My name is Francis X. Livoti Jr., Personal Trainer and owner of Genesis Diversified Services. I've trained all manner of athletes from Squash Players to Kick boxers and the simple answer to the above question is no.
The secret to building muscle strength is muscle "inroading". That is to say, the muscle should be made to exert itself for a period of time during which it is completely fatigued in order to "innervate" or stimulate as many muscle fibers as possible. When a muscle begins to exert itself against a load, it calls upon only that number of fibers within it necessary to meet the demand placed upon it. As it continues to perform repetitions and the fibers initially recruited begin to tire, it calls upon additional fibers to join in the effort and so on until the maximum number of fibers have been involved and the muscle finally fails under the load. Unless a particular fiber has been innervated during strength training, it will not increase in size and strength. While performing multiple sets of an exercise can certainly be helpful in achieving muscle inroading it is not absolutely necessary, especially in the early stages of a training program. If you do elect to perform multiple sets of an exercise perform no more than three. If you aren't achieving inroading after three sets it's time to re-evaluate your lifting technique rather than ramp up the number of sets. So what's the correct way to go about lifting? The answer is to make sure that you have properly balanced the three components common to any successful exercise program, Intensity, Duration, and Frequency.
Intensity
Intensity refers to the level of effort you put into an activity. There are only two levels of effort that can be measured with definite accuracy, 100% effort or zero effort. Everything in between is pure guesswork and Intensity of effort is critically important. You should strive to lift a given weight until you reach the point where you cannot complete another repetition no matter how hard you try. That = 100% effort. Does this mean you keep lifting until sunset if that's what it takes to exhaust you? Of course it doesn't. Failure must take place within a specific time frame and that's where Duration comes in.
Duration
Duration refers the amount of time each set or workout session entails. There is an inverse relationship between Intensity and Duration. The more intense your level of effort, the shorter the time period that you are able to sustain it will be. The lower your level of effort, the longer the time period you are able to sustain it will be. With respect to strength training, research has shown that the optimal time for achieving failure is between 40 - 70 seconds for upper body exercises and between 90 - 120 seconds for lower body exercises. If you are failing sooner than that you are using a weight that is too heavy and not allowing for maximum muscle fiber innervation. If it takes longer than that to achieve failure then the load is too light and you are failing for reasons have more to do with aerobic factors than muscle fiber exhaustion.
When lifting be sure to remove all momentum from the movement by lifting in a controlled fashion so that that muscle is under constant load. A good rule of thumb is to take 2 seconds for the positive phase of the movement (the actual lifting of the weight) 4 seconds for the negative phase (the lowering of the weight). This translates into an approximately 6 second repetition. Applying this to the above recommended time frames, you should achieve failure in 6 - 12 seconds for upper body exercises and 15 - 20 seconds for lower body exercises. By using these rep numbers as a guide you won't have to keep an eye on the clock as you lift.
Frequency
This refers to how often you perform the exercise program. The minimum number of times you should strength train is twice a week. Three times would be even better, but surprisingly strength training twice a week gives you 75% of the benefit that doing it three times a week would so if time is short this is an excellent option. Whatever number of workouts you choose to schedule in a week, they should take no more than 1 hour. Remember that there is an inverse relationship between Intensity and Duration and Intensity of effort is crucial to success. If you are able to lift for more than an hour then you are not putting out the level of effort you should be.
Follow the guidelines I have given you above and I assure you that you will achieve the sort of strength increases that may have eluded you up until now. Feel free to visit me on the web here. Good Luck!
Sincerely,
"Francis X"
