The decreasing rep pattern lets you believe that each set is "easier" than the one before, while the added weight makes it harder. They all work as long as you keep the reps at 5 per set and the load between 75 and 85%. Tons of respected strength coaches, weightlifters, and bodybuilders have been using it for over five decades and it still thrives today. The 5x5 method is probably responsible for building more muscle and strength than any other approach because it has been one of the longest-standing training methods. Normally we use three "waves"/ratchets for a total of 6 sets but, as with 3/2/1 waves, you may be able to do four "waves" on a particularly good day. The benefits are similar to the hard doubles in that you use fatigue from the first reps to increase motor unit recruitment as the set progresses. "Hard triples" are a good way to train for strength if you have little experience in maximal lifting. Men are checking testosterone levels, tracking protein intake, and optimizing gym performance more than ever. Strength training needs fuel. Overtraining can lead to injury and burnout. Gradually increase weight over time. Never sacrifice technique for heavier weight. Maintain proper form throughout the entire range of motion. Start with light weights and gradually increase. The take-home point here is that to maximize muscle growth, you definitely need to perform more than one set per exercise, but whether you train in the 8-12-rep range or the range doesn't really matter as long as you take each set to muscle failure. After all, if muscle growth was only about recruiting fast-twitch muscle fibers, the best way to grow would be to always lift a weight that limits you to one rep. Yet, as we all know, that's not the best way to grow muscle. The researchers had subjects perform a leg workout doing either 5 sets of 10 reps or 15 sets of 1 rep, then they immediately took a muscle sample from the quads to analyze the muscle for biochemical factors that instigate muscle growth. Researchers from Ball State found that weight-trained men doing squats with fast reps burned over 10% more calories than when they did squats with normal speed reps. The fast rep workouts also caused the men to burn 5% more calories at rest after the workout was over. National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) recommends the following protocol for determining your 1RM. This is a good option if you’re lifting by yourself and don’t have someone to spot you. You can also do multiple-repetition tests and use them to figure out your 1RM. There will always be fatigue of course but some of strength schemes have been to fatigueing for me at times to the point of affecting my life badly outside of the gym. Make sure you use a relatively light weight when doing the speed sets; you may have to experiment with different loads to see what the right amount is, but I recommend selecting a weight that you'd normally use for 20 or so reps of standard sets. Fast reps likely increase muscle strength better because they utilize more of the fast-twitch muscle fibers within a muscle. Having greater strength and greater muscle endurance allows you to train with heavier weights and to complete more reps with a given weight, which can help to better influence muscle growth. But muscle endurance, which they measured by the number of reps they could complete using 30% of their one-rep max, only increased in the group using 3 sets of reps. The McMaster researchers finally did a follow-up study to see just how well these light-weight, high-rep sets hold up for instigating real muscle growth compared to more realistic rep ranges. Another finding from these two studies is that training with lighter weight done for higher reps appears to be better at promoting muscle growth than heavier weight done for fewer reps. You can even consider taking the last set of each exercise beyond muscle failure with techniques like forced reps, rest-pause or drop sets. So as long as you take that high-rep set to muscle failure, you'll recruit the same amount of fast-twitch muscle fibers as a heavier set for fewer reps. But you also induce greater metabolic stress. Research and years of training have previously shown that the rep range of 1-6 per set is best for increasing muscle strength; 7-12 reps per set is best for increasing muscle growth; and reps of 12 and higher are best for increasing muscle endurance.
