I'm a bit puzzled about a certain concept. There seem to be a broad spectrum of opinions about the quality of reps. On one hand you have those who advocate going to failure all the time, they believe in pushing out partials, heavy eccentrics, and fighting with the iron. But, on the other hand you have people who tell you to stop a set as soon as your form degrades even in the slightest. So, you might only perform five or six reps of your 8RM.
I was in the Army and trained to failure constantly for four years. It got me nowhere. So, I have no desire to follow that course of action. I'm not trying to start a debate about HIT training and training to failure. I know its not for me and thats all that matters.
But, the other end of the spectrum seems to advocate never grinding out a challenging rep. As though every rep should be pretty and perfect. How do you follow this protocol and still push the envelope?
My question is where do you fall on this spectrum? And how do you make it work for you? If you advocate never "grinding out" a rep then how do you force yourself to grow and overcome obstacles? Help me understand this idea and how to use it.
Taking the bench press as an example.....strictly speaking people could look at me and say I should be slowing the bar movement up and down when I do my heavy set reps. Ok...I'm willing to deal with the looks of disapproval from purists (or the insecure) to work on my strength and eventually improving that max. I try to avoid the obvious form issues like bouncing the bar off of the chest and cheating by not lowering the bar so that it touches the chest.
I use incline presses to stay at a static weight with my reps but adjust by slowing down bar movement up and down. In this case, the looks of disapproval re. perfect form are more important.
In other words, I think there is a time and place for both.
I'm a bit puzzled about a certain concept. There seem to be a broad spectrum of opinions about the quality of reps. On one hand you have those who advocate going to failure all the time, they believe in pushing out partials, heavy eccentrics, and fighting with the iron. But, on the other hand you have people who tell you to stop a set as soon as your form degrades even in the slightest. So, you might only perform five or six reps of your 8RM.
I was in the Army and trained to failure constantly for four years. It got me nowhere. So, I have no desire to follow that course of action. I'm not trying to start a debate about HIT training and training to failure. I know its not for me and thats all that matters.
But, the other end of the spectrum seems to advocate never grinding out a challenging rep. As though every rep should be pretty and perfect. How do you follow this protocol and still push the envelope?
My question is where do you fall on this spectrum? And how do you make it work for you? If you advocate never "grinding out" a rep then how do you force yourself to grow and overcome obstacles? Help me understand this idea and how to use it.
I'm sure it wasn't failure training itself that stopped your advances, it was probably poor program design, no progression, overtraining/lack of rest, undereating, etc.
Your program design and the different methods that you describe (from failure ALL the time down to never going to failure) need to work together for the program to work. You CAN go to failure in your programs, but then you need less volume, more rest, more days before you hit that muscle group again, etc. Never going to failure can work, too. Different rules. Even Chad Waterbury's deal where you stop when the bar slows works, but it's because the program accommodates his methods.
Plus, everything works, it's more a matter of how does it work for your physiology, your psychology, your schedule, your diet plan (fat loss, muscle gain), your goals (strength, size, bodybuilding), etc.
Also, everything works for a while, just not always forever. When it stops working for you depends on all the things above.
I'm sure it wasn't failure training itself that stopped your advances, it was probably poor program design, no progression, overtraining/lack of rest, undereating, etc.
Program? Did you say Program? We don't need no stinking Program! We're the Army! You just do as many pushups as you can and then strap 80lbs on your back and go for a 30K hike.
A quote ive always taken to is "everything in moderation, including moderation." Meaning obviously you need to switch things up and both methods have their place in training as everyone has said.
If youre still thinking over how maintaining perfect form (which seemingly would prevent you from pushing yourself or grinding out), there are a few things that may help explain the theory behind the training.
For example, speed reps like in waterbury programs, etc., you perform reps to maintain a speed and once the speed slows down that set is over. This helps put focus on and recruit different muscle fibers than slower but possibly heavier loads might recruit. Similarly, focusing on form helps to make sure you are recruiting the proper muscle fibers... for example benching and really hitting your chest, instead of letting your triceps take over a majority of the push effort.
I also think that programs built around the concept of maintaining form do still allow for a little 'grinding out' in that you can't know how many reps you did with perfect form until you do one where your form begins to slip a little. So if you were benching and had 8 reps with good form, and on the 9th it wasnt so good, you would count it as 8 reps (even though in another program it may very well be a legitimate 9th). Its likely also that while focusing on form, the movement is probably executed more methodically and you likely increase the time under tension as well.
This also helps to make sure you are pulling the reigns on some movements as well. Instead of banging out a few extra reps on the bench in the first set or two, it helps to keep a little in the tank for later sets -- so basically a technique to try and curb over training or cns exhaustion.
I'd try to apply both techniques to training. Im currently doing full body splits, but within the splits I am focusing on form for certain body part movements that have been lagging (like my chest, bc my shoulders and triceps began to kind of take over), while focusing on speed for some of my isolation excercises and then nothing special for back and legs.
Sorry for being so long winded
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"Obsession is a word that lazy people use to describe the Dedicated."
But the idea of going to failure on something like squats or deads -- where a break in form can seriously hurt you -- just seems counterintuitive.
I'm more thinking about the idea of stopping a set as soon as the form starts to degrade or the speed slows down. For instance, if I do deadlifts above 90% of 1RM I'm not going to have bar speed. If I'm doing chin ups I can do 8 reps before failure. But, the speed slows down by the fifth rep. If I never did those extra reps would I still get stronger? I know its not that straight forward. I'm not thinking specifically of going to muscle failure...though obviously that is whats beginning to happen when the speed decreases.
I guess I'm confused about how one would use the idea of stopping your sets short. What does this facilitate? It can't just be variety for the sake of variety. It must be better for either strenght, power or hypertrophy. I can see how it could be beneficial for power, but it seems that the loads aren't power loads. Yet, it seems difficult to use near maximal loads for this type of training. So, I'm left to assume that its for hypertrophy?
I'm assuming that this type of protocol will likely have more sets? So, instead of 4x8 with an 8RM, you'll be doing 6x5 with an 8RM?
Assume that rest periods are the same and 8RM=100. Which would be better - 100x6x5 or 100x8,8,7,7?
I don't know. It's the same overall volume. The "grinding it out" sets of eight and seven likely took less time, and probably caused more micro trauma. But, the "fresher" sets of five were likely higher quality reps.
If you're going for strength you want to do it the 4 set way. In that scenario you have overloaded the muscles, where you make the gains. There is very little overload, if any, in the 6 set routine.
Of course you'll need to back off from the heavier sets after a while.
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"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
Given my druthers, I'll be a pansy. Therefore, it's generally useful for me to grind out work in the gym, otherwise I run the risk of just kicking back and eating ho-hos.
maintain control of the weight. The perfect rep thing more often than not comes from an overreaction to people with crap form. Tell someone that they can be a little sloppy and they'll look like ass 5min later. Tell someone that they need to be perfect and they'll more often than not be OK. The bottom line is that you have to be in control of the lift. If you're not then you're going to get hurt.
lift more weight over time. Regardless of your tempo, overload trumps all.
Quality Reps and Grinding it out!
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