You want efficiency of effort at every workout—the biggest mass-building bang from each set. Here’s a review of how to get maximum gain from minimal sets…
1) Emphasize the ideal exercise for each muscle.
2) Use the first set as a combo warmup and slow-twitch-fatigue mechanism (STX).
3) Stop all additional sets one rep short of failure.
4) Do the ideal exercise unilaterally if possible.
5) Do your last ideal-exercise set as a Speed Set.
For example, if you use one-arm cable laterals for your medial-delt heads…
Train one side all the way through, then do the other side. You should start with your non-dominant arm, as it has less nerve-force capability.
In my case, I start with my dominant arm, the right, because that shoulder joint is damaged, which automatically makes it less neuromuscularly efficient…
Set #1 is 15-20 reps to failure using a 1/3 tempo.
Rest 20 seconds
Set #2 is a Speed Set using a 1.5-second-per-rep tempo, stopping one rep short of failure.
That’s the base shoulder-widening routine with ideal exercise emphasis and hits the other four points above as well.
Should you do more sets? What about add-on exercises? I’ll discuss those questions and more in the next training newsletter.
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