Training with twelve repetitions is a mistake. And, surprisingly, gyms pass this on to their students. I'll explain why they do this and why you shouldn't do it.
For us to understand this whole issue, I need to give you a lesson in muscle physiology. Within your muscle, there are predominantly three types of fibers. There are several, but we will focus on these three to make it more didactic.
So we have type 1 fiber, which is a slower fiber and a more resistant fiber. Type 2A fiber, which is already a fiber that can provide you with a lot of strength and we consider it a fast fiber. And the type 2X fiber, but in the past we used the name 2B, which is a super fast fiber, it can provide a lot of force, it is often used to generate power, however, it tires quickly.
Premature. It's a premature comma. Why am I telling you all this?
The study came out a while back from a great researcher, in fact, the greatest bodybuilding researcher in the world, Brad Schoenfeld. And the guy proved that whether you do 3 reps or 30 reps, it's the same. A study recently came out in which guys did approximately 150 repetitions and generated hypertrophy.
And why then this idea of 3 of 12? It doesn't make any sense, you'll understand here. And you'll understand after you do 3 out of 12, that it's really bad.
The guy proved that whether you do a little or a lot, it will be the same. If you put little weight, you start doing the exercise. .
. The strongest fibers, the type 2A and 2X fibers, they just sit there, they don't do anything. Because the weight is light.
If the weight is small, type 1 fibers, which are the weakest fibers, can handle it. Your body is intelligent, it will always resort to an economic strategy, and when I say economic, I mean in the energy sense, to produce work using as little energy as possible. So if type 1 fibers can do the job, let's let them do the work.
And these fibers keep working. And you're doing the series. They get tired.
There is an issue that we call accumulated fatigue. The muscle that is in the second repetition is already more tired than the one in the first. And the muscle from the tenth repetition, it is already more tired too.
But it's the same muscle. It's the same muscle. However, it gets tired, it gets tired, there comes a time when these type 1 fibers can no longer continue.
Let's imagine that you are doing a series of 10, 15 repetitions and these type 1 fibers are tired and can no longer continue. But your body doesn't stop. Why?
You gave him the message to do it and he goes to his limit, as far as he can. So the type 1 fibers are tired, what does it do? Type 2A fibers, give me a hand here.
These type 2A fibers come in and start doing the work. And you who were on the 15th repetition, you advance. Sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and so on.
However, there will come a time when type 2A fibers will also tire. In fact, they will get tired faster, right? Because they are stronger, yet faster fibers.
Let's imagine that you have reached the house of your twenty-third, twenty-fourth repetition. Then the type 2A fibers can't handle it anymore, and neither can the type 1 fibers. What does your body do?
Type 2X fibers? Give us a boost, help us out. And these fibers, they can then generate a little more work, but they are super fast, they will tire quickly and let's imagine that you manage to get there on your thirtieth repetition and fail completely.
What did we do here? One set of 30 reps to failure. However, to get to the 30th repetition, you placed a low load.
So, you've been gradually tiring out those fibers. If you reached failure, you stimulated that muscle. It will develop.
Why did I do over 30 reps? Exactly Brad Schoenfeld's question. 30 reps.
That's what he did in the study. Now, why did people who did fewer reps also perform the same way? And then you start to understand that if you do a lot of repetitions, you will gradually fatigue your muscle until you reach a high intensity level.
Now, if you put a higher load, what will happen there is that your body will identify that load and it will say, man, type 1 fibers alone won't be able to handle it. Type 1 plus type 2A fibers won't do the trick. I'm going to put all the fibers in to do the work right from the start.
In a situation, you will gradually tire these muscles by tiring them out. In the other, you enter all the fibers at once. Your body understands that it needs that.
And then, when you reach failure with a high load, be it 3, 4, 5 repetitions, you have fatigued all the fibers, because they all entered together. However, there is a difference here in the number of repetitions. But most importantly, the fatigue is the same.
Of course, there are several things here that we could expand on, but to make it more didactic for you, were you able to understand that you reached the same level of intensity, regardless of whether you did few repetitions or many repetitions? Has any teacher, to this day, from the gyms you attend and such, explained this to you? You can now begin to understand that there is much more behind the work they have been doing and I will tell you in this video why they pass this on to you.
Lalá, why doesn't 3 of 12 work? Because I don't want you to worry about the number of reps. One, the bodybuilder has been talking about this for many years.
Two, science today proves that this is worthless. So why the fuck are you going to keep worrying about the number of reps? When I talk about the NoReps methodology, not counting repetitions is an issue.
And when you don't count reps, you'll focus on something else. That thing, intensity of the series. How much intensity your muscle is receiving, you forget how many repetitions and focus on intensity, because that's what counts and is the most important.
So, up to this point, you understand how much it is worth focusing on intensity not repetitions, right? But if you pay attention to repetitions two bad things can happen Brad's study was categorical in making it clear that intensity is what matters. And he took the people he studied both to failure and near failure.
That's why we started talking, you don't need to go to failure, you can leave two or three repetitions in reserve. I don't know if you've heard of this, but the idea is, you don't always have to go to failure, to the limit. You can stop a little earlier.
That's what this study brings and that's a question. Even though I have some concerns about it. But back to our idea here.
First here, you have to reach a high level of intensity, okay? Keep this. Now, if you picked up the weight and you say, bro, I'm going to do 10.
Why? Because the academy teacher asked for it. Because the plan there, the gym spreadsheet, is telling you to do 12.
Then you put the weight on and then you start doing it. How many reps are you going to do? Twelve.
What if you get to twelve and you don't get to that intensity? You will stop because you made 12. That was the goal.
It was the goal, it was on the form, right? But what if you could do more. .
. Oh no, Lalá, but now let's increase the load, okay? But what about this series you've already done?
The thing is, some people will still have this perception, increase the weight a little, it's light. Others don't. The vast majority will say, "Man, I'll do what's written.
" And then, instead of reaching a good level of intensity, it will fall far short of that. In other words, the hypertrophic stimulus is not reaching there the way it should. It is being underutilized.
And depending on the person's stage, this training will not bring them any benefit. This is a problem. The other problem is that the person increases the load, prepares, says: I'm going to do 12.
When she gets to the eleventh rep, she can't take it anymore. But how many does she have to do? Twelve.
Twelve. What's up? She starts creating all the compensations, she starts stealing a lot and she enters an extremely dangerous work environment called doing it at any cost.
Why? Because she has to do 12. One of two things.
Either you don't develop because you're doing poor work or you hurt yourself to reach the number of repetitions that were stipulated. Very few people will be able to hit the right load to do 12 at a good intensity. What do you prefer?
Should you enter a system that is more intelligent and assertive or should you stay in this trial and error that very easily ends up on one side that doesn't give you results or on the other side that hurts you? So from now on you will do the same as our Muscle 60D students. They do not count repetitions.
They are educated to work with rest in a completely personalized way. It's another training system, a smarter system to work with. You can be one of my students too, get to know all of this from the inside and even try it out, experience first-hand what our technical support is like with the personal nutritionist and physiotherapist on your WhatsApp to give you all this support and monitoring.
There is a link below for you to learn about the program, learn about all the work we do and be surprised by what I am saying. And now it's time to reveal to you why gyms use this 3 out of 12 thing, and why many teachers still use it. I'm sure many of them will watch this video and get mad at me, but my commitment here is to the truth and to you.
Before you think anything, I've been doing this for 23 years. I know very well what I'm talking about. I've been an intern, a teacher, a coordinator, an external staff member.
I've been through all the technical positions in academia and I've experienced a lot. So, let's go. Two things.
First, many professionals either don't know or are too lazy to go after it. They work this way, it works, everything is fine, keep moving. The other is to give work.
It's much easier to take a token, give it to you and say, make 3 out of 12 of these. Than go there and explain, look, so the exercise works like this, we want to work this specific muscle here. So you will do your repetitions paying attention to this muscle, observing the level of intensity, And then when you start to reach a density X and such, it takes a lot more work.
It's much easier to take a little cake recipe and deliver it to 500, 600, 5 thousand students who only have one gym. Imagine what it would be like for these teachers to teach these 5,000 students who have a gym to train intelligently. It's easier to deliver this way.
Now the question remains, are you going to continue accepting this? Why? If you are a beginner, and this is an important point, our conversation here would be very different.
If you are just starting out, work intensity is not even an important thing for you. It's much more a question of neuromotor coordination, mastering the exercises, mastering the technique of each movement, than specifically applying load and seeking intensity. But what if you're not?
This workout, this training system, 3 out of 12, 3 out of 10, whatever you want. This is one thing, past, and two, something lazy people do who don't study and don't want to go deeper to get a better job. There are other things in this video that are super important for you to get the most out of your training.
The 10 commandments of the perfect workout. The title says it all. I'm here recommending that you connect strongly with this video.
Bro, click. It's really worth it.
