Originally Posted by
Cody
I'd have to look back at it since I skimmed that section (I'm firmly an intermediate, so I paid the most attention to that section of the book). In general, lower rep counts and back-off sets are techniques that postpone moving to the next "level" of training. 3x3 (or any use of lower reps) is an extremely short bridge (because of seriously limited volume). I use back-off sets on my heavy day (Monday), but I'm in the mid 400s for my work sets (did 440x5 and 2x400x5 for squats). That happens to be enough for me to continue adaptations, but it's suboptimal (my recovery is compromised - 10 month old and a pregnant wife compromise sleep). I'd be better off doing sets across, for sure.
With all that said, back-off sets and using 3x3 outs a volume reduction and generally speaking, that is not the way that the General Adaptation Syndrome works (unless you're seriously over trained or under recovered, but these are temporary states, so the volume reduction is a short term solution to allow full recovery from prior training).