If you are doing “3 sets of 12” in your workouts to build muscle, then you must watch this before your next training session. You see, there is inherently nothing wrong with any rep scheme that you perform if you do so with high effort and an adequate amount of intensity to build muscle. The problem is, 3 sets of 12 is so commonly performed as the end goal rather than considering the effort behind it that it can become a hallmark of ineffective workout programs.

I start this video off by having Jesse perform a sets of dumbbell incline bench press for 12 reps. Your job is to see if you can spot what he is doing wrong on the set. Many might look to the angle of his elbows, the path of the dumbbells or the position of his hands even. None of these would be right. The problem is the speed of each rep, more specifically, the speed of the eccentric or lowering part of the rep.

When you perform your eccentric reps too quickly you miss out on one of the most significant muscle hypertrophy stimuli that is available to you in your workouts. Often times, people will speed through this portion of the rep, completing the lowering of the dumbbells in one second or less. This is not as detrimental when the weights that are being used are significantly heavy and the main driver of growth in this case is mechanical tension.

When the weights start to get lighter, allowing for reps to failure that are greater than 5-6, and more accurately up in the 8-12 rep range, then you need to rely on alternate methods for driving overload. The eccentric muscle damage pathway is one that is perfectly suited to help you to grow. The key factor here is to try and extend that period to about 3 seconds per rep, paired with a 1 second explosive concentric. This is a total of 4 seconds per rep.

When performing a set of 12 reps, this would take you to 48 seconds for the set duration - enough accumulated time under tension to make an impact when it comes to building muscle.

Remember, tension is the language that muscles speak. You must become fluent in it if you want to build muscle fast and forever.

In the absence of heavy weights, that many would argue are better suited to build strength rather than size, then you need to employ methods of set intensification that will help you to grow muscle.

Far too often, people see “3 sets of 12” written on their workout program and they simply want to be able to check off each set and every rep as either accomplished or not. What I am saying is that this mentality is short sighted and not the original goal of the prescription. Who cares if you get to 12 reps? If you fail at 11 is the set not still effective? If slowing the speed of the eccentric down causes you to feel each rep in the target muscle more easily and engage that muscle as intended - does it matter that you came up one rep short of your 12 rep mission?

The answer to all of these questions is no, it does not matter.

Stop fixating on a specific rep count and instead make sure that you make your reps count.

Add onto this the fact that research has shown that you can build muscle with up to 30 reps as long as you perform these sets to absolute failure. The lighter the weights you use, the more important it is to push through the metabolic burn to the point of momentary muscle failure in order to see growth from it. The point is, the 12 rep range isn’t magical but it does require a few modifications to it to make sure that your cumulative tension is equated to the much higher mechanical tensions delivered to muscles when using heavier weight sets.

Likewise, when it comes to performing 3 sets, why? Is there something magical about the number three in so far that doing just 1 or 2 sets would render the exercise ineffective? If you are lightening up your weights because you are fearful that you can complete all 3 sets with that weight then you are already making your first mistake. Instead, use the heaviest weight that you can perform 10-12 reps with in your first set and simply adjust down as needed in subsequent sets to match your output level around your fatigue.

The bottom line is, becoming formulaic with your workouts and fixating on numbers for sets and reps is often a limiter of your ultimate muscle gains. 3 sets of 12 are fine, but when it becomes your mentality it becomes a major roadblock for more muscle growth.

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