Messing Up the Toughest Way to Train
September 16th 2007 13:42
Some of the recent entries at NMF have discussed the toughest way to train: giant sets-all the sets for a body part done in a continuous circuit. There is no question that a regimen of every body part trained with giant sets is the classic way to assure yourself that you are going all out. Today how to mess up the toughest way to train.
The simplest way to goof up any training is to allow the macro to dominate the micro. What does that mean? Lets say I enter the gym with a giant set or two on my training mind. I am really focused on this challenge and aim to succeed in making it through this workout. What is a huge temptation for me? To focus on the circuit and deemphasize the individual sets.
It is so easy to think about all the work you have to do when you begin a workout and almost reflexively ease up on the particular sets so that you can get the whole accomplished. It is just as easy to do a workout of submaximal reps and congratulate yourself for the workout. That is wrongheaded and completely human, as far as I am concerned.
The tao of weight training is that the workout is built from the rep to the set to the workout. That means that all our concentration and focus in training is on the movement in which we are engaged at the moment. We cannot compensate for a bad rep by adding more;we cannot compensate for a bad set by adding more sets;we cannot create a beneficial workout by doing inadequate reps and sets in a fancy giant set.
It is really worth repeating that we build fitness by the rep. A fanatical devotion to each repetition and a fanatical devotion to each set is a prerequisite for enrolling in a course of giant sets. I once saw the legendary Flex Wheeler approach the incline bench,take the 140 lb dumbbells from his spotters, do a failure set of who knows how many reps, hand the dumbs back, and go to the next body part. That epitomizes training the right way.
Its like saving: if you watch the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. Watch the reps and then worry about the giant set. Your servant, as always.
The simplest way to goof up any training is to allow the macro to dominate the micro. What does that mean? Lets say I enter the gym with a giant set or two on my training mind. I am really focused on this challenge and aim to succeed in making it through this workout. What is a huge temptation for me? To focus on the circuit and deemphasize the individual sets.
It is so easy to think about all the work you have to do when you begin a workout and almost reflexively ease up on the particular sets so that you can get the whole accomplished. It is just as easy to do a workout of submaximal reps and congratulate yourself for the workout. That is wrongheaded and completely human, as far as I am concerned.
The tao of weight training is that the workout is built from the rep to the set to the workout. That means that all our concentration and focus in training is on the movement in which we are engaged at the moment. We cannot compensate for a bad rep by adding more;we cannot compensate for a bad set by adding more sets;we cannot create a beneficial workout by doing inadequate reps and sets in a fancy giant set.
It is really worth repeating that we build fitness by the rep. A fanatical devotion to each repetition and a fanatical devotion to each set is a prerequisite for enrolling in a course of giant sets. I once saw the legendary Flex Wheeler approach the incline bench,take the 140 lb dumbbells from his spotters, do a failure set of who knows how many reps, hand the dumbs back, and go to the next body part. That epitomizes training the right way.
Its like saving: if you watch the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. Watch the reps and then worry about the giant set. Your servant, as always.
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