How Hard Should You Actually Train? Master reps in reserve for Better Results

How Hard Should You Actually Train?

Last week, we talked about GLP-1 medications and why preserving muscle matters when you're losing weight.

This week, we're getting back to training.

And I want to answer a question that can make a huge difference in the results you get from your workouts:

How hard should you actually train?

Because you can spend an hour in the gym, work up a sweat, get sore, and still not give your body much of a reason to adapt.

On the other hand, you can train so hard that you're constantly exhausted, your

performance drops, and you're struggling to recover.

So where's the sweet spot?

Why does training hard actually matter?

When you lift weights, you're giving your body a reason to adapt.

You're essentially telling it:

"I need to be stronger than this."

Your body responds by adapting to the stress you're putting on it.

Over time, that can mean:

More muscle.

More strength.

Better performance.

Greater physical capacity.

But the set has to be challenging enough to create a meaningful stimulus.

That's why simply going through the motions isn't enough.

If you finish a set and could have easily done another 10 reps, you probably didn't challenge the muscle very much.

If you finish a set knowing you only had 1 or 2 good reps left, you've created a much stronger stimulus.

And that's where RIR comes in.

What is RIR?

RIR stands for Reps In Reserve.

It's simply a way of describing how many good reps you had left at the end of a set.

If you finish a set and honestly think you could have done:

5 more reps = 5 RIR

3 more reps = 3 RIR

1 more rep = 1 RIR

No more good reps = 0 RIR, or failure

It gives you a way to measure how hard you actually trained instead of simply saying, "That felt hard."

So what's the difference between 5 RIR and 1–3 RIR?

This is where RIR becomes useful.

If you're stopping a set with 5 or more good reps still available, you're generally leaving a lot of potential stimulus on the table, particularly when your goal is building muscle.

Move closer to failure, around 1–3 RIR, and you're generally recruiting more of the

muscle's available capacity and creating a stronger stimulus.

You don't necessarily need to take the set all the way to failure.

In fact, taking every set to failure can create a lot of additional fatigue without necessarily giving you enough additional benefit to make it worthwhile.

So think of it like this:

5 RIR: Probably not challenging enough for many working sets.

3 RIR: Hard, productive set.

1–2 RIR: Very hard, highly productive set.

0 RIR: Failure. Sometimes useful, but not something you need on every set.

The exact sweet spot can vary depending on the exercise, the person, and the goal.

But the basic idea is simple:

You need enough effort to create a stimulus.

Who actually needs to understand RIR?

This is important because I don't want to make fitness more complicated than it needs to be.

If you're brand new to lifting, you probably don't need to obsess over whether you're at 2 RIR or 3 RIR.

Your first few months should be about learning how to perform the exercises, developing consistency, building basic strength, and becoming comfortable in the gym.

You don't need to turn every workout into a science experiment.

But as you become more experienced, RIR becomes much more useful.

If you've been training for years, you can't rely on beginner gains forever.

The difference between a productive set and a mediocre set becomes more important.

That's when being able to recognize:

"I had five reps left."

versus

"I had two reps left."

can actually change your results.

And here's why I don't want you taking every set to failure.

Your goal isn't to have the hardest possible workout today.

Your goal is to get better over time.

If you take every set to absolute failure, you're going to create more fatigue.

That can affect the rest of your workout, your recovery, and potentially your ability to perform well in your next workout.

Training around 1–3 RIR allows you to train hard enough to create a strong stimulus while still leaving some room to recover and perform again.

That's what makes your training repeatable.

And repeatability matters because muscle and strength aren't built from one heroic workout.

They're built from doing productive work over and over again.

Stimulus → Recovery → Adaptation → Repeat.

That's the process.

TRY THIS THIS WEEK

On your next workout, pick a few of your working sets and ask yourself:

"How many good reps did I have left?"

Don't worry about being perfect.

Just start paying attention.

You may discover that what you thought was 2 RIR was actually 5.

Or you may discover that you're taking almost everything to failure.

Either way, you've learned something about how you train.

And once you understand your effort, you can start making better decisions about your training.

Train hard enough to create a stimulus.

Recover enough to adapt.

Then come back and do it again.

That's how you turn workouts into results.

Next week, we're going to talk about something that can have a surprisingly big impact on your health, appetite, digestion, and ability to stick to a calorie deficit:

Fiber.

How much do you actually need?

Where should you get it?

And why can eating more fiber make losing body fat a whole lot easier?

I'll see you next week.

Josh

The Weekly Shift

Fitness. Health. Mindset. Life.