0:40 What counts as a working set? 4:00 If you are counting sets, is there any variability of the level of experience that you have? 7:22 What body part? 9:40 Goals? 12:05 What Phase are you at? 13:43 Recap
Finally... someone that understands the value of intensity instead of just a bunch of junk volume. Tired of everybody saying to do 15,18, 20+ sets per session. Insanity!! If you can do 20 working sets, you're not truly pushing yourself!! You should be dead tired at half that volume.
John needs his own podcast man! I've heard Mr Meadows on other podcasts and they're some of the most interesting I've listened to. Dude has so much knowledge and wisdom to offer the world, and is a great communicator too.
I've been training for around 3-4 years now (natty, amateur). I found out that you should not be bothered too much about exact sets and reps on every exercise. Instead, listen to your body, be focused, don't rush or don't rest too long (if you don't really need to) and put everything that you've got (in a healthy way) into your sets and reps.
how do i know i'm resting enough? yesterday i did chest and had a rest ratio of 3/1 to the working set duration and i still couldnť finish the 35 pyramidal sets
This is such an important video. I feel like I may have been doing way too many working sets. I’m gonna try to scale back a little and see how it works. Thank you John and his family
Good point on the hamstrings not being stressed by squats. I recently suffered a high hamstring injury and I can still do low bat squats but a hip hinge is out of the question as is a leg curl despite the common belief that low bar works hamstrings and that leg curl are for the lower hamstrings. Every injury teaches us things we might never have learned. These injuries can tell you everything you believe about your muscle’s roles in the body are dead wrong.
Hello John, just want to reach out say Thank you. We are very appreciative of your knowledge that you provide. I have enhanced my body and built solid muscle within my weak points. Your videos are awesome. 😎
I like the simplicity of saying a working set is anything close to failure, which basically means when you feel that your next rep could be a dirty one. The beauty of it is that it's useful for everyone, regardless of their knowledge or experience. It always applies. I of course and as usual agree with the entire video, but may I respectfully disagree just a tiny bit with regards to beginners? :) It's one thing to know you've already reached failure. The weight stops. It's another thing to know one or two reps beforehand, that you're definitely close to failure. Understanding when your next rep will fail takes some practice. You have to learn the limits of your body. It kinda demands proper nervous system awareness, right? That's why I'm so happy I started off training "Yates style" and taking everything to and beyond failure from the get go, and not leave anything in the tank. I didn't stop 4-5 reps shy of failure. First of all, I wouldn't know what 4-5 reps shy of failure was. Second, I don't think it would teach me and train my body how to do working sets close to failure. That's why I personally think beginners could benefit from learning how to work up to and beyond failure (if they have a training partner!) within a certain rep range with every exercise. The first set may be super easy, because they didn't wanna overestimate their own abilities. The next one may either be easy or a little hard, depending on how much more weight they dared put on, but the third and last set should either be hard or impossible. As long as at least one set was hard - as in failure - and sometimes impossible - as in beyond failure, a beginner can know and feel physically that they've taken it far enough, and 6 months later they'll know how to do *hard enough* sets every time and get the most out of every workout. This has been one of the more valuable things to learn and understand for me while training. It's so meaningful and biomechanically objective. It's beautiful! Sure, my technique was lacking on lots of exercises as a newbie (and still probably is, but less so), so I used more machines to remove some of those variables. Especially when going beyond failure, it's probably required. But because of this I now have way more confidence with free weights and barbell work, and I know what failure feels like and understand when my body is just shy of it and the first working sets are over. If I had to start over, I don't think there's anything I'd do differently, other than maybe focusing even more on muscle awareness, but I think training to failure may have been necessary for that either way, so yeah...
I really like Eugene's perspective coming from a natural athlete, which is where 95% of anyone at a gym training with weights is coming from. Thanks Eugene.
Great discussion. Definitely difficult to achieve muscular failure in a single muscle during a compound movement. Prob my anatomy but my glutes have always responded the most to squats(high bar), much more than my quads, with little hamstring growth in my experience.
For a long time I was always thinking you were saying “higher body, John meadows here” hahaha that tells you how much of a ding dong I am. lol love the videos man 👨
This discussion makes me think of Mike Tyson. What a big stocky guy with all the power and speed you'd ever see with all that muscle. One of the most unique athletes of all time.
Thank you so much for sharing the deep knowledge. I usually don't overthink, just go to failure with the moderate weight if wanna be shredded, and with the heavier if wanna get the muscular hypertrophy.
Sounds to me like for the compound, competitive lifts, one should work only to achieve the goal for the competition; that's the training. Same with athletes, train to get better at the specific movement. It seems like if pure hypertrophy is the goal, one would be best off implementing isolation exercises in high volume to a point of failure. As for specific numbers, I would say it has to vary by individual. Thanks for the video.
This is what I have been waiting for! Can you answer my question(?): How do you count SETS per muscle group? For example: 3 sets of back squats, how much of that is glutes ? Or lunges ? Is it quads or glutes ? Thank you!
Thanks for a great information!! I’m a beginner but today I experienced the junk volume sets. I really felt today afte about an hour of training that intensity, effort and power was lacking/lost. So I stopped and went to shower instead.
Every TIME I watch one of your vods I learn more and more.Thank you so much I just recently started training even harder like you talk about and I can 100% feel the difference and it's absolutely changed how I train. Before I was putting on weight but I was never going to total failure and likely putting on extra fat. Now that I am I'm LOSING weight because I'm training hard enough to lose body fat. I'm only 1 year in and I feel like I'm doing as much right as I can now and it's all thanks to guys like you and Fouad and Muscle and Strength and nutrition guys like Dr.Breg. I started doing a single 15lb kettlebell after doing about 3 years of hard yoga sessions once a week. Now I have bands attached to a 25lb kettlebell and I'm doing an extra 120lb's with the kettlebell doing HARD sets of 15 to total failure and on the last 3 reps I do I have to summon literally ALL my strenght and pause for a sec and catch a deep breath and crack that shit and finish the set. All I think is "Okay one more rep" and now I NEED two days off before I can go that hard again.
Really appreicate your videos John. They have helped me immensely in my training along with Jeff Nippard; when you guys coordinate, even better. Big thanks, best of health and success.
I don't like the argument for very high volume, that the human body is an incredible tool capable of adapting to great workloads. It's kinda true, but the argument for what we can adapt to and the argument for what is best are two different things, and sometimes that's not recognized.
i like to do 4 sets with most exercises but if you feel really weak on the 3rd set dont' do a 4th one just drop set with light weight or double drop set even. i like to do that on the 4th set often as well... when i'm lifting heavy i like doing 5 sets at 5 to 8 reps , depending how heavy i'm going and what exercise i'm doing.
I'm 48 and have worked out here and there throughout my life but never really stuck with it. I'm back in the gym, on week 9 now. This topic is one that I struggle with. My rule of thumb has always been 4 sets of 10 to 12 reps. For most of my exercises, i try to pick a weight that will cause me to fail on my last set. When I can complete all 4 sets, I know it's time to increase the weight or do more reps since my failure point has moved. A younger friend of mine who worked with a strength coach, told me that i must be using to light of weight. He suggested doing 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps and increasing the weight. For now, I'm not so concerned with how much weight I'm using. I"m more concerned with my progression and if I'm pushing myself hard enough. I write down my efforts in the gym and i try to increase something every week, be it weight or reps. I'm trying to make some healthier choices and learn as I go so I appreciate your video's. Thanks.
It depends on the day. When I'm doing chest or back I aim for 4 WORKING sets over 4 exercises. If I'm feeling strong I might throw in another exercise. If I'm feeling worn out, I'm done. I hit chest and back separately twice a week. So 32 to 40 working sets per week per body part for chest and back. I finish off bi's and tri's after chest and back and I'll do 8 sets for each per day, so 16 a week. Then I'll do one dedicated shoulder day and 1 dedicated core/leg day. So chest and triceps, back and biceps, shoulders, chest and triceps, back and biceps, legs, rest day.
@@mountaindog1 on my shoulder day I only hit the rear and side delts. My front delts get more than enough on chest days. I've only been lifting for 2 years. (I'm 38). I'll do some abs with shoulders too so they get hit twice a week.
Personally I stopped counting sets & reps I believe your mind is concentrated more on the counting then the actual feel of the movement. I'm also an instinctual trainer concentrated on more feel than counting will change your physique. F the counting and just move & feel the reps
eehhhmm i got told 3 sets 12 reps per exersise. well i do that with 15 reps... everytime i dont reach close to failure, i add weight. i dont know if im doing the right thing because im still a beginner. im progressing not in sets but in weight if you will. btw love the video, just calm and composed with none of that bratty bullshit type talk. you 2 seem really humble about what youre doing. got yourself a sub.
Thank you MD&E! Serendipity 😄 I just restructured my period as I had some issues with my sessions increasing in duration and lack of focus at the end of the workout. Therefore I decided to incorporate this period a cluster focused set / variation of dog crap training. The amount of exercises per muscle group are generally about 3 or 4 depending on the heads / muscle fibers. As for the protocol (after the warmup): - 1 activation set of 15/20 reps, almost to failure for each exercise - 5 breaths between each set - about 1.5/2 minutes rest between exercises - every set to failure (minimum of 4 reps) * every next session I add 1 set more to failure with the same weight and when 5 sets to failure per exercise are reached I will increase the weight and restart at 1 set to failure. This method will autoregulate the amount of reps as well which causes me less headaches, lol. For example when I'm able to do 5 sets to failure, that first set probably will comprise about 8/12 reps and every set the amount of reps will diminish. However set 5 must have 4 reps, or else no increase in weight the next session. And as the for the frequency of a muscle group, I wait until I'm fully recovered including my cns.
@Island Mike looool, no bro. That would be some incredible lung capacity hahaha. The breaths vary from 10/25 seconds depending how deep I'm into the set.
As long as you are stimulating growth by stressing (ie: tearing down to build up) then you will build muscle. Age and other factors come into play too. I only do one moderate to heavy set now as an aging athlete and I still get growth. I make sure there are 2 rest days in between that muscle's workout.
I just took a deload week but didn’t do any work because my shoulder was hurting. I was doing a upper lower split hitting everything twice a week. Wednesday and weekends off. I was doing 3-4 exercise for chest and back each 1 for each shoulder head and 2 exercise for both biceps and triceps. 3 working sets per exercise all to failure. 1 minuet rest between sets. That’s 1 day or half the week. 42 working sets @ 2 to 2.5 hours. It’s long because I do feeder sets to warm up the muscle. On Monday again on Thursday. I am Natty. I am 48 years old. I used to do concrete construction and lift in my early 30’s but stoped for 10 years. Now I’m back in the Gym one year in now. I don’t know if or what I’m asking here. Am I going to hard? I just don’t feel like I’m getting a good workout in without a pump and that feeling of I can’t do anymore if I tried.. I like the feeling of metabolite burn 6 -8 hours after the workout kind of workout. But this video makes me wonder if I need to restructure my workout.
I liked the discussion and I always think you and Teo are very interesting yet I can't help but feel like on the failure argument you ignored some common arguments against it. For example, the fact that if I go to failure on my first set, I will inevitably reach less volume (at least assuming constant intensity) on my remaining sets. And then if I reach failure at every set well I will certainly be doing a lot less volume that if I aimed for a steady RPE 7-8. Also the fact that failure takes more ressources to recover from, ressources that could be put to better use (for example higher volume at lower RPE). I just wish you would have addressed these common points because to me they seem pretty sound so by ignoring them I'm left thinking "well they're making good points, but what about this other side of the argument that also sounds good?" Unless your conclusion on that debate is really all about novice vs experienced but that seemed more like a side point to me from the way you presented it
Okey, so if you are doing 3 sets of 10, and lets say you do rpe 7 all 3 sets, it means you have 3 stimulating reps from one set, or 9 from all three sets, yes? Next example, if you do 3 sets of 10 reps all to failure, you will have 5 stimulating reps from one set, meaning, you have 15 from three sets. What is more? If we really believe or if it is really true that you can only get 5 stimulating reps from a set, means my the theory of going to failure, or rpe 9 is pretty damn good. That’s why you can handle less volume, because you activated more motor units. And the interesting part is that, people often are not RPE 9 or even failure. They think they are, especially beginners, but they are more like 7-8, that’s why I love pushing beginners to late intermediates.
It all depends on your goals and exercise selection. 3 reps or more in reserve is basically just practicing the movement like you would with the squat or bench for powerlifting; its technique work and then maybe that last set you take to failure. On the other hand, I wouldn't keep 3 or more reps in reserve for bicep curls because you'll get more from taking that exercise closer to failure and stimulating more fibers.
Loved the video John. Question though what if you do full body on the days you workout? Surely this number has to be adjusted downward? I do mostly 3 hard sets per body part sometimes 4 and close to failure. I am plenty gassed by the time I leave. Cant imagine doubling that number??? #recovery @mountaindog1
Very true, hard and heavy and go home, pump training is good if you like pumps ofc and have a day to train, but hard failure training with moderate to heavy weight is the way to go. I’ll be honest if your natural and you go with and rpe of 8-10 reps no more then 10 sets per body part is effective muscle growth is simple stimulate eat and recover
Very informative. One thing Eugene said, which I find a little misleading: you don’t actually need to take sets to failure for “maintenance” (12:45) That’s not true. As a matter of fact, there’s much less required for maintenance. I feel like it’s kind of contradicting when you say “sets to failure is what makes you grow” and then you say you need sets to failure “at least for maintenance”. I 100% agree with the growth part, but in terms of maintenance, especially in the context of a week, science has shown that that’s actually not the case at all.
After the age of 40 when injuries come in to play, it's time to throw out high bar quad squats and learn the mechanics of glute/ham low bar squats. Much much safer on the knees and low bar squats absolutely will light up the hamstrings. Some actually call low bar squats and ham/glute exercise where the quads are secondary. You guys with bad knees, dump high bar squats and look into low bar squatting. Stan Efferding says low bar squatting allows him to squat 6 plates today where he'd have to give up squatting altogether because of knee issues. Stan says low bar squatting is almost all hama and glutes and low back.
Im experiencing this : 4 sets of 6 reps quite heavy weigt 3 sets of 12 reps quite moderate weight controlling weight. 3 sets of 20 reps explosive set. Works pretty good taking 60 sec to 90 sec rest.
So 6-8 sets/workout for 3-4 exercises... but how many workouts for the same muscle group/week? Because if someone would do that 2 times/week, that's already 12-16 sets... When do you like people to take days off or how many times do you want them to train/week? And do you like to vary exercises from push A to push B?
Now are you talking about people on striods or not on juice?? Because , im living in mexico and every one on juice out here! Im too scared to use that stuff... Im a heavy person big bone...so i cant maintain muscel why ?? Can you do a video on natural man workout building and keep that muscel you build the day before...??? Please M..D..
John thanks for the very informative contrnt and thanks for your well-versed colleague as well. When you talk about beginners, what do you mean by ‘beginners’...? I’ve been training for 12 months now, am I a beginner in your definition? Tbh, I still feel like one. But I’d like to know what your definition of beginner entails. Thank you again.
I love to do back squat but because of my biomecanics and bone lenght i feel them more in my hamstings an gluteus than in my quads, and than i start to use a trap or hex bar and i do i call them trap bar dead squat (more upright torso) and my quads become hudge, one thing i noticed and i know most of the fitness and bodybuilding trainer will say that will hurt me (i don`t belive in that) is when my knee pass my foot fingers i feel the squat more in my quads. BTW Paul Dillett was a genetic freak. PS: I apologise for my bad english, greetings from Croatia
I never know how close to failure to get... I just cannot increase my bench press. I grabs spotters and can ALWAYS know exactly what rep will be failure. Even when I get through a plateau... i just hit another one at the next 5 pounds more. I usually train in the 6-12 rep range and just feel like my weight hasn't really gone up...
I have been training for years and usually do 20+ set per muscle group with good form and intensity. I usually get 3 days rest before hitting it again, is that ok?
my routine now is monday-shoulders tuesday-biceps wed-chest thur-back fri-triceps sat-legs So in this routine i it enough to do do 4 exersices for chest ,back,shoulders,which is good but only 3 for biceps and triceps ?cause a day is for bicep . Or is this routine not good and should i change routine.i have made this routine to do push 1 day pull other .
John, if you're doing single leg exercises, would you count these as individual sets (ie one for each leg)? Or would one set either leg technically count as one set towards your weekly amount of sets (around 20)? I do leg day twice a week.
My program is intense as fuck. E.g. legs squats 10x10 superset with lunges 10x10 Bench on a normal day 5x10 Bench fortnightly, no triceps that week 10x10 with pause. Then 10x10 touch and go with 60% of 1 rep max. Same biceps fortnightly 10x 10 add 2kg each fortnight. And accessories range from 10 to 25 reps. Let's me tell you after 1st time doing 20 sets of bench, 5 sets incline, 45 reps hammer grip pull ups, 45 reps dips, 100 bicep curls with bar, hammer curls 3x 15 reps each arm I ended up at Chiro next day and shoulder and lats on left side went tight as a virgin and probably Take 3 weeks to recover. It's just to much volume. Not to forget huge volume shoulder day the day before. No fun training like that
We go to failure in every set and we do at least 4 exercise for a muscle group because we like to attack the part of the muscle from different angles doing bi sets tri sets even circuit
I seem to do a lot of set but maybe I count them wrong. If I do 2 set each for front, side, and rear delts is that 2, 2, 2 for each muscle or 6 for the muscle group and I should stop there? And if I do a back row do I only count that for the back or does it count towards any secondary like shoulders and biceps too?
So many reputable people have different opinions on this topic. Dr Mike Isratel says that you should usualy do roughly 2-3 reps before failure since always doing till the failure accumulates touch fatigue. But maybe it's because he recommends more training volume.
Hello sir. ... if I am doing 40 reps in pushups. ..how many sets should I perform ? I workout at home and depend upon body weight exercises and dumbbells only
I thought we weren't supposed to go to failure on those big compound movements like squats and bench press and so on? Or am I mistaken? If so, and you have maybe 3 left in the tank, should you be going closer to failure then for those?
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0:40 What counts as a working set?
4:00 If you are counting sets, is there any variability of the level of experience that you have?
7:22 What body part?
9:40 Goals?
12:05 What Phase are you at?
13:43 Recap
king
Thanks bro
Finally... someone that understands the value of intensity instead of just a bunch of junk volume. Tired of everybody saying to do 15,18, 20+ sets per session. Insanity!! If you can do 20 working sets, you're not truly pushing yourself!! You should be dead tired at half that volume.
John needs his own podcast man!
I've heard Mr Meadows on other podcasts and they're some of the most interesting I've listened to.
Dude has so much knowledge and wisdom to offer the world, and is a great communicator too.
💯
thank you
@@mountaindog1 I'm telling you man, you really should do it. If you have time.
@@mountaindog1 Totally agree. Something on Spotify where I could just listen to your advice all day would be amazing.
World Citizen what bodybuilding podcasts do you recommend?
I've been training for around 3-4 years now (natty, amateur). I found out that you should not be bothered too much about exact sets and reps on every exercise. Instead, listen to your body, be focused, don't rush or don't rest too long (if you don't really need to) and put everything that you've got (in a healthy way) into your sets and reps.
how do i know i'm resting enough?
yesterday i did chest and had a rest ratio of 3/1 to the working set duration and i still couldnť finish the 35 pyramidal sets
Exactly . 12 years in this and I have never obsessed with counting sets and volume. Always just go with the flow and listen to my body
@@anabolicstephen8387 35 sets? what
Agreed. When I get DOMS from squats, it's in my quads and adductors. To really hit my hams, i do romanian deadlifts.
This is such an important video.
I feel like I may have been doing way too many working sets.
I’m gonna try to scale back a little and see how it works.
Thank you John and his family
Good point on the hamstrings not being stressed by squats. I recently suffered a high hamstring injury and I can still do low bat squats but a hip hinge is out of the question as is a leg curl despite the common belief that low bar works hamstrings and that leg curl are for the lower hamstrings. Every injury teaches us things we might never have learned. These injuries can tell you everything you believe about your muscle’s roles in the body are dead wrong.
I agree with Eugene, as many sets as you can adequately recover from. Energy balance is king!
Hello John, just want to reach out say Thank you. We are very appreciative of your knowledge that you provide. I have enhanced my body and built solid muscle within my weak points. Your videos are awesome. 😎
I like the simplicity of saying a working set is anything close to failure, which basically means when you feel that your next rep could be a dirty one. The beauty of it is that it's useful for everyone, regardless of their knowledge or experience. It always applies.
I of course and as usual agree with the entire video, but may I respectfully disagree just a tiny bit with regards to beginners? :)
It's one thing to know you've already reached failure. The weight stops. It's another thing to know one or two reps beforehand, that you're definitely close to failure. Understanding when your next rep will fail takes some practice. You have to learn the limits of your body. It kinda demands proper nervous system awareness, right?
That's why I'm so happy I started off training "Yates style" and taking everything to and beyond failure from the get go, and not leave anything in the tank. I didn't stop 4-5 reps shy of failure. First of all, I wouldn't know what 4-5 reps shy of failure was. Second, I don't think it would teach me and train my body how to do working sets close to failure. That's why I personally think beginners could benefit from learning how to work up to and beyond failure (if they have a training partner!) within a certain rep range with every exercise. The first set may be super easy, because they didn't wanna overestimate their own abilities. The next one may either be easy or a little hard, depending on how much more weight they dared put on, but the third and last set should either be hard or impossible. As long as at least one set was hard - as in failure - and sometimes impossible - as in beyond failure, a beginner can know and feel physically that they've taken it far enough, and 6 months later they'll know how to do *hard enough* sets every time and get the most out of every workout.
This has been one of the more valuable things to learn and understand for me while training. It's so meaningful and biomechanically objective. It's beautiful!
Sure, my technique was lacking on lots of exercises as a newbie (and still probably is, but less so), so I used more machines to remove some of those variables. Especially when going beyond failure, it's probably required.
But because of this I now have way more confidence with free weights and barbell work, and I know what failure feels like and understand when my body is just shy of it and the first working sets are over.
If I had to start over, I don't think there's anything I'd do differently, other than maybe focusing even more on muscle awareness, but I think training to failure may have been necessary for that either way, so yeah...
How does one push beyond failure?
I really like Eugene's perspective coming from a natural athlete, which is where 95% of anyone at a gym training with weights is coming from. Thanks Eugene.
99%
Great discussion. Definitely difficult to achieve muscular failure in a single muscle during a compound movement.
Prob my anatomy but my glutes have always responded the most to squats(high bar), much more than my quads, with little hamstring growth in my experience.
For a long time I was always thinking you were saying “higher body, John meadows here” hahaha that tells you how much of a ding dong I am. lol love the videos man 👨
haha...lot of people think that
John is one of the best RUclipsrs with depth and dedicaton out there. Great help for your goals. Thanks
thank you!
I loved being in this conversation. Thank you, John and Eugene!
This discussion makes me think of Mike Tyson. What a big stocky guy with all the power and speed you'd ever see with all that muscle. One of the most unique athletes of all time.
Thank you so much for sharing the deep knowledge. I usually don't overthink, just go to failure with the moderate weight if wanna be shredded, and with the heavier if wanna get the muscular hypertrophy.
Sounds to me like for the compound, competitive lifts, one should work only to achieve the goal for the competition; that's the training. Same with athletes, train to get better at the specific movement. It seems like if pure hypertrophy is the goal, one would be best off implementing isolation exercises in high volume to a point of failure. As for specific numbers, I would say it has to vary by individual. Thanks for the video.
pro tip : Curls to failure in squat rack count as (2) working sets ; 1 for biceps and 1 for legs
Lol! Gold.
You mean the curl rack
You show so much respect to Eugene... I like that. Greetings from Germany bigboy 🤙🏼
This is what I have been waiting for!
Can you answer my question(?):
How do you count SETS per muscle group? For example: 3 sets of back squats, how much of that is glutes ? Or lunges ? Is it quads or glutes ? Thank you!
Thanks for a great information!! I’m a beginner but today I experienced the junk volume sets. I really felt today afte about an hour of training that intensity, effort and power was lacking/lost. So I stopped and went to shower instead.
John is one of my favourite bodybuilders . Some much great info .
As mark bell once said "we do a couple for a few"
lol made me think i had a whisker on my screen.
Still the best advice around. RIP John 💪
Every TIME I watch one of your vods I learn more and more.Thank you so much I just recently started training even harder like you talk about and I can 100% feel the difference and it's absolutely changed how I train. Before I was putting on weight but I was never going to total failure and likely putting on extra fat. Now that I am I'm LOSING weight because I'm training hard enough to lose body fat. I'm only 1 year in and I feel like I'm doing as much right as I can now and it's all thanks to guys like you and Fouad and Muscle and Strength and nutrition guys like Dr.Breg. I started doing a single 15lb kettlebell after doing about 3 years of hard yoga sessions once a week. Now I have bands attached to a 25lb kettlebell and I'm doing an extra 120lb's with the kettlebell doing HARD sets of 15 to total failure and on the last 3 reps I do I have to summon literally ALL my strenght and pause for a sec and catch a deep breath and crack that shit and finish the set. All I think is "Okay one more rep" and now I NEED two days off before I can go that hard again.
Really appreicate your videos John. They have helped me immensely in my training along with Jeff Nippard; when you guys coordinate, even better. Big thanks, best of health and success.
I love how you two feed of each other and compliment each other well thankyou for the content 💯💯💯🤛
I don't like the argument for very high volume, that the human body is an incredible tool capable of adapting to great workloads.
It's kinda true, but the argument for what we can adapt to and the argument for what is best are two different things, and sometimes that's not recognized.
Old school answer: As many as it takes! Lol.
Counting after starts hurting
This my Dad answer!!!!
@@davideabreu6999 you got it
All of them!
Davide José well it makes perfect sense if you do it strategically as Jeff Cavalier says learn to go through failure...
I love all this wonderful information, thank you very much John and Eugene
i like to do 4 sets with most exercises but if you feel really weak on the 3rd set dont' do a 4th one just drop set with light weight or double drop set even. i like to do that on the 4th set often as well... when i'm lifting heavy i like doing 5 sets at 5 to 8 reps , depending how heavy i'm going and what exercise i'm doing.
I'm 48 and have worked out here and there throughout my life but never really stuck with it. I'm back in the gym, on week 9 now. This topic is one that I struggle with. My rule of thumb has always been 4 sets of 10 to 12 reps. For most of my exercises, i try to pick a weight that will cause me to fail on my last set. When I can complete all 4 sets, I know it's time to increase the weight or do more reps since my failure point has moved. A younger friend of mine who worked with a strength coach, told me that i must be using to light of weight. He suggested doing 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps and increasing the weight. For now, I'm not so concerned with how much weight I'm using. I"m more concerned with my progression and if I'm pushing myself hard enough. I write down my efforts in the gym and i try to increase something every week, be it weight or reps.
I'm trying to make some healthier choices and learn as I go so I appreciate your video's.
Thanks.
Eric Keese Jefit app works good too... helps track all that stuff and tally’s weekly. Free btw
Oh and I’m 52 so it’s a hard road but it is getting better
It depends on the day. When I'm doing chest or back I aim for 4 WORKING sets over 4 exercises. If I'm feeling strong I might throw in another exercise. If I'm feeling worn out, I'm done. I hit chest and back separately twice a week. So 32 to 40 working sets per week per body part for chest and back.
I finish off bi's and tri's after chest and back and I'll do 8 sets for each per day, so 16 a week. Then I'll do one dedicated shoulder day and 1 dedicated core/leg day.
So chest and triceps, back and biceps, shoulders, chest and triceps, back and biceps, legs, rest day.
really close to what I do but i put in shoulders with chest so my shoulders dont get too beat up
@@mountaindog1 on my shoulder day I only hit the rear and side delts. My front delts get more than enough on chest days. I've only been lifting for 2 years. (I'm 38). I'll do some abs with shoulders too so they get hit twice a week.
Thanks a lot for this video! The information about (working) sets was really helpful. Greetings from The Netherlands!
Love how you cover everything!!thank you
Personally I stopped counting sets & reps
I believe your mind is concentrated more on the counting then the actual feel of the movement.
I'm also an instinctual trainer concentrated on more feel than counting will change your physique.
F the counting and just move & feel the reps
eehhhmm i got told 3 sets 12 reps per exersise. well i do that with 15 reps... everytime i dont reach close to failure, i add weight. i dont know if im doing the right thing because im still a beginner. im progressing not in sets but in weight if you will.
btw love the video, just calm and composed with none of that bratty bullshit type talk. you 2 seem really humble about what youre doing. got yourself a sub.
thank you!
@@mountaindog1 wholy shit didnt expect a response 😂
best channel on yt for weight lifting i reckon
My plan says 3x8 with a rpe of 7... my heart says 10xFailure rpe of LIGHT WEIGHT
Fantastic, I love the examples, helps me understand and take away something.
Thank you so much for the excellent video!
Very thorough and insightful. Thanks for making this.
Thank you MD&E!
Serendipity 😄 I just restructured my period as I had some issues with my sessions increasing in duration and lack of focus at the end of the workout. Therefore I decided to incorporate this period a cluster focused set / variation of dog crap training.
The amount of exercises per muscle group are generally about 3 or 4 depending on the heads / muscle fibers.
As for the protocol (after the warmup):
- 1 activation set of 15/20 reps, almost to failure for each exercise
- 5 breaths between each set
- about 1.5/2 minutes rest between exercises
- every set to failure (minimum of 4 reps)
* every next session I add 1 set more to failure with the same weight and when 5 sets to failure per exercise are reached I will increase the weight and restart at 1 set to failure.
This method will autoregulate the amount of reps as well which causes me less headaches, lol.
For example when I'm able to do 5 sets to failure, that first set probably will comprise about 8/12 reps and every set the amount of reps will diminish. However set 5 must have 4 reps, or else no increase in weight the next session.
And as the for the frequency of a muscle group, I wait until I'm fully recovered including my cns.
@Island Mike looool, no bro. That would be some incredible lung capacity hahaha.
The breaths vary from 10/25 seconds depending how deep I'm into the set.
Vids with the both of you are the best 👌🏽💪🏽
Love seeing these two together… Rest In Peace, John!
I love all your videos thanks for all the great content. I appreciate you John
I appreciate that!
What is your opinion on straight sets vs pyramid scheme?
this
Look up mike israetel
My question as well
Ronnie would pyramid up in weight , for ex on tbar row it would be 10,8 ,6 4,2 but weight would go up every time he would also do this for squats .
John *does* pyramid sets. He might do 90lb for 8, 100lb for 6 and 110lb for a ball-busting set of 8. Something like that.
"All of them"
awesome t shirt john! you have one of the best bodybuilding channels out there!
Always good info, really enjoy your video's 👌
As long as you are stimulating growth by stressing (ie: tearing down to build up) then you will build muscle. Age and other factors come into play too. I only do one moderate to heavy set now as an aging athlete and I still get growth. I make sure there are 2 rest days in between that muscle's workout.
I just took a deload week but didn’t do any work because my shoulder was hurting. I was doing a upper lower split hitting everything twice a week. Wednesday and weekends off. I was doing 3-4 exercise for chest and back each 1 for each shoulder head and 2 exercise for both biceps and triceps. 3 working sets per exercise all to failure. 1 minuet rest between sets. That’s 1 day or half the week. 42 working sets @ 2 to 2.5 hours. It’s long because I do feeder sets to warm up the muscle. On Monday again on Thursday. I am Natty. I am 48 years old. I used to do concrete construction and lift in my early 30’s but stoped for 10 years. Now I’m back in the Gym one year in now. I don’t know if or what I’m asking here. Am I going to hard? I just don’t feel like I’m getting a good workout in without a pump and that feeling of I can’t do anymore if I tried.. I like the feeling of metabolite burn 6 -8 hours after the workout kind of workout. But this video makes me wonder if I need to restructure my workout.
Always sooo very informative! 🙏🙏 thank Mr John for all the knowledge you share.
you bet
Looking forward to seeing you again Mountain Dog🙏🏼RIP
I liked the discussion and I always think you and Teo are very interesting yet I can't help but feel like on the failure argument you ignored some common arguments against it. For example, the fact that if I go to failure on my first set, I will inevitably reach less volume (at least assuming constant intensity) on my remaining sets.
And then if I reach failure at every set well I will certainly be doing a lot less volume that if I aimed for a steady RPE 7-8. Also the fact that failure takes more ressources to recover from, ressources that could be put to better use (for example higher volume at lower RPE).
I just wish you would have addressed these common points because to me they seem pretty sound so by ignoring them I'm left thinking "well they're making good points, but what about this other side of the argument that also sounds good?"
Unless your conclusion on that debate is really all about novice vs experienced but that seemed more like a side point to me from the way you presented it
I need to listen again and see what i said..haha
Okey, so if you are doing 3 sets of 10, and lets say you do rpe 7 all 3 sets, it means you have 3 stimulating reps from one set, or 9 from all three sets, yes? Next example, if you do 3 sets of 10 reps all to failure, you will have 5 stimulating reps from one set, meaning, you have 15 from three sets. What is more? If we really believe or if it is really true that you can only get 5 stimulating reps from a set, means my the theory of going to failure, or rpe 9 is pretty damn good. That’s why you can handle less volume, because you activated more motor units. And the interesting part is that, people often are not RPE 9 or even failure. They think they are, especially beginners, but they are more like 7-8, that’s why I love pushing beginners to late intermediates.
It all depends on your goals and exercise selection. 3 reps or more in reserve is basically just practicing the movement like you would with the squat or bench for powerlifting; its technique work and then maybe that last set you take to failure. On the other hand, I wouldn't keep 3 or more reps in reserve for bicep curls because you'll get more from taking that exercise closer to failure and stimulating more fibers.
@@imd3rrtyd4n That I certainly agree with
Eugene Teo, the Hundred Eyes of bodybuilding
Loved the video John. Question though what if you do full body on the days you workout? Surely this number has to be adjusted downward? I do mostly 3 hard sets per body part sometimes 4 and close to failure. I am plenty gassed by the time I leave. Cant imagine doubling that number???
#recovery
@mountaindog1
you are absolutely correct
Very true, hard and heavy and go home, pump training is good if you like pumps ofc and have a day to train, but hard failure training with moderate to heavy weight is the way to go. I’ll be honest if your natural and you go with and rpe of 8-10 reps no more then 10 sets per body part is effective muscle growth is simple stimulate eat and recover
Great content John!!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience
Very informative. One thing Eugene said, which I find a little misleading: you don’t actually need to take sets to failure for “maintenance” (12:45) That’s not true. As a matter of fact, there’s much less required for maintenance. I feel like it’s kind of contradicting when you say “sets to failure is what makes you grow” and then you say you need sets to failure “at least for maintenance”. I 100% agree with the growth part, but in terms of maintenance, especially in the context of a week, science has shown that that’s actually not the case at all.
Love your work...❤️❤️
Great information, thank you.
For me it's 4 pyramided sets 3-4 exercises/bodypart
After the age of 40 when injuries come in to play, it's time to throw out high bar quad squats and learn the mechanics of glute/ham low bar squats. Much much safer on the knees and low bar squats absolutely will light up the hamstrings. Some actually call low bar squats and ham/glute exercise where the quads are secondary. You guys with bad knees, dump high bar squats and look into low bar squatting. Stan Efferding says low bar squatting allows him to squat 6 plates today where he'd have to give up squatting altogether because of knee issues. Stan says low bar squatting is almost all hama and glutes and low back.
6 hard working sets per muscle within at least 1 or 2 reps of form breakdown.
John, do I even need to counts sets and reps if I'm chasing the pump? If it keeps blowing up then keep going and once it starts to deflate then stop?
John meadows and Jeff nippard best fitness youtubers atm 👍🏼
Great discussion! Really intense information.
awesome snake mountain shirt!
How would you count a Dante Trudel (DC doggcrapp) style rest-pause set? 1 or 3 or something else?
probably 1 (but it's the work of 3)
@@mountaindog1 yessss
Im experiencing this :
4 sets of 6 reps quite heavy weigt
3 sets of 12 reps quite moderate weight controlling weight.
3 sets of 20 reps explosive set.
Works pretty good taking 60 sec to 90 sec rest.
40seconds ago uploaded and already 1dislike?Why?
Haters gonna hate
Probably because they mentioned squats 😁
Two of my favorite guys.
John, you really need your own podcast!!
So 6-8 sets/workout for 3-4 exercises... but how many workouts for the same muscle group/week? Because if someone would do that 2 times/week, that's already 12-16 sets...
When do you like people to take days off or how many times do you want them to train/week?
And do you like to vary exercises from push A to push B?
All of them
Awesome... explanation
Now are you talking about people on striods or not on juice??
Because , im living in mexico and every one on juice out here!
Im too scared to use that stuff...
Im a heavy person big bone...so i cant maintain muscel why ??
Can you do a video on natural man workout building and keep that muscel you build the day before...???
Please M..D..
John thanks for the very informative contrnt and thanks for your well-versed colleague as well. When you talk about beginners, what do you mean by ‘beginners’...? I’ve been training for 12 months now, am I a beginner in your definition? Tbh, I still feel like one. But I’d like to know what your definition of beginner entails. Thank you again.
there is no overtraining, only undersleeping and undereating - Rich
FUCKIN TRUTH GODDAMMIT
I love to do back squat but because of my biomecanics and bone lenght i feel them more in my hamstings an gluteus than in my quads, and than i start to use a trap or hex bar and i do i call them trap bar dead squat (more upright torso) and my quads become hudge, one thing i noticed and i know most of the fitness and bodybuilding trainer will say that will hurt me (i don`t belive in that) is when my knee pass my foot fingers i feel the squat more in my quads.
BTW Paul Dillett was a genetic freak.
PS: I apologise for my bad english, greetings from Croatia
I never know how close to failure to get... I just cannot increase my bench press. I grabs spotters and can ALWAYS know exactly what rep will be failure. Even when I get through a plateau... i just hit another one at the next 5 pounds more. I usually train in the 6-12 rep range and just feel like my weight hasn't really gone up...
I have been training for years and usually do 20+ set per muscle group with good form and intensity. I usually get 3 days rest before hitting it again, is that ok?
if it's working yes, if it's not no!
@@mountaindog1 thank you, love your content and advice.
my routine now is
monday-shoulders
tuesday-biceps
wed-chest
thur-back
fri-triceps
sat-legs
So in this routine i it enough to do do 4 exersices for chest ,back,shoulders,which is good but only 3 for biceps and triceps ?cause a day is for bicep .
Or is this routine not good and should i change routine.i have made this routine to do push 1 day pull other .
50% of your body on a single day and 7days of resting for each muscle group...is this a joke?
@@asdasdasddasdasdasd5211 can u share ur training split ?
Upper body / lower body / day-off (On-On-Off)
Upperbody: 3x10 pullups, 4x6-8 bench, 3x8-10 rows, 2x8-12 ohp, 2x12 lateral raises, 3x8-10 biceps, 3x8-10triceps
lowerbody: 5x6-8 squat, 4x5 deadlift, 3x10 legcurl, 2x12 leg-extensor, 4x10-12calves, core planks,sideplanks,legraises
day off
upperbody
lowerbody
dayoff
Excellent video John.
John, if you're doing single leg exercises, would you count these as individual sets (ie one for each leg)? Or would one set either leg technically count as one set towards your weekly amount of sets (around 20)? I do leg day twice a week.
My program is intense as fuck. E.g. legs squats 10x10 superset with lunges 10x10
Bench on a normal day 5x10
Bench fortnightly, no triceps that week 10x10 with pause. Then 10x10 touch and go with 60% of 1 rep max.
Same biceps fortnightly 10x 10 add 2kg each fortnight. And accessories range from 10 to 25 reps. Let's me tell you after 1st time doing 20 sets of bench, 5 sets incline, 45 reps hammer grip pull ups, 45 reps dips, 100 bicep curls with bar, hammer curls 3x 15 reps each arm I ended up at Chiro next day and shoulder and lats on left side went tight as a virgin and probably Take 3 weeks to recover. It's just to much volume. Not to forget huge volume shoulder day the day before. No fun training like that
We go to failure in every set and we do at least 4 exercise for a muscle group because we like to attack the part of the muscle from different angles doing bi sets tri sets even circuit
John i know everyone has been asking you the question on sets! Great video to settle the debate!
Your the man watch all your videos
I seem to do a lot of set but maybe I count them wrong. If I do 2 set each for front, side, and rear delts is that 2, 2, 2 for each muscle or 6 for the muscle group and I should stop there?
And if I do a back row do I only count that for the back or does it count towards any secondary like shoulders and biceps too?
Algorithms for my guy! Cha-Ching!! 😉
I need more of that...it's coming slow :)
@mountaindog1 So are assistant exercises to be used as a pump and not to failure? IE: lateral raises, pec flys etc
i like close to failure to failure on those
So many reputable people have different opinions on this topic.
Dr Mike Isratel says that you should usualy do roughly 2-3 reps before failure since always doing till the failure accumulates touch fatigue. But maybe it's because he recommends more training volume.
Hello sir. ... if I am doing 40 reps in pushups. ..how many sets should I perform ? I workout at home and depend upon body weight exercises and dumbbells only
I need some help with the mind muscle connection. I looked through the videos and did not see anything specific. Is there one that I'm missing
I thought we weren't supposed to go to failure on those big compound movements like squats and bench press and so on? Or am I mistaken?
If so, and you have maybe 3 left in the tank, should you be going closer to failure then for those?