New "RIR 1-2 vs RIR 0" Study - Similar gains

[losteve19]

@livingme7 I say train to failure on the pretty common chance that your training to failure on some exercises is still a couple reps from failure, and your 3rir is probably more like 5 or more.

 

[unshakeablefaith]

@losteve19 Once you do a full mesocycle of going from 3RIR to 0RIR you realise what it’s like to actually go to failure.

 

[pinetowntree]

@livingme7 Here's how I like to look at it:Imagine you're trying to raise your squat 8 rep max, but you're only allowed to do sets of 8-12 reps on squat.

Are you going into the gym on week 1 and squatting an 8 rep max for your first set? Clearly no. Why? Your quads will be absolutely nuked and you won't be get more than 1 effective set in. You might be messed up for a week or ten days.

What you would do is a lot of hard training, but you'd want 2-3 RIR and that would raise your squat 8RM more than taking every set to failure.

So, extrapolate that out. If something raises your 8RM better, it's better for hypertrophy. The person who did a lot of training effective at raising their 8RM on squats is going to have bigger quads. Someone who suffered and plateaued their squat by taking every set to failure is going to have smaller quads.

I think that applies to large muscles like quads, hamstrings, maybe chest. Any muscle that experiences severe DOMS and isn't especially recoverable. For some muscles like side delts, I think you could take every single set to failure no problem.

 

[livingme7]

@pinetowntree Agreed, making strength gains in the 8-12 rep range is usually the best proxy for hypertrophy gains. And probably one of the best methods.

 

[pinetowntree]

@livingme7 It's a good heuristic because hypertrophy is so hard to quantify in the short/medium term. If it facilitates getting stronger in the 8-20 rep range more, it's better. If it makes you plateau and stop gaining fitness adaptations as quickly, it's probably bad.

A lot of people are lazy and want to meme themselves into thinking easier training or less training will work better even when it causes performance in the gym to plateau. Unlikely!

 

[jess1]

@livingme7 It’s an 8 week study with 18 people in it.

The results mean very little.

 

[unshakeablefaith]

@jess1 Means a lot more than no study with no people in it.

 

[jess1]

@unshakeablefaith Not really. It doesn’t mean anything which is the same as no study.

People need to have higher standards and to stop reading so much into bad, limited or tiny studies. This shouldn’t influence how anyone trains or their opinions on training at all..

 

[jess1]

Just to go in to more detail for the people who downvoted me. A big problem in this industry is people jumping on every single study and not looking at the details of the study. This would need to be done for longer and much more people in the study for this to be of any worth.

Do any of you think a study with 18 people in means a lot, or proves anything? Not a single good coach would look at this and let it influence their opinion. It’s always novices or over thinkers who react to limited studies like this.

 

[nyanyanyan]

@livingme7 In my experience training to failure doesn’t accumulate that much fatigue, but I also understand what my volume threshold is. There was a point where it was affecting my performance and recovery, the difference was as small as a set or two.

 

[debjit]

@nyanyanyan then you aren’t training to failure

 

[nyanyanyan]

@debjit Look up auto regulation