I used to wonder why multiple sets were useful in strength training. Why not lift the biggest weight you can manage, once? Or if that’s too simple, pick something smaller and lift it a bunch of times — but why fiddle with different amounts of weight. The weight training and exercise physiology literature that I’ve seen is extremely unhelpful on this. It presents prescriptive advice with no evidence, or occasionally evidence with no mechanism.
I think I’ve finally pieced together a theory about why multiple sets are useful.
The point of weight strength is to lift the heaviest weight you can lift, once (or at most, eight to ten times). Any other exercise you do, such as twelve reps of a smaller weight, is either wasted time or a means to that end. read more »
