Think Reps
September 22nd 2007 12:14
Being the most important does not mean that a concept is the most apparent.In weight training,where the constant temptation is to make it easier, the most important element is the rep. All else is an elaboration. If your workout is not a series of focuses on each and every rep, you will ultimately be expending more energy for less results.If you fly into the gym and push your way through a bunch of sets that do not have a focus on each and every rep the amount of wasted potential is immense.
There has always existed a fundamental dispute in bodybuilding theory between the high number of sets crowd and a smaller coterie of those who favored a small number of sets to the most intense failure that can be produced. Both positions have something to offer. Each can be turned into something that is unproductive.
The many sets advocates are often chemically enhanced and that ipso facto means that the average person cannot sustain the kind of workloads that this kind of training entails.What Mr. Normal gets out of 20-30 sets per body part is long boring workouts in which intensity corners are cut to compensate for the load. Submaximal sets one upon the other miss the point that muscle grows as it is exposed to peak contraction.
One or two sets to failure advocates put tremendous pressure on the inexperienced trainer to push his body into territories of pain etc which the entire psychological apparatus of the normal human is designed to avoid. Going to failure is so natural that without a tyrant standing over him the average guy will not reach the potential that this technique is designed to reach.
There is a way to approach this dichotomy: limit the sets in a workout to less than 10 per body part and emphasize the performance of each rep in each set. The focus of such workouts never leaves the individual rep, done strictly with maximum weight and in realistic numbers. The mind enters into such workouts and concentration is the premium.Such sessions do not tax the limits of endurance and they do not require that the boundaries of pain management be explored. They do set put pressure on muscle. This is a workout that a normie can handle and will find producing results. Think reps. Your servant,as always.
There has always existed a fundamental dispute in bodybuilding theory between the high number of sets crowd and a smaller coterie of those who favored a small number of sets to the most intense failure that can be produced. Both positions have something to offer. Each can be turned into something that is unproductive.
The many sets advocates are often chemically enhanced and that ipso facto means that the average person cannot sustain the kind of workloads that this kind of training entails.What Mr. Normal gets out of 20-30 sets per body part is long boring workouts in which intensity corners are cut to compensate for the load. Submaximal sets one upon the other miss the point that muscle grows as it is exposed to peak contraction.
One or two sets to failure advocates put tremendous pressure on the inexperienced trainer to push his body into territories of pain etc which the entire psychological apparatus of the normal human is designed to avoid. Going to failure is so natural that without a tyrant standing over him the average guy will not reach the potential that this technique is designed to reach.
There is a way to approach this dichotomy: limit the sets in a workout to less than 10 per body part and emphasize the performance of each rep in each set. The focus of such workouts never leaves the individual rep, done strictly with maximum weight and in realistic numbers. The mind enters into such workouts and concentration is the premium.Such sessions do not tax the limits of endurance and they do not require that the boundaries of pain management be explored. They do set put pressure on muscle. This is a workout that a normie can handle and will find producing results. Think reps. Your servant,as always.
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