What does it mean if I can perform 25% more reps on my 2nd working set of tricep exercises than my 1st working set of the same weight? And does it mean I'm failing my warmup sets or something else?
(Age 40, male, 260 pounds, lifting diligently for just under a year)
For background, here is my post 23 days ago where I struggled to find a single tricep exercise that successfully targeted my tricep muscles. Thankfully I got good answers and played around at ridiculously light weights at high volume focusing on form and "flexing" my tricep during every rep especially during lockout to help my brain learn how to recruit tricep motor units. As a result, the most successful tricep exercise that "works" for me and isn't constrained by my limitations is assisted dips while keeping the body upright.
This makes me feel very fortunate because many fitness youtubers (Jeff Nippard and 2-3 others) argue that dips are arguably the best single tricep exercise followed closely by overhead cable tricep extensions, which I still struggle with but is a top priority that I'm focusing on for the next 3-4 weeks incorporating into my push day. The only other tricep exercise I feel I'm able to perform correctly and with acceptable form and good tricep targeting is the Close-Grip (slightly Incline) Bench Press however I struggle immensely with my elbows wanting to flare out and I have difficulty keeping them tucked in, especially my ~5% weaker left side elbow which brings me to my next question.
##Question #2
If I can't do more than 6-7 good reps in clean form (with about 4-6 more in shoddy form) of the Close-Grip bench press, does this mean I need to lower the weight until I can do 12 reps in good form? Or does it mean I need to stop when my form gets bad after the 7th rep and compensate by doing more volume by doing more sets? My goal is functional tricep strength and/or hypertrophy but I would slightly prefer strength by a tiny margin. (as an aside, ai says 30-45 degree elbow flare is fine apparently?)
Primary question (in title): What does it mean if I can perform 25% more reps on my 2nd working set of tricep exercises than my 1st working set of the same weight? And does it mean I'm failing my warmup sets or something else? My typical warmup routine is 5 minutes on treadmill at 3mph or 4.8kmh, 2 minutes of "elbow circles" (due to some men having proclivity for elbow pain when working triceps), and 1 warmup set of 40% - 50% weight of my working set for about 10 reps.
Extend your warmup set or do two warmup sets (possibly with even lower weight).
Allow for a bit longer rest between the warmup set and the workout set.
Try both and see if either one or both makes a difference.
I fully agree with this! It seems that my body was converting my first working set into a warmup set so I should just embrace that rather than complain about it online. I will experiment around a little bit with it like you said and try lower weights but maybe my body needs a warmup set on my working weight? If so, I'll just do about half the reps of a normal working set and count it as a warmup set and see if that fixes my problem.
As a rookie, I don't think you need to be this meticulous... But if it helps you actually get to the gym and keep the routine to have a strict schedule/progress, sure!
I personally wouldn't do a warmup at my goal weight, neither for PR (because then you can't push it) nor for sets (because you get fewer sets if you loose one to warmup, and I like the numbers lol), but thats just how you want to count it.
Warning up is meant to lubricate your joints and capillaries and whatnot, to avoid injuries before going into heavy weights, so I wouldn't encourage warming up in heavy weights. Warm up the motion with multiple reps, not heavy resistance.
But if it works for you, it works for you. When you're elite enough you'll get a trainer and won't have to rely on internet randos anyway. Just avoid injuries and be kind to your body until then.
This is a context where what works for different people tends to vary a lot, so experiment with a few different strategies and find what you like best! As long as you're pushing yourself close to muscular failure for a couple sets, you probably will see an increase in strength regardless of the particular loading strategy.
Usually it's best for warmup sets to not be fatiguing at all - you want to save your energy for the heavy working sets close to failure that will provide the most stimulus. So I'd go for 6-8 reps at about half the weight you want to do in your first working set. Warmups are just to get comfortable with the movement and make any adjustments before you do your working sets.
You may like "wave loading" - progressively lowering the reps and increasing the weight over the course of your sets. All sets are performed within a rep or two of failure, but e.g. the first set is failure after 8-10 reps, second set is failure after 6-8 reps, third is failure after 4-6 reps, or something similar. You can use a 1RM calculator to estimate what difference in weight would bring you down from one rep range to another.
It may or may not also be helpful to bring yourself completely to failure in the first set to ensure you're stopping only when you cannot possibly do more reps, and not due to sensation of weakness, slowing of the movement, or moderate reduction in range. To do this, you'll want to keep doing reps until the cable absolutely will not move - you might have a few more reps in the tank on your first set than you realize. Raising the rep range a bit can also help with this.
(also, re: another question from the original post, you can do less than 6-7 reps of a movement and get stronger if you're getting close to muscular failure. I do a lot of sets in the 3-5 rep range, not all the time, but especially for big compound movements it can be great.)
Just pick a few. They all target the tris whether you "feel" it or not.
As a beginner, yea I'd say if you can't do 5-7 clean reps then lowe the weight.
What does your program say to do? This is completely exercise dependant as well as personal preference. 12 reps is completely arbitrary, as is 6 reps. Find what works for the lift and your body.
You are waaaaaaay overthinking this. Pick a few lifts per muscle group and just go hard for 5 -10 years, adjusting a little here and there as needed. None of that small stuff matters really.
It could mean many things. Stop overthinking it. If I had to guess though, you simply don't know how to push your body hard yet.
Maybe you didn't warm up well enough. Maybe your CNS wasn't "awake" yet. Maybe you slept bad. Maybe youre still a beginner and don't even know how to push hard on your sets. Maybe it's a new lift and you haven't learned it yet.
Who knows. It doesn't matter. Push hard on each set, focus on form and controlling the weight, progressively overload according to your plan, and you will get big and strong. These little things will sort themselves out automatically over time
I typically refer to fitness youtubers with my top-3 being Flow High Performance, Jeff Nippard, and Mike Israetel. I forget the reason but they say some muscle groups benefit from volume in the 12-15 rep range, particularly lateral delts, triceps, and a couple others. All my heavy lifts (bench, squats, deadlifts, seated dumbbell shoulder press) I do sets of 3 reps simply because I find that rep range most enjoyable and because I've had remarkable success with that protocol despite (falsely) believing my whole life (prior to this year) that I was incapable of getting stronger or building muscle. But outside those 5-6 heavy lifts I do, I just defer to fitness youtubers since I'm still a beginner.
Fully agreed and well stated! 💪
Start following Steve Shaw, Jim Wendler, even Fazlifts or Alex Leonidas. These are no-nonsense lifters with no-nonsense advice. I like Nippard as a person, I don't like his content. Israetel is just ... bad. Don't listen to him.
It sounds like your stabilizers are fatiguing faster than your big muscles, which is normal. I vote you switch to reverse pyramids, rather than flat sets.
Zeroeth set 2 reps at 80% of your first working set (more or less - no need to break out the microplates)
First set 3-5 reps - the powerlifting rep range. This is your heavy set, and will train neuromuscular adaptation more than hypertrophy. Keep one or two reps left in the tank, which will allow you to focus on form and not blow your load early in the workout.
Second set 6-8 reps. Focus on form, and again, keep one or two reps left in the tank.
Third set 8-12 reps - the bodybuilding rep range. This is your volume set, and will push you close to muscular failure. Go a little al muerte here. If your form breaks down a little here, I think that is fine, as that means you are effectively targeting and taxing your stabilizer muscles, and they will get stronger over time.
As for form/elbow flare... I think AI got caught up thinking of normal bench, where a 45° elbow flare is pretty standard. Close grip, to my knowledge, should keep the elbows tucked to your sides. So on one hand, I would say to keep your elbows tucked, as that is the exercise you are doing. But on the other hand, I don't want to recommend being a form weenie - just get the weight up, and as long as you don't look like a boa constrictor getting murdered, it's fine. But giving recommendations here is kind of an art, since close grip bench is an exercise that, itself, splits the difference between bodybuilding and powerlifting. You are neither trying to lift maximum weight (like bench), nor trying to isolate a muscle (like a tricep extension)... My rec is that a little elbow flare is fine as you get a bit fatigued, but in general try to avoid
Great post and I appreciate your response. In the future though (for other exercises), what detail from my post gave you the biggest indication that my stabilizer muscles are fatiguing faster than the intended big muscles? Was it the higher rep count on set 2 than set 1 of my working sets? Or was it that I'm only on my 3rd week of practicing my dedicated tricep exercises?
There isn't really a single standard for how to perform a close grip bench, which is probably why AI is telling OP that some elbow flare is fine. What a typical powerlifter considers "close grip bench" is probably what a typical body builder calls a regular bench press.