@@lumbagoman4938have you tried gear? Like no offense to you or everyone using gear, but have you even tried it? If you are one of the people that respond to it, you'll grow. And I mean grow
Not to mention the risk for injury is greatly reduced by going heavy earlier as all the accessory muscles that support the movement have little to no fatigue. If you go heavy towards the end, all those accessory muscle have experienced some level of fatigue and cannot support the heavy movement as optimally. And this can cause the body to down regulate force production to the target muscle due to pain, fatigue or joint instability. If you attempt to push through that, your risk for injury skyrockets IMO.
You're absolutely right. It's nice to see people with common sense commenting. Shifting the weight to the synergist muscles after the prime movers are fatigued is a sure-fire way to get injured
No it doesn’t! Most injuries are through attempting too much weight or going too heavy too soon!!! Usually both… if the muscle is really warmed up and tired.. chances or injury are none to 0…
Incorrect, I know it sounds right but it's not. Your muscles, when not fatigued, can push more weight than your tenons can handle. A lot more. Thats why, you are less likely to hurt yourself on the last rep of 10. Most of the time it's on the first couple reps of a heavy lift when youre cold.
Wow, congrats, though im more amazed why huge steroid user whose most of diet contains of pure sugar and gallons of milk, you really got brainwashed by his popular persone because sulek is one of last bodybuilders you should take advise from
@@EssV_ Nope, he is promoting more or less, depends on age of those who watch sulek, he have worst diet in whole pro bodybuilding industry, drinking 2 gallons of milk, 200g+ sugar, no meat, no eggs, and horse dose of steroids, also bad technique in few exercise, even if. he do not want to promote all this, its still have significant impact on watchers, it just usually looks like its all Sulek have,
it's cross promotion, sam, for whatever reason, is that guy on youtube lifting stuff right now, so the ecosystem will feed off him a bit. it's symbiotic though
Differences how may I ask? In mass gain or in strength or just everything overall has been better, I’m always looking to tweak my workouts, I tend to do high reps but do them fast 😅
@KXINGApoc1122 I feel the burn so much more now. I feel like I'm seeing more development in my shoulders since it started and overall my workouts are much more difficult now.
That's what I do I love it. When you're fresh at your strongest and you have the most endurance. You can go heavier for more reps. That's why sam is as strong as he is.
@@Mxxx1x I watch a lot of them that start light and gradually increase the weight. Work up to a top set pyramid up. Same does the opposite warm up well. Then he goes right to the heavy load and then pyramid down.
The idea of doing heavy compound lifts early in a workout then light isolation exercises to burn out a specific muscle is as old as the hills. People have been training this way for 30 years, but this video makes it seem like it's a new concept
True. I didn't need a video for it. It just makes sense when you start considering how to get most bang for your buck when you only have so much energy to spend.
This is NOT specifically about doing heavy COMPOUND lifts early. Watch the clip again. Just because they are talking about doing heavier work first, you are assuming this means doing compound lifts first, simply because we naturally can go heavier on those lifts. That is NOT what they are talking about. What they are talking about is when doing a particular exercise, do the heavier lift and lower reps first, then as your muscles are getting tired, switch to higher reps and lower weight. You can do this approach on ANY specific exercise. In addition,, Mike has another video where he talks about doing compound lifts LAST. Why? Because if you do more isolated work first, your muscles will be pre-exhausted by the time you are doing compound lifts. Why would Mike recommend this? If your muscles are pre-exhausted by the time you do compound lifts, then you will not be able to put nearly as much weight on the bar for each set (also, bye-bye ego lift kiddies), and as a result, you will put less systemic strain on your ligaments and tendons, helping to mitigate injury, while at the same time enabling conditions for greater hypertrophy with less weight used. So, none of this is about doing an old-school approach of doing compound lifts first (just because we can lift heavier on these lifts than more isolated lifts), as you were thinking. I can see how easy it would be to think that from the video, but you misinterpreted what they were saying.
this is more or less how I’ve been working out for many years. My problem has always been the gray area between warming up and the actual workout what I came to realize is that warming up needs to be done, but it needs to be done with lightweight that is going to wake up your muscles and loosen your joints. Also, you have to make sure you have enough time to do the work out so after your warm-up for me I like to rest at least 5 to 10 minutes. I’ll do some stretching walk around a little bit
Warm up weight should start lighter but you want to get a feel for your working weight and prime your cns. Doing light weight then jumping to super heavy weight is not smart
@@icecoldlemonade3939 which is why i always do pyramid sets. I start out with around 50-60% of my 1RM. Then I go up to around 80-90%. I don’t really max out much anymore unless I have a spotter. Right now I’m doing 5 or so good reps with 315 benching which I feel is adequate for stimulation of the muscles involved. I use this logic on all my exercises.
I think of it like this. One of my splits is Chest Shoulders Abs. Abs & Calves are pretty much always being worked so they don't really need much Warm Up cuz they're always warmed up. So for Chest & Shoulders I do 3 Warm sets up. 10-15 reps with the bar. 5-10 reps with 50-60% of my max and 3-5 75-90% of my max. Then I do my top set the rep range I like is 6 to 10. 2-3 sets for each exercise 6-10 sets per muscle. So a first working Set might be like 205 for 10. Then Set 2 might be 205 for 9 and set 3 is 205 for 7. Then I move on etc.
Everything Sam Sulek explains to his audience is always stuff i figured out in my garage at 14 years old lol. Everyone reacts like he's crazy and then all the science channels praise him.... and don't get me wrong he's almost always 100% correct, but I'm blown away that this is news to do many people. Like bro, you've been lifting for how long??? And you never thought about this logically before? What are we trying to do? Break muscle down and then repair it. When do you have the most strength? First set. What breaks down the most tissue? Heavy sets pushing as many reps as you safely can. Okay, so we start heavy and go to failure, check. What set has the highest chance of injury? Your last one when you're tired. What do we need to repair the muscle? Lots of blood circulating to bring nutrients. Okay, last set, let's lower the weight a little but really burn it out! How many sets you do isn't important! At all! Not even a little bit! What is important is how much muscle you're able to break down! You break the most muscle by putting it under the most load and pushing it to its max effort possible. So yes unfortunately 1 set is not going to produce the best results; however, it is possible to get bigger and stronger and see more gains doing 1 set than a guy who does 10 sets... if you do your sets correctly and he does not! Ideally you want to be doing both though, solid amount of sets with max challenge to the body! Now. Once you've done... idk depending on the muscle group but once you've done enough hard max failure sets with a few partials. Take a 10 minute break. If you started with 100lbs for sets of 8, and now you can't do 50lbs for one set of 5.... you're done! Idc is you did 1 set or 15 but at that point it is challenging you in the moment, it is working on your endurance, but it's still the same muscle and what you're doing isn't tearing down anything bc that weight isn't challenging for that muscle. It's challenging for you and bc the muscle is done. Now can you get .5% more gains at the end of the year? Maybe. You can also screw up your recovery and hurt yourself lol. Your risk to reward has dropped off so significantly that there's no sense in continuing. I'm also a rare breed. I don't power lift but I'm more concerned with strength than physique, but I'm into physique so i personally mix some bodybuilding ideas and some strength/power lifting ideas. Personally i prefer long 3-4 minute breaks between all sets especially compound movements. What works best for me is start fresh, kill the muscle to failure plus a few partials, let the muscle recover as much as possible and repeat maybe 5 times and see where my muscles are at. Maybe switch excercises, maybe move on completely. But if i start out with 100lbs for sets of 10 and say after a 1-2 minute break i coukd again do 100lbs for a set of 6. 1-2 minute break then a set of 4. Or if i change those breaks to 4-5 minutes i could do 100lbs for 10, 100lbs for 8, 100lbs for 7. I'm getting 5 more reps in at the very end when I'm the most tired for a cost of 3 minutes over my excercise...its a no brainer! Its not like doing an extra set with 5 more reps...its 5 more reps added on at failure when the muscle is straining the most and i guarantee you that muscle is going to realize it has to grow and grow now and as much as possible, much more so than the guy that has decided starvibg the muscle for oxygen and demanding it to perform while full of lactic acid and fatiuged will.
Well doc the reason I do high reps first is one, low weight first gives you a chance to properly warm up the muscle and joint and surrounding tissue to avoid injury. And two, it allows me to get good volume in before I get fatigued from the heavy weight working sets.
Brother he clearly just explained why RPT is more optimal and efficient. You don’t have to justify, if you want to warm up do stretches and 1 light set. RPT maximizes your max intensity do to less fatigue while also allowing you to lever high-rep to get a burn faster (therefore more efficient usage of sets) Also results are better as it’s a strength, hypertrophy with focus on strength whereas regular pyramid training puts a heavier emphasis on hypertrophy than actual strength and progressive gains in power.
@@aidanlevy1815 yeah I've tried both, and going heavy first doesn't feel right, I feel like I'm not generating the maximum force I would be able to generate if I had more warm up sets. What works for me is 3 sets building up to the working weight, and I try to not go to failure in those first 3 sets, just try and do them slowly, emphasizing the eccentric, and substitute the heavy weight for more time under tension.
I agree with you here, I've tried both ways and I actually saw more gains by starting high volume and working up to heavy. The single most important determining factor is training to failure. In addition I would rather have less gains and be on the safer side than risk It for an anecdotally small boost of muscle gains. @@trainerorange0632
He's not talking about warm up sets though, he's talking about doing higher reps on totally different exercises and then moving onto heavy weights on your last exercise.
If you don’t go to the gym at all, go. Just get in there and get your muscles active. Make it a force of habit to spend around an hour a day working a muscle group or two throughout that time with some generous breaks in between. This is fantastic advice when you’re already going regularly and need some help passing a plateau, but can be devastating to those who don’t go at all.
True- when I started I would just go, change clothes, do a lap or two of the gym pretending to lift something, then get a drink from the fountain and leave. It still worked, newbie gains are real.
For a long time I’ve enjoyed a push, pull, legs split. Compounds are heavy and early, tapering the accessories to more isolated exercises and the reps are increased as the session goes. Have always enjoyed this way of training
Awesome. Last meso I did heavy chest press machine for a few sets, swapped to cable flys on higher reps and the burn and pump was insane. Feel like this works well with small muscles like arms and shoulders too.
Ok gentlemen, I need some advice from my more experienced gym bros. To give you an idea of where i am in my journey - I'm 46 and i got on TRT 1year ago and I've been training for the last 7 months. I'm growing and recovering faster than I ever have before (thank you test cyp) and I'm making good progress. But I've now hit a sticking point at 225 on my bench. I usually warm up with bar weight at first, then another warm-up set at 135 for 10-12 reps (1 set). I then go to 165 for 8 reps (1 set), 185 for about 6reps (1 set) and then 225 for a maximum of 3 reps, (I hit that for 2 sets yesterday which is a PR for me, so i guess I'm still progressing somewhat there) and then I'll drop back down to 185 and hit one last set to failure before i switch to incline presses. My question is: Am I doing to many sets on the way up to 225? Should i try pressing 225 after my initial 2 warm-up sets at bar weight and 135? Or maybe go 135, 185, 225... and eliminate the set at 165?? Let me know what you guys think. Also... Am I doing too many sets all together for my chest workout? I usually hit 5-6 working sets on flat bench and then 5-6 working sets on incline bench. Then i hit the dip machine for 3 or 4 sets and i finish my day with 4 sets of triceps (various exercises, but mostly push downs.) I train my chest 2x per week right now. Any suggestions as to how i can alter my routine to break through the plateau and make better gains is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
It’s hilarious how actually simple (simple, not easy) it is to exercise correctly when you allow common sense and reason into the equation and you ditch the broscience. Mind-blowing.
I prefer meadows approach of pumping the blood into the muscles and making sure it’s warmed up and prepped to start the heavier compound movements followed by super sets to failure to finish it off. Not all the time but the feeling is top notch it’s what you prefer. I don’t like going heavy to start with but I sometimes do and see the benefit of it.
On my lifting journey personally I like to change things up constantly. Never really doing the same routine the same way! 30 years old now and it has worked really well for me!! Lifting weights is like jiu jitsu not everyone’s game will be the same and that’s ok if you find out what works best for you💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
I've always done this . the initial exercises are when you have the most in the tank. Compound movements first , then specified movements to fully fatigue the muscle
No people dont do this backwards, most people just start with a warm up. And Yea you can pyramid up and end on a feel/burn set. Intensity is Intensity we aint on steroids
Same here especially on legs I feel when I do leg extension hams and leg press I can do better squats and they do t hurt as much as I m more stable and can go heavier
I do the same. Seems the right way to do it. I can do much heavier stuff in the beginning with perfect form and actually push to new PRs every few weeks. If I start from the light weights I can't even attack my old PR once with proper form.
You’d be surprised. A lot of guys will “work up” to a heavy set but while working up to it they’ll already burnout a lot by doing the work up sets first.
I've seen so many people on RUclips say to increase the weight each set. When it should actually be the first set after warmup is the heaviest. Or what I do is keep the weight the same so I can complete the most reps at the first heavy set, then reps decreases with each set as I become fatigued.
John Meadows had the best sequencing: 1. Primer exercise for heavy compound 2. Heavy compound 3. High mind-muscle and metabolic fatigue work. Use intensity technique on last set. 4. Put muscle into loaded stretch
Not super familiar with his work but I like that. 3 and 4 tend to be an either/or for me, but would do #3 last if anything. Very difficult to do anymore work after that.
@@garrettbaratheon567 would definitely check out his channel - Mountain Dog Training. He did unfortunately pass away too soon but his advice lives on. Meadows believed #4 was the secret sauce, that once a muscle was gorged with blood, you want to perform an exercise with extreme range of motion and milk the loaded stretch portion. Thats something Dr. Mike would strongly agree with also.
Wow thanks for this tips. Usually I never really reach failure because I don't want to slam the weight or worst get my self injured. This method could be used to reach failure more safely. Will try it next time I hit the gym...
What I do is warm up to my set weight. Let’s say I’m doing 90 for bicep curls. I’ll start at 60 and work up to 90. Take a short stretch break and go really into my work out until failure. Then I drop the weight down to 80 and do until failure. Then 70, 60, 50. The. I restart back to 80 this time and work my way down until I’m spent.
I practice 3-5 minute breaks between sets depending on muscle group and this made a huge difference from when i did 1-2 minute breaks! The reason i use longer breaks is because i discovered that if i give everything I've got then after 5 minutes I'm about as recovered as I'm going to get. Sure if i wait 20 minutes I'm going to get an extra 10-20% more especially in the beginning but the gym is all about bang for buck. I go to failure so with 2 minute breaks i may do 10 reps, then 7, then 4-5. With 5 minute breaks will do 10 reps, 9 reps, 7-8 reps. So 5 extra of the hardest reps where the most growth comes. If i waited 20 minutes id probably go 10 reps, nap 10 reps, nap 8-9... so 3 more reps max for 40 minutes on my ass? Maybe it is better, but my lifestyle doesn't allow for that. I don't have a gym at the house, the kids gotta get put to bed or hell they may be with me and i can't keep them still that long and the day care will get pissed in leaving them in there all afternoon 5 days a week 😅. FR though that alone helped me break 6 month plateaus when even adding 500 calories a day, 50% from fat 50% from carbs didn't do anything strength or muscle size wise. I didn't ad protein because i weight 195, i consume 350-400gs protein daily so i just didn't think that's where my diet was lacking. I have done keto in the past and know from exp that adding carbs has negative effects on my body but I'm the short teens carbs absolutely help my workout and strength in a major way, especially 2/3rds is my way through a big leg or back day lol.
After watching this I'm going to go light, medium, heavy, medium, light on my weights for lowest injury and best burn. Since eating meat based I can barely get sore anymore so I'm looking for ways to get a bit sore. Only muscle i get really sore is hamstrings but I recently learned that combining a deep stretch with heavy loads being the reason. It leads to excessive soreness and stiffness worsening flexebility.
This is what I also do, it also allows me to put my weights back during rests between sets of different exercises or when deloading, and then you can finish off with some circuits of exercises without a barbell.
Always did active warm ups of the muscle through the range of motion necessary one warm up 50% of max weight for 5 smooth reps and straight to my max. If it felt good I’d do a second and then start dropping the weight. Never had an injury 💪🏼
If you've never tried this style of training, I highly recommend it. You hit PR's a lot more. What you want to do is do 2-3 light warm up sets to build up to your first heavy working set. No need to do the light warm up sets for isolation exercises though.
Idk why I did the pyramid up thing for so long. Recently applied why Dr. Mike explained here and I’ve made more progress plus it feels good to rep out my heaviest weights
That’s what I always do. Start off with the more compound movements. Not deadlift I mean like lat pull-down for me. Heavy as possible. Then I’m going down to the more isolation exercises as the workout progresses. And I’m going higher rep lower intensity for the isolations.
I feel pyramiding for me works best. 3 warm up sets , high reps with light weight gets my muscle mind connected only then I am ready for my working sets ( from light to moderate heavy) . The pump is there from the warm up sets then comes the gradual intensity with good form and contraction, slow eccentric movement on the way down.
I always wondered why so many programs & trainers start light and gradually increase in weight with each set, it never made sense to me. Ever since I started with my heavier sets, strength and muscle gains have been insane.
I usually start with heavy weights, have noticed that it simply has more effect on my muscle growth, for a long time, independently, without having a clue. The powder is otherwise shot for me at the beginning.
I only did this for two weeks, only for 4 sessions of shoulder workout. Just 4 sessions, 2 weeks and my shoulders were visibly better, bigger and chiseled... Going to do this for everything once I get to the gym again.
Do a few warmup sets that practice and refine form with light weight and low reps. With each of those sets slightly increase the weight and practice the best form you can. That part shouldn't exhaust you at all. It ought to just warm you up. Then hit heavy weight for your working sets. Those should feel hard. Then do the higher rep lower weight work until you "feel the burn".
I do pyramid sets alot because im terrible at tracking progressive overload but like to throw in a light weight high rep set in at the end for that burn.
He literally just started doing the opposite of this 😂🙄 He now thinks it’s better to train for a pump first and then go heavy at the end. Everyone riding his dick like “he just knows bro” No he’s just trying shit out like everyone else. You guys have no discipline thus you have super low standards for yourselves. You see someone like Sam and think that he’s the way he is because it’s like the perfect storm and everything he does is done optimally. When In reality he’s just disciplined and show’s consistency.
47 year old guy that has suffered from chronic back pain my whole life and I don't take pain meds, anyway I am going to try weight training because wtf it might work, or at least help and dude the tips, bruh the tips. You rockin' it.
I enjoy hitting a set of about 15 to warm up… then jumping into medium heavy, heavy, then lighter as needed and end every exercise with a set of 12-20 making sure I focus eccentrics and feel a burn.
I usually do 1 true warm up where ita just not much weight then 2 where im going but definitely not really pushing very hard, hard enough where its some peoples working sets intensity but im really just trying to establish my mind muscle connection really good and start really feeling my muscles start to have some burn then 2 where im adding in some high intensity techniques drop sets, partials, pause reps, etc sometimes a combination of them all if its a muscle group thats harder for me to get a good burn and then 1 where im just going completely nuts out 105% effort trying to put a muscle out of commision. I feel like the 2 sets where im kinda going like 85% before im really going hard helps me prevent injury and gets me feeling very confident with my form and and feeling out my limitations
I like both approaches. When doing higher reps first, the heavy sets feel more productive. Better mind muscle connection if that makes sense. I don’t personally “feel” the muscle doing heavy stuff first. It’s more like systemic stress and body tension as opposed to the muscle fibers tearing. Just my experience.
This is the exact process I follow. Don't think about the weight. Go as heavy as you can and slow and control it, drop the weight as you get tired, switch to lighter workouts. Really feel into that burn and tightness.
Agree. I start bench trying for PR max, then do max, then drop and do two sets, repeat, repeat, repeat...and when I get to 60kg...go for 3 sets. Those last three sets are HELL...but also heaven.
For example, if I'm doing a shoulder press, the heaviest I can press at the moment is 35 kg, but I'd only press that towards the end of my shoulder exercise. Before, I would start with 15 kg, four sets of 12 to 15, then 22.5 kg, four sets of eight to ten reps, and then I would go to 27.5 kg, do four sets of six reps, and then I would go to 35 kg, three sets and two to four reps. All this is after later raises and reverse flys. Why I do the above and go heavy at the end is because I'd be in fear of injuring myself by going heavy too quickly. Should I just do a couple of 20 kg sets and then go straight to 35 kg?
Climb Up × 3 Climb Down×3 Climb back up×3 Climb back Down×3 . 12 sets Muscle confusion Muscle fiber activation Lift until failure It actually covers alot. If you cant it 12 hit 6 as in on light one heavy ... It obviously takes conditioning . Good hunting 💪🏼
There’s a huge difference between highish rep warmups and going to failure on warmups. If you start light enough then you can get tons of reps for bloodflow and still not be near failure and thus not be depleted. Then you can do a heavy warmup or two with very low reps or a single rep to avoid fatigue that way while acclimating to a heavier load
I always started heavy(for me at least) on compound lifts then go lower for higher reps because in my head, doing heavy when your more fatigued is a good way to hurt yourself.
I usually go higher reps at the end only when I feel confident I'm gonna complete my sets with no issues, so I'm trying to crank in some more to actually get the failure
What about something in between? 2 warm uo sets and theb heavy... Idk about you, but i always nake sure thst everything is okay and that I'm fully prepared to handle the weight before going beyond 70% of my maximum load
Well depends, I start with lower weights to warm up the muscle group. It's a recipe for disaster if u jump into lifting heavy immediately. But I do think doing that one more set with lower weight to burn it out is great
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Sam Sulek is starting to seem like a anime character that does everything right by instinct.
He's actually quite smart ngl.
I doubt it’s by instinct. I watched one of his vids the other day where he said what he does now is the result of trial and error over 4/5 years
You can’t be as big as Sam without actually having a basic understanding of exercise science lol
@@lumbagoman4938have you tried gear? Like no offense to you or everyone using gear, but have you even tried it? If you are one of the people that respond to it, you'll grow. And I mean grow
Other than doing dumbbell flies on the floor
Compound lifts -> Isolated movements
Warm Up --> Heavy x2 ---> Drop down with light weight
I don't believe that isolation exercises are better for building up a specific muscle faster than compound in my opinion
@liamseekins9488 good job that wasn't what he said then isn't it?
You said it better.
I usually go
2x warm up
4x main
1x lighter to failure. Great burn.
Nice. I warm up 3x on the first exercise of the day. Sometimes no wu on the next exercises of that day. Gonna add the light weight you mentioned. 🤘
warmup is wasted energy. no need to warmup.
@@Tokena14what do you think people do warm up for?
@@amzxar5049 stupid question
@@Tokena14 why
Not to mention the risk for injury is greatly reduced by going heavy earlier as all the accessory muscles that support the movement have little to no fatigue.
If you go heavy towards the end, all those accessory muscle have experienced some level of fatigue and cannot support the heavy movement as optimally. And this can cause the body to down regulate force production to the target muscle due to pain, fatigue or joint instability.
If you attempt to push through that, your risk for injury skyrockets IMO.
You're absolutely right. It's nice to see people with common sense commenting. Shifting the weight to the synergist muscles after the prime movers are fatigued is a sure-fire way to get injured
Perfectly said
No it doesn’t! Most injuries are through attempting too much weight or going too heavy too soon!!! Usually both… if the muscle is really warmed up and tired.. chances or injury are none to 0…
I normally do like 20 reps with light weights to warm up the tendon..
Incorrect, I know it sounds right but it's not. Your muscles, when not fatigued, can push more weight than your tenons can handle. A lot more. Thats why, you are less likely to hurt yourself on the last rep of 10. Most of the time it's on the first couple reps of a heavy lift when youre cold.
Sam Sulek loves you for all the free advertising to his channel. He's actually motivated me to start lifting again at 60 years old
Wow, congrats, though im more amazed why huge steroid user whose most of diet contains of pure sugar and gallons of milk, you really got brainwashed by his popular persone because sulek is one of last bodybuilders you should take advise from
Kid deserves it though. Despite the PED use which is all individual, he's a great rolemodel/ figure in the industry.
@@EssV_ Nope, he is promoting more or less, depends on age of those who watch sulek, he have worst diet in whole pro bodybuilding industry, drinking 2 gallons of milk, 200g+ sugar, no meat, no eggs, and horse dose of steroids, also bad technique in few exercise, even if. he do not want to promote all this, its still have significant impact on watchers, it just usually looks like its all Sulek have,
it's cross promotion, sam, for whatever reason, is that guy on youtube lifting stuff right now, so the ecosystem will feed off him a bit. it's symbiotic though
@@Yoxa4 Nope,
From watching these videos I started going much slower on my reps and it's made a huge difference and I've been lifting since my childhood.
Differences how may I ask? In mass gain or in strength or just everything overall has been better, I’m always looking to tweak my workouts, I tend to do high reps but do them fast 😅
@KXINGApoc1122 I feel the burn so much more now. I feel like I'm seeing more development in my shoulders since it started and overall my workouts are much more difficult now.
@@KXINGApoc1122it’s better for building muscle
I go so slow. I see dudes in the gym going fast and easy. For me every rep is slow and painful. I wonder if I’m doing it right..
@@switchunboxingyes that is the best way to do a rep for pretty much everything
Nothing beats reverse pyramid training. Arguably the best way to train for building mass & strength💯
That's what I do I love it. When you're fresh at your strongest and you have the most endurance. You can go heavier for more reps. That's why sam is as strong as he is.
This was how we trained at my gym 25yrs ago. Many natural 400lbs benches and big men. I have always trained this way, and the results work.
@@Branden-vl9slthat’s literally how everyone trains what lmao
@@Mxxx1x I watch a lot of them that start light and gradually increase the weight. Work up to a top set pyramid up. Same does the opposite warm up well. Then he goes right to the heavy load and then pyramid down.
nope. it’s 100% NOT.
The idea of doing heavy compound lifts early in a workout then light isolation exercises to burn out a specific muscle is as old as the hills. People have been training this way for 30 years, but this video makes it seem like it's a new concept
True. I didn't need a video for it. It just makes sense when you start considering how to get most bang for your buck when you only have so much energy to spend.
My high school gym teacher back in 94 taught us this method.
What's old is new again. We've peaked as a species (minus technology), so everything's being recycled
We're in the age of optimization. I think the ability to juice that last 20% is always going to be useful information to someone.
This is NOT specifically about doing heavy COMPOUND lifts early. Watch the clip again. Just because they are talking about doing heavier work first, you are assuming this means doing compound lifts first, simply because we naturally can go heavier on those lifts. That is NOT what they are talking about.
What they are talking about is when doing a particular exercise, do the heavier lift and lower reps first, then as your muscles are getting tired, switch to higher reps and lower weight. You can do this approach on ANY specific exercise.
In addition,, Mike has another video where he talks about doing compound lifts LAST. Why? Because if you do more isolated work first, your muscles will be pre-exhausted by the time you are doing compound lifts. Why would Mike recommend this? If your muscles are pre-exhausted by the time you do compound lifts, then you will not be able to put nearly as much weight on the bar for each set (also, bye-bye ego lift kiddies), and as a result, you will put less systemic strain on your ligaments and tendons, helping to mitigate injury, while at the same time enabling conditions for greater hypertrophy with less weight used.
So, none of this is about doing an old-school approach of doing compound lifts first (just because we can lift heavier on these lifts than more isolated lifts), as you were thinking. I can see how easy it would be to think that from the video, but you misinterpreted what they were saying.
this is more or less how I’ve been working out for many years. My problem has always been the gray area between warming up and the actual workout what I came to realize is that warming up needs to be done, but it needs to be done with lightweight that is going to wake up your muscles and loosen your joints. Also, you have to make sure you have enough time to do the work out so after your warm-up for me I like to rest at least 5 to 10 minutes. I’ll do some stretching walk around a little bit
Warm up weight should start lighter but you want to get a feel for your working weight and prime your cns. Doing light weight then jumping to super heavy weight is not smart
1-2 sets of 20-30 on an excerise that you have good mind muscle connection with for each muscle group you plan on training/need engaged that day
I can't be doing that I don't want to walk away and have all the benches taken 😂
@@icecoldlemonade3939 which is why i always do pyramid sets. I start out with around 50-60% of my 1RM. Then I go up to around 80-90%. I don’t really max out much anymore unless I have a spotter. Right now I’m doing 5 or so good reps with 315 benching which I feel is adequate for stimulation of the muscles involved. I use this logic on all my exercises.
I think of it like this. One of my splits is Chest Shoulders Abs. Abs & Calves are pretty much always being worked so they don't really need much Warm Up cuz they're always warmed up. So for Chest & Shoulders I do 3 Warm sets up. 10-15 reps with the bar. 5-10 reps with 50-60% of my max and 3-5 75-90% of my max. Then I do my top set the rep range I like is 6 to 10. 2-3 sets for each exercise 6-10 sets per muscle. So a first working Set might be like 205 for 10. Then Set 2 might be 205 for 9 and set 3 is 205 for 7. Then I move on etc.
Reverse pyramid is smart, I've done that..
it's not smart
@@acoverdc9272wrong
@@acoverdc9272 Oh shush troll
Agreed. I do one or two warm-up sets first, then into reverse pyramids.
@@JCavSD Good. I have been just doing warmups followed by heavy sets, but may reverse pyramid.
Reduces risk of injury, and actually allows you to go heavier properly. Those last reps of the light high reps go crazy hard
Everything Sam Sulek explains to his audience is always stuff i figured out in my garage at 14 years old lol. Everyone reacts like he's crazy and then all the science channels praise him.... and don't get me wrong he's almost always 100% correct, but I'm blown away that this is news to do many people. Like bro, you've been lifting for how long??? And you never thought about this logically before? What are we trying to do? Break muscle down and then repair it. When do you have the most strength? First set. What breaks down the most tissue? Heavy sets pushing as many reps as you safely can. Okay, so we start heavy and go to failure, check. What set has the highest chance of injury? Your last one when you're tired. What do we need to repair the muscle? Lots of blood circulating to bring nutrients. Okay, last set, let's lower the weight a little but really burn it out!
How many sets you do isn't important! At all! Not even a little bit! What is important is how much muscle you're able to break down! You break the most muscle by putting it under the most load and pushing it to its max effort possible. So yes unfortunately 1 set is not going to produce the best results; however, it is possible to get bigger and stronger and see more gains doing 1 set than a guy who does 10 sets... if you do your sets correctly and he does not! Ideally you want to be doing both though, solid amount of sets with max challenge to the body!
Now. Once you've done... idk depending on the muscle group but once you've done enough hard max failure sets with a few partials. Take a 10 minute break. If you started with 100lbs for sets of 8, and now you can't do 50lbs for one set of 5.... you're done! Idc is you did 1 set or 15 but at that point it is challenging you in the moment, it is working on your endurance, but it's still the same muscle and what you're doing isn't tearing down anything bc that weight isn't challenging for that muscle. It's challenging for you and bc the muscle is done. Now can you get .5% more gains at the end of the year? Maybe. You can also screw up your recovery and hurt yourself lol. Your risk to reward has dropped off so significantly that there's no sense in continuing.
I'm also a rare breed. I don't power lift but I'm more concerned with strength than physique, but I'm into physique so i personally mix some bodybuilding ideas and some strength/power lifting ideas. Personally i prefer long 3-4 minute breaks between all sets especially compound movements. What works best for me is start fresh, kill the muscle to failure plus a few partials, let the muscle recover as much as possible and repeat maybe 5 times and see where my muscles are at. Maybe switch excercises, maybe move on completely. But if i start out with 100lbs for sets of 10 and say after a 1-2 minute break i coukd again do 100lbs for a set of 6. 1-2 minute break then a set of 4. Or if i change those breaks to 4-5 minutes i could do 100lbs for 10, 100lbs for 8, 100lbs for 7. I'm getting 5 more reps in at the very end when I'm the most tired for a cost of 3 minutes over my excercise...its a no brainer! Its not like doing an extra set with 5 more reps...its 5 more reps added on at failure when the muscle is straining the most and i guarantee you that muscle is going to realize it has to grow and grow now and as much as possible, much more so than the guy that has decided starvibg the muscle for oxygen and demanding it to perform while full of lactic acid and fatiuged will.
Well doc the reason I do high reps first is one, low weight first gives you a chance to properly warm up the muscle and joint and surrounding tissue to avoid injury.
And two, it allows me to get good volume in before I get fatigued from the heavy weight working sets.
Brother he clearly just explained why RPT is more optimal and efficient. You don’t have to justify, if you want to warm up do stretches and 1 light set.
RPT maximizes your max intensity do to less fatigue while also allowing you to lever high-rep to get a burn faster (therefore more efficient usage of sets)
Also results are better as it’s a strength, hypertrophy with focus on strength whereas regular pyramid training puts a heavier emphasis on hypertrophy than actual strength and progressive gains in power.
@@aidanlevy1815 yeah I've tried both, and going heavy first doesn't feel right, I feel like I'm not generating the maximum force I would be able to generate if I had more warm up sets.
What works for me is 3 sets building up to the working weight, and I try to not go to failure in those first 3 sets, just try and do them slowly, emphasizing the eccentric, and substitute the heavy weight for more time under tension.
I agree with you here, I've tried both ways and I actually saw more gains by starting high volume and working up to heavy. The single most important determining factor is training to failure. In addition I would rather have less gains and be on the safer side than risk It for an anecdotally small boost of muscle gains. @@trainerorange0632
He's not talking about warm up sets though, he's talking about doing higher reps on totally different exercises and then moving onto heavy weights on your last exercise.
That’s Exactly how I train and I’ve stuck with for years and the results NEVER FAIL
It’s called RPT, reverse pyramid training.
Yup, been around for quite some time I think.
Yes I used this and avoided injuries while promoting growth
If you don’t go to the gym at all, go. Just get in there and get your muscles active. Make it a force of habit to spend around an hour a day working a muscle group or two throughout that time with some generous breaks in between. This is fantastic advice when you’re already going regularly and need some help passing a plateau, but can be devastating to those who don’t go at all.
True- when I started I would just go, change clothes, do a lap or two of the gym pretending to lift something, then get a drink from the fountain and leave. It still worked, newbie gains are real.
@@PapaWheelie1gaining that loss of time badge.
For a long time I’ve enjoyed a push, pull, legs split. Compounds are heavy and early, tapering the accessories to more isolated exercises and the reps are increased as the session goes. Have always enjoyed this way of training
Awesome. Last meso I did heavy chest press machine for a few sets, swapped to cable flys on higher reps and the burn and pump was insane. Feel like this works well with small muscles like arms and shoulders too.
kinobody put me on to RPT years ago. fitness wise, the dude really knows what he's talking about.
This is common sense to me that I figured out when I was 13 years old, and started lifting weights
Ok gentlemen, I need some advice from my more experienced gym bros.
To give you an idea of where i am in my journey - I'm 46 and i got on TRT 1year ago and I've been training for the last 7 months. I'm growing and recovering faster than I ever have before (thank you test cyp) and I'm making good progress. But I've now hit a sticking point at 225 on my bench. I usually warm up with bar weight at first, then another warm-up set at 135 for 10-12 reps (1 set). I then go to 165 for 8 reps (1 set), 185 for about 6reps (1 set) and then 225 for a maximum of 3 reps, (I hit that for 2 sets yesterday which is a PR for me, so i guess I'm still progressing somewhat there) and then I'll drop back down to 185 and hit one last set to failure before i switch to incline presses. My question is: Am I doing to many sets on the way up to 225? Should i try pressing 225 after my initial 2 warm-up sets at bar weight and 135? Or maybe go 135, 185, 225... and eliminate the set at 165?? Let me know what you guys think.
Also... Am I doing too many sets all together for my chest workout? I usually hit 5-6 working sets on flat bench and then 5-6 working sets on incline bench. Then i hit the dip machine for 3 or 4 sets and i finish my day with 4 sets of triceps (various exercises, but mostly push downs.) I train my chest 2x per week right now. Any suggestions as to how i can alter my routine to break through the plateau and make better gains is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
It’s hilarious how actually simple (simple, not easy) it is to exercise correctly when you allow common sense and reason into the equation and you ditch the broscience. Mind-blowing.
And then you sprinkle a lot of steroids with that!!!
I prefer meadows approach of pumping the blood into the muscles and making sure it’s warmed up and prepped to start the heavier compound movements followed by super sets to failure to finish it off. Not all the time but the feeling is top notch it’s what you prefer. I don’t like going heavy to start with but I sometimes do and see the benefit of it.
Sam is the man
On my lifting journey personally I like to change things up constantly. Never really doing the same routine the same way! 30 years old now and it has worked really well for me!! Lifting weights is like jiu jitsu not everyone’s game will be the same and that’s ok if you find out what works best for you💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
We need a collab !!
Yah i start with 495 bench and work my way down
Damn he looks like 40 years old dude
Are you a woman? Seeing other men obsessed with age & getting botox is wild
I've always done this . the initial exercises are when you have the most in the tank. Compound movements first , then specified movements to fully fatigue the muscle
No people dont do this backwards, most people just start with a warm up. And Yea you can pyramid up and end on a feel/burn set. Intensity is Intensity we aint on steroids
I'm 37 ..I pyramid up with 4-5 sets at the start of the workout to help with the warmup and lower my chances of injury.
Same here especially on legs I feel when I do leg extension hams and leg press I can do better squats and they do t hurt as much as I m more stable and can go heavier
I do the same. Seems the right way to do it. I can do much heavier stuff in the beginning with perfect form and actually push to new PRs every few weeks. If I start from the light weights I can't even attack my old PR once with proper form.
Never heard anyone doing 5 high rep sets then doing their heavy lift. Never lol
You’d be surprised. A lot of guys will “work up” to a heavy set but while working up to it they’ll already burnout a lot by doing the work up sets first.
I've seen so many people on RUclips say to increase the weight each set. When it should actually be the first set after warmup is the heaviest.
Or what I do is keep the weight the same so I can complete the most reps at the first heavy set, then reps decreases with each set as I become fatigued.
@@baz1184 I do both, but lean more towards reverse pyramids 75% of the time.
Exactly how I work out and keep that intensity until failure
John Meadows had the best sequencing:
1. Primer exercise for heavy compound
2. Heavy compound
3. High mind-muscle and metabolic fatigue work. Use intensity technique on last set.
4. Put muscle into loaded stretch
Not super familiar with his work but I like that. 3 and 4 tend to be an either/or for me, but would do #3 last if anything. Very difficult to do anymore work after that.
@@garrettbaratheon567 would definitely check out his channel - Mountain Dog Training. He did unfortunately pass away too soon but his advice lives on.
Meadows believed #4 was the secret sauce, that once a muscle was gorged with blood, you want to perform an exercise with extreme range of motion and milk the loaded stretch portion. Thats something Dr. Mike would strongly agree with also.
💯 drop sets are best for growth without injury
I just start off with the max and lower it a little over time and it works for me I never thought about it
Wow thanks for this tips.
Usually I never really reach failure because I don't want to slam the weight or worst get my self injured. This method could be used to reach failure more safely.
Will try it next time I hit the gym...
What I do is warm up to my set weight. Let’s say I’m doing 90 for bicep curls. I’ll start at 60 and work up to 90. Take a short stretch break and go really into my work out until failure. Then I drop the weight down to 80 and do until failure. Then 70, 60, 50. The. I restart back to 80 this time and work my way down until I’m spent.
I practice 3-5 minute breaks between sets depending on muscle group and this made a huge difference from when i did 1-2 minute breaks! The reason i use longer breaks is because i discovered that if i give everything I've got then after 5 minutes I'm about as recovered as I'm going to get. Sure if i wait 20 minutes I'm going to get an extra 10-20% more especially in the beginning but the gym is all about bang for buck. I go to failure so with 2 minute breaks i may do 10 reps, then 7, then 4-5. With 5 minute breaks will do 10 reps, 9 reps, 7-8 reps. So 5 extra of the hardest reps where the most growth comes. If i waited 20 minutes id probably go 10 reps, nap 10 reps, nap 8-9... so 3 more reps max for 40 minutes on my ass? Maybe it is better, but my lifestyle doesn't allow for that. I don't have a gym at the house, the kids gotta get put to bed or hell they may be with me and i can't keep them still that long and the day care will get pissed in leaving them in there all afternoon 5 days a week 😅. FR though that alone helped me break 6 month plateaus when even adding 500 calories a day, 50% from fat 50% from carbs didn't do anything strength or muscle size wise. I didn't ad protein because i weight 195, i consume 350-400gs protein daily so i just didn't think that's where my diet was lacking. I have done keto in the past and know from exp that adding carbs has negative effects on my body but I'm the short teens carbs absolutely help my workout and strength in a major way, especially 2/3rds is my way through a big leg or back day lol.
After watching this I'm going to go light, medium, heavy, medium, light on my weights for lowest injury and best burn. Since eating meat based I can barely get sore anymore so I'm looking for ways to get a bit sore. Only muscle i get really sore is hamstrings but I recently learned that combining a deep stretch with heavy loads being the reason. It leads to excessive soreness and stiffness worsening flexebility.
This is what I also do, it also allows me to put my weights back during rests between sets of different exercises or when deloading, and then you can finish off with some circuits of exercises without a barbell.
Always did active warm ups of the muscle through the range of motion necessary one warm up 50% of max weight for 5 smooth reps and straight to my max. If it felt good I’d do a second and then start dropping the weight. Never had an injury 💪🏼
If you've never tried this style of training, I highly recommend it. You hit PR's a lot more. What you want to do is do 2-3 light warm up sets to build up to your first heavy working set. No need to do the light warm up sets for isolation exercises though.
for a couple of months, I've been doing this, and figured out on my own. I start my sets at higher weight lower reps, and lower weight with each set.
Idk why I did the pyramid up thing for so long. Recently applied why Dr. Mike explained here and I’ve made more progress plus it feels good to rep out my heaviest weights
That’s what I always do. Start off with the more compound movements. Not deadlift I mean like lat pull-down for me. Heavy as possible. Then I’m going down to the more isolation exercises as the workout progresses. And I’m going higher rep lower intensity for the isolations.
Great Idea❤ I started doing this 24 years ago
I feel pyramiding for me works best. 3 warm up sets , high reps with light weight gets my muscle mind connected only then I am ready for my working sets ( from light to moderate heavy) . The pump is there from the warm up sets then comes the gradual intensity with good form and contraction, slow eccentric movement on the way down.
wow
as simple as this is and being out of the norm, yet the logic blows my mind.
Simple and smart!
I always wondered why so many programs & trainers start light and gradually increase in weight with each set, it never made sense to me. Ever since I started with my heavier sets, strength and muscle gains have been insane.
This changed the game for me.
😂at “Psychotic Burn” 🔥
I was doing the opposite high reps then I’d try and max out, definitely gonna switch it up today
I like one set warm up, then all in after.
I've always done it that way. It never made any sense to me, to progress up in weight, as you weaken.
true but starting heavy you risk injury
That's incredibly good advice.👍
i started doing this and it has worked very well
It’s not being tired , that is simple muscle endurance
I usually start with heavy weights, have noticed that it simply has more effect on my muscle growth, for a long time, independently, without having a clue.
The powder is otherwise shot for me at the beginning.
Took a break off the tube this guy looks almost double the size, hope he lives long to enjoy it
I only did this for two weeks, only for 4 sessions of shoulder workout. Just 4 sessions, 2 weeks and my shoulders were visibly better, bigger and chiseled... Going to do this for everything once I get to the gym again.
Do a few warmup sets that practice and refine form with light weight and low reps. With each of those sets slightly increase the weight and practice the best form you can. That part shouldn't exhaust you at all. It ought to just warm you up. Then hit heavy weight for your working sets. Those should feel hard. Then do the higher rep lower weight work until you "feel the burn".
I do pyramid sets alot because im terrible at tracking progressive overload but like to throw in a light weight high rep set in at the end for that burn.
He literally just started doing the opposite of this 😂🙄
He now thinks it’s better to train for a pump first and then go heavy at the end.
Everyone riding his dick like “he just knows bro”
No he’s just trying shit out like everyone else.
You guys have no discipline thus you have super low standards for yourselves. You see someone like Sam and think that he’s the way he is because it’s like the perfect storm and everything he does is done optimally. When In reality he’s just disciplined and show’s consistency.
I do high reps as a warm up, heavy weight sets then low weight to failure.
47 year old guy that has suffered from chronic back pain my whole life and I don't take pain meds, anyway I am going to try weight training because wtf it might work, or at least help and dude the tips, bruh the tips. You rockin' it.
I enjoy hitting a set of about 15 to warm up… then jumping into medium heavy, heavy, then lighter as needed and end every exercise with a set of 12-20 making sure I focus eccentrics and feel a burn.
I usually do 1 true warm up where ita just not much weight then 2 where im going but definitely not really pushing very hard, hard enough where its some peoples working sets intensity but im really just trying to establish my mind muscle connection really good and start really feeling my muscles start to have some burn then 2 where im adding in some high intensity techniques drop sets, partials, pause reps, etc sometimes a combination of them all if its a muscle group thats harder for me to get a good burn and then 1 where im just going completely nuts out 105% effort trying to put a muscle out of commision. I feel like the 2 sets where im kinda going like 85% before im really going hard helps me prevent injury and gets me feeling very confident with my form and and feeling out my limitations
I call it doing a burnout. Last set is an "easy" weight, but it's slow and good form, really crazy burn.
Over started reverse pyramiding like this and i love it
When I use to train burning muscles I tore a tendon 😢
Warmup ritual - Warmup sets - Heavy top set - Lighten up for working sets - lighten further for accessories and just finish those muscles off.
I like both approaches. When doing higher reps first, the heavy sets feel more productive. Better mind muscle connection if that makes sense. I don’t personally “feel” the muscle doing heavy stuff first. It’s more like systemic stress and body tension as opposed to the muscle fibers tearing. Just my experience.
nothin better than starting heavy, iintentionally over your max, and tearing up something. 10/10 doctors in usa recommend
Best way is to shock rep and then retention, Mintzer
I just do dropsets to failure on everything seems to work pretty well for me
This is the exact process I follow. Don't think about the weight. Go as heavy as you can and slow and control it, drop the weight as you get tired, switch to lighter workouts. Really feel into that burn and tightness.
Agree. I start bench trying for PR max, then do max, then drop and do two sets, repeat, repeat, repeat...and when I get to 60kg...go for 3 sets. Those last three sets are HELL...but also heaven.
What's the optimal sequence? For the diff muscle groups
For example, if I'm doing a shoulder press, the heaviest I can press at the moment is 35 kg, but I'd only press that towards the end of my shoulder exercise. Before, I would start with 15 kg, four sets of 12 to 15, then 22.5 kg, four sets of eight to ten reps, and then I would go to 27.5 kg, do four sets of six reps, and then I would go to 35 kg, three sets and two to four reps. All this is after later raises and reverse flys.
Why I do the above and go heavy at the end is because I'd be in fear of injuring myself by going heavy too quickly. Should I just do a couple of 20 kg sets and then go straight to 35 kg?
Psychotic burn. Never heard the term but makes sense.
Climb Up × 3 Climb Down×3 Climb back up×3 Climb back Down×3 .
12 sets
Muscle confusion
Muscle fiber activation
Lift until failure
It actually covers alot.
If you cant it 12 hit 6 as in on light one heavy ... It obviously takes conditioning .
Good hunting 💪🏼
Ive been working out like this since day 1
Mountain dog training with renaissance periodization principles is absolutely dope.
I do that too. Tip from my old PR teacher
Good point, but if I don't do several high rep sets FIRST, My joints fall off.
There’s a huge difference between highish rep warmups and going to failure on warmups. If you start light enough then you can get tons of reps for bloodflow and still not be near failure and thus not be depleted. Then you can do a heavy warmup or two with very low reps or a single rep to avoid fatigue that way while acclimating to a heavier load
You figured out warm up sets. Good job
I always started heavy(for me at least) on compound lifts then go lower for higher reps because in my head, doing heavy when your more fatigued is a good way to hurt yourself.
We all did this in the 80's
I usually go higher reps at the end only when I feel confident I'm gonna complete my sets with no issues, so I'm trying to crank in some more to actually get the failure
I always thought you were warming up to that heavy weight
glad to hear this. this why i always start with pullups because i cant do it at body weight when i have done 3 other exercise in 😅
What about something in between? 2 warm uo sets and theb heavy... Idk about you, but i always nake sure thst everything is okay and that I'm fully prepared to handle the weight before going beyond 70% of my maximum load
two warm-up sets looks like overkill to me.
But if it works for you keep doing it, based on your picture seems like you are making progress.
Sick, sounds like im doing something right!
Plus its safer to go from.heavy to light.
Well depends, I start with lower weights to warm up the muscle group. It's a recipe for disaster if u jump into lifting heavy immediately. But I do think doing that one more set with lower weight to burn it out is great
What is a psychotic burn? And how is it benefitting middle growth?
I’ll do like sets of 3-5 on my heavy compounds at the start and then do sets of 8 with accessories after and that’s been very good