What do more sets accomplish?

[Diesel3d]

Is there any reason to do more sets on a body part after you have taken that part to complete failure? I makes sense that after the first failure you have stimulated growth of that muscle for that session. From then on it does not make sense to do more sets?

When you work a muscle you tear it down. Your body then needs to repair the damage, then it will grow. Doing more sets would just tear it down more and doing nothing to increase growth because it's would have already been stimulated. Right?

So for example you do one warmup set. One heavy set. Then a complete failure set. That seems like all you should need, I just don’t see how doing more sets at this point would tell you muscle anything new to grow more.

Anyone try training like this? I might give it a shot for a while and see what happens. In theory it makes sense but if you have real world experience post please before I waste my time!

 

[Liberator]

In Dorian Yates book Warrior Story he talks about this

He uses only 1 main set as he says that if its done at the right intensity that is all he needs, but then he is big already and his previous training consisted of far more volume

Personally I could never do only 1 set as I dont think I have the ability to get enough out of it to grow

1set might be ok for maintaining, but I doubt it is efficient enough for building

 

[Diesel3d]

That's good point. There is also a psychological factor in training like this too. I don’t think I will feel good about myself coming out of the gym training like this.

 

[Chris V.]

Doing more sets will build endurance and a little bit of strenght
Your nervous system will be force adapt faster just make sure you have some recovery time if you do this.

IMO endurance training is beneficial for begginners who has very little muscle mass ( ectomorph etch)
**Do as many sets as you want as long as its within 60-75mins time frame.**
but once you have build a good base, you should gradually increase poundages and reduce sets (more like Hit training)

I did this and it worked for me

But if your one of the lucky people whos naturally huge
you should just stay with hit style training

 

[sysopt]

I am using low volume training, and I'm growing slowly, although that could be many factors, but my strength is definately going up at a decent rate.

 

[SSAlexSS]

In Dorian Yates book Warrior Story he talks about this

He uses only 1 main set as he says that if its done at the right intensity that is all he needs, but then he is big already and his previous training consisted of far more volume

Personally I could never do only 1 set as I dont think I have the ability to get enough out of it to grow

1set might be ok for maintaining, but I doubt it is efficient enough for building

It is enough to grow. As long as it is 1 set per exercise, then it is all you need. As long as you overload the muscle and use heavier weight wach time, all works!

Why do additional sets if 1 set is enough? The only thing that additional sets get is overtraining and less time for muscle to grow.

 

[mattcanning99]

i guess the question here, is: just because one set brought the muscles to failure, does that mean it is enough to stimulate growth...and the answer to this is the general conscensus that 1 set is not enough to stimulate growth, and, in fact, we need more, which exist within a range, to stimulate growth...now the way to test this is to put it into practise...so far, more sets has equalled more growth for me, but i havent tried only one set...youre right in the way that it does sound good in theory

 

[DaCypher]

Again, this comes down to the fact that everyone is different. One set may work for some and not for others. Also, how about this, what if doing only 1 set to failure and doing several sets will both stimulate growth? Obviously this is true considering people have proven this with both techniques. The question then comes down to, which is the most efficient? That is the most debatable, in my opinion.

From my personal experience I have found that one set to failure (using HIT style) is far superior for my muscular growth than several sets. However, there are many variables at work here so please don't come to any conclusions based on this.

Anyways, I'm a big believer in experimenting with different styles to find out what is right for you, everyone is different. There is no one magic style that works the best for everyone.

 

[riskybizz007]

I find both to be effective... but after a short time your gains diminish. Then you can switch routines/intensity/duration/reps/ or whatever to keep your muscles guessing and not adjusting to that type of intensity. Keep changing when you see gains diminish is the key IMO.