If you’re like many of us, you probably have some kind of tough background or mindset to your mindset when it comes to working out (training).
Football gassers… Wrestling “shark tank”... Boot Camp…
And as a result, we measure our workouts by how hard they are…
How tired they make us.
And the Iron Sports?
Same thing.
“Go Heavy or Go Home.”
“Go Hard or Go Home.”
“One more rep!”
“It’s ALL YOU, BRUH!”
You get the idea, right?
For many of us, it’s pretty tough to change our viewpoint.
It’s like we’ve been trained into thinking a certain way.
But reality, especially when we’re 10… 15… 20+ years out from “the trenches” requires we adopt a new, and more scientific mindset if we’re truly serious about developing a stronger , more toned, balanced, more capable body.
For example, in his book, The Science and Practice of Strength Training, Dr. Vladimir Zatsiorsky (Chief Biomechanicist for all Soviet Union teams from 1980-1988) states that secret to great strength is this:
“Train as heavy as possible, as often as possible, as fresh here as possible.”
Most of us are unaware of that last part -
“As fresh as possible.”
And that’s because FATIGUE makes you weaker.
It:
[X] Decreases your ability to produce force
[X] Alters your exercise technique for the worse
[X] Exposes you to potential injury
So, with that background, let me share a frequent question I routinely get. This time it came from Sal -
Sal asks why just bumping his reps up from 6 to 8 is so much more metabolically demanding and why his total workload decreased by 12 reps when doing sets of 8 versus sets of 6.
This is perfectly normal when employing a fixed load and basing your training off a RM.
The higher the reps, the greater the percentage of effort you’re applying in relation to your RM.
For example, if you’re working with a 12RM, 8 reps is 66% effort in relation to your RM, whereas 6 reps is only 50% effort.
So, with 8 reps, you're using 16% more effort per set than compared to only using 6 reps.
And that means you’re accumulating fatigue.
And that means you need to rest more between sets, so you can still produce sufficient power to get that next set of 8.
Said succinctly :
More reps per set relative to RM = More fatigue accumulated = More rest between sets
Said another way:
Sets of 8 are more challenging than sets of 6, when using the same weight/load. As a result, you need to rest longer between sets.
Remember -
“As fresh as possible .”
The other thing I want to discuss is Sal’s question about changing his technique and experiencing a performance decrease.
It’s not only probable, but usual that since he changed his technique, he might have “lost” a few reps in the short term.
Or, rather, his current reps took more out of him.
This is totally normal and normal.
When you change your technique to become better, you are engraining new neural pathways.
And that takes more energy, until it doesn’t.
Often, it presents itself this way:
The first few reps of a set actually feel lighter , and the last few reps feel harder .
And that’s because your body is using more of the “right” muscles at the “right” times (usually the bigger, energy-sucking prime movers)...
And fewer of the improper muscles at the “wrong” times (usually the smaller stabilizer muscles).
This takes more energy to use the right muscles at the proper time and it’s battling switching over to the old, “energy efficient” wrong neural pathways.
Eventually, all the reps will become easier as your body reinforces those new neural pathways.
As a result, you get stronger and more muscular.
Assuming you understand the fact that fatigue interferes with force production, you need to rest more between sets.
So, at the end of the day, resting less between sets doesn’t build your toughness or more hardcore .
It just takes away your “GAINZ”.
And if you want to see similar results to Sal, I’ll leave a link to the same program he’s using in the video description below, along with some technique resources in case you need them.
Stay Strong ,
Geoff Neupert.