This argument will go on forever. Some people get results from 1 set others from multiple sets and the reasons they do are numerous.
What really matters is results, do what works for you. But do the minimum amount of work to get the job done (whether that is 1 set or 10 sets). Once you have stimulated a response you must recover in order for your body to adapt. Recovery is paramount, you don’t get stronger from strength training, you get stronger from recovering from strength training.
Yep, I don’t think it matter so long as what you are doing in the gym supports what you are doing in your sport. Matching the method to your own situation and constraints is perhaps what is most important.
Just make sure you arn’t shooting yourself in the foot, regardless of what method you choose.
Nah, it won’t 
Why is the minimum the solution ? ------- I have mentioned this already. Stated differently: Exercise can not only serve to stimulate physical adaptations, it can prevent them.
Why should an athlete waist the majority of recovery energy on 100% limit excercises to failure when it matters how many points they score over how much they can squat?------- This is a dishonest question, you are now stating that it doesn’t matter how much a person can lift as long as he is good at his sport. It is more important that he’s good at sport but what we are discussing here is strength improvement.
Why 100% ? The more severe the stimulus the more severe the response ( G.A.S).
We don’t go to failure year round as max strength is only useful to a point. This saves you hours upon hours in the meso-cycle to be spent purely on speed-tempo-speed-tempo.
SeanJos
As I stated earlier you must do the minimum amount of work done to get the job done. However, 1 set of an exercise cannot possibly cause maximal CNS stimulation, myofibrilar hypertrophy, sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and improve rate of force development.
However, if you just want muscle (sarcoplasimc) hypertrophy, as in body-building then 1 set od an exercise MAY be enough. BUT it will not work for everyone due to many reasons.
Wrong sunshine, very wrong.
SeanJos
Who’s stupider?
Us for thinking the tool is going to change?
or the tool for not changing?
I think both. This thread is dead.
What can you say about your strength increases while you were training 100% ?
Thanks
SeanJos
SpeedKills,
Oh well… I realized that some time ago…
Anyhow, there have been some good posts, so the “tool” served for something.
I think we could possibly produce some hard data, but then the protocol would be criticized as not being correct (otherwise would have shown the HIT superiority), so it’s really endless.
As there is limited real life experience or training theory knowledge or physiology knowledge behind SJ positions, there cannot be a real advancement; because he can always change his theory to prove himself the validity of his own dogma.
What about the block training (à la Verkhoshansky) where you have HIT training THEN speed (specific) training. How long does it take it for someone with some on the field experience realize that this was “made up on the spot”?
What about the OL question??
On another point, physiology is often contra-intuitive, so trying to explain what’s best physiologically by going via logic is quite useless.
Once more, I feel sorry to see that HIT became a sort of “madrasa”.
Looking upon this reference and some of its references, i agree with some of his statements regarding the experimental design of the most often cited paper supporting multiple sets. However, what is more interesting is the experimental design of the studies that were cited to support that there is no statistical significance between multiple and single sets. None of these studies have a large enough sample size to have significant stastistical power (ability to reject a false null hypothesis or Type II error). This means that regardless of other confounding in the experiment (no trained individuals etc.), the experiment had little likelyhood of detecting a difference in the first place! I do feel their pain though, getting enough quality subjects for research is really hard in the US. I believe that this is precisely the reason that Soviet sports science was so applicable, they had captive subjects…an impossibility in the US
Ok. I thought that the training of athletes was this threads focus. Lets then concentrate this discusion only on strength improvement in isolation of other factors as the considerations of other factors adds complexies that riddle holes in the “single sets” argument.
While we are discussing premises, do we agree that maximizing tension (regardless of number of sets etc.) is the goal to maximize strength?
In addition, to the premise about, what about athlete’s with disrupted muscle firing patterns? Are we to assume that for this argument, the athlete is perfectly healthy, with none of these problems?
Please address these premises so we can continue.
A discussion is a discussion. What is the harm in it?
Along these lines…are we to ignore all of Bosco’s research which has clearly shown us that once movement velocity drops below 90% of the best effort in the set, we are creating/perfoming with improper motor patterns?
I have not heard mention of serum testosterone levels as a reason for multiple sets. The Eastern Europeans have done endless research into the various loading protocols and have constantly produced the strongest athletes in the world.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it. I just think that in order for it to be productive, there must be direction. This thread is spinning it’s wheels. No disrespect.
None taken.
I forgot about that research! Good point. Maybe the one-set v. multiple set could have a caveat of above 90%, but, then again, how can one accurately predict above 90% with only one set?
Sorry I don’t understand your question? By the way, one thing that is worth mentioning with 1 set programmes is that you can either do multiple sets of a single exercise or multiple exercises for single sets. E.g. 4 sets of 3 in bench press could be similar to 1 set of flat, incline, decline press, overhead press. So often the 1 set to fatigue isn’t always what it seems. Though i doubt you could get as strong in any single exercise using only 1 set.
well the conjugate system uses one"heavy" ME set… and it seems to work well
Agreed. Maybe that is the common ground in this discussion?
Sorry for delay in replying. But why I am I so very wrong.
Also, thew conjugate system as popularised by westside uses more than 1 ME set.