How close to failure should you train?

How close to failure should you train? A recent meta analysis has shaken up the fitness community by concluding that you should train pretty much to failure every set. That seems to be the conclusion. If you read the results at face value. And this has also led to a resurgence of the effective reps model. So in this video, I’d like to cover that meta analysis, the science of how close to failure you should train and also go into associated terms like junk volume.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:26 Effective reps model

03:33 Greg Nucklos critique

04:19 Paul Carter’s response to Greg’s critique

07:22 New meta-analysis

13:33 Why are these results odd?

16:44 Previous meta – Refalo et al. – more accurate

18:47 Why is the effective reps model flawed?

22:53 Two previous meta-analysis – Vieria et al., Grgic et al.

24:30 Studies on the topic – Martorelli et al., Da Silva et al.

26:02 Conclusion – does volume matter?

29:11 Outro

Transcript

So without further ado, let’s start with the effective reps model. The effective reps model is basically a theory that quantifies what effective training volume is, because one rep might not be the same as another rep. There are many ways that you can look at training volume: reps, total number of sets. Most research has found that within a range of about 5 to 30 repetitions per set, as long as you go to failure or very close to it every set is similarly effective on a set per set basis for muscle growth. So what do you do if you do five sets of quads or triceps? It doesn’t matter if you do them at 8RM or 12RM, or even 25RM, you’re going to get similar gains, at least in the short term. And this has completely debunked the old idea of the 6 to 12 rep hypertrophy zone.

The idea about 6 to 12 reps is sort of the magic zone, and below that you get strength and above that you get endurance, that hypertrophy zone seems to be more like 5 to 30 repetitions, basically. So Chris Beardsley proposed this model, which is based on an older model by Børge A. Fagerli, norwegian strength coach. And I think original model made a lot of sense and is based on a lot of research that we know of Henneman’s size principle, motor unit recruitment and basic idea that you have to get somewhere close to failure to get good muscle growth and strength development, if you’re not training hard at all, you’re not going to get any gains. Everybody knows this. That’s not really contentious. The effective Reps module explains all these things in a very neat manner, but also a very simplified manner. as you can see here, the effective reps model says that every set has about five potential effective repetitions in it. Basically, it’s only the last five reps to failure that stimulate muscle growth. And this would explain why a set of 25 and a set of 8RM will lead to similar muscle growth because it’s only the last five repetitions that count and it would also explain why a set of two or a set of one is not going to get enough muscle growth. you don’t have enough effective reps or time under tension. Now, this is based on Henneman’s size principle and motor-unit recruitment. The idea is that as you start a set that’s not between 1 and 5RM, you don’t have full motor unit recruitment, according to this model. I’ll go into why this is wrong in a little bit, if you don’t have full recruitment, then you’re not going to get a lot of gains especially the type two muscle fibers and the larger motor units, they have the most type two fibers.

They are the biggest, they produce the most force. So they have the most growth potential as well. You only recruit those when things get tough. So if you’re not producing a lot of force, then you’re only recruiting type one muscle fibers for the most part, smaller motor units that you’re using for daily life as well. when things get tough, the big boys need to help. That’s the idea of Henneman’s size principle. So very simplified, just the five last repetitions of any set are what count. And this model is, like I said, very neat and it’s a cool article by Chris Beardsley although I have to say I don’t have a lot of love for the guy because he blocks people that don’t agree with him. He also blocked me on one of his articles, attacked me and said, Hey, actually this is not in line with what Menno Henselmans said in one of the articles and I responded to that, Yeah, so this is my position. And then he blocked me. And I think also the other guy, because we disagreed, I suppose. So I don’t have a lot of respect for that. But I will say this was a cool article. I think the model is wrong.

And Greg Nuckols, whom I respect a lot, also wrote an article saying that the model is… well he didn’t say the model was wrong. He said there is a lack of evidence for effective reps. That’s basically also the title of the article. It’s a good article. It’s a long article. You don’t have to read it in full after watching this video you should already get to the main gist of it. But if you want to go into details and you haven’t yet, I highly recommend that you read that article. It’s really good. And he goes into a lot of studies as well, which I’ll go into the few of them, the most pertinent ones later, explaining why the research simply doesn’t really back up the effective reps model neatly, like the idea that those last five reps explain everything. doesn’t make a lot of sense, it just doesn’t fit with the data.

Let me put it that way, because it sounds plausible, right? And has some mechanistic basis, but it just doesn’t align with the actual research findings that we have. after this Greg Nuckols critique of Chris Beardsley’s article, Paul Carter, who I’ve heard a lot of lately, and a lot of people ask me for his opinions on articles critiqued Greg Nuckols article and actually I only found out about this recently. And his critique was, Well, let me just read his critique to you if we can even call it a critique. So Paul Carter said My response to Fat Greg’s article fat Greg is fairly easy. It’s legit 10k words of him doing a lot of mental masturbation, basically Fat Greg couldn’t disprove the effective reps theory. No argument, just statement… because it’s incredibly solid and grounded in a lot of very good science.

Well not according to the science that Greg Nuckols quoted. Not only that even in studies like Haun, where they stayed about 4 RIR, the effective… So. Okay, he’s just saying it’s actually it’s right. It’s right. It’s really right. Fat Greg then goes on to commit the ultimate sin. He then uses mostly studies where non trained individuals were the subject’s trying to make his point. We all know you can toss those studies. No one cares about what showing up for untrained individuals. So interestingly, actually, what you can see here in the graph that Greg showed the evidence for training to failure is actually stronger for untrained individuals than trained individuals. And I think this is because well, there are a couple of reasons for this, but one of them is that trained individuals have an easier time recruiting their muscles and may be able to impose higher stress per repetition than untrained individuals. And untrained individuals are probably training a bit closer to failure on average in research, because if you got an untrained individual, you tell them to train five reps to failure. Well, we know that five reps to failure can easily become ten reps to failure. So there are actually mechanistic and practical reasons for why this makes sense. And the research overall seems to either show a neutral effect, which most meta analysis show. But at the time of Greg’s article it was actually slightly in favor of untrained individuals, which completely defeats the point of Paul Carter. That this untrained individuals research doesn’t apply.

For trained individuals the data are clear. It’s if anything, the opposite. Moving on to Paul Carter’s critique, if you simply read his own words, he can’t disprove it, mainly because it can’t be disproven. The only challenge is that fatigue can reduce cross bridge force. That part was on point apparently it will be addressed. Okay. The rest of what Fat Greg wrote was just fluff, a lot of nothing. And the replacement model he proposed was a fatter turd than he is. And then he also added. Yes, a total shitshow of an article. 10K words of Fat Greg saying literally nothing. and to this day he still has it stickied on his Instagram wall, I still chuckle at that short chunk who tried to discredit the model and failed miserably. chunk for people that don’t know is a word for a fat person. I’m assuming he’s not referring to the derogatory term for Asian person in this case.

Why the fuck does anybody follow this guy? This is literally a meat-head incarnate. This is like high school level bullying and fat shaming. He goes after his height, his body composition, addresses almost no arguments, the little science he does, or actual argument that he does try to handle. He completely misquotes. Yeah, I have no idea of why people ask me for this guy’s opinion. I couldn’t care less. anyway moving on to stuff that actually matters is the new meta analysis. The new meta analysis is drawn up to support the effective reps model. Now, before we get into the actual results of the new meta analysis, let’s think of how we would expect the results to appear based on the effective reps module. which says that the last five repetitions of a set are the effective reps and the ones before that don’t really count. So for that, let me pull up my amazing paint skills. You would expect a relationship like this Here we have the vertical axis and this is G for gains. Everyone knows that gains are G. And then here we have proximity to failure. So let’s say that. Or let’s call this reps to failure. So this is zero rep to failure. And this is five reps to failure. And then here we have three. All right. So you got max gains according to this model at zero reps to failure. And then we should see a linear decrease. Let’s make this a little bit bigger. We should see a linear decrease all the way down to five reps. Is supposed to be a straight line, right?

Because every repetition that you miss out on, you miss out on gains. when you.. you have more than five reps in reserve, then you have no more gains. when you have five reps left, you’re only doing a five out of ten repetitions that you could. Then you get no gains according to this model. So this is line we would expect a linear line going down. Now let’s move on to the actual results. And I should note that this is a preprint. It has not been peer reviewed or published yet. This is simply what the researchers have come up with. So I’ll also defer my full review of this meta analysis to a later video when it’s actually published and peer reviewed. But I think the most important parts that people are currently very excited about we can already address, Here you can see the actual results of the study, the final model that they found For muscle growth is the blue line, and then it goes down dramatically at first and then it kind of tapers off and at some point is basically zero for strength, which is the red line. You see that there’s almost no effect.

And the meta analysis concluded that for strength it really doesn’t matter that much, which is in line with most literature, although the idea that it doesn’t matter at all is quite clearly fault. Obviously, you cannot do single repetitions with your 20RM or something, you’re not going to get any strength gains from that. So clearly there has to also be a point at which this starts to diminish. But at least within, let’s say, the last five repetitions or maybe even more, but let’s say the last five reps to failure, it doesn’t matter so much whether you go to failure or not. It’s more important whether you lift explosively and that you get a certain amount of work in with the exercise. training for failure is not a prerequisite for strength. If anything, research has found that training to failure can be detrimental for strength development. Multiple previous analysis have found and this analysis also found a little bit of a trend for that if you’re at failure, you’re at.. according to the bottom red line, you’re at like 75% of your gains and then you actually get more gains when you go further away from failure. And this is in line with most literature that it’s actually best to not go to complete failure, because for strength development, it’s important to get full muscle recruitment and high levels of muscle activation. And then going to failure is not that beneficial because the failed rep by definition is a poor repetition. It doesn’t have good technique and you accumulate, most importantly, a lot of neuromuscular fatigue which disrupts the quality of your subsequent sets So that’s for strength. That’s not too shocking. Like I said, most research actually agrees on this But for muscle growth, this mental analysis, it’s really important to Now, the shape of this curve is very different than what we just drawn in paint right? The effective reps model would posit that we see a linear decline that ends at five and then is flatlined because you get no more gains if you’re staying more than five reps away from failure.

Now, this graph is not linear and they explicitly tested a linear versus this log linear model. And they found that the linear model was not good. So this model actually directly contradicts the effective reps model. This model actually says the new meta analysis I mean, it actually says that you should train to failure. And as soon as you go even a little bit away from failure, you lose a lot of your gains. Like it really seems to be the magic in failing. And then as you get further away from failure, the curve kind of flatlines, well, actually, let’s pull up the actual data here. Here you can see the actual data that they found with the estimate of proximity to failure on the bottom axis. And then the gains, the standardized mean change in muscle size, which is the measure of their muscle growth on the y axis, which again, is similar to the amazing graph I drew for you in paints with a very different shape. if we roughly look at these measures, you look at 0.45 gains, just take that as any unit .45 gains is roughly the maximum when they are going to failure or at least zero reps in reserve, which I always find an ambiguous term because does that mean failure or does that mean that you’re doing every rep you can but not failing a rep? So that’s why you use reps to failure. But that aside, if you go to failure or you don’t leave any reps in the tank, you get maximum gains. 0.45 and then it drops down to 0.3 at with just two reps to failure. So you lose like a third of your gains with those last two repetitions.

And then if you go to 0.3 and you want to get well, let’s say we go to six reps in reserve, you’re still at 0.2 something. So you lose a lot from leaving the last two reps in reserve, supposedly, based on this model and then you don’t lose much at all anymore going all the way up to six or even eight reps, same reserve like even at eight reps in reserve, you’re still at 0.2 or something. And importantly, there’s no flat line. at five reps of failure in fact, at five reps to failure, we’re still almost at the 0.3, we’re still at 0.2 something which is over half of maximum gains and it stays very flat, the curve, after this point. So you’re still making gains according to this model, all the way up to 22 reps to, 22 reps in reserve. I don’t think I even do warm up sets with 22 reps in reserve. So yeah, that’s also a little bit ridiculous actually at face value. But yeah, this model clearly does not support the effective reps idea of ‘You have to do those last five reps.’ Now why are these results odd?

Because you could already see that I’m skeptical of these values and I think anybody that lifts should be because it doesn’t fit with the effective reps model but it also doesn’t fit with common sense or the previous research, which I’ll go into in a bit because I would expect a curve that doesn’t go linearly down. I would actually expect the curve to go the other way, like it’s the first reps or not doing the last rep that you failed is not that important. That’s what most research shows. But if you’re going from 4 to 8 reps in reserve, that’s bad, then you’re not even training hard at all. So I would expect that the curve is relatively flat at the top and then crashes down quite hard When you get to more than, say, five reps away from failure. And this curve is the opposite. So it doesn’t affect the linear effective reps model and also doesn’t affect what I think would be the kind of common sense prior research model. is just odd, it’s just a completely new finding that no meta analysis has found before. So why are these results so odd? Well, there are a couple of reasons for that. And this is a preprint that hasn’t been peer reviewed yet. So suffice to say for now, and I’ll try to make this as easy as possible because this is a complicated statistical matter. This model uses a multilevel regression analysis which effectively lumps all the data together of different studies, and then tries to correct for that by controlling for the fact that some studies were or some values were done in the same study and other values were from different studies. The problem is that a model like this where you’re just looking at every group, in every study, how much did they gain? You lump all of that together that you’re not controlling for the between group differences very well.

Multilevel model can control for some of these variables. If these variables are modeled well. this is not the case in this analysis for I actually made a list of this for total training volume, genetics, nutrition. So different studies, they have different values for this and they systematically differ So if you’re not accounting for the fact that within one group you had a group trains close to failure and another group that did not train close to failure, Those groups are from the same study, so they have probably more in common than groups from another study, and they may differ in level of motivation because it’s a different subject group, right? If you’re recruiting from a powerlifting team and the other group recruits from elderly individuals that haven’t lifted before, but want to lift, then there are going to be differences in motivation, training status exercise technique, etc. between these groups. And this new meta analysis does not control well for this. With the multi level model, it only accounts for variables that are in the dataset which did not include total training, volume, genetic factors, motivational factors, nutritional factors and training status was only controlled in binary fashion, so it was only trained versus untrained. A better way to look at these data is to look at standardized mean differences between groups. So instead of just lumping every single study together, we look at every single group.

How much muscle do they gain? We just lump all of it together and then we get a chart like in this meta analysis, I’m downplaying the amount of work that goes into the meta analysis because there are pros and cons which approach you use. But this is a downside of the approach that they chose for this current meta analysis probably to get to the regression result. But what’s a lot more accurate and what the previous meta analysis has done is to look within studies. What’s the difference between group training to failure and the group not training to failure or the group training eight reps in reserve and four reps in reserve if we do that, then we get a graph that looks like this. This graph clearly looks very different. Here. We can see that proximity to failure on the bottom axis. Again, in this case on the right we have muscle failure and on the left we have low velocity loss, low proximity to failure. So a lot of reps in reserve and then gains again are on the y axis. We see that the gains kind of taper off as you get closer to failure. And the last .. when you’re at 0.4-ish standardized effect size. So level of muscle growth. After that point, it seems that maybe there is still a benefit to going up to the 0.45 level at the top of the curve. But thereafter, if anything, it goes down again. So that last part, we are already close to failure. There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference anymore.

And this graph basically shows based on the research and this is a published meta analysis by Refalo et al, the last available published meta analysis currently, also, if I’m not mistaken, including Eric Helms and Eric Trexler, these data show that going close to failure is very important for muscle growth. But then when you’re already close to failure, that doesn’t seem to be much effect anymore. In fact, the researchers, based on the data, concluded that the overall evidence to go to failure is very weak. And he said, Overall, our main findings suggest that there is no evidence to support that resistance training performed to momentary muscle failure is superior to non failure resistance training for muscle hypertrophy. Pretty damning quote in terms of the previous analysis or the new meta analysis which seemingly found the opposite that it’s very important to go to failure. And again, this other meta analysis I think has a better statistical methodology. So we’ll see what happens during peer review when it’s published. In any case, neither of these meta analysis support the effective reps model that the last five repetitions are what makes your muscles grow Why is the effective reps model with that cut off at five reps? Why is this flawed? The first reason is that it doesn’t take being at 85% of 1RM or being five reps to failure to get full muscle recruitment. The latest model that we have on this is what you can see here, in the bottom left chart you can see that all motor units at 80% 80% of MVC, maximum voluntary isometric contraction, which is roughly comparable to 80% of 1RM during dynamic lifting, you already get full recruitment. Now you still get increases in muscle firing rates, which the effective reps model also doesn’t take into account, which I think probably do matter a little bit. But basically these data showed that it’s about 80%, probably of 1RM, which is about eight reps in reserve, maybe even more.

There was actually a recent another meta analysis, which is also, I think still a preprint which finds that 80% might even be 10 or 12 reps in reserve. For some people it depends on your biological sex might also depend on training status and it certainly depends a lot on the exercise. researchers found, for example, that if you do a bench press for the pecs or a squat, especially a very upright Olympic style squat for the quads, you get full recruitment and high levels of muscle activity very early on already. And you can also feel this right? If you do like high bar squats, you don’t have to go particularly close to failure to get a lot of fatigue in the quads. Well, whether the feeling actually matters at all is contentious and I think it’s limited. But you can also test this afterwards. You you can test that your leg extension strength, for example, has already diminished or that your fly strength after the bench press has already diminished, even though you haven’t come close to within five reps to failure. So this idea of this cutoff at 85% of 1RM is massively oversimplified.

For one, it seems to be more like last eight reps that you get for recruitment and before that, importantly, like if we look at this graph, which is from other research, looking at the actual motor unit behavior is basically another way of looking at these same data where the different types of muscle fibers as part of their different motor units, how they activate as you get closer to failure. We can see that initially you get most of the type one fibers and then as you get closer to failure, there is a gradual, not a sudden, but a gradual increase in a type IIA a fibers and then the type IIAX fibers and then the type IIX fibers kick in at the very end. So as you get closer to failure, there’s gradually more of an increase, more muscle fibers are being activated and accordingly you get gradually more gains. There’s no sudden cutoff point and probably you get the maximum improvement already at the last eight reps or so to failure, especially if you try and explosively with good exercises. So it’s very much dependent on your execution and your exercise. You already get this maximum recruitment so you can already grow those fibers. Now, going closer to failure might still be beneficial, which none of these models really account for because you get a higher firing rates in those fibers. Just because you’ve recruited the fiber does not mean it’s maximally stimulated. You can still get a slight increase in firing rates, which increases the total muscle activity level further. now, if we look at EMG research, for example, it looks at the total final muscle activity level.

Here you can see a nice chart on biceps curls performed to failure is actual EMG data with 80% and 30% of 1RM. Again, we see this graph that fits perfectly with the last meta analysis that I showed you. that’s the same as the motor unit recruitment graph tapers off as you get close to failure and again, the same as this EMG data tapers off as you get closer to failure. And we can see that with 80% of 1RM, indeed they are already pretty much at the max. And there’s just a lot of variation. But overall, it’s at a similar level. If you look at the 30% of 1RM value, you need to get within those well, let’s call it eight reps to failure. After that, you’re kind of hovering around the same level with only marginal further increases. So yeah, it’s more like those last eight reps and before that it’s already a gradual difference. That’s the thing. And this is also what Børge A. Fagerli’s original model actually says, that there is no such thing as a hard cutoff of effective reps it’s just that the last reps are probably on a rep by rep basis, more stimulatory than the first reps. You need to get within a certain proximity to failure. Doesn’t have to be five reps to failure and then your reps are more effective than other reps. There’s probably truth to this. This is almost self-evidently true even, but the idea that the last five reps are the only five reps that matter or that you have to go to failure, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. we also have two previous meta analysis. We have a lot of meta analysis actually on exercise science. I think there are way too many meta analysis and some of them have a lot of statistical problems with them. there’s even a recent review that’s concluded that most meta analysis in fitness have significant errors in them.

I think the fitness community would benefit from a lot more large, well-controlled, randomized controlled trials then all of these meta analysis you see, because, you know, if you have ten studies and you do eight meta analysis on that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Like it makes sense to do a meta analysis when you have a lot of data and you want to kind of average that out to see what the the final verdict is of studies that have been well conducted in a similar fashion. we also have a meta analysis by Vieira at al. If it’s Spanish, maybe it’s Vieira but I think it’s Portuguese that found that on average in the literature. Groups that train to failure get more muscle growth, than groups that don’t train to failure makes sense, right? However, when we look at repetition equated studies, there is no longer an effect. training close to failure makes you gain more muscle because you do more repetitions, which is more time under tension and mechanical tension is a primary stimulus for muscle growth.

These findings also fit perfectly with meta analysis from Grgic et al. I’m probably mispronouncing that, from the same year 2021, which found that training to failure did not affect muscle growth in volume equated studies. However, in non volume equated studies, the effect size of muscle growth was about doubled that of non failure training, although in this case it didn’t reach statistical significance Either way, both of these meta analysis clearly show that training to failure is good for muscle growth compared to stopping very much short of failure and is because you’re doing more repetitions. When you equate for the number of repetitions done, there is no more effect. And we also see this directly in studies. For example, we have a great study by Martorelli et al from 2017 and a study by De Silva et al from 2018 that kind of replicated these findings found very similar outcomes.

The Martorelli et al, first study they looked at women doing, I think it was biceps curls, three sets of seven or four sets of seven or three sets to failure. And the free sets of failure ended up with about the same total amount of repetitions as the four sets of seven, so 28 repetitions. And they found that if you do three sets of seven, which is not maximal, you get pretty crappy gains. And I think it was about 12RM. So they were actually about five reps away from failure, which by the effective reps model, they shouldn’t have gained anything, and if you do four sets of seven is better make sense, right? Because you do more volume. The effect of volume is very well established in research. It’s not always clear when you look at small differences, it’s hard to detect those in some research. But if you look at meta analysis, there’s clearly a positive effect. If you do more volume up to a certain point, you get greater gains, However, you get the same gains if you do three sets of failure.

So, yes, training to failure is beneficial because we do three sets to failure, you get better results than three sets of seven, three very submaximal sets, but you get similar gains if you do four sets of seven, which happens to be the same number of repetitions as the three sets of failure. So that said, training to failure is time efficient as compared to staying very far away from failure, But it’s not necessary. You don’t have to go to failure to get any sort of magical effect or failing. It’s just a matter or primarily a matter of getting somewhat close to failure and then accumulating a certain amount of volume repetitions in this case. So, like I said, this is two studies that have found the exact same thing. And I think it’s quite intuitive, also. You can get great results with lower volume training to failure or you can get equivalent results with higher volumes training further away from failure, even quite far away from failure. Recently on my Instagram, I reviewed a study which was very limited but still found again, that 4 to 6 steps away from failure can be as effective as training to failure or with zero reps in reserve and these studies basically find the same thing that even five reps to failure or so can still be very effective as long as you get enough total volume in.

Now, there might still be a slight benefit of the more, “the more effective reps” if your total volume is closer to failure and almost has to be true, right. Because we know that you cannot just do sets of two with your 10RM and get jacked, you have to be somewhat close to failure Now the new meta analysis actually did not find, which is another very peculiar finding of the meta analysis. It did not find an effective volume. So they basically said, whether you reach failure or not, how close to failure you get is the same, whether you equate volume or not, which is kind of ludicrous at face value. If you think about it. that would mean that in these studies volume didn’t matter, right? They would say that: well, if whether you do three sets of seven, three sets of 12 or four sets of seven, whether you do three or four sets, it doesn’t matter because volume doesn’t matter. Right. It makes no sense. Of course, volume matters. We know volume matters. Doing additional sets stimulates additional muscle growth. So saying that it doesn’t matter whether you volume equate or not or repetition equates specifically in this case is akin to saying that volume doesn’t matter and he said this because in their analysis “the confidence intervals of the marginal slopes contained a null point estimate” Now, for those not super into stats, this basically means that because they didn’t have amazing confidence, like there was almost zero doubt that there was in fact a difference between volume equation and non volume equation. They said it doesn’t matter. And that’s a clear case of mistaking absence of evidence for evidence of absence. Just because there isn’t a super clear effect in the literature of training volume doesn’t mean that there is no effect. like it logically and mechanistically, is almost self-evident that volume should matter because we know volume matters. So of course it also matters when you equate repetitions or not? It’s the same as saying whether it matters or not whether you do additional sets.

So I think the new meta analysis has a lot of limitations in terms of practical implementation, how the analysis was conducted again, going back to those graphs of EMG data, of motor unit recruitment data and of muscle growth in the with Refalo et al – latest published meta analysis, we see very clearly the overall trends that, yes, train to failure is beneficial. It’s mostly beneficial based on the Vieira and Grgic meta analysis because you’re doing additional reps and based on the Martorelli and da Silva studies because you’re doing those additional repetitions. But the actual stimulatory effect of failing is very small, probably even zero, and you only have to get close to failure to get maximum muscle growth, you don’t have to actually hit failure as long as you’re somewhere close to that and then you accumulate enough effective reps or just total reps really, then you get equivalent muscle growth. So basically, there are two One is – you do fewer sets, you train to failure.

You probably have a worse stimulus to fatigue ratio, but it’s more time efficient or you do more sets further away from failure, probably better stimulus to fatigue ratio. And in the end you can get equivalent outcomes as long as your total amount of reps is the same. I hope that helps you design your own training programs and determine how much do you have to push yourself and also select your training program for you based on your personal preference, because people differ in what they prefer. would you rather do more shots or would you rather train harder per set? You can choose in that regard and get equivalent gains, especially for strength and probably also for muscle growth. Right. I hope this helps you out. If you like this type of content, I’d be honored if you subscribe to my channel. I’ll see you next time.