Question:

How do you choose the right weights and reps on different exercises for a new client? Most of the trainers where I work either do one rep max tests or estimate one rep max based on how many reps they can do with a weight, then do a test with a percentage of that to determine rep range. I am not comfortable having new people do one rep maxes or even going all out with less weight, but I don’t want to just guess either.

Answer: 

When working with a new subject your first priority should be teaching them to perform the exercises correctly rather than working them hard.  The weight selection and rep count needs to be appropriate for learning and practicing proper form, and as their form and confidence improves the resistance can be increased and you can adjust the rep range based on their level of skill and response to exercise.  It is important that they learn to train intensely, but unless they learn proper form first they’re more likely to get hurt in the long run.

When learning a new exercise the weight must not be so heavy the subject has difficulty learning how to correctly perform the movement, but heavy enough for the subject to be able to feel the effect in the target muscles and to provide adequate reactionary force for the subject to learn to brace against to maintain proper positioning and/or alignment. A good starting weight will allow for the performance of a moderate to high number of repetitions with only the last few repetitions being somewhat challenging.

Through trial and error you will get a feel for roughly how much weight to use starting out on different exercises for someone based on their sex, age, size, appearance and previous training experience, but it is always best to err on the light side if you’re not sure. When you are instructing them, tell them the purpose of the first few workouts is to learn and practice proper form and you will be selecting a weight for that purpose, and that it should only start to feel moderately challenging after a few repetitions.

Tell them if the weight feels somewhat light that is fine and you will increase it by an appropriate amount the next workout, but if it feels too heavy after a repetition or two to set it down or go to the start position and let you know (but make it absolutely clear they are not to compromise proper body position or the neutral position of the head and neck while under load, by turning towards you to talk, for example). If necessary reduce the weight somewhat and have them start over.

When teaching a new exercise I recommend starting the subject with a slightly higher rep range. I use an upper repetition count total of fifteen at first (which is high when using a cadence of 4/4) and reduce it to a range of six to ten for compound pushing movements and five to eight for other exercises involving a squeeze technique once the subject has become proficient at performing the exercise. More advanced subjects may use an even lower range depending on their response.

I strongly advise against one rep max testing as it is highly skill dependent, poses a high risk of injury and is completely unnecessary. A beginner’s lack of familiarity, skill and confidence with the exercise prevents the test from providing any useful information. I am aware of some personal training studios who do one rep max testing knowing the lack of familiarity will cause new subjects’ starting strength level to be understated because it gives them the appearance of having gained much more strength then they actually have when they are retested. This practice is highly unethical as it is both dishonest and dangerous for the subject.

Even higher repetition maximum tests should not be performed with beginning subjects. Although it is safer than one rep max testing, the lack of skill and familiarity with how far they can safely push themselves will result in an understatement of their actual strength. It is also impossible to accurately determine a subject’s one repetition maximum from a higher repetition maximum test since the relationship between the two varies considerably between individuals. One person might only be able to perform three or four reps with 80% of their 1RM, while another might be able to perform twice or even three times as many.

If you start a subject with a moderate weight and increase it gradually based on their performance they will eventually progress to the point where they are achieving momentary muscular failure within the prescribed repetition range. From that point on you have a relatively objective means of comparing exercise performance over time – the weight they are able to perform a particular number of repetitions with in the prescribed form (e.g., ten repetitions at 4/4, five repetitions at 10/10, etc.). There is no need to perform separate testing. You just need to keep accurate records of subjects’ workouts.

While a wide range of repetitions can be effective some people will do better with slightly higher or lower repetitions. This can be determined by with accurate record keeping and experimentation without doing a specific fiber type or fatigue response test.

Subjects who may respond better to fewer repetitions often have difficulty performing an exercise for more than a specific number of repetitions or time under load without a significant weight reduction. If you increase the weight on an exercise by a small amount on a regular basis they are able to consistently perform roughly the same number of repetitions or amount of time, but not many more.

Subjects who may respond better to more repetitions may go up in reps regularly, but often have difficulty with weight increases and their form deteriorates if weight is increased before they are capable of performing some higher number of repetitions. If you wait until they are able to perform more repetitions before increasing the resistance they have no problems.

If a subject is stuck at a particular repetition count total on an exercise for a period of time despite everything else appearing to be in order (workout volume, recovery time, rest, nutrition, accounting for other activities and stresses, etc.) try adding a small amount of weight (2.5 lbs or 2.5%, whichever is smaller). If they are consistently able to achieve that repetition count total with the smaller increases and it is not too low for safety set it as their new repetition count total.

If a subject has a difficult time achieving a repetition count total within the prescribed rep range or if their form deteriorates with resistance increases, back the resistance down and wait until they are able to achieve a few more reps before increasing the weight. If they have no problem with the heavier weight after that, raise their upper repetition goal number.

Updated 1/29/13 to reflect change in recommended repetition cadence to 4/4

An update on the release of Elements of Form and the pre-order bonus materials as well as a new Q&A will be posted either very late tonight or tomorrow.

I appreciate the patience of everyone who has pre-ordered and apologize for the multiple delays. I think everyone will agree once they’ve read it that it was worth the wait. I want to make sure everything is as accurate, clear and concise as possible and that there are no ambiguities. I have also been trying to address some of the questions people have asked recently as well as common misconceptions related to the chapter topics without going off on too many tangents.

I also have several Q&A posts coming up over the next week, and if you’re one of the people who has sent an email and hasn’t received a response yet your question might be one of those being addressed on the site.

Question:

How long should I rest between exercises if my goal is muscular strength and size increases?

Answer: 

As a general rule you should rest as little as possible between exercises, moving from one to the next as quickly as you can while:

• being able to properly and safely get into and out of correct position for free weight or body weight exercises or enter and exit machines
• being able to breathe and mentally focus well enough to perform each exercise with a high level of muscular effort
• not becoming so nauseous, light-headed or dizzy that you might vomit or be unable to complete your workout

Typical recommendations to rest several minutes between exercises or sets are meant to allow the use of heavier weights or the performance of more repetitions on subsequent sets, based on the mistaken beliefs that heavier loads and higher volume are required to stimulate optimum strength and size gains. However, while weight is a factor in stimulating muscular strength and size increases it is not heavier weight but higher intensity or relative effort that determines exercise effectiveness. Also, performing more than a single set of an exercise or more exercises than necessary to effectively target all the major muscle groups will not improve strength and size gains and can actually reduce them by using energy and resources the body could have otherwise used to recover from and produce the adaptations stimulated by the workout.

At first, when moving more quickly between exercises you may require a reduction in weight on subsequent exercises, but those weights will increase quickly as your strength and overall conditioning improve. As long as you continue to train with a high level of effort and take each exercise to a point of momentary muscular failure you will still achieve an optimum stimulus for strength and size increases.

While anecdotal, in my experience shorter rest periods appear to be more effective for improving cardiovascular and metabolic efficiency.

Have a question about exercise or nutrition? E-mail me at drew@baye.com

I received several e-mails with questions about and requests to repost the following response I wrote to a question in the comments on My Philosophy of Exercise.  If you find anything I write on this web site helpful I encourage you to share it and appreciate you doing so, but please link back to the original, and limit copying and pasting to brief quotes. By having people read and comment on things I write here at Drew Baye’s High Intensity Training rather than on other sites or forums I am able to respond to everything in one place for the benefit of my other readers, and provide additional information or thoughts on the original post or comments.

My response, to a question about mechanical work and repetition speed:

“The most important thing to keep in mind is the key appears to be relative effort, and not load. A wide range of loads and repetition ranges have been shown to be equally effective for strength and size increases in the long run, provided they are used with a high level of effort. With this in mind, the ideal approach would be to use the lowest load required to get the job done. Rather than focus on how much weight you can lift, you should focus on how intensely you are able to get your muscles to contract with a given weight, how efficiently you can use that weight to fatigue the muscles, and only increase it when you are unable to achieve failure within a reasonable time frame.

Rather than trying to lift the heaviest weight you are capable of, you should be lifting the least weight required to effectively load the muscles and thoroughly inroad them within a reasonable time. While it may seem counterintuitive, the better you are at an exercise the sooner you will fail with a given weight.

Don’t mistake being better at exercise for being better at lifting weights or being stronger. Beingbetter at exercise means being more skilled at using the weight to challenge the muscles, to make the movement harder. Being better at lifting weights means being more skilled at creating favorable leverages and using momentum to make it easier for your muscles to move the weight. Being stronger means being able to produce more force, not being able to lift more weight, because the manner in which you lift it makes a huge difference in how much force is required.

If you want to impress ignorant people in the gym, learn to lift weights in the easiest manner possible so you can load lots of plates on the bar and make all sorts of noise.

If you want to become as strong as possible, learn to use the weight to make the exercise as hard as possible to create a stronger stimulus for growth.”

Responses to email questions:

Weight vs. lever

A few people asked how this is possible with the same weight. It is because weight is only one of several factors affecting the resistance the muscles encounter during exercise, the force they must overcome to lift, hold, or lower the weight under control. Leverage, which is affected by body positioning and alignment and range of motion, is a major factor. Acceleration and velocity are major factors. The ability to focus on intensely contracting the target muscles is a major factor. Depending on the exercise and equipment used there are many more. Depending on how you use it, a given weight can be harder or easier to lift, as well as safer or more dangerous.

For example, consider the effect of leverage during a leg press or squat. Despite the weight pinned on the stack or loaded on the barbell being the same over the entire range of motion, the lower half of the range of motion of a leg press or squat is harder than the top half due to the differences in leverage. If you don’t believe me, try a few reps in only the bottom half of the range of motion, then try a few in the top half, keeping everything else (speed, turnarounds, etc.) as equal as possible. The bottom half is more difficult because the longer levers (moment arms) result in more resistance. Weight x lever = resistance (torque, actually).

The goal of proper form is to use the weight to create a a level and variation in resistance that is both maximally challenging to the muscles being targeted and minimally harmful.

How much weight

Enough that you are able to recruit all the motor units in the targeted muscles and achieve momentary muscular failure within about  90 seconds, or around 6 to 10 reps at a moderately slow speed.

If the weight is too light you’ll keep recycling the more fatigue resistant fibers and not recruit and effectively stimulate the larger, high-threshold motor units. If the weight is too heavy form tends to fall apart and injury becomes more likely, especially when approaching momentary muscular failure.

Speed and weight

Moving more slowly in and of itself does not reduce the weight you can use. Your muscles are actually capable of contracting with more force at slower velocities (do not confuse the velocity/force curve with the acceleration formula – they are two different things). Moving more slowly makes exercise harder because it allows you to better control body position and movement and levers and keep the tension on the targeted muscles, as well as improves your ability to focus on intensely contracting them.

Criticisms of rest-pause, negative-only, and “advanced” training techniques

This resulted in more email than anything else. There are numerous problems with each of these, all of which are discussed in Elements of Form,  and I’m not going to repeat all of it here, but the main issues are the misguided focus on mechanical work (total weight or reps) rather than intensity of effort and various safety problems inherent in repeated loading and unloading and intra or interpersonal resistance transfer compounded by progressive fatigue.

Maintaining your health and achieving and maintaining a high level of functional ability should be among your highest priorities. You only live once, and both how long you live and your enjoyment of it are directly affected by your health, your physical capabilities and your appearance.

Proper exercise is a requirement for living the longest, happiest life possible. It is a requirement for self-actualization – realizing your full human potential and necessary for achieving the ideal of a sound mind in a sound body.

While many people have at least some awareness of the potential benefits of exercise relatively few fully realize its importance. I believe at least two of the main reasons for this are failure to associate a lack of exercise with the resulting physical consequences, and underestimation of human physical potential.

It is easier to make cause and effect associations when the cause is one of commission rather than omission and when the time between cause and effect is shorter. The consequences of a lack or omission of exercise are not immediately apparent and in some cases take years. Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones once explained during a seminar:

“If I were to grab you by the throat, and choke off your air supply, it would immediately become apparent to you that oxygen is absolutely essential for life. If I were to lock you in a room with no water, after several hours, the degree of thirst you would experience would indicate to you that water is a requirement for life. If I were to lock you in that room with water, but no food, it would take a little longer, a matter of a couple of days, before you would be ravenously hungry, and there would be no question in your mind that food was absolutely essential for life. However, it often takes years before ones body begins to show the harm done by a lack of proper exercise.”

In the long run, if nothing is done to prevent it, we gradually lose muscle as we age, becoming weaker and more frail and suffering other problems as a result such as decreased basal metabolic rate, decreased insulin sensitivity, increased body fat, decreased cardiovascular and metabolic capacity, increased blood pressure, osteoporosis, increased risk of falling due to reduction in speed and steadiness of movement, etc.

In the meanwhile, if you do not exercise you live with a level of functional ability and a physical appearance far below your potential. Compared to what you can and should be, you are weak, slow, and fragile. If you do exercise, properly, the improvements in strength, speed, durability, and overall health will allow you to do more, do it better, do it longer, and look good while you’re at it. I believe the average, untrained person grossly underestimates their potential, would be surprised at what they are capable of becoming with proper exercise.

Exercise is one of the most important things you can do to improve your life. It deserves the same serious consideration, attention to detail, and effort – both physical and mental – as any other major life goal or achievement of high value. It is not enough to just do exercise, you should strive  to master it.

You should perform every exercise and every workout in the safest, most effective, most efficient manner possible.

Safety

It ought to go without saying that exercise should performed in the safest manner possible, but considering the sloppy and haphazard form commonly displayed in gyms and the outright dangerous antics of Crossfit, plyometrics, “core stability training” and similar activities touted as exercise it is apparent most either aren’t aware of or underestimate the potential for injury and long term damage of improper training.

While all physical activity poses some risk of injury exercise can and should be performed in a manner and with a level of control which makes it safer than almost any other activity. It would be counterproductive and downright stupid to perform an activity for the purpose of physical improvement which simultaneously poses a significant risk of causing physical injury or undermining your long term functional ability and health.

This does not mean exercise should be easy. On the contrary, to be effective exercise must involve a high level of effort. There is no conflict between safety and intensity of effort during exercise, however; the manner of performance required to minimize risk of injury is the exact same required to maximize the quality of muscular loading and effectiveness.

Effectiveness 

More than any other factor, exercise effectiveness is related to effort, and effort is maximized with proper form. Contrary to claims of some ignorant trainers that how you perform an exercise is less important than the effort you put into it, proper form and maximum effort are not mutually exclusive but directly related. The better your form the higher the intensity.

The histrionics and bodily contortions often associated with a high level of effort during training are not an indication of greater intensity; many trainees commit these discrepancies even when they are not actually working hard. They are attempts to reduce the difficulty of the exercise or distractions from the discomfort of hard work.

The person who grunts, grimaces, and makes a show of heaving or jerking to gain momentum and leaning this way and that to find a lever advantage during exercise is not the one training the hardest, but rather the person who remains stoic as the pain of effort increases, impassive and expressionless, focusing on intensely contracting the targeted muscles while maintaining strict control of the position and movement of their body.

Correct form during exercise involves positioning and or alignment of the body and a path, range and manner of movement designed to effectively load the muscles. Breaking or “loosening” form makes an exercise easier, not harder. Some trainers claim “loosening” form is advantageous because it allows more repetitions to be performed displaying their ignorance of the real objective of exercise.

Efficiency

Exercise is not an end in itself, but a means to improving your health and functional ability to better enjoy other activities and aspects of life. You should spend no more time exercising than necessary for best results. Doing so will not give you better results, but will take away from the finite amount of time you have to pursue other goals or  interests and enjoy the company of friends and family. Fortunately very little exercise is required if performed properly and with a high level of effort.

The only exercise you need – in fact the only activity that truly qualifies as exercise – is progressive resistance training. When performed properly it is the safest and most effective method of stimulating improvements in all trainable factors of fitness; muscular strength, size and endurance, cardiovascular and metabolic efficiency, flexibility, bone density and connective tissue strength, and body composition.

The Standard

There are other considerations, but these three – safety, effectiveness, and efficiency – are the highest priorities and the standard against which different methods should be compared if the ultimate purpose of exercise is to contribute to greater enjoyment of life.

There are a lot of training methods, programs, and modalities which can eventually maximize your strength and overall fitness and functional ability.

Any strength training method performed with a relatively high level of effort, consistently, and progressively, and any program that addresses all the major muscle groups without exceeding a volume and frequency of work your body can recover from and adapt to can eventually get you about as strong and as muscular as your genetics will allow.

Any physical activity or combination of activities performed with a relatively high level of effort, over a full range of joint motions, involving loads meaningful to the skeletal system, can eventually result in significant improvements in cardiovascular and metabolic conditioning, flexibility and bone density.

Any modality that provides the ability to meaningfully and progressively load the muscles – free weights, machines, body weight, manual resistance, isometric stations, etc. – can be effective for this purpose if used correctly.

These things are often pointed out to avoid criticizing or making comparisons between methods, however in any objective comparison of different methods of achieving the same goal one will be best.

Your life, your health, and your time, are far too important to settle for just any training method, program, modality. Accept nothing less than the best.

The Mission

My mission is to promote this philosophy, of training in the safest, most effective, most efficient manner possible to maximize life-long health and functional ability with enjoyment of life as the standard, and to teach the best methods of achieving this.

I apologize for the lack of updates and for not being able to answer all e-mail quickly, but all other projects are on hold while EoF is finalized. Yes, it is way behind. I’d rather be late than not be happy with it, and I’m picky. If you want to get the absolute most out of your exercise program, I promise it will be worth the wait. The third pre-order video will be sent out with the ebooks rather than now so it doesn’t get in the way.

Although I have not responded I am reading all of the feedback on the previous post and everything is being taken into consideration in the overhaul of the site. The priorities are relevance, utility and simplicity and your questions and comments influence the information I prioritize in creating new content. There are going to be some significant changes. Get ready to change the way you think about training and nutrition.

Update: The UXS has been completely redesigned and a new model with better ergonomics, additional handles for more exercises, and other improvements will be available in January 2013.

When performed correctly, chin ups and parallel bar dips are two of the best exercises for increasing the strength and size of the major muscles of the upper body. They’ve been cornerstones of my workouts for years and when we started looking at new equipment for our home training studio a chin/dip station was at the top of the list.

Although we already had both a power rack with a chin up bar and adjustable dipping bars and a selectorized multi-exercise machine for performing weighted chin ups and dips, there were several things about each of them I didn’t like. The chin up bar on the power rack was too thin and the width of the adjustable dipping bars wasn’t right. The chin up bar on the multi-exercise didn’t allow for a wide enough grip for pull ups and the dip bars weren’t thick enough either.

Unfortunately, almost every other commercial body weight exercise station I looked at had similar design flaws. Among other things, the bar diameters and dimensions were all wrong and most did not feel very strong or stable.

For a while I considered modifying the selectorized machine, adding larger-diameter dipping handles and altering the carriage to widen the parallel pull up bars. The more I thought about it the more things I wanted to change, and eventually I decided it made more sense to just design my own entirely new station.

An improved chin up and dip station wasn’t enough to justify the time, effort and expense of developing a new piece of equipment, though, especially considering we already owned two to perform chin ups and dips on. It wasn’t enough to just be better, it had to do more. If it could be used to perform several additional exercises it would save us money by eliminating the need for more equipment and allow us to make optimum use of our limited floor space.

I started by considering other bodyweight exercises that required or could be made safer or more effective with equipment and what was needed, focusing primarily on the upper body;

• Chin ups and pull ups require an overhead bar
• Dips required parallel bars at around mid torso height
• Inverted rows and arm curls require a bar just out of reach while laying on the floor
• Various types of push ups can be performed over a greater range of motion or with more wrist comfort on elevated handles

The bars for pulling and hanging exercises needed to be thick enough to be comfortable to grip without being too thick to grip securely. The bars for pushing and support exercises needed to be even thicker to distribute force over a larger area of the palms. They also needed to be angled for two reasons; for a more comfortable wrist position during parallel bar dips and push ups and to provide varying widths to accommodate different sized users.

The angle was especially important for the chinning bar. Allowing an angled grip made it possible to use any hand spacing desired during chin ups or pull ups without the wrists being supinated or pronated to an uncomfortable degree.

Each of the bars had to be high enough to allow adequate clearance over a full range of motion for taller users without being too high for easy entry and exit for shorter users. It had to be possible to reach the chin up, pull up and dip bars from a standing position without having to jump so the bars could be gripped correctly at the correct position. The heights were based on what an adult male of average height could reach standing flat on the ground, and by stepping on the push up bars even users only 5? tall can reach the chin up and pull up bars.

A roller pad at the front of the station can be leaned against to maintain balance during squats, similar to wall squats with a stability ball but safer and easier to get into and out of position to perform. The pad can also be used to alter the body angle during push ups and rows or used in combination with the push up and row bars to perform knee extension and flexion exercises.

I was very excited about the ability to perform these leg exercises as it made it possible to effectively train the entire body on the station – a huge plus when space is limited.

A rounded step towards the front provides both a comfortable platform for heel raises and a brace for the feet during “shoulder push ups” and other exercises.

Although the station was designed with a single user in mind it is possible for two or three people to perform certain exercise combinations on it simultaneously, making it a versatile tool for couples and small group training.

The station is constructed of heavy gauge steel tubing and plating for extreme strength and stability. It will not flex or wobble at all during use like most other body weight equipment.

Considering the heavy use I anticipated it would receive I wanted the finish to be as wear resistant and easy to clean as possible, so a powder coat finish and BoltaFlex upholstery were chosen for both durability and appearance.

Although it is not a standard feature, I added 1/8 inch metallic pinstriping around the exact center of all the bars to use as a reference point during instruction and for consistent hand positioning between workouts.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading my articles on the web for the past 15 years, from the first AOL site, to Cyberpump, to baye.com for all the feedback and for helping spread the word about proper exercise. You rock, and I’m proud of every one of you who has taken the information and used it to transform your bodies and lives, and especially all the high intensity personal trainers out there who have done the same for thousands of others.

Working on the book Elements of Form has involved a lot of thinking about how to optimize various aspects of exercise performance and how to best teach them, as well as why people really exercise and how to help them better achieve those goals. As a result I’ve been refining my own training and that of my clients, and experimenting with approaches that I believe will make significant differences in people’s results as well as the safety and efficiency of their workouts.

I want the web site to reflect this, and have been thinking about how to better use the site both to teach and learn. I can only personally train a certain number of people weekly, but by organizing structured programs and collecting data through the site (which attracts over a quarter million visitors yearly) a lot more is possible. I will be cutting my personal training hours way back and making the site and these programs my priority, as it is of greater interest to me personally and allows me to reach and help a much larger number of people.

We are still in the planning stages, but nearly everything will be changing over the next couple of months. In the meanwhile, there may be technical problems with the site, some content may not be available for periods of time while things are being restructured, and on occasion I may request feedback from visitors on things like topics and features we are planning so I can better tailor the material to your information needs and interests.

I would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes and post your answers in the comments below to the following questions:

1. What are your short and long term training goals?
2. How can we better help you to achieve them through this web site?
3. Would you be interested in participating in large, structured group programs if it required sharing data which would be used to improve future programs?

The recent review by James Fisher, James Steele, Stewart Bruce-Low and Dave Smith should be on the “must read” list for everyone with an interest in exercise. In fact, you should download and read it before you read the rest of this post which is the second of several commentaries I will be writing on their review.

Click here to read part 1 on anti-HIT bias, intensity and one rep max testing

Momentary Muscular Failure

Momentary muscular failure (MMF) occurs when your muscles become too fatigued for you to continue an exercise in the prescribed form. Several arguments have been made for training to failure, most originating with Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones.

1. There is no way to know the exact level of intensity required to stimulate maximum muscular strength and size increases. There is also no way to accurately measure intensity of effort during exercise except when one has reached MMF, at which point the intensity (the percentage of your maximum momentary capability you are working at) is 100%. The only way to know you have trained intensely enough to stimulate the maximum possible response is to perform an exercise to the point of MMF.

2. Optimum long term progress requires adjusting the volume and frequency of your training to your body’s response to exercise. Part of this is being able to compare exercise performance between workouts. If you do not perform an exercise to failure there is no way to know how many repetitions or seconds of time under load you could have done, so there is no way to objectively compare your strength between workouts.

3. Motor units are recruited in order from smallest to largest. Over the course of an exercise as smaller motor units are fatigued, more and larger motor units are recruited to maintain the required level of force (until all the motor units are recruited at which point rate coding is increased to maintain force output). The motor units with the greatest potential for strength and size increases are the last to be recruited. Training to MMF ensures you have recruited all of the motor units, including the high threshold ones.

All the studies comparing training to MMF with training submaximally showed training to failure produced results that were equal, better, or more efficient (required only 30% of the time). While it is possible to get good results from training without consistently working to failure as long as it is done progressively (in which case MMF will occur at least occasionally), and while all the motor units in a muscle will be recruited before reaching MMF with typical loads and rep ranges, if you want the best possible results you should go to failure on each exercise.

Criticisms of Training to Failure

Most criticism of training to MMF is actually blame for other things.  Some people blame training to MMF for overtraining, calling it “CNS “burnout” (the CNS and immune system are both part of the response to chronic overtraining). There is nothing about training to failure in and of itself that would cause this. What is more likely is they did not compensate for the increase in training intensity when switching to training to MMF by reducing their training volume appropriately. As long as the overall training volume and frequency are not excessive for an individual there is no reason training to MMF alone would cause overtraining or any related effects.

Some people claim training to MMF is dangerous, which is nonsense. An injury occurs during exercise when a tissue is exposed to an excessive level of force, either due to rapid acceleration or by moving into a position resulting in too much compression or stretching. As long as an exercise is performed in a smooth and controlled manner, without any quick, bouncing, jerking, or yanking movements, and as long as the correct positioning and movement is performed and proper safety equipment used when necessary, there is nothing about training to failure that will harm a person.

One of the more ridiculous claims is “training to failure is training to fail”, and that by performing an exercise to MMF you are conditioning yourself to expect to fail in other activities. While it makes a nice, neat soundbite for those opposed to training to MMF, it is based on the erroneous assumption that the goal of an exercise is to lift the weight (or move against whatever type of resistance you’re working with). The real goal is to work the target muscles as intensely as possible to stimulate an adaptive response, and lifting a weight or moving against some other form of resistance is just a means to that end. When you have achieved MMF you have succeeded in the real goal of exercise. If anything, training to MMF teaches you to work as hard as possible and give 100%, while submaximal training teaches you to quit when things start to get really hard.

Part 3: Rating of Perceived Exertion and Load and Rep Range