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Number 6 is a great one, this weird belief, dogma even, that we can only train certain muscles in certain days with certain other muscles. It makes no sense and it holds people back by being a big contributor to the feeling of if it’s not optimal then it’s not worth doing anything. I once told a chap I do a legs, shoulders and forearm day and he couldn’t make sense of it. Funnily enough, I’ve switched to an upper lower and the restriction is driving me nuts.

Anecdotally, In the past I have plateaud quite noticeably when I have trained in the 3-5 rep range in an attempt to gain strength and enhance my ‘fast twitchy-ness’. And it is only recently that I have started to work more in the 6-12 rep range and noticed how much more naturally and easily my strength has begun to improve. I still do sets of 2-4 reps for the neuromuscular conditioning and ‘unlocking’ of peak force output - but beyond that, I’m lifting with slightly lighter loads and higher reps to actually drive growth and to increase my overall strength, and it seems to be working much better so far.

For a new lifter, would they even use auto regulation when they don't have a 1rm yet? How would they determin rep targets?

Man, yeah I will surely program my training like that😂.

It suprises me that some people would be able to do 10 or 12 reps with 80% of their max and others do only 5 reps The one rep maxes are different for the two and I guess lower for the person who could do the 12. The number of reps they could do going from 80% of one rep max all the way up to the one rep max woud decrease much nore rapidly than for the other person. This seems at odds with some other things I have heard e.g. there being a standard calculator or tables. Doe anyone have thoughts on this?

1980 HS football workouts we did Bench, Squats and Power Cleans, only. What's old is new again.

Good stuff. Jam packed.

The second week, do we just stop at 9 reps (or whatever we got previously) or is it AMRAP? When do we move up in weight? Do I just do this for a month then test my 1RM again for the next block? How frequently do we retest, then?

This is how I've been doing all of my compounds for years. Naturally seemed like the best way to go about it. I guess I've been automatically autoregulating ;)

I know Jesus Varela from Spain, he has a similar method of training. 240kg raw natural bencher. First set 35%-70% of 1RM for high reps, then he autoregulate for 3 more sets to be in the 8-12 rep range. He focus on the progress of the first set (What he calls the Bilbo set). There's more in depth on his youtube channel.

Great video, very insightful. I am just wondering: if you only progress on the benchmark set this set becomes harder throughout the meso, if you then reduce reps on the volume sets throughout the meso, are you actually getting more stimulus on the muscle over the weeks? If you increase reps/stimulus on set 1 but reduce reps/stimulus on set 2 and 3, are you actually implementing progressive overload? Dont you think you should at least MATCH the performance of set 2 and 3 throughout the meso?

see the thing about going hard in 1st set is time of rest afterwards as you are more inclined to rest longer. if you keep a rep in reserve and do more volume in following sets you could just reduce the rest time and get a similar effect. no? how does auto-regulating and going hard differ from keeping reps in reserve and reducing rest time? i personally get way better results with short rest (under 1min) than i do with longer rest (2 to 3min), i tend to accumulate way less fatigue as well

Sound overcomplicating stuff. But the video is very bad on explaining how to actually do it. The first video on this channel that i dislike

My take 1: genetically I may well be suited to low rep training due to the fibre type composition - but my joints and tendons are genetically NOT - I feel I am more prone to injury and strain than others so stay well away from low rep 1-5 training. My take 2: I start my training week with 2 sets for every exercise - start with a load I can get for a target rep range and adjust from there - easy peasy CANNOT go wrong. And as a programming principle just so simple and works damn well. 1 RM who even knows it, you know!

Interesting, have to try that approach. E.g. Im in 8-12 squat reps feeling awesome, and I love doing it. I like endurance uphill rucking or cycling also. My quads overgrow the rest, and it looks ridiculous even more as my calves are not that proportional. When I was doing 5-8 i didn’t felt bad, but not significant results over long time. So by disappointment and injury avoidance I just stopped doing it.

C'mon guys, nothing new here really. Just because we can analyse things with a little more sophistication these days doesnt mean its a new discovery. 35 years ago my brother trained 4 days a week, ate 3 to 4 meals a day, plenty of protein(he didnt count) and was ripped beast. Do you really believe that gathering all this data today would have improved him significantly? Maybe by 3%? We're getting bogged down in data folks.

can you explain how to progress with full body workouts? I feel like I can increase weight/reps way sooner with PPL. What am I doing wrong?

A few questions: 1) if i hit 10 reps of 80% of 1rm last week on my benchmark set, and im capable of doing 11 reps in the following week, do i do the 11th rep? Or stick to 10 and that inherently will shift more reps to the volume sets. 2) when do i re-evaluate my 1rm, and thereby increase the weight of my benchmark set. How often will i be increasing weight? 3) This seems applicable to accessory work too, of course. But sounds like it needs adaptation for say, lateral raises, where 1rm isn't really feasible. Thanks Menno!

If I have a crap benchmark set, I only do that one set for the exercise, as opposed to to doing less reps on the other sets. This way I’ve still at least done one set for some stimulus, and I should be recovered by the next workout.

This actually has given me a rather good tip on how to fix some issues I see in my rest intervals, big thankyou

Could you please talk more about the ACE genotype study from 2005? Are youre assumptions drawn from this study really legit? And what exactly do you want to convey? Endurance-Type people should do higher reps, because the study suggested, that they gain more strength - but then you say, endurance-types dont really gain strength...

I never count my reps especially when I cross 8 reps … till I don’t hit the end where I can’t do any more reps … always go till failure and keep switching exercises in different order next time while hitting that same muscle 💪

mh.. i don’t really understand the reason of this “autoregolatory” system.. it’s seems like a way to overcomplicate things!🤔 percentage of 1RM, focus of max performance in the firts set and on thecnique in the following.. why all this? set a weight -> push to failure set a rest interval -> push to failure again set a thecnique -> follow that execution ALWAYS i don’t really see the problem or the difficuties 🤷‍♂️

Hey menno what are your views on stretch mediated hypertrophy some people say it is beneficial some say it will be give same result as normal exercise (not focused on stretched position) , some say eccentric has only little more or close to hypertrophic value than concentric , what are your views on these things and on which these things we should focus on?

Fitness content is pure slop these days. Makes me glad j learned to atay in shape 25 years ago.

Great vid - and like you said at the end, I am doing that instinctively anyway but its a great reminder to go back and check etc.

Ok so do 75% 1rm amrap; let's say for simplicity that's 100kg x10. Then repeat this 3 times with a given consistent rest period: so rest 3mins 100kg x9, rest 3 mins 100kg x8, rest 3 mins 100kg x6, or whatever. So, the simplicity is: the next workout's target is now to hit 100kg x11 on the first set? If the first set is still 100kg x10, then you're aiming to accumulate more volume in follow up sets? Is this right? I think "regulate by desired proximity to failure" is really squishy language. You can't feasibly do 3 compound exercises of 4 amraps each, so each of the 3 volume sets I think would quickly fall off in quality/rep count as the workout progresses. I guess that's the trade-off for the simplicity of progression and the short session lengths (since rest periods are the main constraint).

Gluconeogenesis

I'm doing a 25 minute presentation on lifting next week and will definitely be using the term 'cybernetic periodisation'

Would you do a video on what variables determine "work capacity"? I'm clearly fatigued very quickly, but I can't figure what exactly my bottle neck is.

Can you also progress reps to a certain point instead of increasing the weight each week? Like progressing your benchmark set from 8 to 12 reps with 80% of your 1RM over the weeks and then increasing the weight and try to hit those same reps and progress in the same fashion over time? Because here Menno says the number of reps should remain the same as you increase the load over the weeks, but there is not only one way to go about progression, right?

aka DYNAMIC DOUBLE PROGRESSION🤣

This sounds similar to dynamic double progression, where also the first set defines the load increase and the others are just for volume.

do you still count and write down the reps of the volume sets? or is this data no longer useful as we only look at the benchmark set for comparison?

When I started my transformation, my two main mistakes were lack of sleep and not eating enough. My weight stagnated for a really long period of time... And then I got myself a first diet plan (I got it from OnlyMeal, it's a complete fitness assistant). I realized that my previous food intake was way below my needs... In the beginning, it was really hard to eat so many kcal per day, but I got used to it. I started noticing real gains and it felt amazing. I finally feel amazing about myself, and I wish I had understood the importance of diet a lot earlier.

No hate, but this seems like a complicated way of saying pick a rep range you prefer for your first set and do all your sets with your preferred rir.

At 2:20, you said "people with the ACE 2 genotype", but I think you mean "ACE 'eye-'eye' genotype" (ACE I/I), as this refers to having two copies of the "Insertion" allele (as opposed to the D - Deletion allele).

Almost all of this was new information for me, and I already do all of it because it either made sense to me, or made my training more enjoyable. I feel validated, thanks.

Is Menno really in this liminal space, empty office or is it a generated background? This is important in regards to if I consider his advice or not.

I don't know... you need to know (and constantly re-evaluate?) your 1RM for every exercise which I don't know as a "bodybuilder" and I don't care to know it. Also this sounds like the first set should always be the hardest which requires really good warm-up every time. Also, as someone mentioned in an other comment this sounds a lot like just a fancy name for "do 4 sets to failure". I think a simple double progression whith reps between 5-25 (depending on the muscle, exercise, safety and how it feels) where you always train hard und take most sets to failure is still and will be the best for 99,9% of people... but how to get to 100k subs with no new content? ;-P

What happens if you have several exercises for a muscle group? Your performance in the second and subsequent sets will also depend on rest times or how hard i went on the other sets... i imagine Menno does not agree with increasing the number of sets gradually? Otherwise it would be a much greater problem for additional exercises

I stopped listening to DG after he started pushing his fake supplements. Once a dealer, always a dealer.

I spent years doing 5x5 with good effect. Then I did the dirtiest bulk known to man and did the Hepburn 8 sets of 3 reps program and got huge. These days, and I've been lifting for roughly 15 years now, I just do two sets per exercise, five or so exercises, starting with the heavy compound first, and then the others being accessory work. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Hi Menno, great video. How do you incorporate warmup sets in this setup?

I love this!!!

Isn't this just a fancy name for "do 4 sets to failure"?

Squats and Deadlifts with the Benchmark set first. Thoughts? I've learned the school of warmup, and build up to peak set. Advice welcomed on that front to help try this out

Was like No:222

Way too complicated. Just lift weights. None of that even matters if you are implementing progressive overload combined with proper time under tension and completing your sets to near failure. These experiment results change every other week but the basics above is time tested and ALWAYS provide results.

Sets of 20-35 reps on lower body compound exercises has changed my quad girth, hip girth, compliments from women while wearing certain jeans, confidence in my capabilities in any endeavor, squat 1RM, deadlift 1RM, hip thrust 20RM, and so on. I used to hate doing high rep lower body compound exercises. Now I just hate how much of a bitch I used to be.