•VOLUME• (Number of exercises and sets/reps)

[Adrian Costa]

Hey guys! I got a few questions.

1.Lets say you train each body part twice a week, how many sets per session would you recommend for optimum hypertrophy. So for example how many sets (and what rep range) per session for back, chest, legs and what about biceps, triceps and shoulders ? I know that each body part differs slightly when it comes to the amount of volume needed to stimulate growth

2. How long would you recommend resting in between sets?

3. My sessions are usually quite long and as I’ve previously mentioned in an older post, my current split is PPL, Rest, Chest&Back, Shoulders&Arms, Legs, Rest. If I add up all my sets per session, it most definitely reaches 30 sets (+/-). Do you think that’s too much? And would you recommend an intra workout? Or maybe reduce some volume. My problem is that sometimes if I do let’s say 12 sets for chest or back in 1 session, I might feel like I did not do enough and something tells me that maybe I should do more. So on a Push day, by the time I’m done with chest, I’m already at 14-15 sets total and I still have shoulders and triceps left.

[CP]

Sorry to butt in and I am sure the coaches will have a more elegant answer but just from my experience only, I was skeptical at first with the lower volume these programs recommended as I came from a “need to do more mindset” as well. But I quickly discovered after I “trusted” the program that I was doing WAY to much work and was surprised, pleasantly, that I actually was growing instead of shrinking. Which is what I feared.
One caveat, everyone is different so you may need more or less work depending on how your body responds (recovery, nutrition , etc). The app has a template PPL 2.0 (ppl 2 times though for the week) or the original PPL that is 3 days a week (or you can run the same week twice through). It also has all of the rest times labeled, set ranges, and frequency laid out for us.

[Xavier Szyszko]

Agree with CP. i went from relatively higher volume to this, doing literaly 2 sets for 90% of my exercises, and I’ve BLOWN UP. Intensity and owning the movement/truly using the target muscles is more important and effective for growth imo

[George L]

I, on the other hand, have tried low volume and I don’t get any growth from it. I never feel sore unless I do 12+ reps and fail in every set. I have been training for 10+years and have pretty much reached my biological limit at 6’1” and 235lbs around 15% BF now trying to do a big bulk for past couple of months but almost unable to put any more mass on.

What I personally do is just see what exercises they have in a program here and do those or similar with way more sets and reps. I literally get nothing from 3 sets and sub 12 reps. No soreness, no muscle fatigue, feels like a waste of my time. So if you’re like me, try using weight you will fail with at 12+ reps (sometimes 15, sometimes 20 whenever I fail) and fail on every set. And do a couple more sets. That seems to work for me much, much better for me.

[BryceBahm]

[Adrian Costa]

Bump

[BryceBahm]

[Matt]

George I’m confused by your response. If you’ve been training for 10+ years you should know that soreness is not a good indicator of an effective workout. Seems to me by your comments that you should be training below the 12 rep range exclusively, especially if you never do that now. Not supposed to get sore with lower reps so still not sure where you’re coming from.

[George L]

Muscle soreness is indicator of growth. If you don’t know that than idk what to tell you. You get sore— you caused enough micro damage— your muscles grow. I have seen myself add about 60lbs from when I was a teenager this way as a natty. Have you? Can’t argue with that. I’ve also had periods where I use a training plan that doesn’t make me sore and I see no changes in my physique. If you’re looking to learn good info, you should check out Renaissance Periodization channel by Dr. Mike, his information is gold and in the last 2 years of videos confirmed everything I’ve learned the hard way over so many years.

[Chris R]

Soreness is not an indicator of growth. But it can be used as a diagnostic tool if you’re not getting growth. If you’re not growing and you’re not sore, that could be an indicator that you’re not training hard enough (intensity or volume). But if you’re sore and you’re not growing that could be an indicator you’re training too hard or too much or a recovery issue etc. Then you add drugs into the mix and you might not get sore at all and grow like crazy. Running a marathon will have your legs sore for days, is running a marathon great for Leg growth?

[George L]

Good point there, Chris. I think you get what I meant by soreness. For years now that’s been the main indicator for me personally. I discovered I need a lot of volume (Jay cutler style training) to get any sort of growth since I am so close or perhaps right against my genetic size limit. Been impossibly hard to gain any more weight despite being at 5500 calories a day during my current bulk. But anyway, whenever I do 6-8 reps I don’t ever get sore no matter what. Despite making sure I fail or almost fail at every set. Also I tried about a month of doing such low volume training recently and got no progress at all. So for me personally, higher volume it is as lower volume gets me nowhere.

[Lucas Frahm]

George L wrote:

Muscle soreness is indicator of growth. If you don’t know that than idk what to tell you. You get sore— you caused enough micro damage— your muscles grow. I have seen myself add about 60lbs from when I was a teenager this way as a natty. Have you? Can’t argue with that. I’ve also had periods where I use a training plan that doesn’t make me sore and I see no changes in my physique. If you’re looking to learn good info, you should check out Renaissance Periodization channel by Dr. Mike, his information is gold and in the last 2 years of videos confirmed everything I’ve learned the hard way over so many years.

But Mike Israetel preaches between 10-20 (at most) 25 sets WEEKLY per muscle group? How does that confirm everything you’re saying?

[George L]

I agree, I didn’t actually talk about sets, I was mostly referring to reps. And my main point was that 6-8 reps does nothing for me in terms of growth. I need to do at the very least 10 or 12 reps plus and fail in every set to get any results.

[Matt]

Yeah George I’m very familiar with Mike and have followed him for quite awhile. Soreness CAN be an indicator but relying on it as your sole indicator is futile. And like I said before, running a strength style program (under 5 reps) will almost never make you sore, but you should get stronger from it. You are making a lot of anecdotal claims, which is fine but there’s not a whole lot to back it up other than your acute results. Your turn to do some research. Look at Kassem (n1 training), Paul carter, Eugene teo. Running programs with different sets of rep ranges i

[Matt]

Maybe you’re a unicorn George and what has worked for others won’t work for you? And it’s great you’ve put on 60 lbs since your teenage years I’m sure no other males can say that. Just because you have gotten results in no way means you’ve been doing things efficiently. Maybe you could have put on 85lbs if you did strength training 🤷‍♀️

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