FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

Thanks Doc,

Ill take note your suggestions, is this purely based on a CNS perspective ? What's the reasoning behind this (keeping <30)?

Loads can become really quite low when you get to say 50 reps. This is not to say that that can't be a strategy for some folks, but many people are going "gas out" meaning that the cardiorespiratory system can be a limiting factor here.

Also at loads that light, continuous tension doesn't guarantee an occlusion effect in the activated muscle, so while there is metabolic stress of course, it's stress that accumulated without the same kind of loading and mainly only later in the set. (The studies showing that light loads work to produce muscle growth compared for example 80% with 30%1RM. 30%1RM in a knee extension produced reps that were just above 30 and in the low mid-twenties across the three sets (on average). I'm more into the reps range to produce failure vs. %1RM as 1RM tests aren't very stable in the untrained as have been studied mainly in these experiments.)

And yes, you're right - doing those to a true failure point can be CNS destroyer if you really go to town.

Yes I use a polar HR tracker and I roughly burn 200 less on day 2 and 4 so tailoring to suit.. It's also fun to see how hard I can get that HR.. Split squats both in the smith machine and DB's (holding in both hands) sees my HR hit 175+ which is torture (in a good way).

Roger that r.e. calories.

Of course, note the extent to which you want to ensure recovery can be directed using food too, but you can only eat so much and not run into excessive fat gain (for some folks).

I.e., if you legs are well developed compared to your upper body, you might want to shift caloric intake toward the upper body on that day, even if your caloric expenditure is a bit less.

Matching caloric (daily) expenditure is one thing to consider when setting up your diet, but allocation of food as a primary recovery / growth resource in the context of overall caloric intake (excess) is another.


My HR max according to my fitbit was 189 the other day after a set that actually didn't feel as difficult from a cardiac perspective as many I've done. (The most oft. used estimate of my HRmax based on age is 173.) I've hand timed it at ~200 before.

-S