Difference between set / rep combos

I second guedeaux, not saying he's the best or the only, but Dr. Mike has probably answered that question better than I can.

But, (am I'm not sure you realize what you've done here), your question is THE $64,000 question, and there's a whole lotta people with a whole lotta different answers for you, but it is a fascinating topic. My takeaway from the whole discussion is that "It Depends"....what are you goals and what are trying to do? There's no one right answer for everybody that will work every time.

I've always been one to answer those kinds of questions by myself through my training. I think of my training sessions like little research sessions, I collect data, track changes and progress, and try to make sense of it all. Of course, I also like to read actual studies where people smarter than me (hopefully) put intelligently designed studies together and put their theories to the test so they could share their results with all of us. But making yourself into your own lab rat has always been the main motivating force behind my weight lifting.

There is a physiological answer for you question, our muscles can tell the difference, but that's a Dr. Mike question, it's over my head. I can understand it if I read it or watch someone recite it in a video, but I don't keep that kind of knowledge in my brain. I only got movie trivia from IMDB in here.

it doesnt. the muscle knows load, overall volume and how close to failure you come along with the load comes progressive overload.

thats why pertaining to your question, the top lifter track overall tonnage because we just want to make sure that goes up over time in the same volume capacity.

since the research shows that only thing that matters for hypertrophy is really the last 5 reps that are closest to failure, should focus on less reps and higher weight overall.

the guy strength debates on X does a really good job of explaining and talking about lower rep sets. Mark Rippetoe does to on the importance of 5s.

i hate dr mike, even though he is smart as frick, so i tend to not recommend his stuff anymore. if you are looking at things from strictly a hypertrophy standpoint mike and paul carter are fine, but understand both are really fricking douche. Used to not be but have become so.

Paul Carter almost certainly has a personality disorder so can be a tough follow but that also drives him to be obsessive with the research and extremely knowledgeable. If you can get through the anger issues you can learn a ton. I think a lot of influencers (JPG, TNF) have basically just taken his teaching and made it less caustic.

Dr Mike seems like a classic short man syndrome a-hole

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I did 5 rep and lower programs for years and always sorta sucked at bench. Eventually tried a program that used more 8-12 rep sets and started getting stronger.

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This is why I always say training should be phasic. Intelligent changes promote new adaptations.

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This is why I always say training should be phasic. Intelligent changes promote new adaptations.

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yea all depends on what we are talking too. if its strength...attack the weakness. if its athletic training...where does athlete fall on force velocity profile....attack the weakness to drive main KPI. if its hypertrophy, it progressive overload on lifts that provide the most stability and put you in a particularly good position to hit the target muscle with progressive tonnage being the main overall driver of hypertrophy.

I suppose it depends on how it’s programmed, is it 5 sets of 2 at 90% of a 1RM

Are you using this set and reps to build power?

I agree with you on the fact that age plays a significant role here, but I think that reps don't really matter if you do them to failure or not, as long as you feel good doing them. As long as you have enough rest between sets, then it's good. I personally can even do 5-minute rests between sets.