Strenght question, help!

[viczeva]

hey bro,

i have a problem. so you undertand what my prob is, im gonna give u an example. lets say im doing chest on monday. i would prob start with bench press, and do 4 sets, 8 reps failure. my problem is that, my 1st set, ill do 8. but my second, ill do like 5 reps, and my third ill do 3 and by my 4th ill do 2... my strenght runs out incredibly fast. Is there anything i can do so that i can do 8 reps on every single set?

i understand im getting tired and what not, but only being able to do 1 or 2 reps on the 4th set is damaging my ego. im not even adding any weight, my strenght just dissapears. by the 4th chest exercise ive dropped the weight so much -in order to do 8 on the 1st set- that the girls at the gym star asking me if they can jump in using the same weight, lol. (a joke fellas).

this happens in every single exercise i do, exept maybe bi's... HELP ME! is there anything i can do?

vic

 

[no1_brawler]

Ofcoarse thats goin to happen, your goin to failure. try this next time, Same weight, 4 sets of 6 reps. i bet you'll do all of them. Stopping 1-2 reps from failure will save alot of your muscle strength for the later sets.

 

[viczeva]

ive always been under the impression that to seriously add some new muscle, u have to work ur muscles till failure every single time. if your goal id 8 reps, then u should barely do 8 and defenetly not be able to do 9. atleast, that what i have always done.
vic

 

[todoveritas]

ive always been under the impression that to seriously add some new muscle, u have to work ur muscles till failure every single time. if your goal id 8 reps, then u should barely do 8 and defenetly not be able to do 9. atleast, that what i have always done.
vic

While the "train to failure" concept definitely works for some, it by no means is a universal mantra. There is something called the Starling Prinicple whereby a prior sub-maximal contraction will result in a greater subsequent contraction. (I know this pertains to heart muscle, but it also works for skeletal muscle). Anyway, I made great strides in strength by throwing that "train-to-failure and sets of 10" mentality out the window. It just did not work for me. What DID work was doing a type of power-lift of 4-6 sets of 4-6 with the same weight. The minute I could do 7, I added 5 lbs. I went from a 295 max to 380 in 4 months using this technique.

 

[viczeva]

What DID work was doing a type of power-lift of 4-6 sets of 4-6 with the same weight. The minute I could do 7, I added 5 lbs. I went from a 295 max to 380 in 4 months using this technique.

hey bro

could u explain this a bit more... u say that the minute u could 7 u added weight. Isnt that making sure ur failure rep is number 6? im kinda confused. so ur saying do 6 sets with with 6 reps. with low weight? how low should the weights be? thanx bro, apreciate the response.
vic

 

[todoveritas]

I learned this from a an old-time power lifter. At the time I could do 225 maybe 7-8 times (if I was going to failure) so I knew I could do 4-5 relatively easy. So working chest every 4 days, I would do warm-up (135X12) x 2; then 4 sets as follows: 225 X 4; 225 X 5; 225 X 5; 225 X 4 (by this last set I would be wore-out, however, by the 3rd week of the program, I was able to do 225 X 6 on my last set. This told me that my new bench weight for my next work-out would be 230lbs.

 

[GUARDIAN]

I train to failure with all sets no matter my rep range. i have had great success doing it and I also suffer with rep loss with successive sets. I dont let the latter sets bother my ego. U r doing nothing wrong.

 

[viczeva]

thats sounds good bro. anyone else?!

 

[chestmaster1]

how's your eating before you workout? I always have a good amount of quality carbs before working out, I notice that I have a lot more energy and strength

 

[viczeva]

i ussually try to eat 30 g of protein and some brown past or rice.

 

[nydj66]

It's a good idea to change up the way you're training about every 6 weeks or so.

Sometimes you want to every set to go to failure for increased strength. Other times you want to work on increasing endurance so you cut back on the weight so you can do 3 or 4 sets of 8-10 reps and not reach failure until the last rep of the last set.

 

[Nelson Montana]

Start with a lighter weight -- one that'll take you to 10 reps, but not an all out gut busting effort. Then go for the big set -- heaviest weight, maximum reps. You might be surprised that after a little rest, you can do it again, and with maybe more an extra rep or two. And that's all you need. After that, move to a different exercise.

 

[thelion2005]

I've always ramped up 10 - 8 - 6 - 4 -2 reps increasing the weight each set for major, compound exercises. For non-compound, I'll do sets of 8 increasing the weights.

 

[chestmaster1]

i ussually try to eat 30 g of protein and some brown past or rice.

try to eat more carbs, just some brown pasta or rice will give you just "some" energy and strength , eat more

 

[jmead]

are you cycling right now? or natty?

i love dbol,

135x15 225x10 325x6 325x6 345x4 135x10,

feel the burn baby

i started doing pause sets it helped me alot, but to each his own

 

[solidspine]

Take a week off and rest come back add some Tren to your cycle 50mg-100mg per day for 6 weeks,

Then after that add d-bol 50mg a day for six weeks,


Your strength and muscles will grow substantially,

 

[chestmaster1]

are you cutting?

 

[viczeva]

cutting? u could call it that, lol. im defenelty trying to loose weight, and eating as cleanly as possible + alot of cardio. im not doins a cycle now, and dont wanna do one for atleast another 3 months. need to safe up the money.

 

[viczeva]

I've always ramped up 10 - 8 - 6 - 4 -2 reps increasing the weight each set for major, compound exercises. For non-compound, I'll do sets of 8 increasing the weights.

sounds good bro, my problem is that im not adding any weight, yet still doing 8 - 6 - 4 -2 reps . im thinking i should just rest more in between sets- i rest like 90 -120 seconds- but i dont wanna rest too mcuh cause i wanna keep the muscles in as much constant tension as possible. also in between sets im streching like crazy...

 

[jmead]

your strength is going to drop if your not on aas and your dieting/doing alot of cardio your in calorie deficit gaining is going to be hard.. it sounds liek you might need to alter your lifts to better suit your goals.. strength doesnt sound liek it needs to be your objective if your actually trying to lose weight id drop the weight and raise the reps/sets

 

[viczeva]

does dropping the weights to do more reps really make u loose weight? if so, how does it do that? i dont see how doing more reps would make u cutter, if that was the case those people that do millions of sit ups would all have six packs, lol.
thanx for all the advice so far bros!
vic

 

[viczeva]

^^

 

[glover]

Dropping weight to do more reps is unlikely to burn any significant amount of fat. By dropping weight you can usually push the muscle to a greater degree of fatigue.

What really matters is going up in weight over time not from set to set. If your increasing weights over time then your muscle will respond. If you are still using the same weight from six months ago then you should alter your training to help invigorate your muscle.

 

[floridalife]

i'm the same way

it's the difference between guys who are mostly fast twitch or slow twitch

i am extremely powerful and fast , but have ZERO endurance

i see guys that can rep stuff 20 times.. i can lift way way more but can't do the reps

Also the difference between my muscle type and say a buddies is when he's running out of steam on heavy stuff they can often squeeze out another 2 reps

me, when i fail i fail, lights out i just tank

it's diff muscle types i believe

 

[littleb]

also try taking a longer rest in between sets, dieting and the cardio you will of course have less energy.. longer rest and drop weight on a set or two if you have to so you can push out 6-8 reps.... do that a month and see if weights you able to use go up ....