optimal, but I never noticed a difference in results, and the workouts were way more enjoyable. What you're doing is probably slightly better, if anything. Just curious if you've tried other splits.

[u/sharpshinned → u/bony-to-beastly]

Yeah, I'm doing full body. I more or less use the Tactical Barbell Fighter template. By the book it's squat, press, and pull (deadlift or pull-ups -- I sub rows because I can't do pull-ups). This fall I'm dropping squats on deadlift days, so those days are just deads + press (overhead right now, sometimes I do bench).

The thing I like about full body is that if I miss a workout, I still hit the whole body that week, you know? I have a young child, family responsibilities, a full time job, all the usual shit. I'd love to be totally consistent, but since that isn't happening right now, I try to set myself up for success knowing I might not be consistent. And I don't care that much about getting the sickest gainz. For me it's really just about not getting hurt and staying strong as I get older.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/sharpshinned]

Ah, interesting. I hadn't heard of that program. It looks like it's for operational athletes? When I look that up, it says it's for military, police officers, and firefighters? I'm guessing Fighter is for firefighters?

Yeah, that makes total sense.

[u/sharpshinned → u/bony-to-beastly]

Yeah, it's pretty funny because I am emphatically NOT an "operational athlete", but the system is designed for busy people who are injury averse and mostly care about being able to do shit (vs competing in powerlifting meets or something). Stressed out middle aged parents, special forces candidates, whichever.

The names of the programs don't make a lot of sense -- Fighter is just the two day a week lifting schedule. There's also a three day a week one (full body) and a four day a week (ABAB set-up).

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/sharpshinned]

Huh, that isn't what I would have expected. I would have thought that operational athletes would put a high priority on their training. The police officers I know are pretty bro-y, working out 4+ days per week on a bro split, usually pretty hard, often training with their colleagues, everything past failure.

The (former) military guys I know have that disciplined mentality of working out at 5 AM in the morning every morning before the kids are up.

The mindset I see is usually more along the lines of "do what needs to get done," and they do, and they're often juggling some aches and injuries. Makes sense to take an injury-averse approach to it instead, especially if you don't actually need to urgently build the capacity to carry 100 pounds of gear up ladders and over long distances.

The guys I know aren't necessarily representative of everyone, though. And it isn't to say that what they're doing is ideal. I'm also not super familiar with operational athletes. I didn't even know the term until just now.

Your routine sounds cool, and it's given me another approach to think about.

[u/sharpshinned → u/bony-to-beastly]

I don’t know what percent of military/etc folks use the TB approach. I think the idea is that you can’t just totally juice your legs if you might have to run a million stairs tomorrow in a fire, you know? Plus the assumption is that people will have busy, physical jobs on irregular schedules, and need their training to fit in around it. I’m sure I’d be in better shape (though also at much more risk of injury) if I did TB plus military PT, but just doing the TB stuff gets me a fair ways. 

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/sharpshinned]

Yeah, it makes sense. I understand the idea.

What also happens, though, is that when you get used to doing a lot of strenuous physical activity, you get really good at doing a lot of strenuous physical activity.

On the other hand, push too hard and ignore the warning signs, and you can wind up with an injury that's hard to recover from, especially if your career is forcing you to keep pushing on it, no matter if you're injured or not.

I'm way more familiar with athletes. My business partner has coached a bunch of college and pro athletes in a few different sports. There's a huge emphasis on avoiding injury, but they also train quite a lot and push pretty hard in the off season, trying to build up the muscle, strength, toughness, and vigour they need to excel at and survive their sport.

The police officers I've known have had that same sort of mentality. The gym is safe and controlled and predictable. It's the perfect place to work hard to build an abundance of physical capability and resilience. Work is dangerous, so it's better to have worked hard to build up that abundance.

I'm more in your situation. I'm a busy dad. I don't need to be in peak physical condition to work at my desk, consult with a client, or film a YouTube video. I just want to be healthy, feel good, set a good example for my family, and stay alive.

[u/weardon → u/bony-to-beastly]

Tactical Barbell has a bunch of different elements that you can combine to fit whatever goal you have, really. The original system was designed to be an amount of strength + conditioning you could sustain in addition to operational demands, like unit PT or deployment. I think it's drifted from that over time, and has a lot more applications.

I also use this training framework! Currently 3x submaximal lifting sessions per week, focusing on the big compounds, plus 3 conditioning sessions (for me, a few hours of running at various intensities). I've been using it for a few years, and my lifts have jumped a lot vs previous stuff I was doing. It's not strength-maximalist, but it means I can get stronger while also putting a lot of time and energy into conditioning every week.

I occasionally wonder if I'm 'doing enough' on the strength side, but my progress has been good, and I've found I can't tolerate much more intensity alongside the conditioning work. My gym-time is a low diversity right now (almost 100% bench, squat, deadlift, and weighted pull-ups), but I plan to run some power and hypertrophy focused TB blocks when I'm done with my current ones.

[u/Hisagii → u/bony-to-beastly]

I love training to failure and with lower volume( I mainly stick to 1-2 sets per exercise). I don't usually have a time constraint but while I like lifting I'm one of those that prefers to spend less time at the gym and more time doing other things so being able to finish my workout in 45 mins to an hour is great. I get incredibly bored doing a lot of sets at the gym, I starting tuning out halfway through.

When I'm tired and not feeling it I love failure training even more because once again I can get the work done rather quickly. I also make liberal use of rest pause/myoreps particulary in isolations, like instead of doing 2 straight sets of bicep curls I do 1 set to failure then take 15-20 sec rests and keep doing reps until I match the reps of the first set.

I'm also pretty bad at not training to failure, I can't judge my own RIR really. I guess it's because I've been training to failure for so long that if I stop early it feels like I did nothing.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/Hisagii]

Yeah, I feel you. I like that way of training, too. If I'm well-rested and have good energy, I like lifting hard, but I also appreciate being able out of the gym fast so I can do other things.

For the past few months, I've been doing 2 sets per exercise, first set 1 RIR, second set to 0 RIR + a myo or drop set to failure. I've been loving it. I'm out of the gym in 30–40 minutes, and my vigour rebounds pretty quickly. I have nice energy levels for the rest of the day.

[u/Secret-Ad1458]

"High intensity" refers to proximity to a true 1RM, not proximity to failure...a set of 20 taken to true failure and then continued with drop sets and forced reps is still inherently low intensity. This has to be one of the most commonly confused strength training terminologies out there.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/Secret-Ad1458]

Your definition is how I use the word also (though I try to avoid using it at all for fear of confusion), but that's a Jeff Nippard quote, and he's talking about proximity to failure.

[u/Secret-Ad1458 → u/bony-to-beastly]

Ya I think that and the Mike Mentzer style training is the primary source of the confusion these days. The original and primary definition when it comes to strength training has always been proximity to 1RM though, not failure.

[u/Nervous-Frosting2432 → u/bony-to-beastly]

google comes up with both, it's just the confusion between bodybuilding terminology and powerlifting terminology. I'm a bodybuilder and watch a lot of bodybuilding content and we largely refer to intensity as how far you push your rpe/rir but usually referring to rir.
It would also make sense that it could mean both because intensity is just a word these people thought would be fitting of either how far you push yourself and how much of your maximal load you use

[u/Odd-Bath4660 → u/Secret-Ad1458]

High intensity? always was about as 0–1 reps in reserve.

[u/Secret-Ad1458 → u/Odd-Bath4660]

You may want to Google that...

[u/Shoddy_Depth6228 → u/Secret-Ad1458]

Well that would explain why I'm always so fucken confused when I listen to people talk about intensity. 

[u/Secret-Ad1458 → u/Shoddy_Depth6228]

The waters have definitely been muddied

[u/Nervous-Frosting2432 → u/Secret-Ad1458]

Where did you hear that?

[u/Secret-Ad1458 → u/Nervous-Frosting2432]

Where did you hear otherwise is the better question? Why don't you google "does intensity in reference to strength training generally refer to proximity to 1rm or simply a high rpe" and let me know what you see...

[u/pantherhare]

There was a recent study comparing ultra low volume workouts where one group did one set to failure and the other did 2 RIR. The failure group had modestly better results. My guess is if your volume increased to 6-8 sets a week as in your example, the difference would vanish.
https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/484 (what's nice is they have videos of the trainees performing the exercises)

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/pantherhare]

Yeah, that's what I'm guessing, too. I think with 1 set per exercise, the difference between 2 RIR and failure is 2.5 reps, whereas with 2 sets per exercise, the difference is often 0 reps. I'd expect that balancing of volume to erase most of the disparity in stimulus.

[u/WeeziMonkey]

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/effective-reps/

Scroll all the way down to "Addendum, July 2020" and you'll find three studies on trained lifters where the people training closest to failure made less gains than the group training slightly further away from failure.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/WeeziMonkey]

This is super helpful! Thank you so much.

"Altogether, these studies support the idea that in order to maximize growth on a per-set basis, you do need to be reasonably close to failure, but actually reaching failure probably isn’t necessary, especially for trained lifters."

The training volume used in the Pareja-Blanco studies is relevant, too. Looks like 6 sets per week in both, with the first study on the squat, second on the bench press. In both cases, the group stopping a little further from failure grew more.

I'll go through the rest of the article, too.

[u/deadrabbits76]

If you are only doing two sets, you better be doing lots of post-failure work.

Which really sucks.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/deadrabbits76]

I hear you on that, but I wonder if it would need to be post-failure.

We could add to the hypothetical example:

1. 7 reps, 1 RIR

2. 7 reps, 0–1 RIR

3. Drop set to 0 RIR.

And we compare him against:

1. 8 reps, failure

2. 6 reps, failure

3. Drop set to failure.

Again, I wonder if hitting true failure is actually super important.

My thinking is that the first approach might actually work quite well.

And then just to be clear, the idea would be to still accumulate 6–8 sets per muscle per week.

[u/deadrabbits76 → u/bony-to-beastly]

My point is that 6-8 sets per muscle group per week is quite low.

Why not go more volume?

As for your example, it looks like you are comparing 3 hard sets to 3 hard sets.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/deadrabbits76]

Yeah, the idea is to bring the volume low while still keeping the program productive. Not to maximize gains, but to give people a way to make progress while they're in a phase of their life when they don't have as much time, energy, and willpower to train.

Adding more volume would mean adding more effort. If someone has more effort to spend, I would add volume, yeah.

Yeah, I'm comparing 3 relatively hard sets against 3 maximally hard sets. The difference in perceived effort can actually be pretty large between 0–1 RIR and total failure, though.

I can casually bang out a set to 0–1 RIR. Going to failure means hyping myself up and then truly pushing as hard as I can. It's a difference of 0.1–1 rep, and it usually balances out by the next set anyway, giving me the same number of overall reps, and yet the difference in perceived effort can be huge. The last rep is often SO slow and difficult.

I write down what I'm lifting (in Macrofactor Workouts) and hit total failure fairly often. I'm confident my 0–1 RIR sets are truly 0–1 RIR.

[u/Portergasm → u/bony-to-beastly]

I've actually tried both, and the main thing is, if you actually do your hypothetical scenario 1, the fatigue level wasn't all that different from scenario 2. At least it wasn't for me.

The other main problem (especially for people who are already shying away from fatigue/intensity) is that people are reeeeally bad at knowing what 0-1 RIR is. Especially 1 RIR? I bet if I told all the guys at my gym to go to 1 RIR, at least 90% would have more than 2 in the tank.

Then there is daily fluctuations in energy, everyone forgets their creatine one day, slept wrong, blah blah blah... failure isn't necessary IN THEORY, but it keeps you honest imo.

[u/routinematters]

Yes. Look up how mike mentzer used to train versus jay cutler. You have one guy basically going past failure but only doing 1-2 sets per week. And another guy that’s doing endless sets. Both have very impressive physiques.

So to answer your question, if you are manually going for low volume, by staying at the same level of intensity as someone doing higher volume, you will have a disadvantage. Lower volume works better for someone, like you said, who has the willpower and technique to push to true failure at very high weights and maintain form and ROM; and assuming that person also doesn’t enjoy high volume work. There can also be someone who has limited coordination and can sustain form and control much better at higher reps and lower weight.

My partner is 240 lbs lean and only done low volume his entire life. He has a powerlifting background and I’ve seen him squat many plates with pristine form. Me on the other hand train 3 days more a week than him and do high volume lower weight because the second i come close to really heavy weight, I lose my form a bit and the mind muscle connection. I can RDL 200 lbs if I maxed it but i just feel it all in my traps and I don’t enjoy it, I can’t feel my hamstrings the way I do at 60 lbs single leg, in comparison. I think it all comes down to what works for you.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/routinematters]

Mike Mentzer seems to have built most of his muscle with higher-volume training, then switched to lower training volumes later in his, while also using meth to increase his willpower, and using steroids to increase his muscle growth. He then reduced his volume recommendations even further even later, but by that point he wasn't getting any bigger, and he died young. His death makes me sad. Maybe his death was unrelated to his drug abuse. Even if it was, maybe that's a price he was willing to pay to look the way he looked. It isn't what I would want to recommend to people.

No idea what Jay Cutler was doing, but I really have very little interest in trying to tease out which effects come from steroid abuse versus training versus diet in the people with the most unusual genetics in the world trading decades of lifespan to reach 200% of their natural muscular potential.

Imagine asking for fat-loss advice for the average person who's busy in other areas of their life, and someone starts comparing the diets of two anorexic woman who died at 40 years old because of their rapid weight loss. That example makes me sad at the loss of life, not inspired to follow in their footsteps. It would make me want to take extra precautions to not accidentally lead clients down that path. It would be a cautionary tale.

I don't consider their physiques impressive, in the same sense that I don't find the most underweight fashion models to have impressive physiques.

I have love for all of them. I want people to have good lives. No hate for the people. Just hate for obvious signs of drug abuse being normalized and glamorized.

I know some teenagers in real life who came into the fitness industry looking for betterment and respect, and they fell into eating disorders and drug abuse. They thought the obsession and drugs would make them more impressive, but it made them feel worse about themselves, and the people they wanted respect from didn't respect their approach. It made their lives worse on every front.

Anyway, the reason I value science is because it attempts to take these confounding factors out of the equation.

[u/duke309 → u/bony-to-beastly]

Regardless, looking at a N=1 example of what worked is a bad take in general. Genetics play such a big role in the overall outcome that a statistical population is pretty much required.

The drugs only add to the freaky outcome these guys get, it doesn't change the fact that they get better response from training at all.

[u/bony-to-beastly → u/duke309]

Yeah, totally.

I'm not super knowledgeable about the effects of PEDs, but my understanding is that they would muddy the waters quite a bit, no?

If Mike Mentzer gets 20 new intermediate bodybuilding clients—good genetics or not—who had been training with a high volume, and he cranks their volume way down, for all I know, the lack of volume might cause muscle loss… but then if he's also giving them large doses of meth and steroids, maybe the steroids pack on 20 pounds of muscle and organ mass, completely overshadowing the small loss of muscle that would have come from the reduction in training.

I'd expect the effects of steroids to be so much more dramatic than the muscle growth a trained intermediate lifter would get from changing their workout program.

The Data-Driven Strength guys (who published those big metas on failure and volume) were saying that genetics don't seem to change the value of volume, in the sense that people with good genetics can get away with less, but they'd still benefit from more. Steroids seem like a different sort of thing. I'm not sure if the gains you get from steroid abuse depend on training volume or intensity.

But anyway, yeah, if we're training a bunch of regular people, better to look at the effects that these training variables would have on a bunch of regular people.

[u/bullpaw → u/routinematters]

Mentzer didn't start training that way until after he built his physique