The middle sets of your exercise are mostly a warm up and nobody wants to hear it

Something clicked for me watching how most programs are actually run: the first hard set of a movement does the heavy lifting for the stimulus, and everything after it contributes progressively less while costing the same recovery.

The newer work on training close to failure keeps pointing in the same direction, the set taken near the edge is the one doing the growing, and the follow ups are largely maintenance reps wearing a progress costume. Before anyone loads the pitchforks, this is not a case for one set training, because accumulating quality hard sets across a week is still the reliable path.

It is a case against pretending every set in a five set block is equal currency. My honest question is simple: if you cut the second half of your working sets but pushed the first ones closer to failure, what would you actually expect to lose?