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Thread: One set to failure...

  1. #21
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    Did it not work for Dorian Yates, 6 times Mr. Olympia?

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brodie Butland View Post
    Failing a set is a helpful lesson; intentionally failing a set is counterproductive.

    It is not uncommon for lifters to bail from a set early, either by re-racking the bar before reps are done or by giving up on the lift once it gets hard. You get stronger--mentally and physically--by forcing yourself to try to accomplish something that you don't think you can do. If you don't permit yourself to fail in the short term, you will fail in the long term. Failing a set is a great teaching moment. It teaches you that failing won't kill or seriously injure you. It teaches you to get up, dust your pants off, and try again next time. It teaches you the importance of focusing on the process. It teaches you to never give up on a lift, no matter how hard it seems...and that, in turn, is the only way for you to learn what you truly are capable of.

    That being said, failure must be kept in context. In a well-designed program, failure is a signal. At minimum, it means that you didn't accomplish what you were supposed to on a particular training day. This may be because you just had a bad day, as everyone does from time to time. But if you start failing frequently--and especially if you fail in consecutive training sessions--that signals that something systemic is wrong. Maybe it's your recovery (eating, sleeping, stress levels, etc.), maybe it's your rest periods (The First Three Questions), maybe it's a programming issue. But the point is, something is rotten in Denmark, and it's time for honest reflection to figure out what it might be and to fix the issue.
    At some point in a lifters training career, you've been doing it long enough to know whether or not the next rep is there. Grinding reps week in week out won't last very long. I think you're right though, for a novice, they need to learn to try something they don't think they can do. Beyond that, I feel like it's an ignorant approach.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buff DrinkLots View Post
    Mr Rippetoe,

    I hope this has not been asked ad nauseam - but just out of curiosity, I would like to know your thoughts on lifting to a single set to failure.

    Back in the early 1990s, this method was somewhat popular at a gym I belonged to - since this philosophy was something Mike Mentzer was promoting and he was from the same part of PA we were from. I never read his book(s) but from what I was told/understood a lifter, after a few warm up sets, would perform a single set to failure (i believe this was meant to be technical failure, not absolute muscle failure). In addition, the lift was only to be done once a week or so plus paired with a significant amount of calories and rest.

    Note: this is not something I would do, but like i mentioned before, I would like to know how you feel about this.

    Thanks.
    google-ing around, looks like 1 set of squats to [near] failure, then 1 set of leg press, then leg extension, then leg curls, then stiff legged deadlifts.
    Then like Rip said, the "upper body" workout is many different of upper body machines ... everything you can think of pretty much.

    I mean, wasn't whole the premise of the original 5-3-1 was basically 1 set to near failure on the big four over the course of a whole week?
    and then some accessories..
    The loads of the build-up sets (preceding the ONE workset) on 5-3-1 are trivial really.
    With those load percentages prescribed ("90% max" is training max, etc), 5-3-1 winds up being 11-7-4 or something for most people ....or something similar for many weeks .

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robin UK View Post
    Did it not work for Dorian Yates, 6 times Mr. Olympia?
    Yates, like BOTH Mentzer brothers, did not get the size and strength they achieved from one set to failure. They trained like typical bodybuilders of their times. Then they decided to sell books.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fulcrum View Post
    google-ing around, looks like 1 set of squats to [near] failure, then 1 set of leg press, then leg extension, then leg curls, then stiff legged deadlifts.
    Then like Rip said, the "upper body" workout is many different of upper body machines ... everything you can think of pretty much.

    I mean, wasn't whole the premise of the original 5-3-1 was basically 1 set to near failure on the big four over the course of a whole week?
    and then some accessories..
    The loads of the build-up sets (preceding the ONE workset) on 5-3-1 are trivial really.
    With those load percentages prescribed ("90% max" is training max, etc), 5-3-1 winds up being 11-7-4 or something for most people ....or something similar for many weeks .
    I dunno, I've done 5-3-1 and the 5 and 3 sets are only done to those number of reps. Maybe you meant to say that, but it didn't look to me like that came across. Also, Wendler didn't advocate the last set of "1" to complete failure. He wanted you to leave 1-2 reps in the tank for the next session's growth.

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark E. Hurling View Post
    Yates, like BOTH Mentzer brothers, did not get the size and strength they achieved from one set to failure. They trained like typical bodybuilders of their times. Then they decided to sell books.



    I dunno, I've done 5-3-1 and the 5 and 3 sets are only done to those number of reps. Maybe you meant to say that, but it didn't look to me like that came across. Also, Wendler didn't advocate the last set of "1" to complete failure. He wanted you to leave 1-2 reps in the tank for the next session's growth.
    So Dorian Yates straight up lied in ALL his books and lied in ALL his post-career interviews whereby he staunchly advocates doing one set to failure per exercise as being the most efficient method to stimulate muscle hypertrophy - the method he used to win 6 Mr. Olympias?

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robin UK View Post
    So Dorian Yates straight up lied in ALL his books and lied in ALL his post-career interviews whereby he staunchly advocates doing one set to failure per exercise as being the most efficient method to stimulate muscle hypertrophy - the method he used to win 6 Mr. Olympias?
    It depends on how the question was phrased and how he answered it. If they asked him if always and only trained one set to failure and that was what got him enough size to get into the bigs, and he said yes, then he's spouting some silly bullshit.

    Just like Casey Viator swore blind that Arthur Jones did the same thing for him with the same type of workout back in the 70's. Then, some years on he said that Jones was full of it and denied it all.

    I hate to break this to you, but bodybuilders frequently lie. About everything, sometimes including the words "and" along with "the".

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark E. Hurling View Post
    Yates, like BOTH Mentzer brothers, did not get the size and strength they achieved from one set to failure. They trained like typical bodybuilders of their times. Then they decided to sell books.
    Same as 'Rip.

  8. #28
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    Last one, Tom.

  9. #29
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    Some time ago I was wondering - if there is one ultimate way of training why there is so many succesfull guys advocating totaly diffrent style of exercise ?

    So I started to compere one training to another and came with conclusion.

    Elite powerlifters, weightlifters, strongmans - they do more or less the same thing. Sets and reps are similar. Techniqe is similar. Volume and intensity are more or less the same. You dont hear things like - "you need to do 10 sets of 8-10, thats the best for strength" from one champion and something diffrent like "only many sets o 1 rep work great" from another. And there is a fact that many of them compete in drug tested federations.

    And there are elite bodybuilders. On one hand you have Ronnie Coleman who squats and dedlifts huge weights with a lot of volume. On the other you have someone like Phill Heath who trains for the "pump" with a lot of volume and not so much weight. So it is not training style that they have in common. Im wondering what it is then ?

  10. #30
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    starting strength coach development program
    Genetics, obviously.

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