Is leaving reps in the tank a meme?

Is leaving reps in the tank a meme? All the fitness YouTubers I watch (Nippard, Israetel, Isuf) say to do it but it feels like a scam. I always train RPE 9 or 10 and that’s worked great for me. I hardly get sore at all and I usually make progress from workout to workout. I kind of want to try lower RPE (7-8) training to see if I’m missing out on anything, but I’m scared of losing my gains/not progressing from that because it seems intuitive that not trying in the gym will lead to worse results.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    dat fro.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    mirin bro

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    RPE is a meme

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It probably depends partly on how many days a week you train and how long. You will get burned out quick doing 6x week 2hrs+ if you are truly training to near max effort every day.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The idea of reducing effort for more volume later doesn't even begin to make sense to me.
      Strength and hypertrophy are both adaptations to help you handle the stimuli you're receiving. If the work you're doing doesn't beg for more adaptation it's just useless volume.

      Then you shouldn't train 6x a week is the conclusion, not sacrificing proper workout to get more days in.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I sort of agree, but to play the contrarian, strength training has more benefits than pure hypertrophy or strength, like metabolism, sleep and mood benefits. You could then counter by saying cardio does that too, but then you risk losing gains from overuse

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The idea of reducing effort for more volume later doesn't even begin to make sense to me.
        This.
        I can't even understand how someone could train like this. Maybe I'm too stupid to know how to hold back and I'm leaving gains on the table but training to failure just makes the most fricking sense.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          what about for something like the fighter program pullups. your working sets include much fewer reps than a max set, but this allows you to accumulate more total volume of quality reps of the course of a day

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The idea of reducing effort for more volume later doesn't even begin to make sense to me.
        This.
        I can't even understand how someone could train like this. Maybe I'm too stupid to know how to hold back and I'm leaving gains on the table but training to failure just makes the most fricking sense.

        I sort of agree, but to play the contrarian, strength training has more benefits than pure hypertrophy or strength, like metabolism, sleep and mood benefits. You could then counter by saying cardio does that too, but then you risk losing gains from overuse

        Things that "make sense" aren't always accurate. You might think that training at higher RPEs "make sense" yet look at every single top drug tested powerlifter and none of them train like that

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Why tho? Like explain like I'm a moron but as soon as i hear a tiny bit of whatever makes even the least amount of sense, it will click and I'll understand and wholeheartedly believe it

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Basically, think of it like this
            You're doing a one rep max, and it's hard right? Buy why is it hard?
            When you do something like a five rep max the last reps are hard because of something called intra-set fatigue: the fatigue you accumulate in the set by the previous reps. When you do a one rep max there is no intra-set fatigue because they're no previous reps
            Both are difficult, but for very different reasons. When you train something like 5 reps @ 70% instead each of those reps are actually more similar to your one rep max in terms of force production which leads to more specific training. Force production on a long and close to failure set actually drastically decreases as the set goes on which losses specificity

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    it partly depends on your cycle

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >reducing effort for more volume later doesn't even begin to make sense to me
    >Strength and hypertrophy are both adaptations to help you handle the stimuli you're receiving
    Isn't volume a stimulus?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      It is a lesser stimuli.
      Like if you bike all day it's never gonna build legs as big as what you could get from squatting.
      Even though cycling is infinite volume pretty much

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        That’s less to do with number of sets and more about the “rep range”, though. Like, riding a bicycle is basically doing a set of 10000, which is obviously not optimal for hypetrophy. We know that ~2-30 reps is where you should be training. The question is, within that rep range, how many sets should you be doing and how hard should those sets be?

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    N

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    a) Nippard, Isuf, etc are training at a much higher intensity than you. You don't start off training at a high RPE, you start low and then build up to it over weeks/months because your brain takes times to learn how to activate all those muscle fibres at once.

    b) It's not entirely a meme. Their arguments (and a few studies) just tell us that it's diminishing returns. If you make it rep 13 and have 1 rep in the tank, these guys are just saying that rep won't have much extra benefit. It's not nothing, but it's like 20% of all the other indivudal reps.

    c) You say you're making progress so what's the problem? These aren't laws OP, just guidelines. Again, maybe there's a point at which the you're lifting so heavy that it truly is just worth it to stop early so you can rest a bit more. Just keep up the good work for now.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      So it doesn’t matter until you’re an advanced lifter?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Probably.

        I mean I'm pretty DYEL but I like to remember that at the end of the day, as long as I feel like I pushed myself and I'm progressing, in theory that's all it takes.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Damn, that's gotta suck to spend all that time developing a nice symmetrical physique but still be a mystery meat mongrel

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I’m 100% Arab.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Go full out while you're young and can recover like a teenager
    Us old fricks have to measure our workouts against our recovery time

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I never leave reps in the tank if it's my last set of that particular exercise. I'll do it when I'm in the warmup or middle sets for sure.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Its not a meme

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    solid af abs n pecs mirin breh

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They're advanced lifters that move bigger absolute loads than novices which generate more fatigue. As you start moving more weight, the benefit of lowering intensity is apparent as your recovery will be better and you'll be able to hit more volume with better technique instead of hitting grinders for each set.

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