[LCSULLA]

Because if your not taxing your muscles you can't force them to grow. There are exceptions, such as Flex Wheeler who works out most of the time with light weight and alot of reps. But he is a mutant (not kidding he has a mutation in his genes that allows him to grow no matter what he training he uses) having said that he still got whopped by Dorian Yates because Yates was so over powering. If you go to many of the boards and you will see 90% of the people train with high volume and less intensity, and most of them have a hard time breaking 200lbs (lean) without gear or PH's. But you put them on a solid training routine and diet and they grow like crazy. A good example is a guy SB is training, and who just gave an update on swolecat.com. Sabertooth started 10 weeks ago at 235 and now he's at 251 natrual and leaner then he started. Plus he is repping out what he used to max! Without gear!!

[bee]

Yes but failure isn't a measure of intensity. Its a measure of "fatigue". You only need to do things a little more intensely then before to get your muscles to want to adapt, by adding weight, reps, or shortening rest periods. Adding weights steadily but slowly is the quickest and most logical way this can be done for long term. Even adding a set next workout will cause the muscle to want to adapt even though and thats not making things really more "intense".


I think volume training works for a low percentage of people but i think most benefit best from low to low-medium volume so i agree with you, i just dont think going to positive failure is necessary.

There is a lot of negatives for doing so, and i don't believe there is any real positives that can be proven, and even if there is it doesnt outweigh the negatives.

[LCSULLA]

Yes but how do you know that you are taxing the muscle? If you stop two reps short, why not three reps or four. When you have pushed it to the max. then you'll know. Intensity is how hard you have worked, so if you are leaving something left then the intensity is not high (it might not be low either). You are forcing your body to adapt. What do you think will tax your muscles more: 225 bp for 7 or 225 for 9 (pos. failure) then rest/pause for 2?
This is like arguing over protein. Same people think that they can take 200 grams a day of protein and grow to be 225lbs jacked. Wrong. It takes 300+ a day for solid gains (not 5lbs a year but 15+).
Bee if you are already 220lbs then do what your doing, but if your like a lot of guys on these boards that are 5'10 165lbs, then you will work for years trying what you are doing and go nowhere.

[bee]

Ive done failure for over a year, and when i say failure i mean i made sure no more reps were possible on that set with at least acceptable form. It was crap and i won't ever go back.


Intensity is measured bythe weight you use not how often you lift it. I couldgo through the math formulas for you if you choose but i got so damn bored doing it last time to someone on another board i think ill pass right now. Anyways just lift heavy near positive failure and that is intense enough, not lifting to failure, that is just fatigue and just gonna cause early plateaus in strength, or cause more harm then good.

Remember adding weights and then maxing out ALSO (bygoing to failure) will just cause you to plateau early, just add weights slowly and progressively and try to avoid going to positive failure, that weight increase is what causes your intensity to go up each workout and cause your muscles to want to adapt.

[LakeMountD]

i agree with lcsulla on this one.. i believe positive failure is very necessary. i believe one of the biggest reasons that the average lifter doesnt grow is cns fatigue. Although going to failure taxes your cns it would be much more beneficial to do a normal set shy of failure then do one rest pause set to failure (with 4 minutes rest between the two sets) then doing 8-10 sets 2 reps shy of failure. you encounter a lot of stresses during the day or at least most people do and that doesnt help anything either. so you want to hit your muscles as hard as possible in the smallest amount of time without overtraining.

[LCSULLA]

It's cool Bee, we just have a diffrent way of doing things. Hell if it works for you then why change, just because some ******* (me ) says too? I know some older pro's who did it your way and had great bodies. And ifit's all the same you can keep the math (gives me heart-burn).

[iron addict]

Bump for IA--LOL,

I just joined the board and plan on being a regular contributor. I will slowly but surely post most of my articles here and be availabale to answer training Q's. looks like a great group of people here!

Iron Addict

[LakeMountD]

the great one has come! the prophecy is true! ::bows down::

[LCSULLA]

I agree LakeMD! IA is one of the three guys I would trust to hook me up. With Silverback and DoggCrapp being the other two.

I just signed up with SB and I am happy as ****!

[wardog]

Welcome IA, great to see you here bro! I have followed your work for a qwhile over at A's place.