Lifter's Lounge

[GoodShepherd]

I expect this approach would be poor in building stamina and endurance, and in reducing insulin resistance.

You would need to do some cardio for that, this method requires a proper gym machine, a very expensive one that cam basically target most muscle areas on your body and where the weight limits can be increased as needed, you train each muscle area to failure, to absolute failure and you only do 1 set, you take about 1min rest then continue to the next muscle group, its intense and when you push yourself to absolute failure thats when you get the most micro tearing in your muscles according to this book, rest and recovery after this workout is the focus to allow the muscle to get stronger and grow, as you get stronger you keep adding on more weights to the gym equipment.

According to the research done that this book talks about its more effective to do just 1 set this way to get your muscles to get these micro tears than to do 3 ordinary sets.

 

[Thomas More]

You would need to do some cardio for that, this method requires a proper gym machine, a very expensive one that cam basically target most muscle areas on your body and where the weight limits can be increased as needed, you train each muscle area to failure, to absolute failure and you only do 1 set, you take about 1min rest then continue to the next muscle group, its intense and when you push yourself to absolute failure thats when you get the most micro tearing in your muscles according to this book, rest and recovery after this workout is the focus to allow the muscle to get stronger and grow, as you get stronger you keep adding on more weights to the gym equipment.

According to the research done that this book talks about its more effective to do just 1 set this way to get your muscles to get these micro tears than to do 3 ordinary sets.

I could see how it would work. I normally do 3 sets of 8-12, but will sometimes go up to the next weight where I can only do 4 reps. I read a book that advised always shooting for the weight where you can do 4 reps max, and did that for a long time. It builds strength fast.

I can see how this one set approach is just taking the same principle to the next level. Even so, I like it better to do more sets with higher reps, and then do a session on the treadmill.

 

[Australia Sucks]

Everything has tradeoffs. If you do lower reps with higher weights the strength gains might be more but injury risk is higher because when you lift at max capacity it often degrades your form and strains the joints.

The opposite of low rep number with heavy weights is doing a massive number of reps with low weights or massive reps of calisthenics. This can make you strong without being bulky and is used by some athletes (bocers, mma fighters, etc) who want to get strong without getting heavy or losing speed. Its calling "greasing the groove" and its more or less what Mike Tyson did in his heyday doing thousands of reps of calisthenic exercises.

 

[Hannibal]

I expect this approach would be poor in building stamina and endurance, and in reducing insulin resistance.

I did that style of training and yes it develops all elements of strength and conditioning, but no one aspect particularly well. It's just fine for maintaining or doing a very very slow gain style where you're throwing all your real energy at a project and you just want to have some amount of fitness. It's a good routine for busy people that go to a gym where you can use all the machines in a row without getting in anyone's way.

I found that leg strength and size slowly went up and upper body strength and size hit a pretty bad plateau about 4 months into it.

Your mileage may vary.