Leg Day School - Jeremy Potvin, Olivia Gravengaard & Olivia Rothenburg
My goal is doing the absolute least and getting the absolute most. - Liv Roth
There is a lot of interpretations of what intensity is, furthermore there are a ton of training techniques and strategies.
Here in this case Olivia Gravengaard and Olivia Rothenburg teach Jeremy Potvin there strategy of getting several warm up sets (avoiding exhaustion) and then 1 all out top set to total mechanical failure that is logged to track progress and then 1 "back off" set to failure that is also tracked.
True mechanical failure, you have to tap into your head. You mentally have to go somewhere else because it is that painful. Its getting past that "tired" feeling and making your body push through.
The point is to produce a novel stimulus ie more weight or more reps on the lifts that are tracked without 3-4 or more sets.
If you can do 4 working sets with a pyramided weight from 4 plates 5 plates and 6 plates a side, you really could have probably done a top set of 6-8 reps with close to 8 plates.
The first 3 "work" sets would've wasted energy that could have been geared towards your top set.
The Olivias go into a lot of detail on exercise selection and more execution advice. Check it out and let us know what you think in the community groups.