1. Restrain rearranges the dislocation structure produced by primary strain. 2. The equivalent-strain concept is used to characterize the primary treatment, i.e., the strain giving identical dislocation density curves at the various temperatures. Restrain in hot-pressed molybdenum has been used to show that equivalent strains represent a promising technique for researching thermomechanical treatments, including multipass ones. 3. An analytic expression has been derived for the yield stress on repeat strain, which incorporates the conditions and extent of the primary strain. 4. Studies have been made on the plasticity margin of strained molybdenum over a wide temperature range, and features of the transition to brittle failure.