-Diablo's Journal, 18 Jul 19

Next time you go to the gym to do your circuit and you stop lifting once you reach your goal number of reps and not when you reach or almost reach muscular failure, you're not doing much as far as muscle gain is concerned. 

Lifting should be heavy and to failure, IMO. When I see a woman doing back rows with 5#- I think its a waste of time. Maybe I'm wrong but what's the point. Better than sitting on the couch I guess. ?  

It sure is but it won't do much anything for muscle growth. May as well do 12 oz curls. 😁 

So doing sets of 5 can be just as effective as 15 if you’re reaching fatigue? Funny that the lifting principles from 30 years ago still apply today. Bigger, Faster, Stronger! 

Yes but the lower the reps, the more your set is geared toward strength than hypertrophy. I think 10-15 is still probably better for muscle building (higher time under tension) but a variety will cover all of your bases. Plus, in my experience going to failure with low reps increases your chance of injury since the weight has to be a lot higher. 

Higher chance of injury when you don’t have a spotter 😂 I agree. More control over the weight, even with fatigue. 

I do not have a spotter and run into the issue of how far to push the last rep. Have been unable to get the last rep which is very awkward. How do you lift solo? 

I can gauge pretty well when I will be unable to perform another rep safely and rack the weight. Remember it says the last five reps are beneficial so you don't always have to go until you can't even budge it. Just get as close as you can safely. 

L2E, I mean higher chance of tearing something as well. A ligament is more likely to give out when going for max weight lol. I never see fail videos where people tear a bicep doing deadlifts whenever it's their 10 rep max, for example. 

Lift till failure is what I hear often. When I got bored with how long it took to reach failure with my old dumbbells I bought heavier ones. This info seem related to this. 

Great post, I agree it's the last few reps that count however you get there. Usually, I like to warm the muscles up with high reps then increase weight each set. Sometimes when using heavier weights, I do as many as I can do safely and then immediately switch to a lower weight without rest and then max out on reps. Working to almost failure seems to work best for me...