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Stop Doing "3 Sets of 12" To Build Muscle (I'M BEGGING YOU!) | ATHLEAN-X™ | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Stop Doing "3 Sets of 12" To Build Muscle (I'M BEGGING YOU!)
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Summary
Core Theme
The core theme is that focusing excessively on specific rep counts and set numbers (like "three sets of 12") hinders muscle growth by prioritizing quantity over quality and tension. True muscle development is driven by mechanical tension and effort, not just checking off arbitrary numbers.
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okay let's start this video off with a quiz you're going to be put to the test here I want
you to watch Jesse perform a set of dumbbell incline bench press to 12 and I want to see
if you can spot what he's doing wrong all right so here he goes we can count along if you want
but pay close attention and see if you can spot the mistake in this set you counting Jesse six
okay do you see it yet we'll collect your answer here at the end what number
11 good 12 cool all right so now what was the issue I don't know what was it so a lot of you
probably don't see the issue because you make the same exact mistake but what I was doing was I was
actually secretly kind of counting here and I've got a a stopwatch on my iPhone that says that he
performed this set in 27.3 seconds Speed Racer which is much too short and you're thinking why
what do you mean the length of the set when you perform your sets with the main focus being three
sets of 12 and you get attached to the numbers now I made a video about this years ago and I
think it's incredibly important that you hear this concept again and I'm actually going to expand
upon it when you get fixated on the numbers three sets of 12 you're already setting yourself up for
probably an imperfect set and one that's certainly not going to deliver the growth that you're
capable of okay now the language that muscles speak is tension we know that if you want your
muscles to grow if you want to stimulate muscle protein synthesis you need to elicit tension in
those working muscles and we know there's a few ways that you can do it we know that you can get
a lot of mechanical tension if you have a very heavy load in your hand so if Jesse was using
let's say a five rep max here he would have a lot more tension being driven to the muscles he can
only get five repetitions if it was truly his Max and he went to failure but that amount of tension
is missing ing in a set to 12 let's say cuz it's not that absolute amount of tension right the the
weights are less so what you'd have to do in that case is you'd have to figure out a way to sort of
equalize that tension and one of the main ways that we equalize the missing absolute mechanical
tension is to bring in some other drivers of hypertrophy namely Ecentric muscle tension
meaning the the lowering of the weights because we know in and of itself that's a driver of more
growth well when we talk about 12 repetitions no one just picked that number at a thin air
they didn't say 12 why don't they say 11 why are not all of your sets prescribed in your programs
to 11 repetitions instead 12 repetitions was the one that sort of met the criteria of e of of of
eclipsing the 45 seconds of tension that seems to be significant for driving muscle gains when
you're using lighter weights and where that comes from is again the absolute amount of time it takes
you to perform one repetition realizing that the Ecentric portion of that rep the lowering portion
would take more time on Jesse's repetitions there it really wasn't significant it was too quick what
you want to do is you want to be somewhere in the range of around 2 to 3 seconds cuz what we know
is a half a second on the way down of a rep is a non-controlled rep and that's not going to produce
much tension on the way down right a second would be better but not as good as as where it could be
which would be more like 2 seconds or 3 seconds if you applied a 3 second Ecentric tension on the
way down and a 1 second concentric on the way up and we know that doing explosive repetitions is a
good thing you'd have 4 seconds per rep in a set of 12 you've gotten to a full 48 seconds for you
guys that do math out there 12 * 4 48 you've gotten into that range where we know we can
have enough of that accumulated time on renion to deliver the gains that we're looking for in
the absence of some of that really high weight that we' be using now as a physical therapist
I would argue that controlled repetitions are a must with what whatever rep range you're using
so the Ecentric portion of a lift even in those lower rep ranges is still incredibly important
if you want to have any longevity in the gym now that's all good however a lot of things start to
go wrong when you fixate on this three set to 12 mentality because right off the bat Jesse take
these weights again yes sir if you find yourself performing your sets and you're fixated on the rep
count go ahead and do a set to 12 to 12 now let's say on the third repetition here it gets pretty
difficult let's just say like there's there's no way I'm getting to my 12 repetitions what would
you do I would start cutting my rep short like how range of motion motion so go ahead so you start
pumping out a few half reps you're like okay well four and five and six so you start to throw away
repetitions with the pursuit being I got to get to my 12 you're making a giant mistake there too
because this fixation on hitting a certain number and discrediting the value of the tension and the
intensity that's required on every set to drive new muscle gains is a major mistake so if I go
and I perform my first few repetitions obviously those are the easiest ones of a set they're not
going to be doing much of the the the actual work for you if you then start cutting short the mid
reps because again you're afraid of not being able to reach the number 12 then you've kind of
thrown away the value of the middle reps as well and then when you get to the end and he starts to
say okay now I feel like if I resume my good full range of repetitions I'll be able to get my 10 11
and 12 with good difficulty yeah but I would argue that it's a different impact in result
because the repetitions leading up to it to cause the fatigue that that led into those final three
really productive repetitions isn't the same you let go of all that when you kind of half ass to
repetitions in the middle of the set so that's a mistake take this concept and apply even further
to the sets portion of three sets of 12 why why is it that three seems to be the magical number
that we have to assign to Any Given exercise that we're doing for a muscle group why can't
it be two why in some cases can't it just be one if you're so fixated on hitting your three sets
you can make a lot of other mistakes again join in and see if you've ever done any of these things
you do your first set and you say to yourself I'm never going to be able to get three sets of
this weight so instead of even completing your first set you bail on that weight you drop down
to something lighter that you know you'll be able to use for all three sets that's a mistake if you
could have gotten 12 repetitions it' be very very challenging on that last rep you we're going to
failure then use that weight and simply drop the weight down when you got the sets two and three
yeah it's a better end goal again you're fixing on being able to use 55 lbs for three sets of
12 don't get married to the numbers again the language of muscles is tension not a number on
the side of the dumbbell if you make that mistake by fixating on the number of sets you would also
cost yourself an opportunity to maybe drive more of those available resources towards an additional
exercise that might just happen to hit the muscle from a different angle and therefore get a better
overall result for example if you're training your chest and you're fixated on doing your three sets
of flat bench right and by the third set because of what I just talked about here you didn't really
have much that you're getting from it anyway you kind of half ass your way through the first couple
sets but on the last set you're not even using the appropriate weight to stimulate New Growth
from that set you would have been better off bailing at two and just putting the additional
set towards another exercise that hit the chest from a different angle in this case maybe a dip
right so you can hit some of the lower chest fibers rather than the upper chest and get a
more well-rounded impact on that muscle but we fixate on these numbers and by doing so we
cost ourselves one other thing here that I want you guys to understand don't fall in love with
12 you can build muscle from anywhere from five or six reps all the way up to 30 reps sometimes
even a little bit more as long as the effort is there I will caution you though that as you start
to work into those higher rep ranges the tension that you really need to find and and and sort of
you know dig down deep to find is a willingness to train through the burn because the stimulus that
becomes the driver of muscle growth there is the metabolic stimulus the burn right even even the
pump itself will actually help you in this case but you really want to be able to dig down into
that burn once it to burn is when the set starts and you want to be able to go and and and push
further again counting repetitions is not your goal making all of your repetitions count is the
goal as far as the slow Ecentric because again people get married to these Concepts all right
Jeff is saying go slow on the Ecentric not necessarily in those really high repetition
sets 25 repetitions it's kind of nonsense because what kind of a Ecentric overload are you getting
with a weight that you could possibly lift for 25 repetitions on rep two and three and four you're
going slow on the Ecentric it's like it's nothing you're not getting any attention the focus there
shifts to your ability to withstand that burn but not getting fixated on the numbers is the
best thing you can possibly do if you want to see gains I'm not picking on three sets of 12
but cod damn it go look at any of your programs you're doing right now I guarantee you there's
a lot of three sets of 12 prescriptions maybe three sets of 10 the same thing applies there
too don't get married to those numbers instead understand that what you're trying to do is make
sure the effort is there to create muscle growth not just the number being checked off and when
you do that guys I promise you you'll make the best games you possibly can if you're looking
for complete programs guys where by the way we program in expanded set ranges do two to four
sets because I want you to have the flexibility to know your body is unique to you and the stimulus
is what really matters the most not just checking a box you can find them in our athx programs over
at aex.com I hope you found the video helpful guys if you haven't done so cck subscribe if
you haven't checked out the old video Jesse's grown a bit since then you can watch that one
right over here as well in the meantime hope you guys subscribe and I'll see you guys in the next
video
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