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Today was legs day. My previous workout was 6 days ago (upper body) and the one before that exactly 13 days ago (legs). Today i slept well, ate well and planned a heavy legs workout.

For my first set i did 8 reps to failure on the leg extension at 250lbs, and then hurried over to the leg press for pre-exhausted leg presses to failure:

i did 8 reps with 585lbs, then jumped up, stripped a plate from each side, and hit 4 more reps, then jumped up, stripped another plate from each side, and hit 3 more reps to failure, then jumped up stripped another plate from each side and hit about 3 more reps to failure … i continued thus until there were only 4 plates left on the leg press and and i could taste blood in my mouth from the cardio-respiratory demand. I had to terminate the set when i couldn′t steadily lower the weight anymore. At that point i was gasping for breathe and my chest was heaving and it felt like my legs and lungs would explode.

I stood up out of the machine and my knees quickly buckled and i crumpled to floor… i had to lie there for about half and hour before i could pick myself up and crawl home. i couldn′t finish the rest of the workout cuz my hands were limp and my head was light as a feather.

I didn′t expect to be able to tax my system so drastically in one set –i didn′t even have the strength to move my own body weight after that! so, Do any of you guys know how good/bad it is to do such sets?

Should i tone the intensity down a little so that i can finish the workout, (note: I feel like i got a really deep growth stimulation today though ;-)) , or should i keep the intensity high and leave the other sets for another time? i mean, this is HIT isn′t it?

any help would be apprecited?
thanks
Bayan

"i did 8 reps with 585lbs, then jumped up, stripped a plate from each side, and hit 4 more reps, then jumped up, stripped another plate from each side, and hit 3 more reps to failure, then jumped up stripped another plate from each side and hit about 3 more reps to failure … i continued thus until there were only 4 plates left on the leg press"

Actually, it sounds like you performed 5+ sets. Due to the excessive inroad such training causes, you may not even grow from your workout. Every last bit of your body′s limited amount of recovery/growth reserves will likely be required in order for you to recover from this workout. Therefore, you may not achieve overcompensation (growth) from such excessive volume.

Bayan,

Yes, I agree with Christoph. That sounded like a little too much too me. Mike also advocated NEVER to do drop sets if you do a traditional set to failure. Rest-pause is another story, because it′s maximal from the beginning, so the total TUL is still fairly low. With drop sets, you wait too long before continuing, so I′m sure it′s not very productive. I′d stick with normal failure, and possibly a forced rep or two and/or keep pushing/pulling until static and negative strength is exhausted.

Darrell

I would say so! Egads! On the floor for 30 min? Blood in your mouth? That′s a few times over what you might wanna do 🙂 Don′t kill yourself for a few extra reps dude, yikes!

Az

Bayan,
What kind of PLATE-LOADING Leg press machine do you use that lets you go to failure and still end up with the weight sled at the top position? Or did you start from the bottom on the remaining sets?

Mike stated a number of times that as a bodybuilder your purpose is not to go into the gym and see how much you can do or how much you can take, but to use the minimum amount of exercise required to stimulate growth. Bodybuilding is not an endurance contest.

If you want to make your leg workout more intense occasionally you could just skip the Leg Extensions and do the Leg Press using Doggcrapp′s Rest Pause by going to failure and then locking out the weight, taking a 20-30 second rest-pause while taking some deep breaths then pushing to failure again, rack the weight again with another rest-pause for 20-30 seconds while taking deep breaths then pushing to failure on more time. That′s 3 total sets and the weight stays the same on all three.