Should you stop at 10 reps when weight is light?

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imported_fadi

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When starting at 70% during the 10s, should you stop at 10 reps even though the weight is light, or should you do as many as you can to feel the burn and as the weight progress, you would eventually finish at 10 reps?
 
But what is the objective? If it does not seem hard or if you do not feel the burn, add a another set or do more reps? What if the second set was the same?
 
The purpose of the 10's is not to fill you with lactic acid. This is the purpose of the 15's. The 10's are one more logical step to accomodate the ever increasing load. Since they are relatively early in your HST cycle, you should generally avoid failure (until your last workout with the 10's) in each set. If you do not feel much from one set only, I would certainly recommend a second set.

However, the main idea here is that during the 10's you do not go for the burn and you want to avoid failure in each set. Do not worry if the first workouts feel easy, this is about to change soon.
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Hey :)

This is simply another volume thread - that is, "how much volume" is the issue, this tme in the early 10's when the weights are light.

Again, the answer is the same: the amount of volume you should do is the maximum that you can manage. Generally, the answer to volume questions are: Do as much as you can.

Again, for the sake of avoiding confusion, as much as you can means:
1.) You don't go to failure
2.) You don't compromise your ability to train frequently.

So how much volume you do depends on those two things. If you can do 2 sets for each exercise, and you still feel great and you don't feel so tired that you want to delay or avoid your next training workout, then you should do 2 sets. If that's too much, and you find that doing 2 sets of everything makes you dread your next workout because you feel a little fatigued even before you start, then do less.

And remember that this can also depend a lot on how long you've been training. For BB veterans, for example, it might simply not be enough to do 2 sets. If they can do 4 sets of each exercise, and still avoid CNS fatigue and can still train as frequently, then 4 sets should be their target.

Do as much as you can. Don't go crazy though. Be sure you know how to gauge yourself properly.

Regards,
-JV
 
I have one serious question for the newbies:

Why does every set have to half kill you?

Is this a HIT type thing or what?
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You should be happy to be able to finish the whole body program and then gauge what went easy!  
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HST has certain principles that are important:

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Again, for the sake of avoiding confusion, as much as you can means:
1.) You don't go to failure
2.) You don't compromise your ability to train frequently.

Sometimes one can make the mistake of making the weights a little low for certain rep schemes due to not actually finding out true maxes but rather calculating them.

However, the true time to gauge would come at the end of the 2 weeks (for 10's 70 - 75% of 1 RM) that should be the target, and even if calculated you should not be far off track, so wait on and see!

In any case, it is no big deal to adjust up if you feel you are somewhat off track!
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as to my understanding (and what i have been doing with good results)....


you want to end your sets a 1-3 reps from failure. how can you do this in the begining of the 10s when the weights are light? simple, go slower on the negative part of the rep.

you want to achieve the pump feel of blood rushing through your muscles. you want to always make it to 10 reps on the first set of every exercise in the 10s. if you feel you need more, then do a second set. the second set does not need to make it to 10 reps, but should be 1-2 reps shy of failure.

hope that helps!
 
I've heard people say on this board before that during the 15's and 10's when the wieghts are light that you should just slow the reps down, but isn't that just simply a way increasing T.U.T. Wouldn't the same effect be reached by just doing a few more reps at the same rep speed but still stopping short of failure?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Wouldn't the same effect be reached by just doing a few more reps at the same rep speed but still stopping short of failure?

Probably, yes. If you increase the number of reps for a certain rep count (say doing 13 reps since 10 seems too effortless) you would be increasing the TUT which is a good thing. On the same token, you'd still be applying the principle of progressive overload as your weights would increase every workout or every other workout.

The key here is to make sure you're not hitting absolute failure at those 13 reps...if you finish that 13th rep cleanly, without struggling at a static point or anything of the like, you should be fine--don't hamper your ability to workout frequently. There is actually a great deal of discussion on this issue at the hypertrophy-research board in case you'd like to analyze that information.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (jvroig @ Sep. 01 2005,10:36)]Again, for the sake of avoiding confusion, as much as you can means:
1.) You don't go to failure
2.) You don't compromise your ability to train frequently.
This can even be simplified further by just using.
2.) You don't compromise your ability to train frequently.
Even if you train to failure, if you don't interfere with #2, you're still good.
 
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