Bodybuilding legend Dorian Yates wants lifters to stop treating prescribed rep counts as a reason to end a set.
Training programmes and rep ranges are useful for structuring your workouts and tracking progress. But Yates argues that if you reach your target number with plenty left in the tank, stopping simply because the programme says ’10 reps’ could mean cutting a productive set short.
The opposite applies, too. Grinding your way to a prescribed number with sloppy form isn’t the goal.
Instead, Yates recommends focusing on executing every rep with intent and continuing until you’re no longer able to complete another with the required technique.
‘So, what you’re going to do is one perfect rep, with full focus, [in the] positive and negative,’ Yates says. ‘When you’ve done that one perfect rep, you’re going to do another perfect rep. And you’re going to keep doing that.
‘When you can’t do anymore, that’s the number. I don’t care what it is. We’re obviously trying to be in a certain range, between say 6 and 12 reps. I’ve already calculated the reps are going to be somewhere around there. But just do as many as you can. Don’t say, “Oh, I got to 10 reps and I stopped”. There’s no magic in the number 10. The number is when you can’t do anymore, and that’s when your body says, “Hey, what’s going on here? I’m not used to this stress. I need to adapt to it by becoming a little bit stronger and more resilient”. And that’s called muscle growth.’
Do You Need to Train to Failure?
Yates’s approach is built around training to failure – continuing a set until you’re unable to complete another rep with good form.
That can be an effective way to ensure you’re training with sufficient intensity, but you don’t necessarily need to reach absolute failure on every set to build muscle. Getting close to failure can provide a strong hypertrophy stimulus while potentially generating less fatigue, particularly on big compound movements.
The useful part of Yates’s advice is not to become overly attached to an arbitrary number. A target of 6-12 reps gives you a range to work within, but the effort you put into those reps matters.
If you hit 10 and could comfortably perform another 5, the load may be too light for the intended stimulus. If rep 8 is already an ugly grind, chasing 10 simply because it’s written in your programme isn’t necessarily productive either.
Why Yates Prioritises Intensity
Quality over quantity has long been central to Yates’s training philosophy. During his bodybuilding career, he famously favoured lower overall training volumes performed at extremely high intensities.
That meant taking working sets to failure and sometimes beyond it, using advanced techniques such as forced negativesand rest-pause reps.
You don’t need to copy that approach wholesale. But his broader point is worth remembering: your rep target should guide the set, not dictate when you stop regardless of effort.
Choose a load that puts you in your intended rep range, make every rep count and let your performance tell you when it’s time to adjust the weight.
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