Is one set really enough?
- Thread starter ar_chi
- Start date
Joe.Muscle
Active Member
Goes back to the same damn answer....
Do as much as you can and still recover...that what everyone has been screaming at me for 3 years with.
I do 4 sets for everything 3 times a week except 15 rep ranges. But I only do 1 set for arms.
If I train 4 days a week I drop it to 3 sets.
Do as much as you can and still recover...that what everyone has been screaming at me for 3 years with.
I do 4 sets for everything 3 times a week except 15 rep ranges. But I only do 1 set for arms.
If I train 4 days a week I drop it to 3 sets.
Tell me what you want the result to be and I will find a study that "proves" it to be the best way to gain muscle. One set? Two sets? 15 sets? Never ending sets? Three times per week? One set every three weeks? No problem. Studies have proved each of them to be superior to the others. The trick is to find the MINIMUM that gets you the results that you want. That is not going to come from some 37th year student at Harvard creating exercise equipment fpr mice. You have to do it yourself.
ar'chi
I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not.
But for my 1st ever HST cycle, I did 2x15, 3x10, 5x5, 5x5 and gained about an inch all over my body. Even my puny arms that were 15 inches when I was a fatbody and 15 inches at 185 (they went down when I overtrained for a triathlon and wasted away to 173) are now 16 inches.
This time, I'm doing "vanilla HST" with 1x15, 2x10, 3x5, 3x5 and am still growing stronger and a bit bigger, not as fast, but still growing.
Both ways, I differ from about everyone else here. I spend more time warming up than most because I get injured easily if I don't. My warmups take a while because I do the following based on my working weight for the day. Warmup=50%x10, 60%x10, acclimation=75%x3, then just add 10-20lbs each additional acclimation set and do doubles until I reach my working weight.
Sooo, either way works - it just depends on how much time you have to put into it. If you've got an hour or less - do the vanilla - you will grow. If you can spare up to 4 hours when the 10's and 5's get heavy (and can recover from the workload). However you do it, if you follow the principals of progression and frequency, you will grow the best you ever did - and that's the important thing.
I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not.
But for my 1st ever HST cycle, I did 2x15, 3x10, 5x5, 5x5 and gained about an inch all over my body. Even my puny arms that were 15 inches when I was a fatbody and 15 inches at 185 (they went down when I overtrained for a triathlon and wasted away to 173) are now 16 inches.
This time, I'm doing "vanilla HST" with 1x15, 2x10, 3x5, 3x5 and am still growing stronger and a bit bigger, not as fast, but still growing.
Both ways, I differ from about everyone else here. I spend more time warming up than most because I get injured easily if I don't. My warmups take a while because I do the following based on my working weight for the day. Warmup=50%x10, 60%x10, acclimation=75%x3, then just add 10-20lbs each additional acclimation set and do doubles until I reach my working weight.
Sooo, either way works - it just depends on how much time you have to put into it. If you've got an hour or less - do the vanilla - you will grow. If you can spare up to 4 hours when the 10's and 5's get heavy (and can recover from the workload). However you do it, if you follow the principals of progression and frequency, you will grow the best you ever did - and that's the important thing.
Joe.Muscle
Active Member
You mean the mice dont work...???...hehehehe
I think people would get better results, on average, by doing the following:
* Focusing first and foremost on the compound lifts
* Trying to get in reasonable volume with a little fatigue management, and setting the 'rep target' to something, say, ~25 reps per MAJOR movement/exercise. Foo-foo direct arm stuff and whatnot can probably get less.
These two-combined will help you not spend eons in the gym but still allow a fair amount of loading while staying well shy of failure. Another method that may help time-wise is antagonist pairing also using the clustering principle. I.e. do a clustered set of one exercise, rest ~60 seconds, do another cluster set of an antagonistic movement (e.g. from bench to rows), etc. Never really resting more than ~minute at a time minus setup time.
That said, you always want to do 'the least necessary work to get the desired training effect.' So, for beginners, lower volume (single set) might work fine.
But I seriously doubt ~15 total reps per exercise, even three times a week, is going to be optimal as you move into the intermediate/advanced category.
I actually think this is why split routines wind up working better for a lot of people than full body routines - people are not performing enough volume on the latter to really induce a training effect. So even though the frequency is totally un-optimal, they are at least creating AN effect by inadvertently getting in a decent amount of volume per muscle group.
* Focusing first and foremost on the compound lifts
* Trying to get in reasonable volume with a little fatigue management, and setting the 'rep target' to something, say, ~25 reps per MAJOR movement/exercise. Foo-foo direct arm stuff and whatnot can probably get less.
These two-combined will help you not spend eons in the gym but still allow a fair amount of loading while staying well shy of failure. Another method that may help time-wise is antagonist pairing also using the clustering principle. I.e. do a clustered set of one exercise, rest ~60 seconds, do another cluster set of an antagonistic movement (e.g. from bench to rows), etc. Never really resting more than ~minute at a time minus setup time.
That said, you always want to do 'the least necessary work to get the desired training effect.' So, for beginners, lower volume (single set) might work fine.
But I seriously doubt ~15 total reps per exercise, even three times a week, is going to be optimal as you move into the intermediate/advanced category.
I actually think this is why split routines wind up working better for a lot of people than full body routines - people are not performing enough volume on the latter to really induce a training effect. So even though the frequency is totally un-optimal, they are at least creating AN effect by inadvertently getting in a decent amount of volume per muscle group.
Joe.Muscle
Active Member
Great Point Mikeynov.
Its hard to say what you said and get the newbies to understand this from the HST Vanilla routine.
I myself love the HST set up but uses a volume per muscle group closer to Waterburys recommendations.
We all no load is important but there has to be some volume IMO.
Its hard to say what you said and get the newbies to understand this from the HST Vanilla routine.
I myself love the HST set up but uses a volume per muscle group closer to Waterburys recommendations.
We all no load is important but there has to be some volume IMO.