RPE/RIR with hypertrophy work?

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Wouldn't it be better to do limited barbell work and let machines take care of the hypertrophy stuff?

Depends on stimulus to fatigue ratio, machines have almost always lower fatigue, but some barbell exercises are, for some people high fatigue high stimulus. For instance in my case, high bar squats in sets of 8-12 and moderate RPE have very high stimulus to fatigue ratio. But everyone's different that's the problem. My broscience is that machines are going to be superior if you have proportions that are very far away from the typical human (if you look like Mr Tickle for instance).

A single @9 squat set can be difficult to recover from, but if you do a few ascending singles, doubles or triples until @8 and then go crazy on leg presses, hack squats and lunges... that seems more sustainable.

I would not do single @9 each week whether I'm biasing training towards strength or hypertrophy. Either way I know (from having tried) that a few singles @9 and above will just give me a block with zero progress.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I'm leaning more toward this after playing around with this stuff. I found sets of 5 on big lifts did me just fine getting fairly big, but I thought maybe I was missing something and wanted to try other stuff out. I don't think 5 sets of 8 at 70% is gonna be good work sets for me on anything though, unless that "1RM of the day" is gonna be a deliberate RPE 8 single or something. 70% 1RM is usually where I like to start new training cycles at 5x5. Maybe if I try this program again I'll deliberately keep reps in the tank on the non-barbell compound stuff like the dumbbell presses and SLDLs and whathaveyou.

Right. So for instance in my case I'm good at reps and bad at heavy stuff (and I have good work capacity on top of that), so 5x8x70% is a good training session that I can do sustainably, whereas if you're bad at reps and good at heavy weight it's going to kill you. So you can just adjust the number of reps per sets so that the first set is around RPE 6 (since RPE 6 and above tends to be the recommended zone for hypertrophy).

This is why I always found it funny where people who do 531 were complaining about the BBB sets (basically 5x10 with 60-65% of your 1RM) saying that it's so hard and that they could not walk for 5 days etc. I tried a few times and I thought it was nothing to write home about.

Now if the goal is hypertrophy, and you're currently not very good at reps, a good goal could be to get better at reps (for instance increase the number of reps you can do in a set with 70% of 1RM, or increase the total number of reps (in however many sets) you can perform with 70% of 1RM in a given time interval.

There was an old Allan Thrall video where he was advocating to take 70% of your 1RM and try to get 50 total reps (do that after your heavy set). I think this is not bad for hypertrophy.

[Hardartery]

What I mean is that you will do greater volume as a natty and recover, more or less. Enhanced guys, especially past a certain threshold of use, will tap out sooner in a session but they will also have done way more before hitting the wall. The sauce gives them access to tear things up more effectively in less sets/reps, and then recover from that damage to come back more recovered for the next session. So, while recovery is enhanced overall, they are actually capable of LESS volume in a session because they are working the muscles more effectively.

How's that different from working a heavy set to failure causing the rest of a workout to suffer? Do you mean they like REALLY hit a wall and they can't do a goddamn thing after going all out like that?

It's not different in that way, I'm saying ON PEDs they do more damage with the same workout, and although they can keep going and can do more reps than the natty guy (depending on what PED) he will not much greater recovery from that workout and can more easily overtrain. One of the reasons that HIT/Mike Mentzer stuff has had some minor success in BBing is the rather massive quantities of PEDs in play, it's tactically better in some ways in working with the drugs. You could do the same workout natty and then juiced, and not even be sore natty but be destroyed juiced and get much better gains with exactly the same workout. It's a myth that using allows people to train more and that is where the gains come from, it's not. It takes a lot more abuse to get that DOMS natty and you still will get less benefit.

On a smaller scale, I never got sore natty after high school. Never. It didn't matter what ridiculous thing I did in training. On TRT, which bumps me to roughly middle of the reference range test levels, I am always sore the next day and lifting just feels good like I am gaining energy from it as I go. I am getting sore with lower test levels than I had in my early and mid twenties for sure, but it's coming via injection of a synthetic drug. I worked out with guys doing many multiple grams a week, doing the same workouts. They outgained me in the gym, by contest time my one partner was out lifting me by as much as a plate a side on some things doing exactly the same workouts. Off cycle he was lifting less than me on everything. He also was shot before I was in the workouts, I had more in the tank but usually we went until he was done hoping to exploit leaving a little in the tank for my recovery. When the guys that are on hit the wall, they are truly done and no intraworkout is going to pull them up enough to do a little more but the natty guy is going to have a couple of drop sets in him still.

[Hardartery]

I'm leaning more toward this after playing around with this stuff. I found sets of 5 on big lifts did me just fine getting fairly big, but I thought maybe I was missing something and wanted to try other stuff out. I don't think 5 sets of 8 at 70% is gonna be good work sets for me on anything though, unless that "1RM of the day" is gonna be a deliberate RPE 8 single or something. 70% 1RM is usually where I like to start new training cycles at 5x5. Maybe if I try this program again I'll deliberately keep reps in the tank on the non-barbell compound stuff like the dumbbell presses and SLDLs and whathaveyou.

Right. So for instance in my case I'm good at reps and bad at heavy stuff (and I have good work capacity on top of that), so 5x8x70% is a good training session that I can do sustainably, whereas if you're bad at reps and good at heavy weight it's going to kill you. So you can just adjust the number of reps per sets so that the first set is around RPE 6 (since RPE 6 and above tends to be the recommended zone for hypertrophy).

This is why I always found it funny where people who do 531 were complaining about the BBB sets (basically 5x10 with 60-65% of your 1RM) saying that it's so hard and that they could not walk for 5 days etc. I tried a few times and I thought it was nothing to write home about.

Now if the goal is hypertrophy, and you're currently not very good at reps, a good goal could be to get better at reps (for instance increase the number of reps you can do in a set with 70% of 1RM, or increase the total number of reps (in however many sets) you can perform with 70% of 1RM in a given time interval.

There was an old Allan Thrall video where he was advocating to take 70% of your 1RM and try to get 50 total reps (do that after your heavy set). I think this is not bad for hypertrophy.

This theoretically has to do with fibre type percentages. Fast twitch fibres a bigger on size and better for heavy work and low reps. Slow twitch is what runs marathons and knocks out high reps sets of low weight. You can alter your base fibre typing with how you lift, you can convert fibres of one type to another to an extent. This is simplified, there are fibre sub-types and all that but in nutshell if you want to get bigger you want to focus on fast twitch fibres and eliminate slow twitch.

[CaptainAwesome]

It's not different in that way, I'm saying ON PEDs they do more damage with the same workout, and although they can keep going and can do more reps than the natty guy (depending on what PED) he will not much greater recovery from that workout and can more easily overtrain. One of the reasons that HIT/Mike Mentzer stuff has had some minor success in BBing is the rather massive quantities of PEDs in play, it's tactically better in some ways in working with the drugs. You could do the same workout natty and then juiced, and not even be sore natty but be destroyed juiced and get much better gains with exactly the same workout. It's a myth that using allows people to train more and that is where the gains come from, it's not. It takes a lot more abuse to get that DOMS natty and you still will get less benefit.

On a smaller scale, I never got sore natty after high school. Never. It didn't matter what ridiculous thing I did in training. On TRT, which bumps me to roughly middle of the reference range test levels, I am always sore the next day and lifting just feels good like I am gaining energy from it as I go. I am getting sore with lower test levels than I had in my early and mid twenties for sure, but it's coming via injection of a synthetic drug. I worked out with guys doing many multiple grams a week, doing the same workouts. They outgained me in the gym, by contest time my one partner was out lifting me by as much as a plate a side on some things doing exactly the same workouts. Off cycle he was lifting less than me on everything. He also was shot before I was in the workouts, I had more in the tank but usually we went until he was done hoping to exploit leaving a little in the tank for my recovery. When the guys that are on hit the wall, they are truly done and no intraworkout is going to pull them up enough to do a little more but the natty guy is going to have a couple of drop sets in him still.

I always figured Israetel's explanation of how PEDs improve you was on the mark. He seems genuinely interested in communicating both the pros and cons transparently whenever he talks about the subject. According to him it's actually both, you can get away with doing super high volumes (Arnold) and with super low volumes (Mentzer, Yates) and get progress with both approaches. It's interesting to hear firsthand experiences like that though.

I've never really found I need to do a ton of work to induce DOMS, but I don't really set out with the intention of getting it either. It's always the most pronounced when I start something new, and it gets a little lighter as time goes on, never really goes away entirely though. I've never found it directly correlated with success or improvement, though. Hell, I've had times where I was getting plenty sore from doing squats on a starting strength schedule and I wasn't getting stronger anymore, but I was sure as fuck getting sore every single time I did them.

[Hardartery]

It's not different in that way, I'm saying ON PEDs they do more damage with the same workout, and although they can keep going and can do more reps than the natty guy (depending on what PED) he will not much greater recovery from that workout and can more easily overtrain. One of the reasons that HIT/Mike Mentzer stuff has had some minor success in BBing is the rather massive quantities of PEDs in play, it's tactically better in some ways in working with the drugs. You could do the same workout natty and then juiced, and not even be sore natty but be destroyed juiced and get much better gains with exactly the same workout. It's a myth that using allows people to train more and that is where the gains come from, it's not. It takes a lot more abuse to get that DOMS natty and you still will get less benefit.

On a smaller scale, I never got sore natty after high school. Never. It didn't matter what ridiculous thing I did in training. On TRT, which bumps me to roughly middle of the reference range test levels, I am always sore the next day and lifting just feels good like I am gaining energy from it as I go. I am getting sore with lower test levels than I had in my early and mid twenties for sure, but it's coming via injection of a synthetic drug. I worked out with guys doing many multiple grams a week, doing the same workouts. They outgained me in the gym, by contest time my one partner was out lifting me by as much as a plate a side on some things doing exactly the same workouts. Off cycle he was lifting less than me on everything. He also was shot before I was in the workouts, I had more in the tank but usually we went until he was done hoping to exploit leaving a little in the tank for my recovery. When the guys that are on hit the wall, they are truly done and no intraworkout is going to pull them up enough to do a little more but the natty guy is going to have a couple of drop sets in him still.

I always figured Israetel's explanation of how PEDs improve you was on the mark. He seems genuinely interested in communicating both the pros and cons transparently whenever he talks about the subject. According to him it's actually both, you can get away with doing super high volumes (Arnold) and with super low volumes (Mentzer, Yates) and get progress with both approaches. It's interesting to hear firsthand experiences like that though.

I've never really found I need to do a ton of work to induce DOMS, but I don't really set out with the intention of getting it either. It's always the most pronounced when I start something new, and it gets a little lighter as time goes on, never really goes away entirely though. I've never found it directly correlated with success or improvement, though. Hell, I've had times where I was getting plenty sore from doing squats on a starting strength schedule and I wasn't getting stronger anymore, but I was sure as fuck getting sore every single time I did them.

I am under the impression that Arnold's use was actually fairly minimal, relatively speaking. Much like I am under the impression that Chris Bumstead has a fairly moderate use, some guys have great genes and can get away with less, which changes the equation. As a reference, Dave Tate and Wendler have both mentioned several times in EliteFTS podcasts that it's kind of on a curve, there is an individual threshold above which the volume had to be scaled back - the opposite of what everyone expected. So, initially a bump in volume tolerance and then a steep drop off once they hit the magic quantity for the individual. When I reference high doses, I don't mean 2-3 grams, I mean closer to 12. The zone where guys say stuff like "Anything less than 6 grams is natural" dosage.