In short: Yes, I have. If you check my backlog you may see some older threads in the Darden forum where I presented decent personal progression. I simply don’t know why I respond better to HIT than other training styles. Maybe it has something to do with several years in group training activities similar to HIIT? I happen to like the pulse increasing, prolonged state of lifting weights - but not other endurance activities/sports.
But, one set to failure can be many things. Add different set extending or specialization techniques, and that one set may turn into a beast. Btw, I don’t know what to call @T3hPwnisher version of one killer set? LOL
I’ve seen a bunch of people lately writing about wishing they had pushed harder on some set. Or regretting that they didn’t get “X” reps on their money set for the day.
But nobody has mentioned using Rest/Pause to hit the “missing” reps. When I was doing 5/3/1 using rest/pause for high rep assistance stuff came to me pretty naturally. But I never made the jump to using it for the main stuff.
It’s amazing how locked in we get with sets and reps in that regard. I’m pretty sure I stole the idea from Pavel, but it was simple enough.
We’re doing 5x5. Ok, that’s 25 reps. Oops: we did 3x5, 1x4, 1x3. We’re short 3 reps. Ok: do as many sets as we need to get those 3 reps. Next workout, get it done in fewer sets. Did we do it in 5? Cool: now we add weight and do it again.
Instead, people will just keep doing the same 5 sets for a total of 22 reps and wonder why they aren’t progressing.
This reminds me of when I was a kid and we’d have push up contests like race to 50, first one to get there wins.
You aren’t getting up until you get those reps. Even if you lose, you can’t quit at 47 push ups. You have to get all of them once you’ve gone that far.
I’ve made great progress many times doing this. I’m pretty confident this is going to be my game plan for 2 of my 3 main lifts for the foreseeable future too: set a start point, set an end point and progress in some way every session, playing it by ear to allow for some autoregulation.
I’m pretty sure one all-out set is Paul Carter’s modus operandi. His articles on 8-12-8 and his Guaranteed Muscle Mass program on here employs the one-big-set concept on main compound lifts.
It can be tough to get it “just right.” Like sometimes after 7 reps, I can’t complete another rep, only I’m not 100%" done."
Drop sets are neat for this. Instead of straining my bicep straining for an 8th shitty rep I can just drop to a lighter DB and bang out another 5-6 nice curls.
I guess this doesn’t really help you strength lifting, power types tho.
I have what I refer to as “toothpaste movements”. As in “squeezing the last bit of it out of the tube”. I actually did just that today, so here’s an example of how to do it.
Say you’re doing some sort of pressing. I’ll use the strict press, because it’s awesome. You press a set of 8 reps and you don’t have a 9th in you. However, your pressing muscles STILL have some “toothpaste inside the tube”, just not enough for a 9th rep. After that 8th rep is done, I hit up the dip stands and do dips until failure. If I want to be REAL stupid with it, I’ll go to push ups after the dips, and can do slingshot push ups after that.
Which is really just a semi-mechanical advantage dropset anyway, but I like my metaphor better.
Aamof, I do a similar Darden specialization routine for arms like that. The difference is probably how we perform our reps. I perform a 30 sec negative followed by a 30 sec positive, then finishing off with yet another 30 sec negative - which constitues a set. Blasphemy? LOL
LOL Well, it’s called 30-30-30 and is one of Dr Darden’s later strategies in losing fat (or build muscle). Chins and/or dips are very challenging this way, though it can be done with almost any excercises (preferably machines).
“In fact, a recent study (I can try to dig it out) found just that: light/moderate loads are more effective when done to failure but heavier loads show no benefit between going to failure or stopping 1-2 reps short.”
This is some info from Christian Thibadeau about training to failures and heavy vs medium weights.
"The benefit of failure is seen mostly with lighter and moderate weights (under 70% of your 1R’M). The reason is that with these loads you are not recruiting all of your fast-twitch fibers right from the start (and FT fibers have the most growth potential).
With light loads, as fatigue accumulates your strength diminishes and the load represents a heavier load relative to your capacity at the start of the rep (there is a 2-3% strength decrease/fatigue per rep). So when working with light or moderate weight you must go to failure, or close to it, to get a significant number of reps utilizing the fast-twitch fibers.
FT fibers start to be recruited when the amount of force you have to produce to lift the weight represents 80% of the maximum force you have available at the beginning of that rep (remember, strength decreases 2-3% per rep).
If you stop way short of failure with light-moderate loads, the hypertrophy stimulus is much weaker because you don’t impose a big stimulus on the growth-prone fast-twitch fibers.
Now, when using loads of, or above, 80% the need to go to failure is lowe because right from the start of the set, you are involving the fast-twitch fibers.
In fact, a recent study (I can try to dig it out) found just that: light/moderate loads are more effective when done to failure but heavier loads show no benefit between going to failure or stopping 1-2 reps short."