Quote from: Rich Piana
I kept getting slight muscle tears doing the usual 6-12 reps. There comes a point where your just moving more weight than your body can handle and eventually it will catch up. So I started doing sets of 20 and trying to build the weight up every workout. Doing heavy weight for high reps is alot harder than doing low reps.
Example: There is a guy at the gym where I train at who every squat day goes up to 5 plates does like 6 reps. Then over to leg press loads up as many plates as the machine can hold and does 8-10 reps. Now I have to say his form is good, squats all the way down, good range on the leg press. One day he tells me he cant get his legs to grow.
I was training a client and invited him to work in with us.
10 sets of 20 reps with 225 on squats
His first set he did 24 all the way down perfect form and acted like it was easy. (smart ass)
Next set he struggled to get 20.
Third set he got 12 and wanted to rack it, I spotted him and made him get 20.
There was no fourth set, he threw up and left the gym.
Next time I saw him he was back to his old workout.
Try 10 sets of 20 reps on squats (rest 2-3 min)
Anyway back to the question, after doing this wokout for a while I felt like I was getting better results so I kept with it.
You have to try different things and come up with your own opinion. I remember reading as does everyone, chest you have to bench press so I did cause thats what I read. I would feel nothing in the muscle and it would hurt my shoulder but thats what I had to do if I wanted a chest like Arnolds. Then I would go over to cables and do cross-overs and get a pump in my chest that was insane. Is cross-overs a better exercise than flat bench? For me yes I dont go near the bench, haven't for about 5 years. Maybe for someone else it the exact opposite. Everyones different, not one exercise is best for everyone.