Is the total volume more important than the rate at which it is done?

Question

For example, is it just as good to do five sets of five pushups instead of one set of twenty-five? In this example, I would not become fatigued after the first set of five or even after the fifth set of five, but I would still achieve the same number of total reps. Or I could even do 100 reps over the course of several sets and still not reach failure. It would take more time to achieve the 100 reps, but there would still be more total volume achieved. The question is, is the total volume of training more important than going to the point of failure on each set? And is it ever necessary to go to temporary failure on any set of any exercise? Once you have reached failure, how long should you wait until doing another set? Is it best to stop after reaching failure? When you reach failure, is that bad for your muscles or nervous system?

Answer 1

The problem with this question are the pushups - for most guys, you aren't getting enough resistance to reach hypertrophy. This comes down to the type of muscle fibers you're employing when doing pushups. Unless you're very weak in the upper body where you can only do a few pushups at one time, anything over about 15 reps you're developing your slow twich (Type 1) muscle fibers, which are the muscle fibers most used for aerobic activity and longer sustained activies, and these muscles don't grow much. You'll see some tone but you won't get much mass from pushups no matter how you do them.

Now if you're dealing with weights where you're able to really load up, then there are considerations for number of reps, sets and failure. Most of the time, failure is what you're aiming for as at this point is where you're muscles are most strained, but it's where the real development occurs. In response to this stress, your body will adapt by adding new muscle tissue in order to deal with the stress, which is at the core of strength training. When you go to failure, you're taxing the system enough to where you're actually causing the appropriate level of stress needed for hypotrophy to occur. Usually you can attain this within a 10 rep range in 2-4 sets of an exercise.

However, there may be routines or situations where you may not want to go to absolute failure, such as when doing squats or a particular routine where you're supposed to "keep one in the bag" (staying one rep shy of failure).

If you can get access to a gym that would be much better than pushups. You simply won't be able to get enough stimulation to gain much muscle mass this way.