Oct 5, 2026 · 34 min · 11 segments
More pain = more gains… right? Not quite. 💀 In this episode of The Fit2 Perform Podcast, Bobby and Steffan tackle one of the biggest ideas in gym culture: that a good workout means pushing every set…
Steffan Lloyd-EvansHostBobbyHostUm, on that note, let's, let's chat about, um, training things 'cause we have gone all around the houses today.
Uh, do you actually need-
Now, specifically, I'm speaking about muscular failure here because there are two types of failure when we're training.
You don't need me to tell you that we've got form failure or what we might call mechanical failure if we're being fancy, but form failure, i.e. when your form gets a bit shit, and muscular failure, when your form is still immaculate, but you literally just can't carry on.
There's a whole other episode on what actually might cause that and why that happens, so we're not gonna cover that today.
No
Basically, when you're doing an exercise and it gets to the point where it feels really, really, really unpleasant and you physically can't continue.
We know what that is now, and then also what we tend to also use or hear quite frequently, which you might have seen written as R-I-R. RIR, reps in reserve.
RIR.
[chuckles]
Which means finishing your set with a number of repetitions left in the tank.
So if we know what muscular failure feels like, and let's say you were doing a barbell squat with 120 kilograms on your back, and you knew that you can do 10 reps of that, and on the 10th rep, that's when your muscles are going to fail.
Reps in reserve would be, let's say, let's finish with two reps in reserve, so two RIR would be e-eight reps for you.
Just skip back 30 seconds and listen to that again if you need to process it twice.
[chuckles] Yeah.
Um, on that note, let's, let's chat about, um, training things 'cause we have gone all around the houses today.
Uh, do you actually need-
Now, specifically, I'm speaking about muscular failure here because there are two types of failure when we're training.
You don't need me to tell you that we've got form failure or what we might call mechanical failure if we're being fancy, but form failure, i.e. when your form gets a bit shit, and muscular failure, when your form is still immaculate, but you literally just can't carry on.
There's a whole other episode on what actually might cause that and why that happens, so we're not gonna cover that today.
No
Basically, when you're doing an exercise and it gets to the point where it feels really, really, really unpleasant and you physically can't continue.
We know what that is now, and then also what we tend to also use or hear quite frequently, which you might have seen written as R-I-R. RIR, reps in reserve.
RIR.
[chuckles]
Which means finishing your set with a number of repetitions left in the tank.
So if we know what muscular failure feels like, and let's say you were doing a barbell squat with 120 kilograms on your back, and you knew that you can do 10 reps of that, and on the 10th rep, that's when your muscles are going to fail.
Reps in reserve would be, let's say, let's finish with two reps in reserve, so two RIR would be e-eight reps for you.
Just skip back 30 seconds and listen to that again if you need to process it twice.
[chuckles] Yeah.
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