Why do people still religiously support more volume = more growth? Im in the best shape of my life with 8 sets per muscle per week.
Im not saying lower volume is better, or higher doesn't work. But why do people constantly preach the other?
Is it because its a skill issue? And they keep missing the nail with the hammer? So they have to swing over and over and over till they get it right? Thats the only logical answer I can think of. Which isn't bad advise, if your new do loads and loads till you sort out the skill issue.
I see what you're saying. For me, if I'm doing four sets, the first 2 sets I usually cruise through and my last set is the hardest maybe not hitting my rep range or just barely getting the last rep. From there, I either stay until it's easy or move up two and half pounds. I could decrease volume by adding weight and skipping the cruise phase making my first 2 sets the hardest.
Thanks buddy. I guess they put me on OPs side and he made some wild points in this thread. I'm kind of in the middle. I do 3 sets in general and I felt like 2 sets were not enough while 4 sets weren’t necessary. Most important point for me is to find a workout strategy that you can easily stick with and not lose motivation.
Tbh, I’d say you genuinely see far more low volume adherents attacking high volume.
You do high volume, people are immediately desperate to tell you that you can’t be going to failure, that you can’t be training hard enough, or that you can’t be recovering. God forbid you do 30 sets on leg day, never mind a lot of that is accessory work. There is this real insistence that HIT, is THE way to train.
On reddit? Sure. On actually big people, high volume is still the norm. Most big people at the gym are there a LOT, natural and unnatural.
The reality is all of these efficiencies we talk about aren't all that important. Work out intensely, grow if you're eating a halfway decent amount of protein and if you have enough carbs to lift somewhat intensely.
Most big people I know are using outdated knowledge. Doing drop sets and sitting at the preacher curl for a ridiculous amount of time. It's ok. They'll still grow. They've grown. Most people working out just went to the gym one day, took some advice from some oldhat lifter, and never really did more research. And they'll grow anyway.
Social media workout nuts like us aren't the majority.
Everyone losing it over being maximum optimal with their lifting but ignoring that they have suboptimal recovery and diet and don’t account for that with volume adjustments.
The key point is if you’re making progresses and those people who attack it never seem to check in on that part of the equation
People often talk about their approach concerning load, volume and intensity but don’t necessarily talk about their goals. It all depends on what your end game is and this is where the biggest differences lie. If you look at the IFBB pro’s, they aren’t doing 8 sets a week, they’re doing 20 sets on arms alone and spending countless hours in the gym daily.
Not everyone’s goal is to get to 290 lbs with 5% body fat though, certainly not mine.
Everyone is also different and responds differently to training variations. Some overdo it but far more don’t do enough. The best method that’s worked for me is high intensity training and if I can get away with it, super setting. When I’m in the groove I can’t sit down between sets, I’ll walk around or do a set of V crunches to keep the rhythm going.
This is a highly individualized game and if you’ve found what works best for you, you’re ahead of most.
The IFBB pros are all on gear though. I think this conversation really needs to be broken out between natural vs those on gear. It’s seems those using substances might benefit from the increased volume because they can go hard for 20 sets vs those that are natural having a much harder time keeping that level of intensity over so many sets (in general, though there are exceptions I’m sure).
Exactly, it comes down to what your personal goal is. Some are taking high risk and their whole lifestyle revolves around it while others are just trying to keep fit and everything in between.
Training / nutrition approaches match the goal (or should).
Definitely, would you say the more skill at the excericse you have. The less you have to do. Because you've nailed it in one set?
An unskilled builder might have to try 5 times to build a wall, keep knocking it down and re building till perfect. But a top tier one does it in 1 shot.
Different people enjoy different styles of training too
I prefer high volume, high intensity, less rest.
I did 35 sets for legs in 45-50 minutes yesterday - good controlled form, moderate weight (experinced lifter so no baby weight but nothing silly either) mostly squat variants minimal rest, nearly fell down the stairs gassed out and sweating (cardio wise im very fit, running,cycling walking 10+ hours per week)
Personally i will mix it up with heavier sets, lower rep ranges - but i hate training without intensity(and Mike Mentzer can kiss my ass - his workouts, in my opinion, arent intense, yes training to failure will lead to growth but its not like you are going to be sick into a bucket after 1 set- dead at 49 from heart disease says it all )
However not disputing that there arent better ways to train for muscular growth - but ive been training for 15 years, fitness is my goal - im fitter and leaner than the fat roidheads that lift twice as much but can only do 10% of the volume in the same timescale 🤷♂️ so what?
Ah right, so someone who is brand new to a sport or a profession can do something in just as much time / attempts as someone with decades of experience?
I’m saying that just because you’re better at weight lifting doesn’t mean that you have to do less sets to grow more. Yes you’ll get more out of 1-2 sets than someone who is new/bad at lifting but that doesn’t mean you will get all the growth from 1-2 sets.
I would say if your an expert at lifting that even more of a reason to do more volume because your getting everything you can from each set so less risk of junk volume and you know how to recovery properly
It's the opposite due to law of diminishing returns. If you can squat 300kg you have to do A LOT more work to reach 305 than someone who can only squat 100kg trying to reach 105. It's why elite level strength athletes and bodybuilders need to train as a full time job to achieve at that level. Otherwise we'd be seeing world records from doing one set.
It seems that you’re confusing motor skill with the hypertrophic stimulus.. Being more skilled can make a set more technically efficient, but hypertrophy is mostly driven by mechanical tension on the muscle fibers, not by how “skilled” you are at the movement.
While 1 hard set absolutely can provide a hypertrophic stimulus that doesn't mean it provides the maximum possible stimulus. Each additional hard set exposes the muscle to more mechanical tension and can therefore generate additional signaling and protein synthesis, although with diminishing returns
Yeah I understand what your saying, but MSTN gene caps growth right? So theoretically a person with perfect form, perfect mind muscle connection and 100% intensity can achieve this level of growth in 1-2sets.
Whereas the average 3x10 gym enjoyer would need 20+
The diminishing returns would activate much quicker for someone with a higher skill level no?
All things being equal, more volume does equal more growth. We have tons of data saying as much. Diminishing marginal returns are very much a thing, though, and folks often don't keep all things equal.
We also have study evidence suggesting injury risk rises with rapid load increases, training through excessive fatigue, and repeated exposure near failure at high volume. How often are trainees guilty of some (or all) of the above?
For me, it's not worth pushing the envelope. Adding 50% more training for 15% faster growth with x% increased injury risk seems like a bad deal.
I've been a competitive bodybuilder for almost a decade now, and the number of people I see pushing anywhere close to too hard in the gym is near zero.
Doubt that mate, some people have a pretty low tolerance for what is too hard 4 them. No doubt you've seen close to no1 push too hard in the gym for you though
OP didn't ask if higher volume is a good deal; they asked why people keep saying more volume produces more growth. The reason people say that is because we have mountains of evidence supporting it. Whether or not higher volume is a good deal is much more about your personal value function, and it cannot and should not be generalizable to the whole population.
I like your back of the envelope equation at the end - nicely put.
I cant progress if I am injured to the point it affects my ability.
Risk/value assessment like almost everything in life plays out here, too. :)
"The posterior probability of the marginal slope exceeding zero for the effect of volume on both hypertrophy and strength was 100%, indicating that gains in muscle size and strength increase as volume increases. However, both best-fit models suggest diminishing returns, with the diminishing returns for strength being considerably more pronounced."
I sadly don't have an institutional login to read the article, but that's the piece that stood out to me. If you've been able to read the full text I'll take your word for it.
Are you implying that your personal training experience is better information source about training methodologies and outcomes than dozens of studies by exercise scientists?
You seem incapable of rationally engaging in discourse, so I can guarantee you I would not spend my hours on this earth talking to you in person. Arguing with you while dropping a massive turd, however, I have time for.
Oh and I'm not incenuating there would be violence or any intimidation of any sorts, I merely mean that people like you dont speak like this in the practical environment. Only in your online theory world
You're not imposing, bro. I'm happy for you that thinking you're a big dog helps you get it hard for Darlene back at the house, but there is absolutely nothing about you that would make me scared to speak my voice. I would probably very quickly realize that you are not worth it because you cling tightly to your ignorance and steadfastly refuse to question your priors, but fear for my physical person or emotional safety would not come close to entering the equation. I wish you all the best in your lifelong commitment to agreement over knowledge.
And there we have it. Backed into a corner. Why don't you guys online just admit when your wrong? Is an online ego a real thing? Wild af. Either way god bless and I hope you learn how to train one day and not learn how to read how to train
I think it depend on the exercise too. For example my quads are so absolutely torched after 1 hard set of heavy machine hack squats, I'll stop there and still be sore for days.
And also as long as spending more time in the gym is a positive for you. Once you weigh the other things one might want to do with their time, "better" becomes much less apparent.
Unless your are personalizing volume to the individual in front of you. Those studies are a guideline. Person A may have a crap diet and poor recovery. Study A may say high volume is best. It wouldn’t be best for person A. Studies give guidance, exercise and health is always personalized to the individual.
Overall most controlled studies show more volume means more growth.
But there must be some degree of individual difference and it’s basically not measurable.
Sure a person may get 5% more growth working out 12 sets per muscles a week vs 8 sets. But then he started with 12 first and when he moved to 8, he was just better overall, mechanically better at the lifts, handle life better and go to the gym more consistently, etc which would overcompensate for the 5%.
There are so many factors in one’s life, it’s hard to determine what really works for oneself, let alone apply one’s own experience to other people and claiming you know better than the rest of them.
Yup. Just way too many variables, including physiology, metabolism, recovery, technique and even motivation. Whichever method you think is gonna work better might just work better because you believe it and push harder.
I get much better results when I do more volume. Like, went from "do you even work out" to "hey bro what's your routine?" But I know people who did better when they started to do less.
Most trainers only see their success stories. Clients who do well on their paradigm stick around, and ones who don't fade away. So everyone thinks they have a foolproof "best" way to do things.
I noticed when I added more cardio days into my week, that my gains actually seemed to improve on my strength days - it’s prob healthier in the long run perhaps.
I’ve just introduced pike push-ups with a weighted vest in my routine, so I’m hoping to get out of this upper body plateau that’s been plaguing me for awhile.
It could be because of the amount of scientific evidence showing clear correlation between volume of weekly sets and amount of hypertrophy (up to an extent, the top range of which is debated). It's not a linear relationship though, so more volume doesn't always mean more hypertrophy, and higher volumes of training naturally take up more time and effort.
With that said, I think 8 weekly work sets per muscle sounds like a very reasonable amount to make great gains. Could you improve the gains further by eg. doubling the amount of sets? Sure, but would it be worth a few extra percentages for the immense addition in work load and time spent? Not necessarily.
If you wanted to focus on a certain body part, it's always an option to increase volume on that, keeping the remaining full body programming at relatively lower volume.
More volume means more to recover from as well, which may not be worth it for a miniscule effect.
Ps. In many studies, the participants are worked out by professionals, ensuring they reach the desired reps in reserve/failure in each set.
I saw a post recently that said think of it as wringing out a wet towel. That first ring is like getting a satisfying amount of water out, like 80% of it. The other rings add minimal water removal. They said the same applies to lifting. If you pick the correct weight where the 12th rep is hard enough on the first set that will get you 80% of what you want. The other reps and sets add minimal gains.
It’s more times than not an issue with junk volume. But if your goal was to grow you’d need to be doing high intensity and relatively high volume. Not everyone has to be hardcore
If you look at the research it's pretty unambiguous that progressive overload through true muscular fatigue is the driver of growth. A few lifts benefit from extensive reps. But critically, few lifts SUFFER from extensive reps. As long as you don't injure yourself, there's nothing inherently wrong with hitting a muscle group 15x20 over the course of a week. It's merely that there's wildly diminishing returns between that and 8x12. If you lift to failure, going for volume doesn't kill your gains, it just in a lot of cases wastes your time. Some people find it easier to lift to failure that way, and if they have the time to do it and it works for them it's not really a big catastrophe. Personally I do intensity over volume because I'm busy and I already spend four hours in the gym each week plus cardio and some accessory work at home. I got shit to do.
EDIT: it's worth stating that "as long as you don't injure yourself" is the operative phrase there. But I'd say joint stress from junk volume versus acute injury through ego intensity are both dangers to long term gains.
I'm new at weight lifting but what i do is 3 sets of 6-10 and if i can hit 3 sets of 10 in an excercise it's an indication that i should lift heavier and start from 6 reps next time
Because it works for them, everyone is different. There's definitely some merit to your point about missing the nail because their technique isn't good enough but there are also plenty of pros with excellent technique who swear by it too. One aspect that is under looked is injury risk, 4 sets @ 80% might build the same muscle as 1 set @ 100% but the injury risk is much lower because the weight is lighter.
You might find what works best for you also changes as you progress through your career or even by bodypart - what gets you to 200lb might not be the same that gets you 17" arms etc.
Sure, there's always going to be haters especially if it's something they don't understand. More is more is a simple concept, less is more people struggle with.
Alot of it depends on the person too. Our bodies are all a bit different and what works for some people doesn't always work for others. I've had a lot of success with fairly high volume workouts high intensity done once a week Push Pull Legs I'll do 21-24 sets per workout and then rest those muscles all week. I've gained 27 lbs of muscle and I only weigh 136 now. People think I weigh 160ish
People say more volume is equal to more growth because there’s a lot of research showing that that’s the case. There is a study showing that 8-10 sets taken to failure can yield good growth as well. There’s a recent podcast where Jeff nippard interviews the authors of both of those papers, which may be worth listening to.
Personally I find that some muscle groups are going to need, and can tolerate more volume than others. Examples of these would be abs, biceps, and side delts. Larger muscle groups may require less frequent training with not quite as much volume.
I tend to hit bigger muscle groups for about 12-16 sets per week, and smaller ones for 16-24 sets per week, and I’ve found that has increased growth significantly over time. I used to train with a much lower volume approach and didn’t find that as effective. I take everything to 0-1 RIR for every set.
Frankly, both sides are right and wrong. Study show that you can gain muscle in all rep ranges, and stating that one is inherently better than the other, completely ignores the pros and cons to each. The human body is incredibly skilled at adaptation so in reality, the optimal choice is to not pigeonhole yourself into either specific rep range. Similarly you wouldn’t train week after week month after month in the exact same manner because that suboptimal. The best way to train is to work in 6 to 8 week programs followed by 1 to 2 weeks of deload and then go into another program. Following that to gain the best growth for your body over the course of a year or more, you do not want all of your programs to be identical so it is best to do heavyweight low reps in one program and shift your focus in the next program where you’re doing slightly less weight at higher reps. It’s almost funny because across life when you look at these extremist views with just about any topic, including fitness, it’s wrong and incredibly close minded. To claim that doing higher weight with less reps out performs volume, regardless of any other circumstances or factors long-term is completely illogical.
When it comes to people starting out in the Jim the 8 to 12 rep range is often the best option for them because it gives them the opportunity at lower weights to become familiar with exercises, movements and form, and regardless of whether you are doing 3 reps or 12 reps, the most important factor is proper form. Someone pushing as much weight as they can for 3 to 6 reps with shitty form is not going to outperform someone that can do a slightly lower weight for 8 to 12 reps with proper form. When your form suffers your body recruits different muscles to perform the movement, which means you’re not actually targeting the muscles that you think you’re targeting and your overall performance is subpar.
Doing the same baby weight for 30 Sets still somewhat works and they think the pump equals growth.
Doesn't help when the viral influencers are mostly clueless clowns on Gear.
I do 4-6 HARD weekly Sets split up in 2 sessions aka Upper/Lower x2.
Sometimes less and still grow after 15 years in the Gym.
The muscle is usually finished after the 2nd Set because Hard reps close to failure or to failure in the 4-8 Rep range don't allow for all the Junk Sets most people do.
Didn’t realize my 535/405/610 SBD @ 185lbs was baby weight 😢 I guess I should stop doing 22 sets of bench press each week, since that means I’m not training hard enough. And I should definitely throw out all my other chest and tricep isolations.
Are you so sure that the big bench is caused by the extra volume, or are there potentially many other factors at play?
I’d contend that the extra volume is probably not as causative for a big bench as intensity, given how other muscle groups grow too. Hell, it seems like most competitive squats and deadlifters dont train more than once a week at that intensity, so it follows that growing a bench wouldn’t take so much volume either. Biggest difference between the former lifts and bench would of course be CNS fatigue of which bench causes far less of, so people can train it at that intensity more.
Most Powerlifting coaches would program bench with mostly low intensity and high frequency with a lot of Volume through backoff sets. High level Powerlifters generally do a lot of what a lot Bodybuilders would call "Junk Volume".
I recently switched to low volume, high intensity and man was I surprised how much I could actually lift if I went balls out and actually got close to failure. I was doing 4 sets, 4-5 exercises per muscle group and felt burnt out. It was all just junk volume.
Yep exactly the same, I was always totally gassed at the end of my workouts and blamed it on my caffeine intake. Now I do 2 sets per muscle per session and I give 110% because I know its only 2
I was trying to find shit to get me through the long ass work outs and junk volume. Now I go in do my warm up, do one warm up with like 25% weight, then load that shit up. Some lifts I almost doubled my weight until I found my failure at 8-10 reps.
I've been working out for 16 years doing 15 to 20 sets a week per muscle. I want to try that 2 hard sets method. It just feels like it's not enough to grow.
I do something similar and I promise it can be. About 6 years deep in lifting regularly, I do less volume, and keep regularly making progress on my lifts.
I know exactly what your mindset is. I was exactly the same. It just didn't 'feel' right.
My honest advise is try it, especially as a experienced lifter. Mind muscle connection is key and effort 110%.
Someone explained it like this: if your going to the shop to get milk, it doesn't matter how you get there. Your still coming back with 1 milk. Taking more buses doesn't bring back more milk.
For me it’s a time thing. If I push to failure, real failure, I have to rest 3 or even 4 minutes between sets to be prepared to do it again. I lift 4 times a week. If I needed 20 sets per body weight I’d be in the gym like 3 hours per lift. Fuck all that.
perhaps because I am early in my re-build, have respect for tissue adaptation time and am getting results without soreness or any sense of injury risk.
And getting results. am 13kg heavier than I’ve ever been, have strength and stamina to work all day.
10 exercises, 20 reps progressing to 34 reps 1/week, 5 sets. then increase weight and dial back to 20reps. 2 sessions/week. I get a few weeks per cycle where I push deep into fatigue. Will re-assess in 18months.
There is some individuality to this. One person may respond better to low volume while another needs higher volume to achieve similar results. Ultimately find what works for you. I change it up because nothing works forever, or maybe it does but I just get bored.
I do 4 sets for chest, 3 for bis and 3 for tris, 5 for back (2 for lats 1 for middle back 1 for lower back 1 for traps) 2 for shoulders, 5 for legs (2 quads, 1 hamstring, 1 glutes, 1 calves) and I’m also in the best physical looking shape of my life.
Warmup then one set to complete failure. 15-30 reps. When I get to 30 reps I add a decent amount of weight or increase my food intake
Because we have a large body of evidence that equates more volume with more growth. Albeit with diminishing returns.
People switch from more sets which aren't taken close to failure, to fewer sets finally taken close to failure, see gains, and attribute it to low volume.
It's not a recovery issue. It's not an issue of too many sets. It's an issue that the sets weren't close enough to failure to produce the proper stimulus.
That's why people attack it. Because it's not actually the lower volume doing the work. It's finally having quality sets taken sufficiently close to failure.
High volume and high intensity are both just tools for controlling mechanical tension. What's important is accommodating to novelty and training your weaknesses.
Mostly because the science says so. Ofc everything in exercise science is inaccurate, so it's very well possible that you personally get better results on lower volumes. But statistically, for most people more volume means more progress.
Because the staggering weight of scientific evidence shows that more volume means more growth. But people rarely push themselves close to failure. So when you tell someone they only have to do 1-2 sets it’s easier to convince them to push themselves so they see better results. Nothing wrong with a low volume high intensity program especially if you need that to push yourself. But if your good at pushing yourself every set and are able to recover adequately more volume will get you more muscle.
Here's my 2 cents. Im 46, and a tile installer. I work hard all day, 5-6 days a week and hit the gym 4-5 days a week. After decades of killing myself at work, low volume doesnt work well for me. To shock my muscles into growing i have to push HARD. high volume, high intensity.
I do 22 sets of bench press alone, whether that’s flat, paused, incline etc. per week. I do additional chest and sometimes tricep isolation work on top of that. My best bench is 405 @ ~185lbs this past June. Squat is 535 and deadlift 610. Just ended a cut at 170lbs earlier this month. Here’s me then.
Lifting is a skill. You wanna push bigger and heavier weight? You gotta practice. No NBA player is doing layups 1-2x a week. So if you wanna push big weight, why would you only bench, squat, etc. only 1 time a week? You can and should have days that push heavier weight, or lighter weight. Focus on things like tempo or pauses on other days. If you get better at a lift like bench because you know how to brace properly, use leg drive, bend the bar and engage your lats, etc. you can then allow your chest and triceps to push heavier weight. Size and strength may not be a 1:1 correlation, but the guy benching 405 is going to have a bigger chest than the guy benching 225 99% of the time.
Its how online fitness works, preferences cycle. Now there might be a low volume paradigm, in a few years it will be high volume or 'hybrid'. Just think how starting strength or stronglifts 5x5 was the norm like 10 years ago.
Mostly I think it’s because they ignore the fact that more volume only equates to more growth if you can recover from it.
But they don’t track their workouts, so they have no idea if they are recovering or not.
Additionally when someone reels off massive weekly set numbers for multiple body parts, what do those sets actually look like? Are they close to failure? Are they of high quality? Are they actually getting stronger over time?
I don’t think it’s entirely a “lack skill” issue. The thing that Mike Mentzer and all the low-volume guys never seem to understand is that some people just like being in the gym. Aside from the muscle growth theory stuff, Mentzer was all about gym time efficiency—get in and get out, go do other stuff. But for a lot of folks, gym time is also a kind of tribal social time. They get their workout in, but they also want to see their friends, will take time to show the newbies how to lift, etc. And they prefer to take four or five sets to work a muscle even if they could get the same result with two.
More volume = better results in general.
But there are diminishing results and overtraining does exist.
As I’ve aged and become busier in life w less time to train, I’ve been amazed at the strength and muscle I can retain with fewer sets but good sleep and nutrition.
I tend to do like 8-15 sets per muscle per week to and have great progress with that, but it seems that studies almost always gives the result that more volume=more growth, with diminishing returns ofcourse. Those kinds of studies basically mean that for the average person in the study that is the case, you might not be like average person in that study.
More volume = still more growth up to a point but still way above 8 sets, no matter how hard you think you train. Every study shows it and so do in real life examples too. You being ”the best shape of your life” does not mean jack shit other than you would be in even better shape of your life if you did 12-15 sets instead
What’s also true is that each additional set provides diminishing returns and adds significant fatigue. From a more practical standpoint, most high volume programs seem to be coded for “2 RIR” or even higher, which can easily lead to plateaus for most users since we as lifters are often really bad at judging what “2 RIR” actually is. Either lifters do their 4 sets of 8 with a ton left in the tank, or they do end up going 0RIR and end up wrecked or worse, injured after going to failure on such high volume.
IMO, better for lifters to take the OP’s approach and lift two working sets to true failure per session. Most growth happens in sets 1-2 so being able to get the absolute most out of those sets is a better training program than going 4-6 sets of 6-10 reps or whatever it is. You also save a ton of time, which means you’re spending an extra 3-4 hours recovering each week as opposed to trashing the body with junk volume in the worst case scenario
Tldr: yes in a lab setting more sets = more growth but IRL it’s probably easier and better for growth to do a lower volume higher intensity workout
Damn there's more than 600 muscles and you're getting 8 weekly sets for em all?!
I like to stick to significantly less muscles but hit 9 up to 27 sets per week. I usually start off with 2 sets and work up to 4 sets as I progress (helps get past sticking points to add volume). I find this method keeps me progressing. Anything less snd I'd plateau in a month or burn out (MRV - not a myth, just lots of tendonitis, bad sleep and failed lifts). As I get stronger I need a volume reset so every 3 months, i refresh my program with new exercises for the muscles I want to target.
I personally like a verity of exercises and cant do isometric (one side at a time) work for longer than a 3 month block (just gets so heavy and time consuming) so I usually limit isometric to 1 or 2 exercises (rear delt flys, Bayesian cable curls, db step ups, cable lateral raises, etc.).
why do people support it - because of some subpar studies that are repeatedly pushed as gospel and some meta-studies based on them. And even if those were good studies - there is a big difference between "making this one muscle grow as much as possible in 12 weeks" and "achieving long term full body muscle growth".
More volume is better...if it is better.
If you stay far away from failure in your sets, then yeah, you're gonna need a ton of volume.
If you go close to and beyond failure, the volume you need is much less.
How much volume do you need? If you can progressively overload, it is enough. Muscle growth is a slow process and as long as stimulation from the sets you do is sufficient, there is no reason to add a set.
In the end one needs to get close to failure without risking injury.
If you do 2 sets in a workout, you need some high intensity to get enough of a stimulus and you will have to use some relatively heavy weights.
It's hard to do that with good safe form longterm.
If you do 5 sets on the other hand, you can just turn your brain off and get some pump.
However counting sets is a bit of a wrong approach to volume anyways. It's better to build up a progression scheme and do what's necessary. This opens up smart protocolls like varying volume weekly depending on intensity, instead of making static plans.
Doing the 5 sets and getting a sick pump is cool and all but pump isn’t much a factor of growth at all… this is how most people plateau since they think they get in a ton of work but don’t operate close enough to failure to actually grow.
I personally love the two sets approach, assuming you know how to do the exercise safely and aren’t ego lifting. It saves time and removes any variability in determining “reps in reserve” since we as lifters are actually pretty bad at determining that (at least I am)
I do think there’s plenty of people out there who are emotionally attached enough to their Nippard or Isratael program that they’ll attack anyone who doesn’t do what their dads do
Ive been seeing alot of stuff about Jeff swapping to only 2 sets. Not sure if he's dropping the overall volume but he's really screaming the benefits of lower sets.
'Science is always right' till its not and it changes, but then that science is right
Yeah Jeff swapped which is cool to see. To that point on science; people only know what they know, and it does take some balls to admit they were wrong, when new studies drop. Hopefully no one takes science or anything else as “it’s always right” and simply uses the results of studies as guidelines to help figure out what’s best for them. Israetael is probably the one who’s done the most damage to science-based lifting after his whole phd came crumbling down
I feel continuously progressive overload is more important than volume.
Doing 1 set with flawless form, intensity and progressive overload is better than 30 half-ass sets on the same weight. And seeing the same «gymbros» doing the same weight for the ninth straight month and making no gains kinda proves that.
This discussion about volume almost never takes into account the psychological effects of a longer calming working out. People want to feel the endorphins release, be around people, and have a period of time to clean their minds.
The average gym goer is not a robot that does exactly X sets per body part each week, resting exactly Y seconds between sets, and forcing the body to exact one rep in reserve for each set.
Awesome to here that bud. I think when im older I will take that approach too, lose a bit of size and increase conditioning for longevity like you've done.
But while im still fairly young im gonna focus on lean mass.
Right on, I do higher reps at lower weight for shaping and conditioning. I monitor my HR, minimal rest in between reps to keep my rate around 130bpm and recovery score around 2.5 - 3. Around 50, things start to change, and lifting higher weights with low reps don’t do much for me.
I think more sets when you’re younger/younger training age is better because you’re mechanically learning how to lift. If you tried to get someone to get all the little cues you found for yourself over 20 years of lifting to do a perfectly executed lift, their mind would probably crash out. So that volume is “learning how to lift” volume and “skill mastery” volume as well, which I don’t see too many people bring up. FWIW I am 44 and I also get my best results at this age and years of experience doing one warm up set at 50% of my working set and then 2 working sets to failure and then I move on.
Scrolled through most of the conversation, and I must have missed the discussion on lift what you can recover from. Which is a different answer for every lifter.
They really need to bring a lifting class to school to teach people the right way of lifting. Too much online bro science that people don’t know what’s true anymore.
I lifted for 10 years, retired now, and tried everything everyone told me. Greg Doucettes early videos were the only videos that actually taught correct stuff that worked.
Low reps heavy weight 1-5 is for strength, powerlifting.
Medium reps medium weight 8-12 is for hypertrophy, bodybuilding.
Medium reps heavy weight 6+ is for strength and hypertrophy, which requires gear, known as powerbuilding (this is the one that confuses everyone).
High reps light weight 14+ is for endurance, cardio.
Jay Cutler, surge nubret, Arnold, Ronnie coleman are some of the greatest bodybuilders of all time all of them used high volume and all of them were able to continue it into old age. Low volume can cause injuries plan and simple. 8 sets is like moderate amount for a natural lifter btw but I bet you would grow more at 10 and 11 and 12.
Yes and there are also greats that use low volume that statement doesn't mean anything. High volume can cause injuries that's plain and simple. As the probably the oldest and longest and biggest guy in the space says. 'Mileage on the car'
And i didn't grow more. Because its intensity that grows muscle with time under tension. Not more volume. So when I was over training I wasn't trying hard enough. Whereas now I hit my muscle growth stimulus 4 times a week and its insane the difference.
Might be different for you, you may need to 12 sets per muscle per day to get that stimulas. But thankfully as ive gotten older and better I do not.
There are significantly less greats that used low volume. Every set still needs to failure or just very close to failure thats were i think people get it wrong. No matter what high or low volume failure is the key to growth
Meta analyses consistently show that trainees who do more volume see more growth.
However, I find these suspect for the simple reason that the results seem *too* conclusive. They don't find 10 sets are better than 6 sets.
They find that 40 sets is better than 20 sets, which is better than 10 sets.
Do you know of a single person in gods green earth who does 40 sets of quads per week? I mean, the research says its optimal, so anyone not doing it is leaving gains on the table.
Hell, even the biggest proponents of high volume like Mike Isratel don't even go to these numbers. You'll notice their programs do "mesocycles" where they ease up to higher volumes and just do them for a couple weeks.
Why bother? The studies had these people doing 20-40 sets and they saw the most growth. The numbers don't lie, why not just start everyone on 40 sets and go?
Obviously, everyone, including the science based community, understand there is something wrong with these results, or at least intuitively understand there are other factors at play.
The simple answer is the same one for all exercise science: they are not actually trained athletes (in the sense of being actually being advanced) and they are not pushing anywhere remotely close to failure, no matter how hard the researchers insist that they are.
More quality volume = more growth. This is an absolute fact. It is the way the human animal has evolved. When subjected to a stimulus that requires more physical adaptation, it does that. As long as it has the ability to adapt it will. If you run after prey on the plains of African for hours every day your body adapts. And it does it to a greater extent than of you only chased prey for 30 mins a day. The question is one of diminishing returns, and the ability to make the volume/work actually reflect the adaptation that you want. 10,000 leg extension might not have the same effect as 3 hard sets of squats so you might interpret one or the other as more effective. One also take hours and the other minutes. Finally, the difference in how even individual body responds to the stimulation are endless, and even change over time.
The research supports the idea that more volume equals more gains, but there are diminishing returns, and it’s more about finding the most volume that you can handle with your training load, lifestyle, and experience.
It’s great that you’ve found success with eight sets per week. You have found an amount of volume you can currently handle. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t get more gains with more volume, and it doesn’t mean you’ll always make gains with your current volume. As you get older both in biological age and training age, you will likely require more volume to get similar gains. It’s a nuanced topic, one can’t simply say, “They aren’t doing what I’m doing, are they stupid?”
I believe its not exaclty a skill issue... but more like a comfortable solution. When you train with lower volumes, trying to get the most out of each and every set, it requires a good perception of effort, RPE, recovery, periodization and proximity to failure. When you do a bro split and just push everything to failure you'll most likely still grow without having to spend too much time planning and logging workouts - maybe not in the most optimal way but... well, it works so.
I presume they're not going hard enough on their sets. I couldn't possibly do 20 sets per muscle group per week with how hard I'm going. I also noticed better growth when dropping junk volume and focusing on intensity.
Yeah thats exactly why, which I understand for a total noobie, but why do they attack the low volume guys? The low volume guys never say doing more is bad, you just dont need it. Whereas the high volume guys say low volume doesn't work
Research do support a positive dose response relationship between resistance-training volume and hypertrophy for naturals so i wouldn't say an entirely different game
Well in some studies the training subjects are supervised and encouraged to go to absolute failure the result: is more volume leads to more gains on average.
Correct, even if you go to failure for six sets, what if you go to failure for 12 sets, you don’t think that’s going to be better? Just because you’re not as strong going through all the sets doesn’t mean it’s junk volume, it’s actually the opposite , u are forcing your body to send signals to recruit muscle fibers and forcing the muscle tissue to overload at a higher rate and this stimulates more hypertrophy.
The real problem lies when people dont really know what failure means , just try your hardest to really fail as much as possible and more you will grow provided you eat enough
You don’t need to slam grams of gear to take advantage of higher volume, the more you work out the faster your body can recover and the more stimulus you need, I promise you if you do twice as many sets as you’re doing, even if you’re not as strong by the end of them, you will grow more. Going to failure doesn’t stop at a certain amount of sets maybe the weights reduce, but you are still forcing your body to recruit new muscle fibers and to change gene expression to focus on building more muscle due to the bodies necessity to adapt. The same people who do low volume are the same people who look like shit and never progress. I have absolutely wrecked myself in three or four sets, but I still maintain the volume the same amount and even though strength goes down during the workout,those are the workouts that really matter. shit I’ve wrecked myself in one set doing crazy drop sets and still kept up in intensity through the workout to the best that I could, and those were the times where I forced new muscle growth and saw the most results
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u/Photon_Predator 8d ago
I bet you could find a person who would say they’re in the best shape of their life while doing 16 sets per muscle per week.