Adam C. Stewart
Introduction
The proximity of failure can affect both strength and hypertrophy gains, and if you constantly underestimate or overestimate the number of repetitions you have in reserve for a given set, you can do a slight disservice to your gains. In the last decade, the concept of self-regulation and the use of reserve repetitions (RIR) to control force and hypertrophy programming has undoubtedly surpassed the more traditional programming approach of recommendations for a fixed maximum of repetitions (1 rpm) (e.g. B: 80% of 1 rpm for 3 sets of 5 repetitions).
However, training with an RIR target (i.e. a certain proximity to the instantaneous failure) strongly depends on the ability to accurately predict RIR.
But before we see if we are really good at predicting RIR and how to perfect our ability to accurately predict RIR, let’s take a trip into the “iron” past.
We are writing the year around 2013. strength and Hypertrophy programming focuses mainly on calculations based on the 1WD, the infamous Prilepin Table, and sometimes simply on “traditional” repetition ranges without additional guidance on the proximity of failure. If the program said 3 sets of 3 repetitions at 80% of 1 rpm and that 80% of 1 rpm happened to be a load where you absolutely had to complete your sets as if your life depended on it, then unfortunately, that was what you had to do (at least on Paper). Likewise, classic programs such as Stronglifts 5×5 rarely referred to advice on the proximity of failure, simply asked weightlifters to put more weight on the bar every week and sometimes recommended that some weightlifters “start lightly” during the first weeks of their training. On the hypertrophy side, things were often even more vague, the Set/Rep recipes often not including an explicit direction regarding the proximity of the failure, usually because all the sets were supposed to be “heavy” or “failing”.”
In addition, the lack of consensus on the relationship between the proximity of failure and strength gains/hypertrophy has made things even more confusing. On the one hand, there were elite athletes who advocated getting closer or failing several times, while others preached to stay away from failure, even if they aimed to maximize adaptations.
Regardless of the training philosophy you adhered to, you either had to follow a program that required you to lift certain loads, regardless of how you felt, or follow a program that gave you rather vague advice on the theme of “train hard and make sure you are close or fail”, without necessarily having to follow a program that gave you vague advice on the theme of “train hard and make sure you are close or fail”, without necessarily having
As for alternative tools to quantify your efforts in bodybuilding, a look in the scientific literature has also not been useful. Most bodybuilding studies used a fixed %1RM load or asked participants to perform repetitions for different forms of failure (voluntary failure, momentary failure, etc.).
Outside the gym, however, a tool had begun to attract attention, especially in endurance workouts. This tool was the Borg Rating of Perceived exercise (RPE) scale, which aimed to quantify the subjective experience of body exertion, pain and fatigue during exercise.
The Borg scale was based on the principle that individuals are able to assess their body condition introspectively during exercise and that these assessments can be systematically mapped on a numerical scale. This allowed both the self-regulation of the intensity of the exercise and the communication of this intensity with others, such as trainers or health care providers.
The original Borg scale, introduced in 1962, ranged from 6 to 20, with 6 meaning “no effort” and 20 meaning “maximum effort”.”The numbers were chosen to correspond approximately to the heart rate of a healthy mature: a score of 6 corresponds to a heart rate of about 60 beats per Minute (resting heart rate for many people) and a score of 20 corresponds to 200 beats per Minute (the maximum heart rate of a young mature). In 1982, Borg introduced a revised scale known as the Borg CR10 scale or Borg category ratio scale. The CR10 scale has been changed from 0 (“nothing at all”) to 10 (“extremely strong”), including verbal anchors at each level (e.g. moderate, strong, very strong) to help users better assess their stress level.
Although the traditional Borg-RPE scale can be used to evaluate the perceived effort during resistance training, due to the origins of endurance training, it is somewhat inappropriate to accurately measure/control the proximity of failure, especially in scenarios where increased discomfort (for example, high repetition sets) can lead to a series of 20 repetitions on the extension of the leg can look like an 8/10 on the CR10 scale, but this note can persist for another 5 to 10 repetitions without the lifter or the person observing it (for example, a trainer or a researcher) being able to really know if the lifter is about
