Trainig to failure and building muscle in a sustainable way w/o keeping track?

[mayre]

My goal and question is: I want to gain muscle with as little exercise variation and time as possible and without really keeping “that much” track of it. I love and follow RedDeltaProject advice and concepts of microworkouts and started doing the Simplest Muscle Building Micro Workout with pushups, inverted rows and spli squats every other day and I love it. Question is: should we keep a log of how many reps and weight/progression we are doing or could we do it by almost always going to failure in the 6-12 rep range?

I wish to do the failure method since I’m not really at the same place ever to track the same exercises, I travel a lot so it would be super convenient, and also I feel I have some kind of OCD lol that if I don't do the same exact weight/progression I don't feel right. I just saw this concept of his and he explains, "Why I Don't Progress My Workouts By Adding Reps" and I want to know if that technique would be effective.

I think I understood but just to clarify the concept in the video it would be to keep in the 6-12 range, for example: I can start with normal push-ups but I feel like the exercise is too easy by the 8 rep and so I switch to a more pseudo push-up or archer push-up or maybe add weight to reach failure in the 6-12 range and I do that in a circuit for push, pull, and legs for 4 times. Could that build muscle?

 

[harpin76]

@mayre You should check kboges on YouTube, he also has simple calisthenics trainings.
He trains everyday by picking one pull exercise (pull ups variation, rows…), a push one (pull ups variations, dips…) and a leg one (squat, lunges…). He usually does three sets close to failure. I believe he’s right to include some variations to make different muscles work, avoid unbalances and injuries.

 

[nathaniela]

@mayre Yeah it could. For the vast majority of people, as long as you aren’t advanced in your training, you can build a ton of muscle as a newbie.

Hence the term noob gains, an example for this is, beginner lifters gaining strength even from loads as light as 30% of their 1RM. (Sorry, I’m just taking this from memory, so take that with a grain of salt)

The thing is, and it concerns me to say this, but I think RDP is wrong with the way those sets are ordered? Like why do the harder variations nearer to the end? When it’s harder for you to even do them? Like to warm up, doing regular push ups and then progressing to a harder variation is great. But like, you’ve probably already warmed up, and if you don’t do warm ups though, then you could maybe do that for the first set.

But why not do the hardest version of the exercise when you’re the most capable to? In a progression stand point for example, doing 10 reps of pushups and nearing to failure then progressing to a harder variation like diamonds would be really hard. Reps are just numbers, and it’s the intensity of an exercise that really should decide your rep range.

So if you want to stick to the 6-12 rep range then go for the hardest variation you can do. Doing the method RDP suggested, feels counterintuitive to me. You just bring yourself closer to failure sooner by going in that order, instead of training with intensity the whole set.

If you want to build muscle AND strength? Muscle can be built across a wide variety of loads/variations. Just as long you near to failure. But for strength, you have train at a hard enough intensity too to gain that.

There’s even a concept that’s the reverse of the one RDP brought up which is called a dropset. And you basically go from harder variations or heavier weights to easier variations/light weights, this leads you to a path that goes beyond failure on a given intensity and helps you cram in more volume.

I’m also not a professional nor an advanced trainee. But if you have the time, there are videos by Dr Mike Israetel where he explains hypertrophy far better than I could.

Should You Train To Failure | 4mins 17secs

How Heavy Should You Lift? | 3mins 11secs
- Though this refers to weightlifting, that doesn’t mean training concepts can’t be used too in reference to bodyweight training. So load percentages could me thought more in the difficulty of the variation of the exercise.

 

[queendream]

@mayre Your muscles will grow when you force them regularly to do work to their limits and beyond. You can build decent body with simple calisthenics movements, as far as you do them regularly and often enough (2-3 per week is perfecly enough), keep the good form and eat enough, especially protein (this doesn't need to be tracked also, as long as you don't plan to be a pro - then you need a pro approach). Rep range is more really about saving time, I mean anything between 7-30 reps will help you grow, if you just do as many, to make your muscles fail. Remember also that they grow not when you workout, but when you rest after workout. Adding weight to it is a way to theoretically limitless progress.

 

[messierobject]

@mayre Look up Mike Mentzer or Doug McGuff if you are more interested in training to failirue.

 

[jleigh]

@mayre For his micro workouts, I don't track reps either.

Maybe this will help on the hypertrophy question:

He also has a Micro Workouts book.

 

[angelinaray777]

@mayre Context:

I've been 163 and 185 pounds at sub 8% body fat. I'm only 5'8". 600 lb+ squat. 4:30 Mile. 2 hour 36 minute marathon while being able to do 36 pullups. 70 dips. Not much for bench and deadlift.

I just got sick, I was 225 pounds and FAT and untrained. 2 months later I'm 225 pounds with abs. I've never had this much muscle in my life.

Answer: you don't need to keep track. I keep track on the first set, I go to failure. I'm all bodyweight: sprints, pullups, ring pullups, push ups, dips (I do curls and lateral raises with dumbells sometimes). I train 6 days a week. I do 1-3 small workouts no longer than 10-20 minutes.

As long as you go to failure, then beyond failure and track the "burn" you're good. It's all about blood flow.

My sets have gone up 200-300% but strength isn't really my concern.

 

[angelinaray777]

@mayre Context:

I've been 163 and 185 pounds at sub 8% body fat. I'm only 5'8". 600 lb+ squat. 4:30 Mile. 2 hour 36 minute marathon while being able to do 36 pullups. 70 dips. Not much for bench and deadlift.

I just got sick, I was 225 pounds and FAT and untrained. 2 months later I'm 225 pounds with abs. I've never had this much muscle in my life.

Answer: you don't need to keep track. I keep track on the first set, I go to failure. I'm all bodyweight: sprints, pullups, ring pullups, push ups, dips (I do curls and lateral raises with dumbells sometimes). I train 6 days a week. I do 1-3 small workouts no longer than 10-20 minutes.

As long as you go to failure, then beyond failure and track the "burn" you're good. It's all about blood flow.

My sets have gone up 200-300% but strength isn't really my concern.

 

[dawn16]

@mayre This is long but bear with me it will help in one way or another I promise.

You can build muscle just by constantly flexing and straining the muscles. Don't even worry about it, if you lift and have that discipline to not stop an whine an cry an give up because you can't notice any difference after a week or a month or maybe a year then it won't help you. It takes people their entire lives to get their dream physique you don't just wake up one day and god snaps his fingers for you.

If you don't feel light headed an feel like passing out after a workout you probably didn't go hard enough just being honest. You should feel so tired that you don't have the energy left to eat.

In my experience push ups don't do anything. Yes you will get lean and shredded but you will hit a plateau fairly fast because they are only beneficial in building muscle for maybe the first 15 reps max. Now if you're like me and can do 100's of these in any variation, anything more than 15 reps essentially it starts to work your endurance, these are the differences between slow and fast twitch muscles. You can train till failure and not get stronger because you're just tiring yourself and not tearing the muscle fibers ie. Increasing the load/amount of stress your body has to endure. This is often what people call newbie gains. But. What if I told you that you can essentially have newbie gains through your entire lifting journey. All you need to do is increase the amount of weight in your workout every now and then once you get used to it so instead of doing lat raises with 15s your going to move onto 20s and a few months or weeks later you can use 25s. Lots of people adapt to their workouts and complete every rep. this is a big sign you need to go up in weight if you want to grow, or stay the same to maintain. But here's the thing. If you want to get big you have to eat big, you have to properly supply your body with the nutrients it needs to make these changes else it will just be detrimental to what you're working towards. I have never kept track of my workouts because I know my routine and I know how much weight I use and how many reps I can dish out. If it felt easy just up it the next time you do that exercise.

Now here's why this works. As you get stronger lifting or being physically active you slowly strengthen the bodys limits and if you keep doing the same things your body just adapts to that weight and you stop "evolving". This means that you will have to do that same excerise many times over for you to feel fatigued from it, but if you increase the load you increase the amount of effort needed to work thus shortening the time needed to fatigue by using heavier weights. Now the #1 lifting rule is lift within your own body's capacity, everyone has different weight limits, range of motions ect. You do you!

A secret hack for lifting junkies that I'll share is that if you lift heavy with a 12 rep range being failure. Drop the weight. Pick up the next weight that is one level heavier than what you were just using an rep that out, I usually shoot for 6 with the heavier weight right after failing the light weight. It's not easy an most likely only weightlifting monsters can pull it off, mind over matter my friend you have to want it. This is the only secret to building muscle fast. LIFT HEAVIER SHIT AFTER LIFTING HEAVY SHIT HaHa

Diet has more to do with it over anything. Everything starts in the kitchen and you don't need some crazy diet, if you want to get bigger, eat more, if you want to lose weight eat less. It's simple math for calorie intake there's no need to count macros. You know what food is good and bad for yourself and what you can and cannot burn off.

 

[lyn81]

@dawn16 Hello! You have made the mistake of writing "ect" instead of "etc."

"Ect" is a common misspelling of "etc," an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase "et cetera." Other abbreviated forms are etc., &c., &c, and et cet. The Latin translates as "et" to "and" + "cetera" to "the rest;" a literal translation to "and the rest" is the easiest way to remember how to use the phrase.

Check out the wikipedia entry if you want to learn more.

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[dawn16]

@mayre As long as you are pushing yourself close to failure, do enough volume, and allow your body to recover, practically anything can build muscle. The exception, of course, is endurance training, where you are doing lots and lots of repetitions (more than 30). Then, your heart usually becomes the limiting factor, not your muscles.

The purpose of a training log is that it lets you see your workouts objectively, to observe whether you are progressing, stagnating, or regressing. When you are constantly going to failure, you are bound to hit a plateau or injure yourself.

A log is simply a helpful tool which can help you advance towards your goals. If your primary objectives are to feel good, to look good, and to be healthy, then you can dismiss the training log altogether.

But, according to your post, you want to build muscle. So I'd advise you to keep track of the exercises you are doing, reps and sets.

Good luck.