2024-02-28 17:52:17
Any beginner in bodybuilding has necessarily gone through the famous 4×12!
Moreover, even some intermediate/advanced practitioners may still have it in their training.
If you don’t know what we’re talking regarding, strictly speaking it involves doing 4 sets of 12 repetitions of an exercise, i.e. a commonly accepted repetition range for promote muscle hypertrophy.
The 4×12 is also the most classic format of all the training plans that are lying around online.
Yet, many people have had good results with …so, basically, what is his problem?
The fixed number of reps
4×12, 3×12, 3×10 or even 4×10, it doesn’t matter, the problem with such formats is that you are focused on these numbers and without even knowing it, you are putting yourself in bad conditions for your series.
Basically, you’re not going to be able to achieve the level of muscle growth that you are capable of and for good reason.
Have you ever heard of muscle tension? It is the key factor that stimulates, activates muscle synthesis and makes your muscles grow.
We know that the best way to obtain this mechanical tension is to lift heavy loads.
A time under tension not crazy
However, with a format like 4×12, you are clearly not able to handle heavy stuff and you work with moderate loads.
Regardless, we can compensate by bringing into play other factors such as time under tensionparticularly in the eccentric phase movement.
On a bench press for example, this corresponds to the moment when you lower your dumbbells and we know that it is during this phase that we are the strongest and that we have the most gains to make.
The problem is that when we have in mind to absolutely complete these 12 repetitions, we send them as quickly as possible, there is almost no room for tempo!
Take the test: start your timer before the first rep and stop it at the last. What does it indicate? 30 seconds ?
A good tempo is 3 seconds of eccentric for 1 second of concentric (explosive rise), which makes a minimum of 48 seconds for 12 repetitions…
So doing 4×12 often means uncontrolled repetitions and far from sufficient mechanical tension, all coupled with an average workload…
A perfectible amplitude
The other problem with absolutely aiming for 12 reps is that if we realize during the series that we will never reach the count, we will voluntarily (or not) start to cut back on the range of movement, just to make sure you hit the quota.
In a pinch, the last 3-4 repetitions will be decent, because we will have saved ourselves enough that we will be able to send everything “cleanly” at the end.
I’m sure this speaks to you, right?
“1…2…3…oulala it’s going to be hard… 1/2 repetition, 1/2 repetition, 1/2 repetition, 1/2 repetition, 10, it’s better, I send everything to 11 and 12, that’s it, who’s the dad !!!”
Once once more, this is the whole problem of making the number of repetitions a fix, we will automatically type in quality and therefore, the intensity: big mistake !
A much better solution
And then following all: why 4 series? Why 12 repetitions? Why these “magic” numbers, as if drawn from a hat?
Why not just 2 series?
In the same vein of what we have just seen, have you ever validated the first series and said to yourself…“Oula, it’s going to be hot to complete the next 3”.
Result, what do we do?
We take lighter weights for the next series, when it would be better to keep the loads, control the tempo, ensure quality and surrender to muscular failure, even if it means not completing the 12 repetitions.
By doing 2 sets of 12 repetitions with a high intensity close to muscular failure rather than 3 sets of 12 with a lower intensity, you will have better results: less is more !
Another solution if you are dry following your third series and you feel that the 4th is really going to be mission impossible, move on to another exercise which will stimulate the same muscle group, but from a different working angle.
Example, you were on bench press, switch to dips.
What should we remember?
4×12 is not bad in itself and you will always find people who have good results with it (note that as a beginner in bodybuilding, you have results with almost any What).
The idea to remember is that your muscles, they don’t understand numbers, they understand the tension you provide them!
We can sum it all up with this famous gym-goer adage: “do not count repetition, make the repetitions count”
Don’t count your reps, make sure you do reps that count. Clearly, stop fixating on the number of repetitions to complete to fit into your program, we concentrate on the effort, on the intensity of work.
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