Intensity
Volume
Frequency

My THT already takes into account the inverse relationship between volume and frequency i.e. the higher the volume (number of sets) the less often you can hit that same muscle and keep progressing – this forms the basis of both the 3-day full body and 5-day split THT routines.

The 65-85% 1RM will take you to failure betweeen 8 and 12 reps.

I live in the UK and my experience is the opposite to yours. Hardly anyone is training to failure, and they train too often – with nothing to show for it.

I agree the heavy compound lifts are crucial and too many people ignore them – that’s been my observation also.

I’ll finish with some science around failure. There are many biological factors that clearly demonstrate the superiority of going to failure when training for hypertrophy.

Training to failure:

* Maximizes muscle fiber recruitment (especially those type 2b ones we need for size gains)
* Maximizes metabolic stress
* Maximizes muscles fiber damage

…and all of the above factors correlate positively with protein synthesis/growth rates.

I won’t go into all 3. But I’ll just cover fiber recruitment to help illustrate this point.

As you progress in a set towards failure, you recruit more and more muscle fibers.

If you take no sets to failure, you cannot recruit the max number of muscle fibers. Only going to the last rep will do that.

Additionally, you start recruiting more and more of the type 2b fibers, which are the ones predominantly responsible for size gains.

Again, if you don’t go to that last rep, you simply cannot recruit the max number of those growth fibers.

So, if training for growth, go to the last rep. There is no reason to hold back.

You can make some gains (if your genetics allow it) with sub-optimal training. But why accept sub-optimal gains and taking much longer to produce the kind of gains you can make much quicker by going to the last rep?

Yes, properly periodize volume and frequency. But if you’re in the iron name for growth, I see no scientific or logical reason to not take a set to failure. It’ll be inefficient at best or useless at worst.

My 2 cents.

Mark

I think it all depends on smart periodisation of volume – frequency- intensity. My background is from eastern Europe and we’ve always trained with systems like Sheiko and others so most of the year we stayed within 65 to 85% of RM with high frequency and volume and kept improving year by year pretty dramatically and were strictly warned from doing total failure sets otherwise it’d screw the whole programming. I think it’s really down to how much you want it. We were always thriving to lift heavy with good technique and to be big and strong. All of us trained to our best ability focusing on major lifts or close variations and very minimum of the isolation stuff or failure training.

My personal opinion is that HIT type of sets have their place and merit but for very brief period like maybe twice a year for 3-4 weeks max. What I see in UK is major focus on failure training for years on end with not much showing for it. You walk to any gym and squat racks are empty or used for BB bi’s curls HIT type set with shitty form. Everybody is upper body dominant with non existing legs doing only machine or isolation work….very tiny percentage squat in 180-250kg region for reps let alone deadlift in 230-300kg. I do max 3 to 4 heavy compound lifts with quite a decent volume and go home and very rarely I take set to failure as I usually squat and push 3x times a week with pull twice a week with some hypertrophy sets thrown in and I very rarely stagnate. In my humble opinion it’s the best way to grow for majority of trainees training 3 to 5 times a week with high frequency and volume focusing on good technique and speed of the main lifts with good quality food obviously.

@Akash. Awesome! Great what can happen when you start training correctly, eh? Looking forward to hearing about your transformation!

8 weeks on THT and I blew up!

I am planning to start another cycle soon – transformation pixs coming your way.

Like you’ve said – it’s about what’s optimally effective. Why do 3 sets for the equivalent of 1 set to positive failure? Do 3 sets to failure and produce much better gains. The actual science of why this is so is covered in this post https://musclehack.com/will-you-build-more-muscle-if-you-train-to-failure-in-every-set/
Regarding your last point about adding weight from 350 to 400lbs. You may have been able to use 400lbs from the get-go, but you won’t know that unless you attempted it and went to failure. In this case, you were simply performing a task that your body already had the capacity to do (350 to 400) and yes you therefore wouldn’t grow. There was simply no stimulus, no need for your body to add muscle when it can already do what you’ve been asking of it.
Plenty of guys train the way you’re alluding to…and they look the same year after year. Anecdotes don’t really work to prove a point here unfortunately.
But thanks for raising the issue.