I didn’t see any mention of what percentage of 1RM one should use in Meltdown. Alessi mentions the efficacy of powerlifting protocols and certain rep ranges, etc., but never connects them directly to his 3 x 10 protocol. Am I supposed to be nearing failure by the tenth rep? It sounds like others are backing off their poundages as fatigue kicks in, something I’ve had to do. Is that optimal, to stay near failure on the 10th rep, or should a lighter weight be appropriate? Thanks folks and sorry if I just missed something in the article.
By the 4th set, you won’t care. You’ll be too lightheaded and fatigued to worry about percentage of max. I followed Ian King’s principle of using the first week to figure out what weight I needed to lift, so that the second week I wouldn’t pass out during the 4th set…brutal, but these last weeks have flown by!
I chose a weight that I knew that I could do for 3 sets of 10. Usually the first set is hard but doable. Second set was really tough. Third set was to failure.
I was wondering the same thing. I was doing amounts that required 30seconds of rest or so after each exercise within a set. So I cut back a little so I could just go from one to the other with pretty much no rest. It would seem obvious that the loads have to drop if one is doing a superset of 4 exercises vs. 4 separate sets with rest in between. This isn’t a strength building routine, it’s more fat loss, LBM preserve. Of course the more load overall, should contribute to more metabolic impact overall, i.e. more “work” completed.