That was extremely helpful to me. Thank you marx.

I was especially intrigued by the suggestion that the "pump" and "burning" sensations were so irrelevant. I mean, I understood that "the burning" was a symptom of lactic acid buildup and an indicator of quiting time, but I didn't realize how much effort I have been wasting on large sets of medium weight. Everyone has always said (I can be a stubborn SOB) that a spotted set is so much better. Now I think I get why.

I am not a very social lifter so I often just rely on the safety pegs, or sometimes the machines. I figured I would eventually "get" to my goals.

Do I glean the correct understanding that the most hypertrophic motion would be that of a final spotted rep, the one you can't get by yourself? But there must be hypertrophic value in the reps preceding the last, right? Otherwise everyone would just do their ORM all day long. Maybe someone could direct me to a good post on this, something pretty biologically technical. I am reading like crazy, but some guidance would be great.

I am sure this is a basic question to most folks on this board (can I even ask it here?), but I am trying to post some stuff since the "new rule" asks for 5 posts a day. Or is this a sarcastic rule and am I just a retard?