You're not training hard enough

You are probably not training with a high enough intensity! This could be a crucial reason why you are building less muscle than you could.

Hard Training

Muscular Failure

You can still be careful to train with the 'optimal' number of sets, training frequency, exercise selection, etc..., but it won't do you much good if you don't train HARD!

In this context training "hard" means training NEAR muscular failure. The closer you go to failure during a set, the more muscle fibers are recruited. High muscle fiber recruitment is very important for muscle building.

However, this does not mean that you should go to war like a berserker and perform every set to the bitter end - i.e. until failure. That is not optimal either. Because your fatigue increases EXPONENTIALLY (i.e. more than proportionally) with every rep that brings you closer to muscular failure.

For example, if you go to muscular failure every set, then each set will exhaust you ENORMOUSLY and you will probably have do much fewer reps and/or less weight in the next sets. Your total completed training volume (sets x reps x weight) will be relatively low as a result.

However, a high training volume is important for muscle building. At the same time, this training volume must of course also be 'effective' - i.e. generated by 'hard' training sets.

1-2 RIR

Researchers and experienced coaches recommend leaving no more than 4 RIR on a set as an upper limit.

If you are training with a consistent effort level from week to week, we recommend you leave about 1-2 RIR on each set. This ensures that your training volume is effective and not too low - so it's a good compromise!

So you see... the participants in the study above trained with an average of 6 RIR (and some even with 10 RIR and more), anything but optimal. What could be the reason that they (and presumably most other athletes) train with such low intensity? Here are two ideas:

You do not WANT to train hard! Hard training is 'hard' - that is, uncomfortable, because you have to go outside of your comfort zone. Very few people like to do that. What can you do about it? You have to learn to discipline yourself and find motivation to train hard. There will be a few tips on this in future articles.

You do not KNOW that you are not training hard! Many underestimate themselves massively and think they are already training close to muscular failure, even though they still have quite a few reps in the tank. What can you do about it? You can test with a strength test whether or not you estimate correctly.

The goal of such a strength test is to find out how many reps you can do on a certain exercise with your training weight - and when you really push yourself to your limits.

The amount of deviation between this test rep number and the training rep number shows you whether you are training hard enough. If the difference is high, you should increase the training weight to achieve better results.

Strength Test

Test procedure

The more technically demanding the exercise is and the stronger you are, the more warmup sets you need. If you can do a 500 lb deadlift, then you need many warmup sets for this exercise.

On the other hand, if you're doing 15 lb curls, you don't need many warmup sets for this exercise. Between each warmup set, pause until your breathing returns to normal and you have focus for the next set (e.g. 60s for the chest press).

It's best to do the all-out set with a training partner who can motivate you and provide assistance if needed.

With very technically demanding exercises such as the deadlift or squat, you do so many reps that the last rep is just about possible under your own power with good technique, the bar goes up very slowly and you suspect that you would not have been able to do the next rep under your own power. This is safer.

For less technically demanding exercises, such as isolation exercises (i.e. curls or side raises), you could even in exceptional cases(!) go beyond muscular failure. That is, you can do so many reps that you can no longer perform the last rep completely - so you reach 'concentric' muscular failure.

You then count all the 'complete' reps. This will give you the most accurate result you can achieve.

Interpreting the test results

Naturally, the more reps you do in the strength test as compared with what you normally do, the more you will want to increase your training weight going forward.

For example, if you did 14 reps with 120 lbs on the chest press during the strength test (and only did 10 reps with 120 lbs during the workout), then increase the weight by, say, 10 lbs during the next workout and do 10 reps with that.

Then you come to an effort level of 1-2 RIR, which is great. However, if you managed more than 14 reps with 120 lbs on the chest press during the strength test, then you'd better increase your training weight by about 20 lbs.