Make up missed reps with extra sets?

[manisstrong]

While on SS, if you don't hit all the reps should you make it up by doing more sets? EG, you get 4,4,4 do one more set of 3. You get 3,3,3 do two more sets of 3 or three more sets of 2. Etc, you get the point. Good idea or bad?

[Kyle Schuant]

By the book, you just try again next time.

You would know this if you had the book, which I strongly recommend. Improves your brain along with your brawn.

When I train people, I tell them those are debt reps, which have 100% interest. So if you were supposed to do 5,5,5 and managed 5,4,3, well you owe 3 reps, plus 3 more. We stay until you get 6 reps, even if ends up being 6 singles (you don't owe interest on the interest, we'd be there forever). Since I've chosen a weight I know they can lift 3x5, if they fail the reps it's either a technique issue - which I'll correct - or mental, attitude. The thought of the debt reps usually motivates people to complete the set.

Go and lift the weight for 3 sets of 5. Then you won't have to worry what happens if you can't.

[william jackson]

i only do them for deadlifts because i dont deadlift very frequently and only do singles to make up the reps.

[hatmanii]

I have in the past, but it's a bad habit to get into. You really don't want to be missing reps, and if you are dong it frequently then something is off.

-Hat

[KAG]

I agree that it isn't a good habit to get into, however........

I just did it. As you can read in another thread right below this one, I'm having some issues right now. Last workout I didn't do any make-up reps and just quit out of frustration. But tonight I wanted to do something. All I had in me were single reps with rest in between. I did 5 of them after I stalled. It isn't ideal, but it's something. That's 5 reps of work I wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. Quitting last Friday and not doing any singles sure didn't make me any stronger today. I may not be any stronger come Wednesday after doing the singles today, but I tried.

Something > nothing.

I won't continue doing it after Wednesday if I fail a 3rd time. I'll reset at a lower weight and work my way back up so I can get all 5 reps 3 times. But doing singles has helped me keep my bench and press moving up. Maybe it'll help my squat too.

[spiderman]

If you are missing the reps potentially due to over training, is making the reps up with more sets a good idea? Especially with squats as the next squat day with the retry is only two days away?

[MikeC1]

Spiderman touches on something important. What is the reason you're missing reps? Too much fatigue from the previous workout? Or is the weight just too heavy. Because what you should do depends on this. If it's just too heavy and you're just not strong enough to get all the prescribed reps, then backoff reps are in order to increase the total volume, provide more adaptation stimulus etc. But if the problem is too much accumulated fatigue, then this is exactly the wrong thing to do.

By the book, you just try again next time.

You would know this if you had the book, which I strongly recommend. Improves your brain along with your brawn.

When I train people, I tell them those are debt reps, which have 100% interest. So if you were supposed to do 5,5,5 and managed 5,4,3, well you owe 3 reps, plus 3 more. We stay until you get 6 reps, even if ends up being 6 singles (you don't owe interest on the interest, we'd be there forever). Since I've chosen a weight I know they can lift 3x5, if they fail the reps it's either a technique issue - which I'll correct - or mental, attitude. The thought of the debt reps usually motivates people to complete the set.

Go and lift the weight for 3 sets of 5. Then you won't have to worry what happens if you can't.

Well okay, but don't act like you're not just making up your own little system or doing anything different than what the OP is asking about. Also, this stuff about "just get all your reps and don't be a pussy" doesn't make any sense. If nobody ever missed a rep, we'd all be squatting 900

[manisstrong]

I'm on holidays so I'm not missing any reps, I'm not doing any at the moment lol. But it was a general question about not being strong enough and not getting all the reps (probably due to not eating enough hah!) and so I thought adding the missed reps would increase the volume to provide more stimulus.

[LimieJosh]

Right, but there are very few cases where a novice fails a lift because of insufficient stimulus.

[Kyle Schuant]

Well okay, but don't act like you're not just making up your own little system

I'm not. I realise that by saying "by the book... read the book" and then "when I train people -" I was a bit unclear. It's a bit obscure, I know, stating things so plainly. Perhaps you have spent so long on internet forums you are unused to plain English, and used to people talking around in circles with bullshit, trying to avoid the actual point. Or is English not your first language?

Also, this stuff about "just get all your reps and don't be a pussy" doesn't make any sense. If nobody ever missed a rep, we'd all be squatting 900

Again the problems with the reading comprehension. Nobody said that. I said that when people miss reps when I train them (not in SS, I state again for the reading-impaired), they get extra to do. That way, if they miss the reps it's because they really have to. Obviously this is not going to work if someone is squatting 200kg. That doesn't happen too often in a community gym, I can assure you. Nor is it happening with our original poster. We're talking about weights under or around the person's own bodyweight.

I think we have all experienced and seen the difference between "I could do another rep if I had to, but it's hard so I won't," and "woooah.... there's no damn way I'm going to do another rep." If you get stuck at the first point you will never squat even 200. People's physical capacity is generally much, much greater than their mental capacity. It's a trainer's job to narrow the gap a bit.

Manisstrong should buy the book, read it and follow it. Sorry, downloading the torrent and glancing over it while tabbing through porn browsers ain't good enough.