Do you ever find some (or all) muscles require more than one set to failure?

I was just curious of some people's experiences. Many do fine on one set to failure per muscle.

Do you ever find where a second exercise (in essence, second set) per muscle is more effective?

I've heard of some reports where people seem to gain strength fine on one set per muscle, but doing another exercise seems to add more fullness to the muscle. Perhaps this is just some sort of increase in fluid retention and/or temporary imflammation which causes the muscle to swell a bit more for a few days after the session. Of course, training frequency of a muscle is another variable which can cause such an effect.

Regularly. Not all stimulation is the same, and different exercises, particularly those that move around several joints, won't stimulate all muscles being worked evenly.

Outside of consolidation type routines, most published HIT routines, although generally (but not always) sticking to one set per exercise, use more than one set per muscle. It's certainly far from unusual.

He is a breakdown of the number of exercises that I use per bodypart.

Chest 2
Back 3-4
Low Back 1
Shoulders 2
Biceps 2
Triceps 3
Quads 3
Hamstrings 1
Calves 1-2

Hopefully this will help and give you idea of just some of the members use.

HDHITman wrote:He is a breakdown of the number of exercises that I use per bodypart.

Chest 2
Back 3-4
Low Back 1
Shoulders 2
Biceps 2
Triceps 3
Quads 3
Hamstrings 1
Calves 1-2

Hopefully this will help and give you idea of just some of the members use.

What is the breakdown of your muscle groupings and days you train, etc.? You don't find that as too much arm work given the compound movements you're using?

Workout 1: Chest/Back/Shoulders
Workout 2: Arms/Legs

Cable Flyes
Hammer Strength Decline Press

Decline Cable Pullover
Underhand Pulldown
Pulley Rows
Deadlift(reg or variation)or Bent-Over Smith Machine Rows

Hammer Strength Side Lateral
High Pulls


Tricep Pressdown
Dips
Reverse One Arm Pressdowns

Machine Preacher Curl
Chin-up

Leg Extension
Leg Press
Smith Machine Squat
Leg Curl
Toe Presses on Leg Press Machine

I only train on Mondays and Thursday so I get 48hrs between workouts during the week then I get a 72 hr rest before I ready to start my training week again on Monday. This amount of sets may seem like alot for some, but for me this has been the best split, number of exercises, and exercise selection that has given me the most mass and bodyfat loss. Also if I am using alot of high intensity techniques in a workout I will take more rest, but for right now it is just to positive failure for me and that is working great strength is way up and the muscle mass is not far behind.

If you would like me to post some selection of my workouts 2 wks ago I would be more then happy to so that you can take a look.

Daron
The Heavy Duty HITman