This Week in Training Science

Drop sets, BFR, and post-workout nutrition each deliver the most benefit when applied as goal-specific tools, not default habits.

Week 36 brought a focused look at how deliberate decision-making — not just effort — drives training outcomes. From drop set mechanics to post-workout nutrition timing, the week's content consistently pointed toward precision over intensity.

Research Highlights

Three topics reviewed this week covered cold-water immersion, repetitions-in-reserve (RIR) accuracy, and blood-flow restriction (BFR) training. The connecting thread: lifters who align their methods with specific goals tend to make better decisions than those who simply work harder. RIR accuracy, in particular, remains a meaningful variable — how close you think you are to failure shapes the training stimulus you actually receive. Logging RPE and RIR per set in Kenso gives you a running record to check your estimates against actual performance, which helps calibrate RIR accuracy over time.

On BFR specifically, the strongest evidence relates to muscle growth rather than respiratory outcomes. A meta-analysis by Lixandrão ME et al., "Magnitude of Muscle Strength and Mass Adaptations Between High-Load Resistance Training Versus Low-Load Resistance Training Associated With Blood-Flow Restriction: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis" (Sports Medicine 2018;48(2):361-378), and by Loenneke JP et al., "Low intensity blood flow restriction training: a meta-analysis" (Eur J Appl Physiol 2012;112(5):1849-1859), indicate that low-load training at roughly 20–40% 1RM combined with blood-flow restriction can produce hypertrophy comparable to conventional heavier loading in many contexts. This is what makes BFR a versatile tool — as a way to accumulate productive stimulus at lower loads, not as a treatment for breathlessness or ventilatory demand, for which we have no reliable evidence to cite here.

Expert Insights

Volume and hypertrophy research — for example, Baz-Valle E et al., "A Systematic Review of the Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy" (J Hum Kinet 2022) — informs several of the themes covered this week, particularly around structuring training around specific goals and managing total load. This reinforces a point Kenso returns to often: the most effective training decisions are grounded in evidence, not convention.

Training Takeaways

  • Drop sets can add productive volume — when the details are right. Weight selection, number of drops, and placement within a session all affect whether drop sets contribute useful volume or just fatigue. Treat them as a deliberate tool rather than a default finisher. (General guidance; individual response varies.)
  • BFR training has broader utility than most lifters realise. Used at roughly 20–40% 1RM, blood-flow restriction can drive hypertrophy at lower loads (Lixandrão ME et al., Sports Medicine 2018;48(2):361-378) — potentially useful during deload phases, around injury, or when managing joint and systemic load. Note that respiratory or breathlessness benefits are not established.
  • Post-workout carbs help refuel, but timing is flexible. Refuelling after training supports glycogen replenishment, and for most people total daily intake and session frequency matter more than a narrow "window." Treat this as general nutritional guidance rather than a strict rule.
  • Plank duration is a limited proxy for core development. As general programming guidance, progression is better structured around load, position, and stability demand than around how long you can hold a static position.
  • Supercompensation is a useful heuristic, not a precise schedule. The classic supercompensation curve is a simplified model, and there's limited direct evidence for exact individual "windows." Use it as a way to think about balancing recovery and training frequency — not as a timing rule to hit precisely. In Kenso, the rule-based progression engine's deload triggers can flag when it's time to back off, giving you a structured prompt rather than guesswork.