Dinosaur Training: Sets and Reps

John Grimek used many different set/rep combinations over the course of his long and successful career - as did every great champion - because there's no one set/rep system that's best for everyone and every exercise - and because what works best for anyone will change over time!

Hail to the Dinosaurs!

Training questions are like bananas - they
come in bunches.

For some reason, I've been getting lots of
questions about "the best" sets and reps
for building strength and muscle. So let's
take a closer look at the question.

I'll start by giving you the bottom line - and
pay close attention, because this is important.

It will save you lots of headaches and heart-
aches.

There is no BEST system of sets and reps
that works for everyone at every stage of
his or her training career.

There are various systems that are very
good and work well for most people - but
no one system is THE BEST for everyone.

For example, some people do very well on
20 rep squats.

Or 2 x 15.

Or 20/15/12/10/8/6.

Others do better on 5 x 5, 5 x 6 or 6 x 6.

And some like 10/8/6.

Or 10/8/6/4/2.

Or 2 x 10, 2 x 8, 2 x 6 - and possibly 2 x 4
and 2 x 2.

Or 5 x 3, 5 x 2 or a system of heavy singles.

And heavy singles might mean one top single
in each workout - or three - or five - or ten.

Or maybe even 20.

And then you have John Wood, making great
gains in bone mass and bone density with his
Bone Strength Project - which doesn't even
utilize sets and reps in the traditional sense.

And, of course, you have many Dinos who do
best with one set/rep system for ONE exercise -
and a DIFFERENT set/rep system for another
exercise - and so on. That's very common.

I made the best gains of my life doing heavy
singles in some exercises - and doing 5 x 5
in other exercises. So it's hard to say that
one was better than the other.

The key to making great gains is to learn
what sets and reps work best for YOU at
your current level of development - and
you need to make this determination in
every exercise you do.

In other words, it's going to require some
systematic, sensible experimentation - and
good record keeping - to answer the question.

Of course, that's part of the fun of strength
training.

There's always a lot to learn - and the way
to learn it is to think, train, review your
results, and then think a bit more - and
train some more.

As always, thanks for reading and have a
great day. If you train today, make it a
good one.

Yours in strength,

Brooks Kubik

P.S. Chalk and Sweat is a great training
resource for Dinos - and it covers a wide
variety of effective training methods, sets,
reps and workouts. Go here to grab a copy: