How to use it
- Muscle sets: stop 0–3 reps before failure. Full failure wasn't clearly better and costs recovery.
- Strength and skill sets: stop 3–5 reps or seconds short, form perfect.
- Order: skills first, muscle work last. Once a week, take one safe exercise to true failure to check your guesses.
- Never fail on handstand push-ups, planche or anything freestanding.
How sure we are
S Evidence: strong. Large trials or many studies, pointing the same way.
P Evidence: promising. Good studies, but small or few. Use it and keep checking.
Sources
Refalo et al. 2023 · Robinson et al. 2024 (two meta-analyses) · body-weight pull-up sets stopped when the reps slowed by about a quarter beat sets ground out to a 50% slowdown, for strength and speed, in 8 weeks (Sánchez-Moreno et al. 2020, randomised, 29 trained men, 🟡).
Not medical, legal or financial advice.