KB Workouts
If you’re like many of us, you probably have some kind of serious background or “bent” to your mindset when it comes to working out (training).
Football gassers… Wrestling “shark tank”... Boot Camp…
And as a result, we measure our workouts by how “tough” they are…
How tired they make us.
And the Iron Sports?
Same thing.
“Go Heavy or Go Home.”
“Go Hard or Go Home.”
“One more rep!”
“It’s ALL YOU, BRUH!”
You get the idea, right?
For many of us, it’s pretty difficult to change our viewpoint.
It’s like we’ve been conditioned into thinking a certain way.
But reality, especially when we’re 10… 15… 20+ years out from “the trenches” requires we adopt a new, and more logical mindset if we’re truly serious about developing a more powerful , leaner , balanced, more capable body.
For example, in his book, The Science and Practice of Strength Training, Dr. Vladimir Zatsiorsky (Chief Biomechanicist for all Soviet Union teams from 1980-1988) states that secret to great strength is this:
“Train as heavy as possible, as often as possible, as fresh as possible.”
Most of us are unaware of that last part -
“As fresh as possible.”
And that’s because FATIGUE makes you weaker.
It:
[X] Decreases your ability to produce force
[X] Alters your exercise technique for the worse
[X] Exposes you to potential injury
So, with that background, let me share a typical question I routinely get. This time it came from Sal -
Sal asks why just bumping his reps up from 6 to 8 is so much more challenging cardiovascularly and why his total workload decreased by 12 reps when doing sets of 8 versus sets of 6.
This is perfectly normal when employing a fixed load and basing your training off a RM.
The higher the reps, the larger the percentage of effort you’re applying in relation to your RM.
For example, if you’re working with a 12RM, 8 reps is 66% effort in relation to your RM, whereas 6 reps is only 50% effort.
So, with 8 reps, you're using 16% more effort per set than compared to only using 6 reps.
And that means you’re accumulating fatigue.
And that means you need to rest longer between sets, so you can still produce enough force to get that next set of 8.
Said briefly :
More reps per set relative to RM = More fatigue produced = More rest between sets
Said another way:
Sets of 8 are harder than sets of 6, when using the same weight/load. As a result, you need to rest more between sets.
Remember -
“As recovered as possible.”
The other thing I want to discuss is Sal’s question about changing his technique and noticing a performance decrease.
It’s not only possible , but expected that since he changed his technique, he read more might have “lost” a few reps in the short term.
Or, rather, his current reps took more out of him.
This is quite natural and normal.
When you change your technique to become more effective , you are developing new neural pathways.
And that takes more energy, until it doesn’t.
Often, it presents itself this way:
The first few reps of a set actually feel less taxing, and the last few reps feel more difficult.
And that’s because your body is using more of the “right” muscles at the “right” times (usually the bigger, energy-sucking prime movers)...
And fewer of the improper muscles at the improper times (usually the smaller stabilizer muscles).
This demands more energy to use the proper muscles at the right time and it’s fighting switching over to the old, “energy-saving” wrong neural pathways.
Eventually, all the reps will seem easier as your body reinforces those new neural pathways.
As a result, you get more powerful and more muscular.
Assuming you acknowledge the fact that fatigue interferes with force production, you need to rest more between sets.
So, at the end of the day, resting less between sets doesn’t build your toughness or more hardcore .
It just robs you of your “GAINZ”.
And if you want to see similar results to Sal, I’ll leave a link to the same program he’s using in the video description below, along with some technique resources in case you need them.
Stay Powerful ,
Geoff Neupert.