"Set" Yourself for Success
January 19th 2007 11:20
Ladies, This is for you too.
In Forget 10, Einstein a couple of blogs ago I trashed the superstitious fixation of so many weight trainers on the number 10 for repetitions. Today I wish to turn my focus to another fundamental of weight training that is so often given little thought-how many sets of each exercise should be done in a workout.
A couple of decades ago the late,great Mike Mentzer, who had been a top Mr. Olympia contender in his prime, built a successful training business around the idea of one maniacally intense set per body part about once a week. This was pure heterodoxy at the time, since the governor of California himself had established the conventional wisdom in his books that a serious or aspiring bodybuilder would have to do tens of sets per body part over the same week to achieve desired results. With a contrast like that it was no wonder that most trainers have no idea how many sets to aim at in a workout.
Let me clarify. If you give your body the proper opportunity to adapt by a systematic pattern of ramping up demands over a period of a few weeks and then severely reducing the number of sets of the same exercise for a three week consolidation phase, I see no reason why you cannot eventually do tens of sets per week per body part and get growth in size and strength of muscle. That is if intensity in each one of those sets is your primary focus. The reality is that doing set after set of the same exercise is a recipe for sloppy and submaximal training. Intensity is always the key.
If you're sincere in your desire is to build strength and size in your muscles you probably are going to error on the side of too many sets rather than not enough. Unless you are really a focused trainer you may engage in this kind of thinking:"Oh, I didn't work as hard as I should have on that set. I'll add another to make up for it." This is the worst kind of rationalizing. One maximal set is worth more than two submaximal. Set after set of compensatory, "make up for insufficient effort" movements is a sure path to over training and not gaining.
On the other hand I wonder if five all out, focused sets to absolute failure isn't a route to over training also, especially if your motivation is such that you are training a muscle three times a week. In my opinion 3,maybe 4, sets twice a week is about all normal humans should contemplate. If you are going beyond that, you are either holding back on intensity or overdoing it.
Of course, I might do my three super intense sets with about one minute between them and you might do yours with four or five minutes between. Same level of intensity in the set, but I have upped the intensity ante and that means my three sets will be more all out than yours. Rest intervals are thus another factor to be considered. Training with weights isn't theoretical physics, but it ain't no muscle head deal neither! Your servant, as always.
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