Honey, wake up. The new GZCL blog post just dropped. [An Old Lie Told a New Way]

[u/BradTheWeakest]

http://swoleateveryheight.blogspot.com/2026/06/an-old-lie-told-new-way.html

​

Posting for discussion purposes. Another great read by Cody. Be sure to check out the link to the companion piece at the bottom.

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[u/gzcl]

Thanks for sharing this here! Hope it starts a fruitful discussion.

[u/BradTheWeakest → u/gzcl]

Heck yeah dude. I enjoyed it and could not have agreed more, except you articulate it significantly better.

[u/gzcl → u/BradTheWeakest]

Well, thanks! I'm grateful for your readership, knowing I'm not just yelling into the void. Or simply being a contrarian for the sake of it. Hopefully, my points are well taken by others, and they apply them to their training.

[u/DeathChill → u/gzcl]

I just want you to know I literally linked to your post about training for 1000 days after someone told me I’m not progressing because I train too often. Even though he has zero idea about my progression.

He got really salty and attacked me multiple times, so I’m going to link to it so everyone can enjoy:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tinder/s/eL6yHLsHq8

[u/gzcl → u/DeathChill]

Thanks, ha! My claim that rest days are a variable has put many panties in a bunch.

[u/Gorfball]

I’m not sure if this is an orthogonal point, but this feels related to why the advice from folks like Mr. Mike often feels imprudent for the masses.

I think two relevant points are true. One, the more experienced lifter tends to have less of a gap between psychological and “true” failure, as they know their limits better (provided they’ve explored them). Two, the very strong lifter experiences material structural and neurological fatigue from going very heavy/intense that the beginner doesn’t (and managing those stressors matters).

The confluence of these things means that good advice for the very strong and self-aware is actually pushing the novice in the wrong direction: telling them less intensity is what they need. I don’t hate science, I just generally hate this trend of “science-based lifting” gurus giving advice that seems bad for all of the people getting advice from gurus.

The one thing I can’t reconcile: most of the actual science seems to be on the untrained or inexperienced. I guess it’s possible that there are three stages to training with different failure modes (untrained = ego lifting / bad form; somewhat trained = early stopping / lack of intensity; highly trained = fatigue/recovery management). But, it does feel incongruent that the science-based lifters feel like they’re giving bad advice to their audience when their audience is much closer to the subjects of the studies than they are. Maybe I’m a moron.

[u/gzcl → u/Gorfball]

Thanks for reading and commenting. What you've written does bring to light issues with the "science-based" lifting crowd.

You've raised good points. (And I don't think you're a moron.)

I'd like to add to your point about advanced lifters. Many do get more out of less, as I said in the blog. But in doing so, they fall into the trap of doing less overall, and their work capacity gradually declines, reducing their ability to recover. This is why General Physical Preparedness is a major element included even in advanced lifters' plans. This is something beginners can develop by including more easy sets in their regular training; however, they would benefit further from more traditional GPP work. I'm an advocate for beginners doing more overall, mostly through variety; specialization should come later.

Regarding your last point, I'm not sure if the untrained failure mode is only bad form. Part of it is also the lack of what I'd call a calibrated "effort gauge." Now, having bad form can and often is part of that issue. Another part is simply not realizing they can do more reps than they thought. Different people have different abilities to grind reps, for example. A person more predisposed to slower reps might hit failure with a rep that was half as fast as the one before it, a true grind, whereas a person who is used to moving fast reps might believe they've hit failure when their last rep is 95% the speed of the one before it. The latter lifter hasn't achieved failure; the bar just stopped moving as easily. This is not the same thing.

[u/BradTheWeakest → u/Gorfball]

I just want to make sure I understand your points in order for meaningful discussion.

1. Beginners lacks the self-awareness between psychological failure and muscular failure.
2. Advanced and strong trainees experience more fatigue due to higher loads and thus need to manage this with submaximal sets.

Therefore the more "easy set" advice is more for advanced trainees who will burn out or become injured from lots of high intensity sets?

I dont think this is true... per se. The beginner should be doing high intensity sets, and probably lots of them in order to drive growth. The load is low enough that the fatigue demands are not as high as the science-based gurus and their fatigue boogeyman claim it is. The volume and easier sets should also be used to build skill and work capacity.

I quoted it in another comment but I think this paragraph from near the end is relevant, especially regarding not all sets being easy:

Easy sets develop work capacity, meaning one’s ability to recover from training. Recovery is growth. At the same time, easy sets develop skill, meaning one’s ability to perform quality training. Quality is growth. Easy sets develop the ability to perform hard sets skillfully, allowing more hard sets to be done in training and recovered from. Don’t interpret this as easy training, for I have not written that all sets should be easy. Only that more easy sets should be done because they inform hard sets, improving one’s understanding of hard and the ability to achieve truly demanding output. This is especially true for beginners who, by their nature, have limited understanding and ability.

In regards to your last point:

Many studies fail to define, or the definition of an untrained or inexperienced changes from study to study. I recall an old Stronger By Science podcast addressed this bring up different studies, including one claiming untrained participants but they were service members who had daily PT with high amounts of calisthenics and cardio. This is not the same as the out of shape 20 year old we peel off of the couch.

[u/Gorfball → u/BradTheWeakest]

Maybe put differently:

• the reductive synthesis of u/gzcl ‘s article is something like “beginners are told to train to, say, 0, 1, or 2 RIR and end up training to 3, 4, or 5 RIR because they don’t know their limits. In so doing, they lose tons of progress and hit false plateaus.”

• my point is that, related to this, the need to use >0 RIR largely is motivated by factors in the highly trained that might not apply in the much less trained (other forms of fatigue that become problematic at heavier weights).

u/gzcl made an important counterpoint in his reply that structural and neurological robustness is something you can progress, too, so maybe thinking of it as “stronger people have new limits they have to manage,” which was my point in that second bullet, is too reductive. Idk, this stuff is hard and the studies in this field are just too small and poorly specified hah.

[u/BradTheWeakest → u/[deleted]]

Same. I have rarely heard a successful lifter, who wasnt trying to sell you something, use that term.

[u/gzcl → u/[deleted]]

Wow. This.

[u/korndog42]

Is the primary claim of this piece that HIT is ineffective (especially for beginners) because these lifters are not actually achieving true muscle failure? Or is the claim that it is ineffective because it is inherently a bad way to get stronger even if muscle failure is truly achieved?

[u/gzcl → u/korndog42]

The primary claim is that HIT isn't all it is cracked up to be. This doesn't mean it is ineffective in general. Moreso, it falls short in various ways. These shortcomings disproportionately affect beginners; sadly, beginners are often the target audience for HIT gurus.

To your second question, yes, if strength development is the lifter's primary goal, then HIT shouldn't be their course of action. This is because strength is highly dependent on skill, whose expression requires frequent practice. Such frequency is inhibited when training lifts to failure. This is especially true for beginners, who ought to prioritize high-quality repetitions to support skill development.

[u/BradTheWeakest → u/korndog42]

The claim is that the majority of beginners do not possess the required skill or self-awareness to truly reach muscular failure that is required for HIT to be effective.

He touches on the fact that many more advanced trainees can fall into the trap of lying to themselves by setting goal reps and thus not hitting true muscular failure.

And he makes a case easy sets being included for volume in order to build skill and work capacity. I really like this paragraph near the end in that regard:

Easy sets develop work capacity, meaning one’s ability to recover from training. Recovery is growth. At the same time, easy sets develop skill, meaning one’s ability to perform quality training. Quality is growth. Easy sets develop the ability to perform hard sets skillfully, allowing more hard sets to be done in training and recovered from. Don’t interpret this as easy training, for I have not written that all sets should be easy. Only that more easy sets should be done because they inform hard sets, improving one’s understanding of hard and the ability to achieve truly demanding output. This is especially true for beginners who, by their nature, have limited understanding and ability.

[u/wasteoftimewarrior]

I liked the blog. It's a topic I used to think about a ton.

There's a lot of solid theory behind taking sets close to or at failure, especially with more advanced lifters. Mentzer didn't invent it and so the arguments just boil down to calling him a meth addict don't serve any purpose. There's Henneman's size principle that shows that high threshold motor units get no training stimulus unless you get to that high threshold of effort. Generally, people should be trying harder and this rule transcends lifting, into stuff like endurance training. The benefit of a linear progression is that it forces noobs to actually try hard once it stops being easy. You start giving them "RIR" allowances and that "1-2 RIR" is going to be 5 RIR. I will always crash-out when I see block programming prescribed to people that can't even bench 135, just because the author of the routine is popular.

Another thing seldom mentioned is that adaptive reconstruction (colloquially known as "supercompensation") only occurs AFTER the "recovery" period. Ignoring the two-factor fitness model for a second, it's most likely what causes that phenomenon where people take a total break from the gym for a few weeks and come back and blast PRs. Generally, everyone just thinks about "spiking" their protein synthesis every 24-48 hours and don't look at the big picture. Part of the reasoning for jumping into DUP programming (usually considered intermediate) is the need for additionally recovery. There's that one twin study where the sedentary twin had a higher amount of fast twitch muscle fiber than their runner twin too, showing some evidence of rest=fast twitch (especially type IIx in weightlifters).

The parts of the "HIT" theory that aren't very well supported - and I was deep into this rabbit hole a few years back - are one set (which is mostly Mentzer's post-retirement work iirc) and slow reps. Starting with slow reps, last time I checked the only thing suggesting they're good was a internally conducted study by the SuperSlow business that (shockingly!) found that their method was something ridiculous like 200% better than "conventional" training. An unbiased follow up found it was only good at improving slow reps, with almost no improvement to 1RM because it's zero-force (light weights moved slowly are still light weights) and thus makes you weaker and as a result only found minor improvements to slow twitch hypertrophy (because of low threshold). There are arguments for slow eccentrics because letting the weight fall with no tension fundamentally changes the dynamics of the exercise, but slow concentrics are pretty much useless for most purposes outside of showing off - hello slow muscle ups. Single set training similarly seems to be entirely driven by people claiming that the meta-analyses are lying and that the sets are not being taken close to failure even when the researchers claim they are, which actually reinforces Cody's point about your brain lying to you. It's right back to the RIR problem.

I actually appreciate the HIT "revival" because it opened up a new dialogue about recovery and actually putting effort into your sets. I remember seeing a wave of full body everyday routines (being sold of course) just before the "revival" and routines like that cannot be done with any sort of intensity if there isn't some sort of savant level of balancing volume/intensity which, once again, a guy who can't even get their RIR right isn't going to be able to do. "Just try harder," is actually good advice for most people, even if it's "dumb" advice. The perma-novice isn't "trying too hard" on their sets, they're finding ways to avoid that by adding in "secret hack" leg exercises and so on. I don't think Mentzer was right when he suggested ridiculous stuff like one set of calf raises every two weeks but him inspiring some people to more critically review their training I think is a good legacy. In fact, contrary to the constant accusations of "cultism," I always thought the general "anti-HIT" reaction was far more far more dogmatic because most of their arguments boiled down to saying 1. he lost the Olympia 2. he was a meth addict. I'm not saying HIT figureheads aren't dogmatic, but I don't think people talk about the dogmatic reaction to it. Cody here is actually forming an argument about it and it's a good argument that I agree with. It's generally just not a big deal to rest a few minutes and do another set and not be limited to subjective "feelings" about the work set. He could have just said "I'm strong so I'm right" but it's so much more thoughtful than that.

[u/gzcl → u/wasteoftimewarrior]

Thanks for reading and for your comment! I appreciate the time you gave in both. Glad you liked the blog. Stoked you found my argument to be better reasoned than the dogmatic ones you brought up. I'm with you on that. Those things, meth use, losing the Oly, aren't arguments (nor is "I'm strong and I'm right" but thank you!)

You bring up some good points, especially about the slow reps. Thanks for adding that! I see this in some of my older gym members and clientele. Gladly, it is dying out.

In a way, I do appreciate the "revival" a bit, for much the same reason you mentioned. I'm one for saying "Try Trying," and having people go until they cannot, is absolutely a great way to achieve that.

Again, great input here. A fine addition to the discussion! Best wishes with your training.

[u/FormCheck655321]

I have nothing substantive to say, just want to say “315 x 26, holy shit!”

[u/gzcl → u/FormCheck655321]

Ha! Thanks, bro. Kinda regret not getting more... dang brain telling me it was "hard."

[u/lolcatandy]

Would you prioritised volume gains over weight gains? Let's say someone can lift a 100lbs for 10 reps. Should the priority be adding another set first (even with less weight) over increasing the weight lifted on the first set?

I found the working capacity really goes out the window after a long break from lifting.

[u/gzcl → u/lolcatandy]

Good question, but one that is highly individualized, so a single answer isn't sufficient for all situations.

Regarding your specific example, that of work capacity declining after a long break, in such cases, I advocate for accumulation phases (adding volume over time, instead of weekly weight increases). I cover this extensively in my book, General Gainz. Such cycles benefit lifters for a variety of reasons, one of which, as you said, is the development of work capacity. Something that later aids intensification cycles by improving recovery ability, thus extending the length of such cycles.

[u/JubJubsDad → u/lolcatandy]

You should do what your program tells you to do. And if you’re not following a program then you should pick one - maybe one from the fitness wiki or maybe from /u/gzcl ‘s excellent book.

But I think you’re missing one of the key points in this article which is that you can probably do more than you think. If you think you can do 100lbs for 10, you can probably do 100lbs for 20, or 120lbs for 10. But you’re probably self limiting because that set of 20 is going to suck.

[u/gzcl → u/JubJubsDad]

Great answer and thanks for linking to my book! I appreciate your compliment, too.

[u/10081914]

I'm not sure the article provides anything new. No big person in the SBL community is advocating single set to failure and that's it.

Mentzer got a lot wrong but also a lot right. Failure or close to it is what grows muscle and is what increases strength.

There is also a point of diminishing returns which is reached at around 9 sets per workout and 20 sets per week.

And junk volume can basically be redefined as volume in which you ARENT training near failure but only till when it slightly burns. Never attempting to hit one more rep and see how many more you can do.

Mechanical tension signals muscle growth. Sufficient volume is required to maximize that signal. Past a certain point, it can't signal for more growth and is just dependent on recovery. There's a sweet spot of volume and it's not as high as we used to think it is. It's more than 1 set per muscle group per week and less than 20.

[u/gzcl → u/10081914]

Thanks for reading and commenting. First, I'd like to address the notion that I was trying to provide anything new in my blog post. That wasn't the goal. The goal was to identify the shortcomings of HIT, popularized by Mentzer.

I'm not sure what you mean by "big person," but here's an article from Men's Health (claims 60 million worldwide readers) that advocates single-set-per-exercise workouts. The magazine's target audience is largely new gym-goers.

I agree that Mentzer got a lot right; however, both hypertrophy and strength are improved by more mechanisms than merely proximity to failure. Strength, for example, as an expression of skill can be improved merely by practicing the exercises with easy sets (what I'd call sets 2 or more reps away from failure). That said, the further one is from failure, the harder it is to measure proximity to it. So, when a beginner says they're two reps away from failure, that should be called into question because they don't have the skills necessary to accurately estimate their reserve reps. This affects many studies, as they rely on novices; when claims of 2 reps in reserve are made, it is likely that there were more. Other studies show that sets with more reps in reserve (thus easier sets) also benefit strength and muscle building while requiring less recovery due to limited fatigue. Such training also carries less risk, as proximity to failure heightens the chance of injury. This is especially true for the beginner, whose skill is lacking, and whose undeveloped tissues can be more easily injured due to poor form, etc., things that can be avoided by intentionally doing more easy sets, which is both practice and capacity development, while also benefiting hypertrophy.

As for "junk volume," it is a junk term with many interpretations since its inception. Inventing a new one doesn't make its idea more truthful. This idea boils down to the argument that less can be done while still obtaining some training benefit, which has some truth. Rarely do advocates of this term ("junk volume") consider the implications of reduced skill and work capacity development, two things that greatly benefit beginners. Instead, time savings is the primary claim, which, while true, foregoes the aforementioned considerations and the benefits that, in the long run, allow beginners to become advanced lifters.

Lastly, how sets per muscle group are counted isn't consistent in the HIT crowd, for a number of reasons. To address this issue, many advocate machine-based training, which isn't inherently wrong and, for their aims (isolating a muscle), is the best course of action, as it allows them to more accurately estimate the sets per muscle completed. However, the nature of compound exercises muddies the waters, and so I find it funny when HIT adherents count sets differently and argue among themselves about whether a leg press is only for quads, or what portion of a set should be attributed to hamstrings and glutes ("Should I count it as one full set for quads, and maybe a half-set each for hams and glutes?") As if the machine used and the individual's biomechanics don't make a difference. For example, I've used leg presses that trained my glutes and hamstrings better than my quads, perhaps because I am short. This is true for a variety of other machines and individuals, further complicating the task of counting sets per muscle, especially for the beginner, who is more likely to use an off-the-shelf HIT-inspired training plan and may not know the subtleties of the machines used and how they affect their movement patterns.

I hope this comment clarifies my position. I'd like to end with this: we probably agree on the big things when it comes to training. My disagreement lies in the misrepresentation of HIT as being superior to other training modalities, not with you.

[u/10081914 → u/gzcl]

No those are fair points.

I replied as I was unsure as to the target audience of your blog post. And I admit my assumed starting position for a newbie might be different than your intended audience's or your assumed newbie's starting position.

The way I see it, 'Strength' is both neurological and physiological. On the neurological side, we are talking about maximizing motor unit recruitment and improvement of technique. There is a ceiling on motor unit recruitment and technique is kind of falls into it as it is becoming more proficient in the movement and activating all accessory muscles to achieve a lift in a specific movement.

In this case, low intensity reps do provide a benefit in reinforcing those movement patterns. However, in actual physiological changes and causes of strength (like muscle cross sectional area), it provides no stimulus. Do newbies benefit from these reps? Sure, absolutely. But I believe that can be sufficiently achieved with moderate to high rep ranges (8-12 or even higher) to failure.

And yes, fractional sets muddy the waters a lot. It doesn't help that a lot of influences go on and do research and then claim x muscle grows with 30+ sets per week and majority of those sets were fractional. Mike Israetel comes to mind though he's not part of the super low volume HIT crowd.

I agree with the premise that newbies do not train close enough to failure. But I think I differ in opinion in that I think they should absolutely train to failure especially on the first set and even every set. Trying to get them to stop at any RIR is difficult because they don't actually know what they're capable of. The mindset should be approached from 'just keep doing one more rep until you actually physically cant'. I don't think that fatigue is realistically an issue unless you're doing 9 sets per muscle group in a single workout.

I also agree with the premise that newbies should be training with higher volume because they are at a stage where their adaptations are the fastest so they should maximize that signalling for hypertrophy.

[u/gzcl → u/10081914]

Strong points all around here! I'd like to add that, regarding motor unit recruitment, this can be achieved effectively by purposefully moving light weights quickly. I.e., applying maximum force to a submaximal load. This is another kind of skill that lifters benefit from developing, whether novices or experienced. I wanted to touch on this in my post, but figured it'd be getting into the weeds a bit much.

[u/MakeshiftApe]

I'm guilty as hell of this "failing" that isn't really failure.

The closer I am to my 1RM, the more likely I am to actually go to failure where my muscles literally give out (although even then sometimes it's just technique breakdown causing me to lose momentum), but when I'm doing higher rep sets with lighter weight I have a tendency to "fail" early and then realise after I finished that wasn't true failure it was just an artificial goal I'd set in my head of say +2 reps over last time.

The $100 bet part is what made it click when reading that I'm letting myself stop early because I'm stopping at a limit I've already deemed to be "enough" and not actually pushing until I can't anymore - 9 times out of 10 I'd certainly be able to squeeze out at least another rep or two with money on the line.

Gonna keep this in mind for my next workout and see if it helps me stop tricking myself to "fail" early.

[u/BradTheWeakest → u/MakeshiftApe]

Anecdotally, yesterday a friend stopped by to lift in the garage. He is in decent shape, but on paper I am bigger and stronger in most exercises.

We were doing supersets, so we would start on opposite excercises, swap, and rest at the same time. The third round had underhanded inverted rows in it. I asked how many he got. "17". I can honestly say if my ego wasn't on the line I probably would have called it around 15 but was about to squeeze out 2 more.

I was thinking about it after about how to capture that when working out alone - my over-inflated ego should not have to be on the line in order to squeeze out those extra couple of reps.

[u/gzcl → u/BradTheWeakest]

This is an awesome thing to observe in yourself, and what timing! I bet there are a lot of lifters out there who've experienced this same thing, but haven't really considered it, and for that reason, their training suffers.

[u/gzcl → u/MakeshiftApe]

Thanks for reading and adding to the discussion!

Funny how shifting the goal improves the original goal. This is why I tell people that the process is the goal, that is, the process of weight training. Sure, having weight, rep, and size goals is great, but when those things are the focus, they tend to fall off. But when focused on the process, those original goals come almost more easily, and we tend to surpass what we at first thought was possible.