One set to failure...

[Mark E. Hurling]

Same as 'Rip.

A critical difference being SS works. The "meat" of Mentzer's magnum opus Praxis didn't and won't for anyone but a raw beginner. For a brief period of beginner gains. Then, permanent stagnation and likely injury.

[Robin UK]

It doesn't work. But that never stopped Mike.

Having been a fan of Dorian Yates and attended one of his seminars in the early 2000s: if he straight out lied his whole career about doing one all-out set / exercise being sufficient for optimum muscle hypertrophy which he used to win 6 Mr Olympia titles and which he advocates as being the best protocol for anyone wishing to optimally build muscle hypertrophy, I would be very disappointed if he has not been honest. However, the slew of data of people reporting that Yates’ / Mentzer’s method hasn’t worked for them I guess speaks for itself.

Like Rip has correctly said in the past, that which has proven to work very well over the longest time for many people is the better data to pay attention to ie. the phenomenology. That’s why I love Starting Strength because it’s roots are in history’s “tried, trusted and proven” category with impeccable pedigree.

Marty Gallagher:

“The world’s greatest lifters independently came to the same conclusion: the 5 was the King of reps. Men from far-flung and varied regions, all touted the five, all swore allegiance to the 5-rep set. The popularity was (and is) attributable to the results. When a man makes a truly concerted and serious effort, concentrating on fives, using pristine technique, eating right, relentlessly pushing up poundage, results are always forthcoming.”

Re. Size - males should try to become big and strong - that’s just all there is to it because evolution says so. Anyone doubting that just needs to watch that famous YouTube clip of the male gorilla leading his troupe across the road. Since growing out of my bodybuilding phase in my late 20s, I found it much more productive and ENJOYABLE gifting my motivation to pursuing strength. The size came along with it as a pleasing side-effect. If people want to get big and strong, doing your 5s and Starting Strength is simply the best thing they can do for themselves. I also personally find Starting Strength incredibly enjoyable (I’m an advanced lifter) which goes against some peoples’ reports of finding it a bit boring. The results, the enjoyable physical process of actually doing the big five exercises and the focus on 5s over-ride any kind of monotony that occasionally creeps in. The fact that SS is simple (even the advanced training programs in the Practical Programming book aren’t actually THAT complicated once one familiarises oneself with the book’s recommendations), logical, elicits great results makes it ENJOYABLE for me, which in turn has made it sustainable over the very long term. Efferding - “compliance is the science”.

As always, great work by SS. The Friday podcasts are GOLD! Informative, entertaining and hilarious!

[pstein]

Didn't Dr. Ken Leistner (RIP) advocate training like this, for most athletes?

I did it a few times. I ended up sore and out of breath, but the results were... lackluster.

[Fulcrum]

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.

hmmmm, maybe I'm not good at reading English.
But all of the "+" sets are done until near failure.
Sure the preceding 5s and 3s to the last "+ set" are done to those numbers, but those are just warmups IMO.
The topic was (paraphrasing) "one workset to failure" (per exercise).

So if your 1RM in the bench press is 315 pounds, you use 285 (90%) as the base number for your training-weight calculations. Here's how it works:

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Set 1 65% x 5 70% x 3 75% x 5 40% x 5
Set 2 75% x 5 80% x 3 85% x 3 50% x 5
Set 3 85% x 5+ 90% x 3+ 95% x 1+ 60% x 5
When you see 5+, 3+, or 1+, that means you do the max reps you can manage with that weight, with the goal of setting a rep record in each workout.

Source: 5/3/1: How to Build Pure Strength | T Nation

Then there's this load of horse-poo:

Yes, that last set is the one that puts hair on your chest, but the system doesn't work without the sets that precede it. I tried cutting those out but I got smaller and weaker. There might be only one really hard set, but the other sets are still quality work.

So 75% x 90%1rm = 67.5% for 5 on week one is doing what exactly? Its a warm up, nothing more. There's no stimulus from 1x5@67% .... sorry.

[Mark E. Hurling]

hmmmm, maybe I'm not good at reading English.
But all of the "+" sets are done until near failure.
Sure the preceding 5s and 3s to the last "+ set" are done to those numbers, but those are just warmups IMO.
The topic was (paraphrasing) "one workset to failure" (per exercise).

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 .

It appears I may have misunderstood what you said in your first post. But your clarification on this follow up is dead on. At least as far as the "+ sets" is concerned. I'm not so sure your assessment of the lead-in sets is correct though. Particularly if you cut your rest intervals between them to a minute or so. Kind of like dynamic effort.

In any event, that's how I treated those first two sets. It worked reasonably well for me. All that said, Wendler did not recommend failure. To wit:

"I hesitate to tell anyone to do anything to failure, because that's not what I'm after. I wouldn't prescribe this. This last set should be a ball buster, though, and it's the one you really need to focus on." 5/3/1 Jim Wendler p. 23 first paragraph.

[tompaynter]

.
The topic was (paraphrasing) "one workset to failure" (per exercise).

Yes, but in the context of Mike Mentzer's method. And what Mentzer meant by "failure" wasn't stopping when you probably couldn't do another rep. What he meant was more like, as many reps as you can with a particular weight, reduce the weight and repeat, reduce weight and repeat, then do assisted reps until you can't even control the eccentric/negative movement. In other words, by failure he meant complete muscle failure/exhaustion, and his one set was a series of drop sets done without rest. That's very different from a set of 5 that's heavy enough you probably couldn't manage a 6th.