Thanks, TT. I think I see the issue, and that's that max lifting the way I learned it back in the day from my coaches isn't at all the same as what you're talking about. Probably means they're ignorant BUT it's also the way I generally see people doing a max lift. They work their way up until they can't lift any more and call it good after that. Every time I've done it, it's been a much less tiring workout than my norm. And, you can get max INTENSITY without max weight. From what you said, it's more about pushing to failure point. I do that with every set anyways, regardless of weight. I don't see a sprint as being even remotely the same as a heavy single lift. I don't see how slowly struggling to push a weight up once engages fast twitch fibers (although I could be wrong). In contrast, the fast-up slow-down style of lifting does engage both fast and slow twitch fibers, and doesn't require maximal lifting. Seems like maximal lifting in the style you're talking about is a rather more advanced lifting technique than most people know how to use, and, if that's the case, should be rethought for this challenge.
You're welcome, crimson. In fact, your coaches' method was more-or-less what I was talking about, but there are other ways to do high-weight workouts, as well. You're right that max-lift workouts are often less tiring; that's generally because people will only do a single max-effort lift, then end the workout afterwards, like doing five warm-up sets, then a single max, then done for the day. Six sets for a workout is minimal.
One thing that's tripping us up is terminology and definitions. Generally, 'intensity' refers to the amount of weight lifted/how close to a 1RM someone lifts. Pushing to failure can happen at any weight - Bob maxes bench at 315, and he fails when benching just the bar (45 pounds) after 184 reps. Both cause him to fail; one counts as a max set, the other as a light set.
In fact, a single max rep (or two) engage the fast-twitch fibers, just like an all-out effort sprint. The max-effort lift, though, doesn't use other systems, like the cardiovascular system as much, so the sprint is harder. From a muscle-fiber standpoint though, both forms of maximal effort engage the same muscle fibers.
Studies have found it's also possible to use the
brain to recruit the fast-twitch fibers. Researchers hooked up lifters who were using medium-effort weights to instruments and instructed one group to do the reps as they usually would, expecting to get 8-10 reps. That group recruited more slow-twitch fibers. The other group was told to imagine they were lifting a car and to put ALL possible effort into each rep. Those lifters actually engaged more muscle fibers than the first lifters, simply because of how they thought about the reps. A muscle fiber contracts when it receives an electrical impulse in the fiber's controlling nerve. The body has mechanisms that actually resist causing muscle fibers to fire, thereby limiting the force produced and the possibility of subsequent injury. Lifting max weight or near-max somewhat frequently causes the body to overcome this natural resistance. It appears that
thinking one is doing a max lift has a similar, albeit diminished, effect!
) with light to medium weight. Snow shovel full of snow!