Doing '3 sets of 12' doesn't build muscle by itself — you have to push near failure (RIR 0-1) and progress load/reps, or the set is wasted.

noli's read

The most recent and fine-grained meta-regression on this topic (Robinson, Pelland, Remmert, Refalo, Jukić, Steele & Zourdos, 2024, Sports Medicine) found that getting closer to failure (lower RIR) correlates with greater hypertrophy, with a confidence interval that excludes zero — so the video's direction is backed by the latest data. But the 'otherwise it's useless' framing overstates it: other meta-analyses on the same question (Grgic, Schoenfeld, Orazem & Sabol, 2022, Journal of Sport and Health Science; Vieira et al., 2021) find no significant difference between sets taken to failure and sets stopped short of failure, for either hypertrophy or strength. The RIR dose-response signal is real but modest and contested depending on measurement method — a set stopped 2-3 reps short of failure is far from 'useless.' The progressive-overload part matches the already-established ACSM/Schoenfeld consensus. Verdict: mixed — the direction is right, the absolutism ('RIR 0-1 or nothing') overstates it.

the sources

1. 1Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW 2017
2. 2Refalo MC, Helms ER, Trexler ET, Hamilton DL, Fyfe JJ 2022