Stefan Ianev Trainer & Educator

13/10/2026

The fact that you can build muscle across a wide range of reps doesn’t mean every rep range makes sense for every exercise.

I’m probably not going to start doing sets of 5 on leg extensions just because lower reps can build muscle.

And I’m definitely not doing sets of 30 on squats just because higher reps can too 😂

Different exercises lend themselves better to different rep ranges depending on things like stability, loading potential, joint stress and how fatiguing the movement becomes.

For me, that usually means heavier, lower reps on compound movements that are well suited to heavier loading...

And progressively higher reps as I move towards more isolated exercises.

There’s no need to force every exercise into the same rep range.

One of the advantages of being able to build muscle across such a broad range of reps is that you can choose the range that actually suits the exercise.

12/10/2026

I used to think fatigue management meant progressively increasing the workload, periodically taking a deload, then building back up again.

But I’ve realised I haven’t actually taken a traditional deload in quite a while.

Instead, I’ve mostly been managing fatigue by changing the type of stress I’m exposing myself to.

If heavier loading starts beating me up, I can reduce the load and work in higher rep ranges.

If constantly pushing sets close to failure starts becoming draining, I can leave more reps in reserve and potentially distribute the work across more sets.

If higher-rep training starts creating too much local fatigue, I can move back towards heavier loading and lower reps.

And if I’m feeling more systemically run down, I can shift towards exercises that create less whole-body demand.

None of that means deloads are unnecessary. There are still times when pulling everything back makes sense.

I just don’t think fatigue management always has to mean doing less.

Sometimes changing what the training is costing you is enough to keep progressing.

10/10/2026

08/10/2026

Training every day. Eating 1,200–1,400 calories. Still not losing weight?

Before you cut calories further or add more cardio, there are a few things worth looking at.

1️⃣ Training quality vs quantity

More sessions don't necessarily mean better results. If you're constantly fatigued, struggling to progress and not recovering adequately, adding more training may only compound the problem.

2️⃣ Consistency of calorie intake

Eating 1,200 calories Monday to Thursday doesn't necessarily mean you're averaging 1,200 calories across the week.

Your overall energy balance matters more than a few individual days.

3️⃣ Activity outside the gym

Training every day doesn't automatically mean you're highly active.

When fatigue builds, spontaneous movement often decreases. You might be burning calories in the gym while unconsciously moving less throughout the rest of the day.

4️⃣ Underlying health factors

If you've genuinely addressed the above and are still struggling, it's worth considering whether medications, thyroid dysfunction or other health factors may be contributing.

A discussion with your doctor and appropriate investigations may be worthwhile.

The takeaway?

Fat loss still requires an energy deficit. But creating and sustaining that deficit isn't always as simple as eating less and exercising more.

Sometimes the answer isn't more effort.

It's understanding what's actually limiting your progress.

05/10/2026

Gabrielle was training six days a week, sometimes doing both weights and cardio, while eating around 1,200 calories a day.

And her weight wasn't moving.

Today, at 41 and after six children, she's in the best shape she's ever been.

Her story is a good example of something I talk about often... more isn't always better.

Sometimes the answer isn't to train harder or eat less.

It's to understand what's actually limiting your progress and adjust the approach accordingly.

We recently sat down and talked through her entire journey.

You can check out the full interview on my YouTube channel.

And if you're putting in the work but feel like your current approach isn't giving you the return it should...

You can learn more about working with me through the link in my bio.

30/09/2026

Getting stronger doesn’t necessarily mean every tissue involved in producing and transmitting force is adapting at the same rate.

And sometimes that mismatch only becomes obvious once something starts getting irritated.

This is one of the reasons I don’t think the answer to continued progress is always more stimulus.

Sometimes it makes more sense to temporarily change the training demand and give the structures supporting force production an opportunity to catch up.

That doesn’t necessarily mean training light either.

Depending on what’s becoming limiting, it might mean reducing load, reducing volume, or simply changing how that stress is being accumulated.

I went into this in much more detail in my last post.

28/09/2026

Sometimes your muscles can handle more, but your connective tissue hasn't caught up.

That doesn’t mean you need to stop training.

It may simply mean you need to change the dose.

Heavy loading can create a high stress per repetition.

Higher-volume training can accumulate stress through repeated contractions.

Both can be productive.

Both can become too much when they exceed your current capacity.

This is why I periodically use Structural phases in my BioAdaptive approach.

The goal isn’t to maximise muscle growth during this phase.

It’s to deliberately pull back on muscular demand, control the amount and type of loading, and give connective tissue an opportunity to catch up.

You might sacrifice a little stimulus in the short term...

But if it restores your capacity to train hard and progress again, that’s an investment in future gains.

Sometimes the limiting factor isn’t how much your muscles can handle.

It’s whether the rest of your system can keep up.

25/09/2026

Getting older wasn't the problem.

Lowering my standards because I was getting older was.

22/09/2026

Adding more sets only counts as progression if it eventually leads to better performance.

Simply adding another set isn’t progression if all you’re doing is spreading the same performance across more sets.

That’s the distinction I’m trying to make with Adaptive Set Progression.

The additional set is initially used to redistribute the existing workload, reduce the effort per set and create room to progress again
But eventually I want that new set configuration to produce more total work with the same load.

In this example:

3 sets = 22 reps near my limit
4 sets = 32 reps comfortably

That’s the outcome I’m looking for.

The extra set is simply the tool that allowed me to get there.

21/09/2026

If different rep ranges can produce similar muscle growth, why?

One popular explanation is the idea of “effective reps”, where most of the hypertrophic stimulus comes from roughly the final five reps before failure.

I think that’s a useful model. I’m just not convinced the stimulus switches on that neatly.

With heavier loads, more of the motor-unit pool is recruited earlier, so the exposure is condensed into fewer reps.

With lighter loads, recruitment builds more progressively as fatigue accumulates, spreading that exposure across more reps.

Early in a lighter-load set, lower and intermediate-threshold motor units are doing more of the work and accumulating more of their stimulus.

As those motor units fatigue, higher-threshold motor units are progressively recruited and contribute more towards the later reps.

So those earlier reps don't necessarily need to be highly stimulating to the high-threshold motor units to still contribute to hypertrophy.

They may simply be stimulating different portions of the motor-unit pool at different points in the set.

That could potentially explain why very different rep ranges can still produce similar whole-muscle hypertrophy when sets are taken sufficiently close to failure.

They might not provide the exact same stimulus rep for rep, but they can arrive at a similar overall outcome through a different time course.

This is also why I don't think you can directly compare volume load across very different loading conditions.

A rep performed with a 5RM isn't physiologically equivalent to a rep performed with a 15RM.

So maybe hypertrophy isn’t about counting a fixed number of “effective reps”.

Maybe it’s more about how much meaningful mechanical loading different muscle fibres accumulate across the set.

Just a different way of looking at it.