If i generally feel fine doing this, and am seeing my reps go up weekly (slowly) and am doing plenty of sets... do i need to freak out about this? Idk, im conflicted, ive been doing this for 6 months now with 2 deloads and while i felt a bit worn out at the start, the only fatigue i feel now is from dieting.
@@adamvifrye2690then it's fine. I pretty much train to failure, 0 RIR or 1 RIR on every lift I do. Absolutely manageable with the right volume and exercise selection
I was an athlean-x viewer when I first started going to the gym during the pandemic, and had minimal gains. Found this channel and gains exploded over the last 2 years.
I came across the tiny Skeletor man about 5-6 years ago and bought into his tomfuckery for a time. He was the first fitness UA-cam channel that I ever actually watched. It's funny to reflect on one's personal training journey and think of all the buffoonery one learns from and grows out of (hopefully).
Lol, Jeff and Dr. Mike agree on ~99.5 of stuff. Jeff supports the idea of working out to failure, with the caveat that it means less volume. Dr. Mike's celebrity training videos are like that too... Always to failure but less volume.
Fuck man, I get that doing more volume will lead to more gainz, but who has the time!? I’ve been bulking hard on zero sets a week and already put on 20lbs of mass, thats good enough for me
Dude I know he’s talking about 12 sets? TF? I do 4-5 sets and get full stretch to failure and it works what I want, still feeling sore the next day. And I barely have time to do my 4 sets going through supersets.
@@chriscarlisle6835 I usually do about 8-9 sets per workout. That is, within 7 days 16-18 sets. I do bro split and go to the gym 6 times a week. Probably not the most optimal, but I enjoy this very much
Dude that discussion about failure training not actually being any better than 1-2RIR is an eye opener. I feel like I'm leaving shit on the table when I don't fail, even though I know where I will fail I just feel like I GOTTA do it otherwise I'm not maximising my time in the gym. It's good to know that it ain't true. That last rep doesn't actually mean anything, it adds a whole lot of fatigue for negligible gains. The fact that it's actually better to do more sets at 2RIR than do fewer sets to failure is the real kicker here. If I stop before failing, I can do more sets, and that's actually gonna give me more gains than going to failure on every set. It's also good to know that my progression should be weekly, not in every workout. I bench 2-3 times a week, and I feel like I need to increase in reps in every workout - and I end up hitting failure super quickly, and feeling like I'm not getting as strong as I could. I think this adjusts my expectations and if I am benching 3 times a week, all 3 of those workouts can be basically the same and I should only increase in reps basically every week, not every workout. I am still trying to calibrate my expectations, and I really hope there will be a video on this one day to know if I am progressing as fast as i should be or if I am progressing too slowly.
Dr mike says the last is has the stimulus so do a slowww eccentric to really milk it. But you said at the end of your first paragraph that the last rep doesn’t really matter. Which one is it? Well what I do is I milk the last rep when I’m at 1-2 RIR
@@gcg8187 When I say the "last rep doesn't really matter" I'm referring specifically to the 0RIR rep. The failure rep, the one that I probably won't get. In this video, Dr Mike says that you don't need to train to failure, you can stop one or two reps shy and get the same results. Sometimes, when I'm at 1-2RIR, I decide I'm just going to do one more rep and go to failure as a result. That is the last rep that doesn't matter; I can stop without doing that last rep and therefore not go to failure. You are right to milk that last rep, when you're putting in that much effort and you're still not at failure, it's really good stimulus to go slow on that last eccentric before completing the rep. Good job, keep working hard!
Even though I have severe depression and having muscular pain in the gym is basically the only joy I experience, dr mike still can make me laugh from time to time. Thank you bro
Hi Dr. Mike! I’m a beginner lifter, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot more from watching yours and Jeff Nippards videos than I have from people at the gym. Thanks for the great and funny content and for teaching me how to best maximize growth and technique!
Great sources to find as a beginner, i was spinning my wheels with no program or tracking, looking for that one weird exercise, keeping my knees from going over toes on old bros advice for years before i found the good doc and j nips. Ill give a recommendation for a little geoffrey verity schofield and natural hypertrophy just for some different albeit similar views, and for more science greg nuckols and the beard boys from stronger by science are well worth nerding out on imo
@@rockyevans1584 thank you for the recommendations! I’ll check them out later. I feel really lucky, a friend got me to go to the gym with him for a while but he quit. I didn’t know what to do to improve so I just looked up videos and Jeff and Dr. Mike both ended up seeming the most reliable for what I wanted.
Dr. Mike knows his shit. Don’t listen to gym bro advice. It’s usually wrong. Here’s a good method: watch people’s technique and physique in the gym - if both suck they’re full of shit and have little value to offer.
I am 63 and have osteoarthritis among other things?Ankylosing Spondylitis and other spinal diseases.So,I absolutely cannot go really heavy with weight.I use high reps to get to exhaustion and that is NOT easy and can be time consuming.Being retired?All I have is time,so isn’t a problem for me.I see others my age at the gym basically NEVER training to exhaustion.They do these fast spastic reps that really do nothing except exhaust the joints.Technique is SO important.Quality reps are key in the type of training I do.Focus on the area you are working.Max it out with the reps.When I feel like I have only a few left?I do 5 more.Listen to your bod and focus on the area you are working.
Over 4 years of training here. I recently started lower volume...(2-4 less sets than normal per muscle group per session) and training with slightly heavier weights...(7-13 reps instead of 12-18) and I noticed failure training on every set is now manageable for more weeks than before with higher volumes. I'm also gaining strength faster than before and I get to eat more. I have always done 4 weeks of accumulation before deloading, and only 3-4 mesocycles before a maintanence phase.
Thanks to all your videos , I was able to start getting my life on track. First time I had lifted 50 pounds, and impressed my husband too whom I ve passed on what I ve been learning from you and also motivated him to start lifting too. Unfortunately, cant afford rp app rn but we ll surelly give it a shot when we will be able to afford it. Thank you so much Dr. Mike for all your great teachings!
Thanks for your content. I’m just now buying some equipment and beginning to lift. Been cutting for 6 months and lost 50 lbs with your help. there are a lot of UA-cam fitness folks but in the end I feel this is the best channel for me. It’s easy to digest and covers so much. Also most of it seems to be true which is wild for UA-cam 😂. Keep the videos coming homie!
This is the type of videos I wanna see on UA-cam, so much information and so easy to memorise... as a beginner this is what I need to understand what to do and not do, amazing 💪🔥
After 30yrs of training, I can tell you that the average gym goer does not suffer from too much intensity and too little volume! RIR mentality is the mindset of the masses…
Thanks to Mike I got off keto and started being precise with my diet and training. 2 months in and the best Ive ever looked. Each day in the gym I add a rep or two on each exercise, while going to almost failure. So thankful.
I feel like I have to go to failure because if I don't, I feel like my judge of RIR is way off. Maybe I'm just bad at RIR, and maybe I'll get better over time, but for now, it's every set to failure, and my recovery has been a lot better than what I thought it'd be.
An easy way to judge RIR is as your set progresses, does it become more challenging. If you hit 10 reps but feel you could do 1-2 more, stop, and that’ll be 1-2 RIR. It takes time to narrow it down for each exercise but using the same mentality to find it is easy to do.
A big thing that helped me was I go to "technical "failure so what's my technique becomes off I stop. So no cheat reps or anything like that. My recovery is great I still feel like I'm going to failure and if I ever misjudge a rep I don't have to ask for help because I can just jerk the way around like everyone else in the gym lol
I feel you. I was so used to going to failure, I takes will, but on the other hand a very easy rule. I always wondered why people have even specific Rep numbers, besides tracking progress of course. But now I have to see to find a repeatable earlier stopping point.
@CornFed_3 My problem was when I tried this (specifically for legs) I would say I was at RIR 2 but then later that week or even a later set I would go to failure and get an extra 2 to 4 reps over what I thought would be failure.
@@matmaster1142, and that’s where you decide to increase your weight and basically “start over” at figuring out where your true failure point is. It’s not an exact science and can take some tinkering, but it’s definitely possible. Again, paying close attention to form is also key in the overall equation. If you can pump out more reps above what you thought failure to be but your form isn’t crisp and damn near perfect, I wouldn’t count them. On legs specifically, if my quads or my booty meat start shaking, that’s what I consider my technique failure point, even if I could bust more out. My form and injury risk only go up from there.
I've been working out for a month, mainly doing different types of pushups and situps for multiple days. And I've been taking it slow doing only a few sets starting out, because I'm new to working out and the results are slowly taking shape. The main thing I've learned while doing research and listening to RP is find a balance and take your time and recover when necessary and always be consistent. For example when starting out at 227 pounds I couldn't do regular pushups cause of how heavy I was, so I did inclined pushups for a few weeks and now I can max out at 20 regular pushups instead of 1 or 2. Case and point I'm much stronger than before and I now feel comfortable with doing 2 sets of regular pushups and of course now using dumbbells. I'm glad I could share my one month experience with someone new like me. Final note is to be consistent and slowly increase the amount of weight you work with as you get stronger and of course eat a lot of protein and also research good technique lol.
Glad to see a video on this, as I started incorporating this literally two days ago. I’m six months into training so still a beginner and since I recover quickly, I thought I might as well push it harder and add a couple more sets. I’ve started splitting my training to a.m. and p.m. sessions so I can do the workload.
2 a days 6 months in? 2 a days are only needed for extremely advanced bbers man, you would likely progress faster from 4 to 5 max total sessions a week
@@rockyevans1584Honestly if he has the time and is not having any ill effects I say why not? Hopefully he's watching all of Mike's videos and is paying attention to his body signals but more power to him!
@AndrewPokornik just because you may not benefit from overturning stones before you need them. When you plateau, you need to add. Before you plateau, there's no need to add. If you've already added, once you plateau you're already going to be battling systemic fatigue vs stimulus, having to prioritize muscle groups to grow them while keeping others at maintenance, basically you just risk putting more effort for very little additional gain, and it may take you longer to get to your practical limit. No big deal if you're young enough and likely lifting for life, but time is important so thought it was worth mentioning
Excellent video, RP team. I especially enjoyed the beginner, intermediate and advanced progression of information presented throughout. The beginner section was thought-provoking. I wonder, are we as individuals interested in hypertrophy perhaps taking the “beginner” phase of muscle gain for granted? The huge ramp up in ability to grow muscle is very special and not something we see again once a certain level of musculature has been reached. I wonder how robust the inquiry into specifically the beginning phases of hypertrophy has been.
"Why would you do less of something we know builds more muscle so that you can do more of something that may or may not build more muscle?" Really great point. Another point to consider is how the rep range affects the optimal RIR. One of the takeaways from the Robinson paper was that the heavier the weight (i.e. the lower the rep range), the less additional stimulus you get for going closer to failure. So for example, there's no measurable difference between sets of 5-10 at 3 RIR compared to sets of 5-10 at 0 RIR: the only thing you're accomplishing is accumulating more fatigue. On the other side, going from 3 RIR to 0 RIR in sets of 20-30 can make a noticeable difference. I also wanted to give a shout-out to an idea Brad Schoenfeld mentioned in a recent video with I think Milo Wolf: in response to the objection that failure training is bad because it harms performance on subsequent sets, you could take only your last set to failure. It's similar to Mike's advice to go crazy hard the last week of a meso, because who cares if performance would suffer the next week, you're doing deload training.
Been using the hypertrophy app recently it’s been great it’s a little weird doing rir training always a little scared of undershooting but so far I’ve been feeling some soreness and having some decent pumps so hopefully I’m training hard enough here’s to hopefully the best gains of my training life
What Mike describes reminds me alot of Arnold talking about the burn feeling like cooming, he's just talking about training to near failure when it's painful, so it's cool to hear the science behind why that actually works.
This series is a blessing, dr mike! I know you've went through already all of this in a combination of previous videos, but this series is a crisp summary of all the info. Enjoying the chance to review and really ingrain the content! Thanks
I like the way you just worded that. Until technique goes to crap. I tend to think of failure as in "no can move bar" but thinking about my last workout there were several times that technique went bad so I stopped. In reality, that was going until failure. My muscles couldn't do it anymore so they asked other muscles to tag in
Agreed. I get annoyed by listening to other people say how much weight or how many reps they did, then watching them use momentum and other muscles that shouldn't even be involved in the lift
It really depends on the muscle / joints involved and the indvidual, too. Can I bust out another bicep curl with a lean or swing? Yeah. Will it hurt me? Probably not. Can I force that last rep on dumbell overhead press? Sure can. Will it hurt me? Sure did... back to PT I go yet again. One day I'll learn...
@@Ryush806so true. I cant imagine leaving rir on single joint movements, and whenever ive tried hitting failure on compounds, particularly squats or deadlifts, i get like 2 to 3 day fatigue hangovers
Finally, someone explained it. Common mistakes number 5. My thought that pushing too much through pain (despite good technique) will lead to injury, this was my barrier to attempting to progress. I understand now the difference between pain and the ability to do the physical movement. Thank you
My alarm bells start ringing when i'm ego lifting and that's pretty much thee main reason i get injured somewhere and i do not remember getting injured while doing things in proper form with the right amount of weight. Now to failure. I do failure on every last set of a given exercise and depends on the risk factors like compound movements i give that a 3 RIR 100% i don't brute force compounds like squat, deads, benches just nope. I do brute force but with great attempt of proper force for every last set of non compound exercises coz for me it's safer that way with little risks and i haven't been injured ever since but breaking plateaus is a different animal all together and i add reps before adding weight but that don't usually help faster so that's what im currently experimenting on how to break strength plateaus.
I’m a swimmer that uses a few free weights (super light) for strength stuff. As a NON body builder I love watching your videos to help me do the right technique and the right amount so I don’t get hurt. I’m old so can’t afford that. So far I’ve actually gained muscle and strength in swimming over the last 8months. Thanks bro!
I like how its impossible and also table stakes. You can only get there on steroids, except every 12 year old in their middle school benches 250. Its overblown social media bullshit but those on social media are pathetic for only benching 405 lol
Did you mean 325? First time I ever maxed on bench was 8th grade for football and I did 205. Was 5’11” and about 165lbs. 225 is a very unimpressive bench unless you’re a female.for a trained individual that is. If some novice just threw up 225 I’d say that’s pretty good.
@@thorshammer5134 Go explore the comments on any of the "how much should you lift/bench" videos, and you'll see a very sad number of people who are struggling to get to 225, and think a "normal" person can't do it.
Me and the boys love going to failure once a month. You know how most of us hard-core lifters do things in the locker room or sauna after a good workout. Well, after having a session going to failure give yourself 30 minutes rest and then go enjoy it. It's insane how intense the climax can be with shakes sore legs. We got a new guy in the gym about to have his first failure session on Saturday. I'm excited he is still a newbie and say but we got him kissing, spooning and one finger type stuff. It's going to be the bomb when he relax and fits in with the boys
Dr. Mike, I stumbled across your videos a few months ago. I'm a former powerlifter who stopped lifted because my joints hurt and every so often would try training how I used to train and all my joints would immediately remind why jumping into lifting heavy shit after a long period of not lifting is quite stupid. I pivoted to try lose weight through diet and activity, but hated that I started to look smaller. I decided to try out your training methods and I first felt like the weakest little bitch on the planet being humbled by weights that my ego thought I should be lifting for a number of reps a powerlifter would consider cardio. I got over this quickly once I started to see and feel the difference in training and despite training hard 4 times/week, my joints felt BETTER. I really can't stress enough how much motivated you are to try when you aren't actively in pain. I'm getting the best pumps and mind muscle connection of my life, am leaner now than I've ever been in my life, and I actually enjoy weight training again. Thanks for the great content, my brother in iron.
I definitely fall into the camp of “is that 1 or 2 RIR? Better go to failure to find out where my true limit is…” 😂 but I’m starting a new meso cycle with lots of new exercises so trying to work them out really this week and next. BTW, love the reclining bicep curl - that is a real killer!
I have been training 4 days a week in the gym for 2 hours for the past 1 month and 2 days of kickboxing. I am at the intermediate stage ( I worked out at home with some light weights). I push every set to failure, drop weight and do that till failure. I am getting strong and also losing weight ( on a cut -1500 cal, 170 pounds -18% body fat). But I am only tired during the leg days, and I don't feel soreness in any muscles(I am cooked in the gym) after returning home from workouts. I don't know if too much volume is the problem; I follow PPL + 1 shoulder. PS: Thank you for educating me about fitness and diet, and you should try acting in a movie, Dr. Mike-RESPECT and love.
I have a similar workout life style 4 days a week 1 day muay thai 1 day jujitsu but I do 2 upper lower splits. Weird that you don't feel sore after work outs. I've been training seriously for around eight years and have pretty much always had a little soreness after working out for at least a day. May need to push yourself a little harder or switch out some exercises and find some that give you a better pump/mind muscle connection.
@@zachjennings5320 I get a shit ton of pump, I can't literally do 1 more set with a proper form even with a lighter weight. Although I can feel the fatigue after kick boxing and leg days. And I am getting stronger every lift week after week too.
Please keep up the good work. As an over 50yr old natty going to reps to failure is not quite so awesome. i will keep doing it, tho. Cannot run (menisceptomy on left knee) so walking with a weight vest around the neighborhood (or no vest on the elliptical in the unfinished basement).
I reduced the number of sets from 24 to 16 sets per workout. I did 4 supersets of 2 exercises, so 8 exercises in total with 3 sets for each exercice,with 1min rest between two consecutive sets for antagonists muscles. I did that 6 times a week in a kind of push pull legs. I was no longer gaining strength, and the nervous fatigue was real. I finally dropped from 3 sets per exercice to two but excellent form and real failure, as well as 1min rest even between antagonists set. I gained in 3 weeks insane strength, from 120kgs 1RM bench press to 130kgs, probably also due do better recuperation between workouts. My workout last as long (40-45 min maximum), are still extremely intense but the heart feels less stressed and the muscle more stimulated than annihilated compared to before. I'm natural lifetime, and 1m76 for 84kgs fairly lean (obliques well defined and abs with veins), I just don't have time to workout 1h+ hours and I don't need additional mass, I just want to feel good training and at least maintain.
Thank you for your commentary. It's always nice to get a different perspective. I'll probably be doing this in a few years myself but I got time and want to build more mass
But the lower volume was not what made your gains explode. The reason why that happened was actually the higher volume, you overreached and than backed off to supercompesate. That's basically the concept RP teachs, do it in waves. It comes a time when your body will only respond to higher volumes when you're advanced, but you cant hold that volume for too long. Search how to up your work capacity, so you can handle more volumes. I have a gigantic back as a natural and i can handle 25, 30 sets no problem. That seems impossible to a lot of folks, but thats because they train like powerlifters or never bothered with their work capacity. The old ditillo blog has a lot of information about the old school naturals, the ones before the steroids were even made. They look gigantic, much bigger than even steroid users. Believe me when i say they did not built their bodies with 20 sets per week per muscle group, the blog has some information about that. But again, what made you gain strength for 3 weeks and general gains was the high volume, the 24 sets per week part.
@@IvanM272im a Fan of keeping the Volume the Same becouse you never know If you Progress...more Progression is also more total Volume ....getting more Reps or weight is the Goal Not Doing more Junk Volume ..everybody can build the Work capacity to 30 Sets a week but i promise you you will Not Progress as a Natural on 30 Sets.......If you do hard Sets and AIM to your Muscle ...the sweetpot is 10-20 hard Sets Close to failure with Progress overload...If you are very strong and advanced you can never handle 30 Sets Bench a week Close to failure ...the Body will adapt and you Plateau or get weaker.....the Hardest Thing is to Progress in your workouts...you cant Progress Volume in Sets forever
Training is so complicated - “failure” - I lift heavy and i get stronger but i don’t grow!! However focusing on 60% total PR 8-12 reps but focusing on slow eccentric tension and now my body is reacting, i’m growing and my joints feel so much better!! i’ve been training for over 12 years and only now i am only starting to understand my body’s limitation and not over training!
Can you make a video about how people who become unfit who were previously fit, still have some of their athleticism? Lot of blokes in the army who are a bit chubby but can still smash the fitness tests - is it a real thing or just a coincidence?
I feel like muscle memory is a factor there, and IIRC it becomes easier to get gains back after periods of not training after you've trained for a while.
I'd say a lot of it comes to mental conditioning. They have devolved the ability to "ignore" extreme physical discomfort from a younger age. Combine this with the amount of leftover athleticism
Oh yea dude, your muscles have a memory and they also have a tolerance meter that can be adjusted with introduction to hypertrophy and already expanded blood vessels and strong heart from previous training
Good video topic idea im real curious to know. I was super healthy and fit early in my military career until my depression got to me. Recently (thanks to Dr. Mike and KneesOverToesGuy) i got back into exercising and i was always a runner over lifter and the first 2 weeks of running was embarrassing. Out of nowhere 3rd week my stamina came back quick and i did a 5k in 25min. I can understand muscle memory but i want to know how stamina/endurance works in detail.
I’d love to hear about this, I just don’t know how much literature there is on the topic. I used to run when I was in school and quite after, but I will make insane cardio gains within just a couple weeks if I start running, even though I’ve not done it regularly in like 7-8 years. Same with muscle size and strength, I was pretty jacked in university then quit and got fat and lost most of my muscle over the next couple years but I’ve been back in the gym for just a couple months and my size and strength are shooting through the roof even though I’m in a pretty deep caloric deficit at the same time
I'm finally at a point in my life where I don't obsess over progressive overload for every single exercise of every workout. I'll still train with intensity and be mindful of progress. But if there are a few exercises I hit a plateau on, there are others I progress on. As well as other areas of fitness I keep improving on. So, as a whole, it's still a net positive. For years and years, I'd beat myself up if I wasn't hitting PR's on every exercise week to week in some way with reps, weight, or more ctrl. But now I have a lot better balance. 💯
Fear of pain, for me, is more in line with not being sure what muscle pain is, and when it is a tendon or ligament or some other shit. Some rather basic movements like, for example, lateral raises, give me so much discomfort so quickly, but my shoulder is chronically in pain from volleyball (and bad technique at that) and I'm not even sure what hurts or pops. Ditto for knees, as it feels much more like a knee pain than a muscle pain. Not sure how to make a difference here :/
I tend to do up to15 reps x 3 per exercise & if I can't get that many I do a 5 to 10 second pause to get the last few done. Although sometimes 12 is it, especially when I'm pushing hard on leg day.
having a job and a kid thus very time limited. so the recent years i heavily reduced volume, but always go to failure. gives me also peace of mind and not having to worry if i was now really at 2 RIR or 4 RIR e.g.
Beginners, the "increases" are not exactly measured in inches. More like millimetres (often via ultrasound, the "dowsing rod" of 21st century sports science). "Group A did 50 sets and saw an increase in size of 1/2 of a millimetre over Group B, which only did 10 sets.". Chi-square shredded. Bayesian gains. Increasingly heavy weights in moderate rep ranges. 5-15 hard sets per body part, per week, and you'll be fine.
I hope more people that fall victim to the "AM I DOING ENOUGH VOLUME" fear see your comment. If someone is planning on training until they are old and decrepit, they better focus on making training work with their life and not against it and they'll get to that SACRED advanced phase.
Damn, I just realized that Kieser Training in Germany taught me to go to failures in EVERY SET a decade ago, but I just started out as a beginner again and wondered how people train their muscle groups so often. Guess time for my first deload and starting with Reps in Reserve for the first time.
Relatively newer gym-goer but big dude. I've found that my nervous system is my biggest hurdle. It tries to protect me when I know I can do something. Progressive overload testing has really helped train it to chill out. One of the biggest examples is when doing like a calf raise and my body tries to tell me to not do like 200 lbs, when I weight over 250. Weird what your brain does when you are isolating a muscle group from its normal day-to-day usage, especially the ones that are under decent tension most of the time.
I've been doing push/pull/legs 4-5 days a week. I do five lifts of 8-10 reps (bigger compound lifts) or 12-15 reps (smaller lifts). I try my best to have 1-2 RIR and often go to failure by accident. It works well for me, but sometimes I feel like I could do more lifts, and sometimes I do six or even seven if I'm feeling high energy by the end of the workout.
I also do cardio two or three times a week because I’m sort of “soft launching” a cut, haha. I’m 6’4’, 230 lbs, and I want to cut down as much as possible, but I’m not sure how much I can lose healthily. A couple of years ago (after a bad breakup), I cut down to 180 lbs, essentially eating nothing, and looking back at pictures, it seemed pretty unhealthy.
oh my god ive been doing a whole year of nothing. ive been binging videos on your channel and its like I've been exposed! ive been CONSTANTLY updating my program after each video. im currently experiencing that system fatigue youve talked about, due to poor SFR and ive been wondering why I havent been growing as expected
My most common mode of failure: "Fuck it I feel super strong today - let's set a new PR" Q for Dr Mike - how would you change these recs for strength development?
Perceiving training intensity will usually come with time. By that point, RIR is less relevant because you’re probably doing a lot of sets beyond failure. I’ll catch myself doing partials sometimes even before I have less than 1 rep in the tank. Harder to gauge then. For me, I go off how the pump feels relative to how optimal i’ve been eating that day and the day before. Been lifting for 6 years, not as strict on my diet as I used to be, just enough to maintain what i built. Adds a lot of variability into how much effort I can put into each session, so I had to just learn by experience. How “full” I feel is how hard I can push it, since i’ve been the same size and body fat % for a while. 185 lbs probably 14-16% bf. Fat enough I can have a bad day of eating or two (not enough carbs) and still train fine, but lean enough I’m still very responsive to carbs and absorb them easily without spillover.
What he called pain here isn’t pain. Pain is a signal that something is wrong; it’s a signal to back off. People need to figure out the difference between pain and the training response that he’s talking about. This sort of loose definition of the word “pain” (culminating in a motto like “no pain no gain”) is one of the worst things about the fitness industry.
I love it when I'm watching a Dr Mike vid and a VShred commercial hits. The juxtaposition is sublime.
Same. Dr. Mike tells me how to get gains, but Vshred tells me how my mitochondria are actually just turned off.
@@ALovelyBunchOfDragonballz vshred has a few chromosomes turned off
Even worse when its the new advert with the pricks dad in it 😂
Vshred is actually in good shape
@@puertoricanpapi1356and Gwyneth Paltrow is pretty and has good skin. Doesn’t mean you should buy her “goop”
19:26 "keep going until you feel that shit gets hard" got it Dr. Mike! .... *unzip
Lolz
Me still being hard since last night: 😳 (dw it was a dude)
Dr. Mike is the master of edgemaxxing
Heard this one a few times 🤣
Noooo
Going to failure every set is fun, but man I feel terrible after a few weeks of doing it. So glad I started doing RIR.
If i generally feel fine doing this, and am seeing my reps go up weekly (slowly) and am doing plenty of sets... do i need to freak out about this? Idk, im conflicted, ive been doing this for 6 months now with 2 deloads and while i felt a bit worn out at the start, the only fatigue i feel now is from dieting.
It's 100% less misery. Used to destroy my joints.
@@adamvifrye2690what is a deload? Sorry, newer into more advanced stuff.
I would go through weeks where I was getting weaker. Figured out it was pushing to failure too often. It’s hard not to though.
@@adamvifrye2690then it's fine. I pretty much train to failure, 0 RIR or 1 RIR on every lift I do. Absolutely manageable with the right volume and exercise selection
I was an athlean-x viewer when I first started going to the gym during the pandemic, and had minimal gains. Found this channel and gains exploded over the last 2 years.
I came across the tiny Skeletor man about 5-6 years ago and bought into his tomfuckery for a time. He was the first fitness UA-cam channel that I ever actually watched. It's funny to reflect on one's personal training journey and think of all the buffoonery one learns from and grows out of (hopefully).
Some older guy at the gym was talking up Mr Jeff Cavalier to others and I didn't have the heart to tell him to stop the nonsense.
Well that definitely has nothing to do with the Athleanx content quality.
Lol, Jeff and Dr. Mike agree on ~99.5 of stuff. Jeff supports the idea of working out to failure, with the caveat that it means less volume. Dr. Mike's celebrity training videos are like that too... Always to failure but less volume.
Jeff stuff is solid, just his workout plans are not for bodybuilding
"I brought THE PEOPLE that brought you into this world". This explains a lot. The fact Mike's parents are brother and sister 🤔
😂. A very astute interpretation.
Fuck man, I get that doing more volume will lead to more gainz, but who has the time!? I’ve been bulking hard on zero sets a week and already put on 20lbs of mass, thats good enough for me
Amazing work.
Dude I know he’s talking about 12 sets? TF? I do 4-5 sets and get full stretch to failure and it works what I want, still feeling sore the next day. And I barely have time to do my 4 sets going through supersets.
@@chriscarlisle6835 I usually do about 8-9 sets per workout. That is, within 7 days 16-18 sets. I do bro split and go to the gym 6 times a week. Probably not the most optimal, but I enjoy this very much
Ah! The Metzner approach. Make it intense enough and you can reduce your sets to zero.
12 set a week @@chriscarlisle6835
Dude that discussion about failure training not actually being any better than 1-2RIR is an eye opener. I feel like I'm leaving shit on the table when I don't fail, even though I know where I will fail I just feel like I GOTTA do it otherwise I'm not maximising my time in the gym. It's good to know that it ain't true. That last rep doesn't actually mean anything, it adds a whole lot of fatigue for negligible gains.
The fact that it's actually better to do more sets at 2RIR than do fewer sets to failure is the real kicker here. If I stop before failing, I can do more sets, and that's actually gonna give me more gains than going to failure on every set.
It's also good to know that my progression should be weekly, not in every workout. I bench 2-3 times a week, and I feel like I need to increase in reps in every workout - and I end up hitting failure super quickly, and feeling like I'm not getting as strong as I could. I think this adjusts my expectations and if I am benching 3 times a week, all 3 of those workouts can be basically the same and I should only increase in reps basically every week, not every workout. I am still trying to calibrate my expectations, and I really hope there will be a video on this one day to know if I am progressing as fast as i should be or if I am progressing too slowly.
What a whole bunch of nonsense. Keep yapping.
Couldn't relate more to a comment. If yapping isn't your thing, stay out of the comments@contentkeeper8769
@contentkeeper8769 cool story bro.
Dr mike says the last is has the stimulus so do a slowww eccentric to really milk it. But you said at the end of your first paragraph that the last rep doesn’t really matter. Which one is it? Well what I do is I milk the last rep when I’m at 1-2 RIR
@@gcg8187 When I say the "last rep doesn't really matter" I'm referring specifically to the 0RIR rep. The failure rep, the one that I probably won't get. In this video, Dr Mike says that you don't need to train to failure, you can stop one or two reps shy and get the same results. Sometimes, when I'm at 1-2RIR, I decide I'm just going to do one more rep and go to failure as a result. That is the last rep that doesn't matter; I can stop without doing that last rep and therefore not go to failure.
You are right to milk that last rep, when you're putting in that much effort and you're still not at failure, it's really good stimulus to go slow on that last eccentric before completing the rep. Good job, keep working hard!
Even though I have severe depression and having muscular pain in the gym is basically the only joy I experience, dr mike still can make me laugh from time to time. Thank you bro
Dr. Mike dropping loads of banger videos lately. Every single one as of late has changed my lifts effectiveness.
Freaking loved the grandma side-quest. Lmfao!
Came for the RIR.
Stayed for drop sets with MeMa.
Hi Dr. Mike! I’m a beginner lifter, but I feel like I’ve learned a lot more from watching yours and Jeff Nippards videos than I have from people at the gym. Thanks for the great and funny content and for teaching me how to best maximize growth and technique!
These are THE guys!
Great sources to find as a beginner, i was spinning my wheels with no program or tracking, looking for that one weird exercise, keeping my knees from going over toes on old bros advice for years before i found the good doc and j nips. Ill give a recommendation for a little geoffrey verity schofield and natural hypertrophy just for some different albeit similar views, and for more science greg nuckols and the beard boys from stronger by science are well worth nerding out on imo
@@rockyevans1584 thank you for the recommendations! I’ll check them out later. I feel really lucky, a friend got me to go to the gym with him for a while but he quit. I didn’t know what to do to improve so I just looked up videos and Jeff and Dr. Mike both ended up seeming the most reliable for what I wanted.
Dr. Mike knows his shit. Don’t listen to gym bro advice. It’s usually wrong. Here’s a good method: watch people’s technique and physique in the gym - if both suck they’re full of shit and have little value to offer.
@@dokho7idayhow do you track meso-cycles
Crazy value all over the channel, and the humor just makes it invaluable 😂
Seriously I just discovered him and I could listen to him all day, he is hilarious!
I am 63 and have osteoarthritis among other things?Ankylosing Spondylitis and other spinal diseases.So,I absolutely cannot go really heavy with weight.I use high reps to get to exhaustion and that is NOT easy and can be time consuming.Being retired?All I have is time,so isn’t a problem for me.I see others my age at the gym basically NEVER training to exhaustion.They do these fast spastic reps that really do nothing except exhaust the joints.Technique is SO important.Quality reps are key in the type of training I do.Focus on the area you are working.Max it out with the reps.When I feel like I have only a few left?I do 5 more.Listen to your bod and focus on the area you are working.
Have you tried carnivore diet for your back problems?
I hope my wife looks like you at your age 🥲
@@WizzlyBearW0rms you'll never find happiness thinking that looks matter
@@anomaly3215based
Ankylosing spondylitis doesn't sound real but it very much is
Great information per usual, but the grandma bit had me laughing.
God damn I'm used to all kinds of volume discussion but I didn't expect outro volume to blow my ears out
Underrated comment.
Over 4 years of training here. I recently started lower volume...(2-4 less sets than normal per muscle group per session) and training with slightly heavier weights...(7-13 reps instead of 12-18) and I noticed failure training on every set is now manageable for more weeks than before with higher volumes. I'm also gaining strength faster than before and I get to eat more. I have always done 4 weeks of accumulation before deloading, and only 3-4 mesocycles before a maintanence phase.
Thanks to all your videos , I was able to start getting my life on track. First time I had lifted 50 pounds, and impressed my husband too whom I ve passed on what I ve been learning from you and also motivated him to start lifting too. Unfortunately, cant afford rp app rn but we ll surelly give it a shot when we will be able to afford it. Thank you so much Dr. Mike for all your great teachings!
Try Hevy if you want an app to track workouts, I've been using it and it's fantastic. Pairs with WearOS as well if you have a smartwatch
Thanks for your content. I’m just now buying some equipment and beginning to lift. Been cutting for 6 months and lost 50 lbs with your help. there are a lot of UA-cam fitness folks but in the end I feel this is the best channel for me. It’s easy to digest and covers so much. Also most of it seems to be true which is wild for UA-cam 😂. Keep the videos coming homie!
My mom saw dr.mike on my screen and asked "is that john cena?" and i started choking on my food
That never happened
@@BroAreWeBroingRightNowBro it sounds so made up but i swear to god it happened 😭
Ego is a an interesting piece here, it is important that you can consistently follow a plan over a long period of time
This is the type of videos I wanna see on UA-cam, so much information and so easy to memorise... as a beginner this is what I need to understand what to do and not do, amazing 💪🔥
I really retain info with your teaching method. Love the humor in betweens
u gotta love this guy and his impressions
After 30yrs of training, I can tell you that the average gym goer does not suffer from too much intensity and too little volume! RIR mentality is the mindset of the masses…
Thanks to Mike I got off keto and started being precise with my diet and training. 2 months in and the best Ive ever looked. Each day in the gym I add a rep or two on each exercise, while going to almost failure. So thankful.
I feel like I have to go to failure because if I don't, I feel like my judge of RIR is way off. Maybe I'm just bad at RIR, and maybe I'll get better over time, but for now, it's every set to failure, and my recovery has been a lot better than what I thought it'd be.
An easy way to judge RIR is as your set progresses, does it become more challenging. If you hit 10 reps but feel you could do 1-2 more, stop, and that’ll be 1-2 RIR. It takes time to narrow it down for each exercise but using the same mentality to find it is easy to do.
A big thing that helped me was I go to "technical "failure so what's my technique becomes off I stop. So no cheat reps or anything like that. My recovery is great I still feel like I'm going to failure and if I ever misjudge a rep I don't have to ask for help because I can just jerk the way around like everyone else in the gym lol
I feel you. I was so used to going to failure, I takes will, but on the other hand a very easy rule. I always wondered why people have even specific Rep numbers, besides tracking progress of course. But now I have to see to find a repeatable earlier stopping point.
@CornFed_3 My problem was when I tried this (specifically for legs) I would say I was at RIR 2 but then later that week or even a later set I would go to failure and get an extra 2 to 4 reps over what I thought would be failure.
@@matmaster1142, and that’s where you decide to increase your weight and basically “start over” at figuring out where your true failure point is. It’s not an exact science and can take some tinkering, but it’s definitely possible. Again, paying close attention to form is also key in the overall equation. If you can pump out more reps above what you thought failure to be but your form isn’t crisp and damn near perfect, I wouldn’t count them. On legs specifically, if my quads or my booty meat start shaking, that’s what I consider my technique failure point, even if I could bust more out. My form and injury risk only go up from there.
I've been working out for a month, mainly doing different types of pushups and situps for multiple days. And I've been taking it slow doing only a few sets starting out, because I'm new to working out and the results are slowly taking shape. The main thing I've learned while doing research and listening to RP is find a balance and take your time and recover when necessary and always be consistent. For example when starting out at 227 pounds I couldn't do regular pushups cause of how heavy I was, so I did inclined pushups for a few weeks and now I can max out at 20 regular pushups instead of 1 or 2. Case and point I'm much stronger than before and I now feel comfortable with doing 2 sets of regular pushups and of course now using dumbbells. I'm glad I could share my one month experience with someone new like me. Final note is to be consistent and slowly increase the amount of weight you work with as you get stronger and of course eat a lot of protein and also research good technique lol.
Glad to see a video on this, as I started incorporating this literally two days ago. I’m six months into training so still a beginner and since I recover quickly, I thought I might as well push it harder and add a couple more sets. I’ve started splitting my training to a.m. and p.m. sessions so I can do the workload.
2 a days 6 months in? 2 a days are only needed for extremely advanced bbers man, you would likely progress faster from 4 to 5 max total sessions a week
@@rockyevans1584Honestly if he has the time and is not having any ill effects I say why not? Hopefully he's watching all of Mike's videos and is paying attention to his body signals but more power to him!
These advice are usually for very advanced lifters. You can train 3-4 times a week at your stage and lose nothing@@rockyevans1584
@@rockyevans1584 hey if i can recover from more volume than why not. And yes pushing to failure.
@AndrewPokornik just because you may not benefit from overturning stones before you need them. When you plateau, you need to add. Before you plateau, there's no need to add. If you've already added, once you plateau you're already going to be battling systemic fatigue vs stimulus, having to prioritize muscle groups to grow them while keeping others at maintenance, basically you just risk putting more effort for very little additional gain, and it may take you longer to get to your practical limit. No big deal if you're young enough and likely lifting for life, but time is important so thought it was worth mentioning
Excellent video, RP team. I especially enjoyed the beginner, intermediate and advanced progression of information presented throughout. The beginner section was thought-provoking. I wonder, are we as individuals interested in hypertrophy perhaps taking the “beginner” phase of muscle gain for granted? The huge ramp up in ability to grow muscle is very special and not something we see again once a certain level of musculature has been reached. I wonder how robust the inquiry into specifically the beginning phases of hypertrophy has been.
Many scientific studies are done one people that would classify as beginners for strength training. Often students.
Should have figured as much!
Just found you, I love your sense of humor hahahaha fucking Michigan hahaha
the Grandma bit LOL, how can you not love Dr. Mike, what a legend!
"Why would you do less of something we know builds more muscle so that you can do more of something that may or may not build more muscle?" Really great point.
Another point to consider is how the rep range affects the optimal RIR. One of the takeaways from the Robinson paper was that the heavier the weight (i.e. the lower the rep range), the less additional stimulus you get for going closer to failure. So for example, there's no measurable difference between sets of 5-10 at 3 RIR compared to sets of 5-10 at 0 RIR: the only thing you're accomplishing is accumulating more fatigue. On the other side, going from 3 RIR to 0 RIR in sets of 20-30 can make a noticeable difference.
I also wanted to give a shout-out to an idea Brad Schoenfeld mentioned in a recent video with I think Milo Wolf: in response to the objection that failure training is bad because it harms performance on subsequent sets, you could take only your last set to failure. It's similar to Mike's advice to go crazy hard the last week of a meso, because who cares if performance would suffer the next week, you're doing deload training.
No lie, most informative and hilarious metaphor filled episode ever! 😂
Been using the hypertrophy app recently it’s been great it’s a little weird doing rir training always a little scared of undershooting but so far I’ve been feeling some soreness and having some decent pumps so hopefully I’m training hard enough here’s to hopefully the best gains of my training life
What Mike describes reminds me alot of Arnold talking about the burn feeling like cooming, he's just talking about training to near failure when it's painful, so it's cool to hear the science behind why that actually works.
This series is a blessing, dr mike! I know you've went through already all of this in a combination of previous videos, but this series is a crisp summary of all the info.
Enjoying the chance to review and really ingrain the content! Thanks
I find that following the Hypertrophy app to the letter puts me at an ideal intensity for growth 💪🏼
I love these videos that really breakdown terminology for beginners. It’s very helpful!
I go to failure every set, every workout and I grow strength and muscle. I love to train like this
Fatigue - but short term gains +
I like the way you just worded that. Until technique goes to crap.
I tend to think of failure as in "no can move bar" but thinking about my last workout there were several times that technique went bad so I stopped. In reality, that was going until failure. My muscles couldn't do it anymore so they asked other muscles to tag in
Agreed. I get annoyed by listening to other people say how much weight or how many reps they did, then watching them use momentum and other muscles that shouldn't even be involved in the lift
Still you shoudent be a complete robot, its fine to swing a bit the last 2 reps of a bicep curl or hunch a bit the last rep of a row.
It really depends on the muscle / joints involved and the indvidual, too. Can I bust out another bicep curl with a lean or swing? Yeah. Will it hurt me? Probably not. Can I force that last rep on dumbell overhead press? Sure can. Will it hurt me? Sure did... back to PT I go yet again. One day I'll learn...
@@jarlwhiterun7478dont get annoyed, you get what you put in if its recoverable, quality work. Theyre only cheating themselves
@@Ryush806so true. I cant imagine leaving rir on single joint movements, and whenever ive tried hitting failure on compounds, particularly squats or deadlifts, i get like 2 to 3 day fatigue hangovers
Definitely helped me get into my lifetime best shape and still going. I was just 298 6 months ago, I am now 237. Thank you!
Hey Dr Mike, you've changed my lifting journey massively for the best, best fitness influencer on the platform
Dr Mike using Battlefield as an analogy for lifting is pretty dope.
Dr Mike's best video yet! And that's saying something when you're talking about the best lifting channel on UA-cam
I need some gear, then I can keep training to failure on every set.
What a great video. Even wrote an article today with a similar question but dammit, my content was nowhere near as on point.
Always look forward to new uploads. Perfect balance of knowledge and comedy
Simultaneously one of the funniest and most valuable monologue-style episodes yet.
Finally, someone explained it. Common mistakes number 5. My thought that pushing too much through pain (despite good technique) will lead to injury, this was my barrier to attempting to progress. I understand now the difference between pain and the ability to do the physical movement. Thank you
My alarm bells start ringing when i'm ego lifting and that's pretty much thee main reason i get injured somewhere and i do not remember getting injured while doing things in proper form with the right amount of weight.
Now to failure. I do failure on every last set of a given exercise and depends on the risk factors like compound movements i give that a 3 RIR 100% i don't brute force compounds like squat, deads, benches just nope. I do brute force but with great attempt of proper force for every last set of non compound exercises coz for me it's safer that way with little risks and i haven't been injured ever since but breaking plateaus is a different animal all together and i add reps before adding weight but that don't usually help faster so that's what im currently experimenting on how to break strength plateaus.
Really love this channel, and this particular ep was one of the best one yet. Cheers!
Hey, as someone who lives right near Kelloggs Hq… Post is right nearby 😂 and they’re both the reason we in Michigan aren’t body builders
Yup. Gotta love the smell of fruity pebbles in the air when I drive past Post.
I’m a swimmer that uses a few free weights (super light) for strength stuff. As a NON body builder I love watching your videos to help me do the right technique and the right amount so I don’t get hurt. I’m old so can’t afford that. So far I’ve actually gained muscle and strength in swimming over the last 8months. Thanks bro!
6:46 If you listen carefully, you can hear a gurgle of air bubbles in his throat. Lol
Based on the number of youtube comments who think a 225 bench press is unattainable, I think most people don't know what effort and failure are.
I like how its impossible and also table stakes. You can only get there on steroids, except every 12 year old in their middle school benches 250. Its overblown social media bullshit but those on social media are pathetic for only benching 405 lol
Did you mean 325? First time I ever maxed on bench was 8th grade for football and I did 205. Was 5’11” and about 165lbs. 225 is a very unimpressive bench unless you’re a female.for a trained individual that is. If some novice just threw up 225 I’d say that’s pretty good.
@@thorshammer5134 Go explore the comments on any of the "how much should you lift/bench" videos, and you'll see a very sad number of people who are struggling to get to 225, and think a "normal" person can't do it.
Not unobtainable but definitely unnecessary. Imaginary goals that don't mean anything.
Wait who says that?
Wow! Really appreciate getting learnt - Thanks Dr!
Great video! I appreciate your insightful content. Keep up the good work.
The shooter game analogy was actually really good. You should use that in the future.
Me and the boys love going to failure once a month. You know how most of us hard-core lifters do things in the locker room or sauna after a good workout. Well, after having a session going to failure give yourself 30 minutes rest and then go enjoy it. It's insane how intense the climax can be with shakes sore legs. We got a new guy in the gym about to have his first failure session on Saturday. I'm excited he is still a newbie and say but we got him kissing, spooning and one finger type stuff. It's going to be the bomb when he relax and fits in with the boys
Dr. Mike, I stumbled across your videos a few months ago. I'm a former powerlifter who stopped lifted because my joints hurt and every so often would try training how I used to train and all my joints would immediately remind why jumping into lifting heavy shit after a long period of not lifting is quite stupid. I pivoted to try lose weight through diet and activity, but hated that I started to look smaller. I decided to try out your training methods and I first felt like the weakest little bitch on the planet being humbled by weights that my ego thought I should be lifting for a number of reps a powerlifter would consider cardio. I got over this quickly once I started to see and feel the difference in training and despite training hard 4 times/week, my joints felt BETTER. I really can't stress enough how much motivated you are to try when you aren't actively in pain. I'm getting the best pumps and mind muscle connection of my life, am leaner now than I've ever been in my life, and I actually enjoy weight training again. Thanks for the great content, my brother in iron.
Could you please do superhero workout plan videos for Captain America, Spider-Man, Aquaman, and Deadpool or Wolverine.
6:47 nano burp digestion sound ❤ relatability 300
As someone who trains his grandma, this was all true
The outro music nearly blew out my eardrums, like goddamn I don’t think that was edited in properly 😂
I definitely fall into the camp of “is that 1 or 2 RIR? Better go to failure to find out where my true limit is…” 😂 but I’m starting a new meso cycle with lots of new exercises so trying to work them out really this week and next.
BTW, love the reclining bicep curl - that is a real killer!
I have been training 4 days a week in the gym for 2 hours for the past 1 month and 2 days of kickboxing. I am at the intermediate stage ( I worked out at home with some light weights). I push every set to failure, drop weight and do that till failure. I am getting strong and also losing weight ( on a cut -1500 cal, 170 pounds -18% body fat). But I am only tired during the leg days, and I don't feel soreness in any muscles(I am cooked in the gym) after returning home from workouts. I don't know if too much volume is the problem; I follow PPL + 1 shoulder. PS: Thank you for educating me about fitness and diet, and you should try acting in a movie, Dr. Mike-RESPECT and love.
I have a similar workout life style 4 days a week 1 day muay thai 1 day jujitsu but I do 2 upper lower splits. Weird that you don't feel sore after work outs. I've been training seriously for around eight years and have pretty much always had a little soreness after working out for at least a day. May need to push yourself a little harder or switch out some exercises and find some that give you a better pump/mind muscle connection.
@@zachjennings5320 I get a shit ton of pump, I can't literally do 1 more set with a proper form even with a lighter weight. Although I can feel the fatigue after kick boxing and leg days. And I am getting stronger every lift week after week too.
I love so much how FAR you go off topic 😂
Please keep up the good work. As an over 50yr old natty going to reps to failure is not quite so awesome. i will keep doing it, tho.
Cannot run (menisceptomy on left knee) so walking with a weight vest around the neighborhood (or no vest on the elliptical in the unfinished basement).
I reduced the number of sets from 24 to 16 sets per workout. I did 4 supersets of 2 exercises, so 8 exercises in total with 3 sets for each exercice,with 1min rest between two consecutive sets for antagonists muscles. I did that 6 times a week in a kind of push pull legs. I was no longer gaining strength, and the nervous fatigue was real. I finally dropped from 3 sets per exercice to two but excellent form and real failure, as well as 1min rest even between antagonists set. I gained in 3 weeks insane strength, from 120kgs 1RM bench press to 130kgs, probably also due do better recuperation between workouts. My workout last as long (40-45 min maximum), are still extremely intense but the heart feels less stressed and the muscle more stimulated than annihilated compared to before. I'm natural lifetime, and 1m76 for 84kgs fairly lean (obliques well defined and abs with veins), I just don't have time to workout 1h+ hours and I don't need additional mass, I just want to feel good training and at least maintain.
Thank you for your commentary. It's always nice to get a different perspective. I'll probably be doing this in a few years myself but I got time and want to build more mass
But the lower volume was not what made your gains explode. The reason why that happened was actually the higher volume, you overreached and than backed off to supercompesate. That's basically the concept RP teachs, do it in waves. It comes a time when your body will only respond to higher volumes when you're advanced, but you cant hold that volume for too long. Search how to up your work capacity, so you can handle more volumes. I have a gigantic back as a natural and i can handle 25, 30 sets no problem. That seems impossible to a lot of folks, but thats because they train like powerlifters or never bothered with their work capacity. The old ditillo blog has a lot of information about the old school naturals, the ones before the steroids were even made. They look gigantic, much bigger than even steroid users. Believe me when i say they did not built their bodies with 20 sets per week per muscle group, the blog has some information about that. But again, what made you gain strength for 3 weeks and general gains was the high volume, the 24 sets per week part.
That's a lot of work for questionable result. Not sure if better than basic approach with plenty of rest in between.
He talked about sets per workout not week
@@IvanM272im a Fan of keeping the Volume the Same becouse you never know If you Progress...more Progression is also more total Volume ....getting more Reps or weight is the Goal Not Doing more Junk Volume ..everybody can build the Work capacity to 30 Sets a week but i promise you you will Not Progress as a Natural on 30 Sets.......If you do hard Sets and AIM to your Muscle ...the sweetpot is 10-20 hard Sets Close to failure with Progress overload...If you are very strong and advanced you can never handle 30 Sets Bench a week Close to failure ...the Body will adapt and you Plateau or get weaker.....the Hardest Thing is to Progress in your workouts...you cant Progress Volume in Sets forever
I love going with an RPE 7 8 and 9!
Training is so complicated - “failure” - I lift heavy and i get stronger but i don’t grow!! However focusing on 60% total PR 8-12 reps but focusing on slow eccentric tension and now my body is reacting, i’m growing and my joints feel so much better!! i’ve been training for over 12 years and only now i am only starting to understand my body’s limitation and not over training!
Thanks Mike, this is great actionable information
Can you make a video about how people who become unfit who were previously fit, still have some of their athleticism? Lot of blokes in the army who are a bit chubby but can still smash the fitness tests - is it a real thing or just a coincidence?
I feel like muscle memory is a factor there, and IIRC it becomes easier to get gains back after periods of not training after you've trained for a while.
I'd say a lot of it comes to mental conditioning. They have devolved the ability to "ignore" extreme physical discomfort from a younger age. Combine this with the amount of leftover athleticism
Oh yea dude, your muscles have a memory and they also have a tolerance meter that can be adjusted with introduction to hypertrophy and already expanded blood vessels and strong heart from previous training
Good video topic idea im real curious to know. I was super healthy and fit early in my military career until my depression got to me. Recently (thanks to Dr. Mike and KneesOverToesGuy) i got back into exercising and i was always a runner over lifter and the first 2 weeks of running was embarrassing. Out of nowhere 3rd week my stamina came back quick and i did a 5k in 25min. I can understand muscle memory but i want to know how stamina/endurance works in detail.
I’d love to hear about this, I just don’t know how much literature there is on the topic. I used to run when I was in school and quite after, but I will make insane cardio gains within just a couple weeks if I start running, even though I’ve not done it regularly in like 7-8 years. Same with muscle size and strength, I was pretty jacked in university then quit and got fat and lost most of my muscle over the next couple years but I’ve been back in the gym for just a couple months and my size and strength are shooting through the roof even though I’m in a pretty deep caloric deficit at the same time
I think I’m addicted to Mike🥰👀 I’ve been binge watching his videos 4 days straight
Thank you Scott. I was going to be so upset if no one acknowledged the Mr Hanky likeness
Love these keep them coming
I'm finally at a point in my life where I don't obsess over progressive overload for every single exercise of every workout.
I'll still train with intensity and be mindful of progress. But if there are a few exercises I hit a plateau on, there are others I progress on. As well as other areas of fitness I keep improving on. So, as a whole, it's still a net positive.
For years and years, I'd beat myself up if I wasn't hitting PR's on every exercise week to week in some way with reps, weight, or more ctrl. But now I have a lot better balance. 💯
Fear of pain, for me, is more in line with not being sure what muscle pain is, and when it is a tendon or ligament or some other shit. Some rather basic movements like, for example, lateral raises, give me so much discomfort so quickly, but my shoulder is chronically in pain from volleyball (and bad technique at that) and I'm not even sure what hurts or pops. Ditto for knees, as it feels much more like a knee pain than a muscle pain. Not sure how to make a difference here :/
Barbell Medicine has a good article on pain you should check out.
I do rest pause sets
Looking like a beast in that tumbnail
this is EXACTLY why i kind of plateaued, i hit the end of a mesocycle and didn't realize. Hell yes, we're so gaming now
I figure out more about what muscle needs work after failing a 1RM attempt.
The balance between volume, muscle damage and recovery/fatigue is something I'd like to see more research on.
I tend to do up to15 reps x 3 per exercise & if I can't get that many I do a 5 to 10 second pause to get the last few done. Although sometimes 12 is it, especially when I'm pushing hard on leg day.
having a job and a kid thus very time limited. so the recent years i heavily reduced volume, but always go to failure. gives me also peace of mind and not having to worry if i was now really at 2 RIR or 4 RIR e.g.
The grandma bit was class
no wonder i keep cutting down my sets i keep going to failure every single time gonna try this 3 RIR method and increase total sets ty
Beginners, the "increases" are not exactly measured in inches. More like millimetres (often via ultrasound, the "dowsing rod" of 21st century sports science).
"Group A did 50 sets and saw an increase in size of 1/2 of a millimetre over Group B, which only did 10 sets.". Chi-square shredded. Bayesian gains.
Increasingly heavy weights in moderate rep ranges. 5-15 hard sets per body part, per week, and you'll be fine.
I hope more people that fall victim to the "AM I DOING ENOUGH VOLUME" fear see your comment.
If someone is planning on training until they are old and decrepit, they better focus on making training work with their life and not against it and they'll get to that SACRED advanced phase.
Damn, I just realized that Kieser Training in Germany taught me to go to failures in EVERY SET a decade ago, but I just started out as a beginner again and wondered how people train their muscle groups so often. Guess time for my first deload and starting with Reps in Reserve for the first time.
good LORD the audio levels on the outro
Quality advice- thank you!
Man, it's hard to train hard sometimes. I've been able to train really hard when sick before, but when mentally tired I couldn't get close.
Relatively newer gym-goer but big dude. I've found that my nervous system is my biggest hurdle. It tries to protect me when I know I can do something. Progressive overload testing has really helped train it to chill out. One of the biggest examples is when doing like a calf raise and my body tries to tell me to not do like 200 lbs, when I weight over 250. Weird what your brain does when you are isolating a muscle group from its normal day-to-day usage, especially the ones that are under decent tension most of the time.
I've been doing push/pull/legs 4-5 days a week. I do five lifts of 8-10 reps (bigger compound lifts) or 12-15 reps (smaller lifts). I try my best to have 1-2 RIR and often go to failure by accident. It works well for me, but sometimes I feel like I could do more lifts, and sometimes I do six or even seven if I'm feeling high energy by the end of the workout.
I also do cardio two or three times a week because I’m sort of “soft launching” a cut, haha. I’m 6’4’, 230 lbs, and I want to cut down as much as possible, but I’m not sure how much I can lose healthily. A couple of years ago (after a bad breakup), I cut down to 180 lbs, essentially eating nothing, and looking back at pictures, it seemed pretty unhealthy.
oh my god ive been doing a whole year of nothing. ive been binging videos on your channel and its like I've been exposed! ive been CONSTANTLY updating my program after each video. im currently experiencing that system fatigue youve talked about, due to poor SFR and ive been wondering why I havent been growing as expected
Me too bro I’m way more jacked now than I was back in college
My most common mode of failure:
"Fuck it I feel super strong today - let's set a new PR"
Q for Dr Mike - how would you change these recs for strength development?
Perceiving training intensity will usually come with time. By that point, RIR is less relevant because you’re probably doing a lot of sets beyond failure. I’ll catch myself doing partials sometimes even before I have less than 1 rep in the tank. Harder to gauge then. For me, I go off how the pump feels relative to how optimal i’ve been eating that day and the day before. Been lifting for 6 years, not as strict on my diet as I used to be, just enough to maintain what i built. Adds a lot of variability into how much effort I can put into each session, so I had to just learn by experience. How “full” I feel is how hard I can push it, since i’ve been the same size and body fat % for a while. 185 lbs probably 14-16% bf. Fat enough I can have a bad day of eating or two (not enough carbs) and still train fine, but lean enough I’m still very responsive to carbs and absorb them easily without spillover.
Man im addicted to failure, being one myself, its hard not to train to failure every set
What he called pain here isn’t pain. Pain is a signal that something is wrong; it’s a signal to back off. People need to figure out the difference between pain and the training response that he’s talking about.
This sort of loose definition of the word “pain” (culminating in a motto like “no pain no gain”) is one of the worst things about the fitness industry.
I been doing 6 to 8 as heavy as possible and screaming like a berserker, noticeable results in one week
I like having the notes off to the left.