TRAINING VOLUME: FURTHERING THE DISCUSSION
In a previous email, I discussed the different ways that we see training volume QUANTIFIED; the most practical of the bunch being “# of hard sets per week”.
If you missed that one, follow the link below, catch up to the rest of the group, and then come on back and continue reading as we discuss how much you should be doing.
Spoiler alert: The answer is it depends. Numerous factors need to be considered when assessing the appropriate amount of work to be programmed to maximize your gains. Things like:
Training age/experience (are you brand new to resistance training or have you been lifting for years and years)
Exercise selection (are you performing compound or isolation movements, are you biasing long muscle lengths vs short muscle lengths, etc)
Nutritional Status (are you hypocaloric, hypercaloric, eating in maintenance, low carb, etc)
How much volume have you been doing recently?
Are you making progress at the current level of volume you’re performing?
LET'S DIVE A BIT DEEPER INTO EACH OF THOSE BULLET POINTS…
Training age – it is likely that you may benefit from “higher volumes” (more sets per week) as a beginner as this is the time period where you are LEARNING THE SKILL of lifting. You will experience tremendous amounts of neural adaption and get better and better at controlling your body as it moves through space, recruiting motor units, producing force, etc the more you perform movement patterns. AND you will likely not be lifting a great deal of weight, relatively speaking, so the raw stimulus / tension on your muscles won’t be incredibly hard to recover from.
However, if you have years of experience, are VERY proficient at performing your lifts, and can lift some pretty heavy weight, you are likely able to produce A LOT of raw stimulus/tension in fewer sets. Meaning, the amount you need to perform in order to produce the appropriate signaling for growth is lower as is the amount you can physically recover from.
Exercise selection – some exercises are simply more stimulative than others; they give you more bang for your buck. Some are simply more fatiguing, damaging at a cellular level, and thus difficult to recover from. Logically speaking, if you are doing more stimulative exercises, you need less sets to generate a sufficient total stimulus and vice versa. Example: Compound/multi joint movements will typically be more stimulative but also potentially more fatiguing than isolation exercises that only use a single joint. Additionally, when you place tension on the muscles at different lengths there is a different degree of “damage” elicited. Training at long muscle lengths is typically more stimulative but also more fatiguing and harder to recover from so you wouldn’t need or want to do a super high amount of volume with that position being biased. For example, 10 sets of squats (quads trained with a compound lift in the lengthened position) would be MUCH more difficult to perform than 10 sets of leg extension (quads trained with an isolation movement in the short position).
Nutritional status – plain and simply; you need energy to perform your training, recover from it, and adapt to it. If you are hypercaloric (in an energy surplus) you have more resources for your body to tap into to perform those functions. So more volume may make sense and potentially lead to more gains. If you are hypocaloric (in an energy deficit) your resources are limited and an argument could be made that in order to keep your training performance as high as possible to continue creating anabolic signaling telling your body to keep your muscle tissue around, that performing less set per week is a logical approach. Also, resistance training is primarily fueled by glucose / glycogen. Carbohydrate (and caloric) intake will dictate how much glycogen is stored in the muscle cells. So an argument could also be made that more carbs allows for more volume and vice versa.
How much volume have you been doing recently – there is evidence to support that increasing training volume can lead to improved gains. There is also evidence to support that decreasing training volume can lead to improved gains. If you consider the three paragraphs above you can probably come up with your own explanations as to why both scenarios have been observed. The science tends to suggest that “it’s relative” to what you are currently adapted to. So knowing “what you’ve been doing” is a must when deciding if “doing more or less” make sense for you, as an individual.
Are you making progress at the current level of volume you’re performing – this was placed last on the list on purpose as it’s the most important consideration. All the science in the world can point to a certain “volume range” being “the most optimal” but if YOU are seeing progress at a different amount, then THAT amount is what is optimal for you. Adding or removing volume from your programming should only be considered when you can say “what I am currently doing is not working”. If you are getting stronger, building muscle, improving your body composition, etc – it IS working, and you’re at or near your “volume sweet spot”. Reconsider everything above ONLY when that is no longer the case!
OKAY SO HOW MUCH VOLUME SHOULD I DO?
Now I know that I said we were going to discuss how much volume to do and I haven’t given you a single recommendation; I haven’t told you how many sets to do per week. That was intentional. Because I can’t tell you. Only thinking through everything above (and more; this isn’t an exhaustive list) can.
But I won’t leave you high and dry. The current state of the literature leaves us with something like this being “optimal”:
6-8 hard sets per muscle group per session
2-3 sessions per week
Take that as a general guideline and realize some people will be better off doing more and some will be better off doing less. Find YOUR “volume sweet spot” by putting a plan in place, sticking with it consistently, and frequently assessing your progress. If you’re not progressing at a reasonable rate, consider making a modification that factors in all of the above.
If you're ready for a bit more 1:1 attention to your training and nutrition, click the link below to apply for individualized coaching with Level TEN and we'll get you paired with a coach who will best suit your needs!
UNTIL NEXT TIME - COACH JOHN