“Strength comes from intense effort, whether in the form of low repetitions or single repetitions, it does not come from pumping out set after set with medium heavy resistance,” wrote Anthony Ditillo. “The need for single attempts as a training medium cannot be overlooked because they teach you, just as the power rack teaches you, to fight against heavy weight.”59
Sets of four to six reps, with five being the Gym Math compromise, are an old standby when training “for strength”. Ditillo, however, spent a lot of words arguing against these “pumping” sets as mainstays of strength-building. High-rep sets ― even as few as 3-5 reps in this case ― don’t teach you how to lift maximum weights:
Some may argue that all that is necessary is medium heavy resistance and the strength will come whether you perform singles or not, but I beg to differ. What happens in most of those cases is that the lifter becomes proficient at performing many sets of three and five reps with a medium heavy weight and he also gains in muscle size and density from the work but his limit single and double attempts do not come to par with his repetition capabilities.
Doing maximum sets of five will not make you maximally strong, at least when it comes to handling 1RM weights. A lifter who never trains with maximum weights will struggle when it comes time to lift maximum weights. That’s a debatable conclusion, of course, but I’ve come to believe it’s true when you need to lift a maximal weight in the next few months. Ditillo had a simple solution: do lots of single reps. To lift heavy, we must lift heavy. Training with really low reps has all but vanished outside strength sports. Everybody knows that you train lighter and with higher reps to build muscle (or “tone up”), and you train heavy with low reps to build size. Singles, doubles, and triples ― sets of one, two, and three reps ― are off-limits.
Bob Peoples and his protégé, the legendary Paul Anderson, made ample use of singles. I n Rock, Iron, Steel, the eccentric strongman Steve Justa relates a range of programs that center on doing many singles with 70-80% weights, 3-6 days per week. Perhaps drawing on the knowledge of the Olympic lifters that predated them, powerlifters have always incorporated heavy singles.
Anthony Ditillo had his own ideas about his so-called Single Rep Principle. He wrote that you should warmup briefly before you “jump to 90% of your maximum and perform 5 single repetitions with this weight.” After the singles, you back off to 60% or 70% and “gut out 2 or 3 sets of all the repetitions you can possibly handle.” Progress happens by adding a rep or two to the initial five singles; once you get comfortable enough with the five, you’d go to six or seven. That gain in reps is the trigger to rest a few days, take a new PR, and start over with a newly-adjusted training weight.
Lifter and strongman Doug Hepburn used a similar method. One of Hepburn’s progressions involved starting with four singles and adding one rep each workout until reaching 10, at which point you’d add a little weight and start again.
Reps build strength by taking you to a point of failure, with the final grinder of a rep thought to do much of the strength-building. Reps mean grinding, and we know what grinding means. In contrast, singles aren’t all that much of a mental challenge unless you’re using serious competition-grade weights. You just do it, and then the bar’s back on the pins. Single reps maximize the quality we’re after.
With only the one rep to worry about, technical cues and a focus on rep quality can take priority over straining with tired muscles. Lots of first-reps give you lots of opportunity to practice getting a complex lift down to an art.
Remember, your form on a squat or bench press or whatever else isn’t just movement through space. Technique includes weight and speed. It’s not good enough to get picture- perfect form at 100kg your goal is to move 300. To get good at lifting a really heavy weight one time, you need to practice lifting really heavy weights one time. Singles let you do that.
Think you can’t get enough volume without reps? Then do more. Singles almost dare you to rack up high volumes. You don’t need to rest all that long between reps, and it turns into a race to beat the last one. It wasn’t that hard, was it?
Since you can handle much heavier weights on average, you won’t need to do as many total reps to see a big effect. Most of the “tone up without getting too bulky” crowd would find themselves right at home doing very low-rep sets, which build immense strength without size to go along with it. If you’re still a believer in the idea that eccentric tissue- trauma limits training frequency then singles are your cure: less volume and less grinding means you aren’t creating anything like the same tissue stress as maximum fives or even triples.
Heavy singles may seem intimidating if you’re coming from a high-rep background. Singles imply very heavy weights, nosebleed-causing, blood-pressure-raising, joint-popping weights. Surely it’s better to focus on reps, going lighter and saving our bodies from the wear and tear?
Fatigue, not weight, causes injuries. Squeezing out One More Rep, performing technical movements while tired, or simple repetitive strain from endurance training account for the vast majority of injuries inflicted at the gym. Weight, by itself, is rarely the culprit.
Training with quality – heavy but smooth – keeps you fresh and in control of the weight.