Why Strength Training Becomes Exhausting and How to Handle It: Do You Really Need Three Sets?

The core concept of functional training is 'minimum effective dose.' It's a simple idea: 'If one pill can make you sleep, why take two?' Applied to strength training, it means 'If three sets (including warm-up) are enough to stimulate the effect, why do we need to do more sets?' Slow and injury-free progress is the true secret to rapid advancement. Short-term gains can lead to injuries, ultimately moving you further away from your goals.

Some people ask Sam several questions, but the key question is 'recovery.' Sam encountered two situations:

One: Busy office workers who come to classes or lectures after work, or even have other workouts (running, cycling, etc.).

Two: Busy coaches who not only need to train themselves but also teach classes.

Appropriate strength training is good, but inappropriate strength training can negatively impact your overall mental and physical state or 'quality.' For example, fatigue, poor appetite (always needing rich, fried foods to have an appetite, but then the weight doesn't increase or decreases), physical discomfort, injuries, illness, etc.

I understand the well-intentioned questions of some people who want clients to train a little more, but the key is 'how much has it recovered?' The human body recovers not only from the pressure of training but also from:

One: Food digestion (processed foods, non-natural foods, fried foods…),

Two: Work pressure (long hours, performance pressure, job uncertainty…),

Three: Financial pressure (car loans, mortgages, rent…),

Four: Family pressure (caring for children, caring for the elderly, celebrating holidays…),

Five: Social pressure (making friends,…),

Six: Facing things you don't like,

Seven: Exercise, commuting by car, insufficient sleep.

Some things, even if you're passionate about them, are a stress on the body, like Sam's case. Although he really likes giving lectures, he simply can't maintain a high level consistently.

This is why Sam likes the 'minimum effective dose' concept, or it can be explained as 'training less is actually good.' During a lecture, he mentioned that you don't always need 'three sets x several times.' Instead, you should observe your condition.

Taking Sam as an example, he follows the *Macropoloie Functional Training Bible* system, training two to three times a week, but currently he's trying to do 'two sets (the first set is warm-up), and the second set is done until technical failure (the N+ concept). This is better than doing each exercise for three sets, as it feels more suitable for the current situation. For example, the schedule is two sets of five reps, and the goal of the second set is to do at least 5 reps; the more you can do, the more you do.

This makes the second set less strenuous, requiring full effort, and the muscles may slightly swell, but it won't make you feel completely exhausted or fatigued. Those who do only two sets will also shorten the overall training time.

This is the difference between 'ideal' and 'actual.' Literature and books list the number of sets to train, but this data is mostly from laboratory experiments, and it's deliberately extracted to highlight the effective ones. The subjects are kept under controlled conditions (such as diet, rest, and no work), which doesn't reflect reality. Therefore, coaches and individuals should learn to 'observe' their bodies and adjust their training content to find what works best for them.

Source: Sam's Workshop