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How to Tell If You’re Training Hard Enough?

Take this into consideration to make sure you are building more muscle every time.

Do you know how to tell if you’re training hard enough? You are about to find out.

Training hard can mean different things to different people. But when people want to train hard, it usually means they are trying their best to lose weight, or build muscle, or maybe a combination of both.

It is vastly understood that the more you train your body, the better and fitter it gets. But how much is too much? Or better yet, how little is too little and when should you push harder? That is what Jeff Nippard attempts to explain utilising some scientific studies and his personal bodybuilding journey.

Jeff Nippard is a natural professional bodybuilder and fitness coach who shares tips and training programs on his YouTube channel.

In a video, he gave his thoughts about how to tell if you’re training hard enough. Check it out.

how to tell if you're training hard enoughSource: Victor Freitas on Unsplash

How to Tell If You’re Training Hard Enough

How to tell if you’re training hard enough? This question is revolved around a concept known as “training to failure.” Analysing training videos from other bodybuilders, Nippard poses three questions you should ask yourself after you do a set of any given exercise:

  • Was that set to failure?
  • Could you have gone harder?
  • Should you have gone harder?

There are two types of failure in the bodybuilding community. The first, known as absolute, is when you cannot perform a single rep any longer no matter how hard you try or change the way you try to do it. The second one, mostly used by coaches, is known as the technical failure when you cannot do another rep with proper form. For Nippard, failure should be defined somewhere in between those two concepts.

“Every set to failure approach is a viable option for people who are very limited on time and want to get an efficient training stimulus for the lowest possible time investment,” Nippard says. However, this style of training is not optimal in his view, especially over the long term because your volume will be low on a weekly basis as you will be going hard every set.

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For this reason, if you do sets to failure every time, logically you will be performing fewer sets and reps weekly and, according to scientific studies, in general, doing 10 sets per body muscle per week is better than doing 5-9 sets or doing less than 5 sets.

In Nippard’s view, if you are training with heavy weight, you can get a solid hypertrophic stimulus by leaving 4-5 reps in the tank. If you are doing lighter weight in a higher rep range such as 12-15 reps, you shouldn’t be leaving more than 2 reps in the tank – so you should train close to failure in these moments.

And that is how to tell if you’re training hard enough. Jeff Nippard explains further his arguments and even compares a few videos from famous bodybuilders such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chris Bumstead. Click on the video below to check it out.

VIDEO – How to Tell If You’re Training Hard Enough

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