A friend recently shared with me an interview on the We Do Science podcast with Dr. Keith Baar from the physiology dept at UC Davis where he discusses the effectiveness of training with a single set to failure versus multiple sets. The first twenty minutes of the podcast focuses mainly on mTOR and hypertrophy, but a little after the twenty three minute mark the interview turns to the subject of one set versus three or five, and training to muscular failure. Although Dr. Baar isn’t saying anything I haven’t told you before (as a general rule you should perform one set per exercise to the point of momentary muscular failure) I find it interesting to hear other people’s take on it and I think you will too:
Laurent Bannock: …let’s go back to the training stress then. Lots of people talk about, well, lots of people argue about whether or not it’s important to exert a certain level of mechanical stress, not necessarily to failure, but some people argue that you do need to take it to failure, and I believe you have an opinion based on the research that you can present to us on that.
Dr. Baar: Yeah, so, the idea of the training load and how much training you need to do or how much sets you need to do, all of those things, again this is massively controversial. If you look back on the whole research of the sets and the physiological response and the muscle growth and the strength improvement with one, two, three, up to five sets, there’s only one paper that claims that there’s a difference between doing three sets, and doing five sets, or doing one set. That’s an early paper by Berger (1), and if you go back and look at the data his conclusions say three sets are better than one but if you look at the data there’s absolutely no difference between three sets and one set or five sets.
Berger isn’t the only one claiming this, but the majority of research comparing single and multiple sets does not show a significant difference in results (2, 3, 4). If you are training intensely enough, one set is not only as good as three or more sets for muscular strength and size increases, it is better because in the long run you’re less likely to overtrain and it will save you both time and wear and tear on your body; it gives you both a greater return on the time and effort you invest and a lower risk.
Dr. Baar: And so, you know, some people have challenged him on this and his comeback was that, well, you know, if I had said that one set was as good as three all of these practitioners would have come at me and said that I was wrong. Well, that’s not science, that’s just cowardice.
If you go back and you look, people who really believe that three sets are better, Stu Phillips believes that three sets are better than one, he published a really nice study where he showed sure enough you can get a little bit more hypertrophy but that’s because it was a relatively short study. Strength gains were exactly the same whether you did three sets of 80% or one set of 80%. So, what we’re learning is that it’s not important necessarily, what your volume is, what the volume of load is. It looks like what’s important is that you apply a load, and that you apply that load to failure.
If you’re only looking for muscle growth you can do it at 30%, 40%, whatever. Bodybuilders traditionally have done this where they lift a light weight lots of times they get to failure, muscle still grows nicely. If you want to grow strength rather than muscle size, so if you want to grow both strength and size together, now what you have to do is you have to lift a heavier weight to failure. If you are doing an exercise that you can get to failure then one set’s enough. So if you’re doing an exercise in a machine and you can do say, a leg press and you can get all the way to momentary muscular failure where you can’t press the weight up and even you can’t resist the weight in the negative direction, that’s what we call momentary muscular failure, one set is going to be sufficient to activate all the hypertrophic stimuli.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, although some people may respond better to higher loads and lower reps or time under load (TUL) and others to lower loads and higher reps or time, in the long run load has less to do with your muscular strength and size gains than your intensity of effort. If you value your long term joint health and functional ability though, you should not use loads that are too heavy for you to maintain reasonably good form for the full duration of an exercise. Also, although going to the point of eccentric muscular failure would definitely ensure you’ve recruited and effectively stimulated all the motor units in the targeted muscles if you do this on a regular basis for most or all of your exercises it can also be harder for some people to recover from.
Dr. Baar: If you’re doing a different exercise, say you’re doing a snatch, or say a squat, or a clean, where because of the small muscles that you need to have active in order to complete the exercise there’s no way that you can get your big muscles to failure, now what you have to do is you have to add subsequent sets because one set, you can’t get close to failure. You can only produce the motion then the small muscles of your back or the muscles of your grip are going to fail. So you need to come back with another set, and another set, and another set until you get closer and closer to failure. We know that because if you do, like I said the 30%, so you do a lower weight, and you do it to failure you get a hypertrophic stimulus, we know that because if you do blood flow restriction and you do a resistance exercise you get closer to failure.
This depends on how you perform the exercise. Unfortunately, the way most people perform many exercises this can be a problem. Fortunately, it is possible for you to safely perform exercises like squats and deadlifts to failure without the smaller muscles of the lower back or grip becoming a limiting factor if you know what you’re doing (I do not recommend snatches or cleans for anyone other than competitive weightlifters, however, since they provide no general physical benefits you can’t obtain more safely and effectively with other exercises). If you squat with sufficient depth and proper turnaround technique and you avoid locking out much less load is required and your back will not be a limiting factor. The same goes for deadlifts if you avoid setting the weight down between reps and use proper turnaround technique. However, if your grip is still a limiting factor during deadlifts you can work around it using straps or hooks (but not until after your grip starts to fail) and perform additional direct exercises to strengthen your grip.
This also has a lot to do with your mental focus. You’ll find you can reach failure with the target muscles in compound exercises like squats and deadlifts if you make a conscious effort to feel and focus on intensely contracting them rather than just thinking about making the weight go up and down. Remember, an exercise is something you do to your muscles with the weight, not something you do to the weight with your muscles.
Dr. Baar: So, the reason for this, the reason that there is this distinction is because in humans we don’t recruit all of the muscle fibers within our muscle except when we get to failure. So, when you’re not at failure you haven’t produced the load across all of the muscle fibers and as a result you are not getting activation of the signaling pathways in every muscle fiber, and specifically not in the biggest muscle fibers because the way that you work is you start with the smallest motor units that are going to be able to do the exercise, and if you don’t go to failure only those small units get activated, and those aren’t the ones you’re trying to activate by really pushing yourself to failure. As you get to failure you have to recruit bigger and bigger motor units until you’ve recruited every motor unit within the muscle and now every unit within the muscle has felt the load. As a result you get the stimulus across every motor unit. That’s true if you’re doing blood flow restriction, if you’re doing a low weight to failure, no matter how you do it what you’re trying to do is get the load across each muscle fiber.
Although you may have recruited all the motor units in the targeted muscles before you achieve momentary muscular failure, it is better for you to go all the way just to be sure. Then, after you think you’ve achieved momentary muscular failure keep contracting the targeted muscles as hard as you can for at least five more seconds to be really sure. If you’ve still got doubts or questions about training to momentary muscular failure read some of my other articles on the subject:
Q&A: Training To Momentary Muscular Failure
Q&A: Criticisms Of Training To Failure
Poor Form Causes Injuries, Not Training To Failure
References:
- Berger RA. Effect of varied weight training programs on strength. Res Q1962;33:168–81.
- Carpinelli RN. Berger in retrospect: effect of varied weight training programmes on strength. Br J Sports Med2002;36:319–24.
- Carpinelli RN, Otto RM, Winett RA. A Critical Analysis of the ACSM Position Stand on Resistance Training: Insufficient Evidence to Support Recommended Training Protocols. Journal of Exercise Physiology Online 2004;7(3):1-60
- Fisher J, Steele J, Bruce-Low S, Smith D. Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations. Medicine Sportiva Med Sport 01/2011; 15:147-162.
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This is a great interview and also commentary from yourself.
Will Dr. Baar’s opinion on frequency also be in the works? That would be equally interesting and helpful.
Hey Christoph,
I emailed him for permission to post these quotes and also whether he would change anything, but he just reiterated what he stated here. I may ask him for an interview in the future, but as for frequency my own writing here and in my books covers it pretty well.
I actually met Dr. Berger in around 1984 at a sports medicine seminar in Slippery Rock Pa.. I attended his lecture. I was familiar with the Nautilus principles and had already had a degree of success training according to them. Prior to that, I stumbled across a Weider add for his Triple Progressive System in which the initial 3 courses had you doing one set of 14 exercises 3 days/week, then two sets in course 2 and 3. From there, you went to an upper lower body split, 4 days /week 2 sets per exercise. Then 6 sets per exercise on 6 exercises 3 days per week. I would always do well with the first three courses, and then not so well with the 4rth, and terribly on the last where I would go for a week and then have to stop. Weider also recommended loosening up your form “progressively”, the old so called “Weider cheat principle”. Even being young at the time, it was tough on the joints. Luckily, I stayed within the first 3 courses over the winter, and then it was motocross season in which I concentrated on riding and racing. With those personal experiences, and now somewhat familiar with the Nautilus principles, I questioned Dr. Berger from the outset. He espoused 3 sets of 4-6 reps as being the “best” for strength. I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Berger at length after the lecture. I told him of my experiences and the results with each. I told him one set to failure with 10-14 exercises 3 days per week had given me the best results by far of anything I had ever done. Any time I attempted to do 3 sets per exercise, or a 4 day per week split, and so on, the results worsened or were regressive. I remember him arguing his points, as a gentleman, and him replying, “you have to have a certain amount of volume.” I responded,”yeah, but you can do that by increasing repetitions.” I recall a rather surprised look on Dr. Bergers face, almost as if he never thought of it. Of course I can’t read minds, but for SOME reason he jumped back and looked shocked momentarily. As I said, Dr, Berger was a gentleman, and he took considerable time speaking with me. I think that even though I challenged his ideas, he enjoyed the exchange. As I went along in my training career, I found ways to rest more, and migrating to training less. I found a sweet spot by trial and error, and began intensity cycling with success within that sweet spot, which really was an indicator that it wasn’t so sweet any longer. Then when Mike Mentzer resurfaced, I got onto his first version of a consolidated routine and BOOM. I never thought that I would EVER have such results and I achieved those results at 46-47 years old. We never had so much information or misinformation for that matter, available to us like today. The one thing I wish I knew all that time and didn’t, was how to perform the exercises with low force as prescribed on THIS site. In fact, having information that Drew regularly posts on this site at no cost to us would have saved me a lot of time and trouble. I hope some of the younger readers of this site, reading this post take some advice from a veteran trainer, Listen to Drew and you will be fine!!
Hey James,
I’m surprised how many people overlook this as well. Ultimately, training volume has more to do with the total magnitude of stress a workout places on the body than how the stress is distributed through the workout, and sets and reps are not nearly as important as force over time. I covered this in Thoughts On Relative Volume Of Single And Multi-Set Workouts
Excellent. As I have gotten older and accumulated some ortho problems I have found everything you discussed here to be absolutely true.
I have effectively removed my lower back as the “weak-link” if you will by using slower cadence, perfect form and not just concentrating on raising and lowering the weight but thinking about the muscles I am using.
If I would have started that years ago maybe I would be paying the chiropractor’s Mercedes payments.
Hey Andy,
I’ve found the same. I don’t squat nearly as much as I did when I was younger, but I don’t need to because I have altered the way I perform the exercise to make it much harder. As a result, I am able to work my hip and thigh muscles to failure week after week, month after month, without aggravating old back injuries.
It was a hard lesson to learn(accept) initially!!!!
I repeated the same errors over and over trying to regain levels of strength I had in my 20s-30s(I’m 54).
Hey Andy,
Unfortunately we often have to make a lot of mistakes before we figure out the right or best way to do something. A big part of the reason I continue to write and speak about the subject is to help new trainees avoid a lot of those mistakes.
Thanks, Drew. That image made me laugh by the way 😀
Hey Jeff,
You’re welcome, and I’m glad you like it. I thought it was a good fit for the post.
Hey Drew, in the interview Dr. Baar made a distinction between muscle growth and strength gain. I think this is not separable. Am i wrong? What are your thoughts about it?
Regards, Daniel
Hey Daniel,
There is some confusion about this because although the ratio is genetically dictated it varies a lot between people. I wrote about this in The Myth of Training for Sarcoplasmic Versus Myofibrillar Hypertrophy
Do the fastest twitch motor units (or biggest motor units) NEED to be recruited for improvements in hypertrophy? Or is that simply the best approach?
Also, is there any relevance in working a muscle until it is “pumped”. Does that stimulate improvements in hypertrophy? Simply filling the muscle with blood?
Hey Jay
Ideally you want to recruit all of the motor units in the targeted muscles. While increasing blood flow to the muscle is helpful (and some competitive bodybuilders even take vasodilators like Cialis before workouts for this) simply getting a pump isn’t going to stimulate hypertrophy. It has more to do with tension, microtrauma, and metabolic stress.
Great article Drew. Thanks for providing the interview. Would be great to listen to the whole podcast. Do you have a link for it?
Hey Christian,
The podcast is linked in the text in the first paragraph.
Would this apply to pushups and pullups as well, ie. is one set to the point of failure as good as multiple sets? I have been following a “double your pushups in two weeks” program. Essentially you determine your max number with perfect form, then multiply it by 5. The product is the total number of pushups you should do per day in as many sets as it takes. I have a pair of Perfect Pushups in my office so I do it throughout the day.
Hey Ken,
Yes, the same goes for push-ups and pull-ups. If you do them correctly, one hard set to failure is all you need. I explain how high intensity training principles can be effectively applied to bodyweight exercises in Project Kratos.
Drew,
I read one of your articles about workout frequency and I’ve been playing around with an idea in my head so I want to propose a question.
Let’s say that a person can put forth 1000 force units in a workout; and then after such a workout, they require 10 days of recovery.
But said person really wants to work out at least once every 5 days. Does it follow that if he were to reduce his workout to a volume that only requires 500 force units, then he can train twice in 10 days?
Is there a minimal dosage requirement/duration?
To carry this example further, he could reduce to a volume that only required 333 force units and workout 3 times in 10 days; and so on…
What do you think about this idea?
Hey Raymond,
No, because recovery is not as simple as that. There are local effects which may require longer for the targeted muscles to recover from regardless of the systemic demands of a workout.
Thanks for your answer. That makes sense. Thank you!
Hey Drew,
I love your posts, and I am a HIT advocate myself. You mention in many of your posts that HIT is superior to other training methods also because it minimizes the wear and tear of the body.
Could you be a bit more specific related to this? Most of the worries I am aware of are related to the wear of the joints, but the articles that I’ve read related to this fear suggest that this is a myth and it’s not an issue we should worry about.
Hey Sandor,
This is only the case when HIT is performed with proper form and at least a moderately slow cadence, and not all HIT trainers have the same standards of form. I go into more detail on this in Safety Considerations for Exercise and in several chapters in Elements of Form.
The link to the podcast no longer works. I’ve found the where it is currently located:
https://www.wedoscience.com/episode-38-nutrition-and-the-molecular-response-to-strength-training-with-keith-baar-phd/ The quote above starts from 23:07.
Thank you Simon, I will update this.