What's going on guys?
Sean Nalewanyj, www.SeanNal.com, www.RealScienceAthletics.com, and in this video today, I wanna talk about
the issue of training volume versus training intensity and discuss which one is more important
when it comes to stimulating muscle growth.
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So, this is a topic I see a lot of people going back and forth on, this idea of training
volume, so the total number of sets you perform per week for each muscle group versus training
intensity, so basically, how close to muscular failure you're performing each set.
And there's this argument over which factor is more important in the muscle building equation
and one very popular notion you'll hear from some experts that I keep seeing just repeated
over and over again is the idea that volume is the primary driver of hypertrophy.
And so, I wanted to give some thoughts on this.
The first thing is that it actually doesn't make sense to say that training volume is
the primary driver of hypertrophy and I think this statement gives a lot of people the wrong
idea about what it is that they should be focusing on in the gym.
Keep in mind that volume in and of itself is not a stimulus for muscle growth.
You can go into the gym for four hours at a time and perform 100 sets for your chest,
but if the intensity level of those sets isn't high enough and doesn't cross a certain threshold,
then your body still has no incentive to build new muscle in response to those sets.
Muscle growth is an adaptive response to stress and what actually triggers the body's muscle
building mechanism is when you perform a physical task that is right up close to or beyond the
existing strength capacity of the muscle.
That is what incentivizes your body to increase the capacity of that muscle.
If the muscle already has the ability to perform a certain task with relative ease, then as
the far as the body is concerned, it's already well adapted to the environment that it's
in and so, there's really no need to change anything.
And so, the amount of work you perform obviously can't be the primary driver or the primary
stimulus for hypertrophy.
'Kay, the primary stimulus for hypertrophy is actually intensity.
It's when the amount of tension that you subject a given muscle to is high enough to trigger
an adaptive response because without that, literally nothing else that you do in the
gym is gonna make any difference at all, not your exercise selection, not your rep ranges,
not your form, not your frequency, and not your training volume.
And if we look at this using a hypothetical example, this is pretty clear.
Again, you can literally perform 100 sets or more for a given muscle, but if you're
using two pound dumbbells and stopping 10 reps short of muscular failure, your body
already has the capacity to easily perform that and so, you're not gonna see any significant
hypertrophy or possibly any hypertrophy at all as a result.
And that's why you can walk around all day on your feet, taking step after step after
step, and performing thousands of reps for your lower body, but your quads and hamstrings
and calves don't gain additional muscle from it because the intensity of that activity
isn't high enough.
But on the opposite end of this example, you could literally perform one single set, you
could even perform one single rep, as crazy as that sounds, the absolute minimum volume
possible, but if the intensity level of that one set or that one rep is high enough, so
you're going close to failure or all the way to failure, there will be a hypertrophic response
to it.
And if you continue to add weight to the bar, from session to session, on that one set or
that one rep, you will continue to build more and more muscle over time.
Now, I'm not saying that this would be optimal or that there wouldn't be an eventual growth
ceiling involved and I'm not suggesting that you should go ahead and do this, but I'm just
pointing out that even with absolutely minimal volume, you can still gain muscle if the intensity
is high enough, whereas if the intensity level is too low, then even with very high volume,
you still won't make any noticeable gains.
And so, volume can't be considered the primary driver.
And for real-world examples of this, we can just look people and look at the results that
people have achieved using low-volume, high-intensity training programs.
So that could be like a Dorian Yates approach where you're just doing a few sets per muscle
group per workout, but going all the way to failure or it could be an old school Arthur
Jones or Mike Mentzer workout, where it's just a single set to failure once per week
or sometimes even less than once per week.
You could also look at DC style training, which is one multi-rep rest-pause set to failure
every four to five days per muscle group.
These approaches can actually work very well if you know how to execute them properly and
the truth is that I actually personally trained this way for many years, back in the day,
when I was younger, more in my body building phase, usually no more than about three to
four total sets per week for each muscle group.
And during one phase, when I really got into the Mike Mentzer heavy-duty stuff, I did go
right down to the extreme low end of doing only one set per week for each muscle, but
because I was going to all out failure on those sets and was achieving progressive overload,
I still saw consistent size and strength gains from it.
I got up to flat dumbbell pressing 130' for six clean reps.
My deadlift was never crazy, but even just doing one set per week, I got up to 430 for
six without a belt.
I could do pretty strict barbell curls with 140 pounds, seated overhead dumbbell presses
with 105s.
These are just a few examples.
Now, I don't recommend that type of training to most people unless they're an advanced
lifter and they want to experiment with something new because, when you're doing such low volume,
the margin for error on each set is very small and you really have to know how to execute
that set properly to get the maximum value from it.
And also, your chances for injury do go up overall, so, if you're a beginner to intermediate,
I'm not advising you to do that, but I'm just pointing out and making the point that, given
a high enough level of intensity, you can still achieve significant muscle growth off
of very little volume because intensity is the primary factor.
Now, in terms of practical recommendations, how does this actually apply to you?
There's a few things I'd say.
First off, again, understand that intensity is the ultimate bottom-line stimulus for growth
and so, beyond anything else you do in the gym, including volume, you have to make sure
that your intensity level on each set is high enough first and foremost and then, build
everything else on top of that.
So, in other words, quality first and then, quantity.
And for most people, I would say that about one to two reps short of concentric muscular
failure is a good figure to aim for on the majority of your sets and I would say three
reps short of failure, I would put as the minimum intensity level.
And the way I define that is, for example, if pushing with 100% of your available strength
meant that you could just barely squeeze out 10 reps in proper form with a given weight,
so that 10th rep is an all out grinder where the bar is just barely moving along, in that
case, you'd want to stop at the seventh rep as an absolute minimum and preferably, on
the eighth or ninth rep, so those last couple reps are very challenging, but you're avoiding
those all out grinder reps for the most part.
The second point here is to recognize that volume and intensity go hand in hand, 'kay.
They're directly related and so, ultimately they can't be separated.
I was just giving you that hypothetical example earlier to demonstrate my point, but in reality,
it's not one or the other, okay.
Intensity and volume are two sides to the same coin.
The more intensity you're training with, the less volume you require and the less volume
you can ultimately get away with before it eventually becomes counterproductive.
So, if you're training, let's say, three reps short of failure on most of your sets, you're
gonna need more volume to get the same result as someone who's training an average of two
reps short or someone who's training an average of one rep short or someone who's going all
the way to failure.
So when people give pre-set volume recommendations without specifying the intensity level, it's
incomplete advice because there's a big difference between doing 12 weekly sets for a given muscle
at three reps short of failure versus 12 sets at one rep short of failure.
So, the general guideline that I give as a sort of default recommendation is to do between
eight to 15 weekly sets for large muscle groups and four to eight weekly sets for small muscle
groups at an average intensity level of about one to two reps short of failure.
'Kay, there are other ways you can go about this.
You can go three reps short of failure and increase the volume slightly or you can go
all the way to failure, but decrease the volume, but that middle ground approach will work
really well for most people in most situations.
And then, the last point here, a very important one and probably the main reason why I wanted
to make this video is to not fall into this idea that more volume is automatically better.
When people hear this idea that volume is the primary driver of hypertrophy, a lot of
times they just assume that the more work they do in the gym, the better their results
will be, which is not the case.
And aimlessly performing more and more sets shouldn't be your primary goal, not to mention
that it's an additional time and energy investment as well.
And so, you wanna make sure it's actually benefiting you if you are gonna go ahead and
increase your training volume.
It is true that each additional set you perform will increase the overall growth stimulus
to some degree, but keep in mind that it happens with diminishing returns and only up to a
limited point.
So the first set you perform is always the one that has the most muscle building value
by far and then, each set beyond the first does produce more growth, but in smaller and
smaller increments until you eventually hit a point where it plateaus and then, to where
it's counterproductive.
And that's because the additional muscle growth that it's producing is so fractionally small,
yet at the same time it's creating more muscle damage, more metabolic fatigue, and more joint
stress that you have to recover from.
So basically, it's increasing your recovery time, but without producing significantly
more muscle gain.
So, just keep in mind that there's only so much hypertrophy you can stimulate during
any given session in the gym.
And so, the goal is to find the maximum amount of quality, recoverable volume that you can
perform, but without going overboard.
And obviously, this is true, otherwise, you could just do marathon sessions in the gym
and perform endless sets for a given muscle and just see more and more and more growth,
which we obviously know isn't true.
So, I wouldn't advise that you make adding more sets your goal.
As a beginner to intermediate lifter, just keep your volume within a preset range, like
the one I gave previously, and focus on improving your training performance within those sets
that you're doing, so adding more reps and more weight to the bar over time.
That's where your main focus should be and that's the ultimate gauge to use in terms
of whether or not your workouts are moving in the right direction.
The issue of volume completely aside, if you're continually coming back to the gym stronger,
then you know you're on the right track and vice versa.
And as a sort of all-encompassing final point, if you're confused about how much volume to
use or you're adding more volume and you wanna know what the effect is or you're reducing
your volume and you wanna know what the effect is, keep in mind that, all things equal, whatever
specific training volume and not just volume, but taking into account all of your training
variables, whatever specific workout program has you gaining strength at the fastest rate
is pretty much guaranteed to also be the program that will have you building muscle at the
fastest rate as well, 'kay.
Progressive overload is the ultimate bottom line and so, whatever protocol has you achieving
progressive overload as effectively as possible is gonna be the optimal muscle building approach
for you.
If you found the information in this video helpful and you wanna learn exactly how to
tie this all together in terms of a complete step by step workout plan, not just the volume
and intensity like we talked about here, but also, the ideal exercise selection, rep ranges,
weekly split, and more, so that you can gain muscle in the most efficient way possible,
then make sure to take my physique quiz over at Quiz.SeanNal.com because that'll hook you
up with the proper training plan as well as the proper nutrition plan you need based on
your individual body type, goals, and experience level.
You can click up here for that or use the link in the description box below.
On the supplementation side of things, you can also visit RealScienceAthletics.com to
check out my science based, clinically-dosed supplements that I personally formulated to
help fully streamline your program and maximize your overall results.
Link is also in the description.
And as always, make sure to hit that like button, leave a comment down below, and subscribe,
if you haven't already, in order to stay in the loop on all of my future videos.
Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you in the next one.