If you’re like many of us, you probably have some kind of tough background or inclination to your mindset when it comes to working out (training).
Football gassers… Wrestling “shark click here tank”... Boot Camp…
And as a result, we measure our workouts by how challenging 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 challenging to change our viewpoint.
It’s like we’ve been conditioned 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 informed mindset if we’re truly serious about developing a more resilient, fitter , well-rounded , more athletic 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 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 aerobically taxing and why his total workload decreased by 12 reps when doing sets of 8 versus sets of 6.
This is quite typical when employing a fixed load and building your training off a RM.
The higher the reps, the larger the percentage of effort you’re using 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 exerting 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 longer between sets, so you can still produce sufficient power to get that next set of 8.
Said briefly :
More reps per set relative to RM = More fatigue produced = More rest between sets
Said another way:
Sets of 8 are tougher 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 address is Sal’s question about changing his technique and experiencing a performance decrease.
It’s not only possible , but expected 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 “more efficient” , you are developing 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 easier , 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 proper muscles at the right time and it’s battling switching over to the old, “energy efficient” wrong neural pathways.
Eventually, all the reps will seem easier as your body reinforces those new neural pathways.
As a result, you get more robust and more muscular.
Assuming you respect the fact that fatigue affects force production, you need to rest more between sets.
So, at the end of the day, resting less between sets doesn’t make you stronger or 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.