Time-Stamps: 0:50 - How important is training volume compared to the other factors in training? 02:09 - How to best quantify training volume? 06:45 - What's the optimal training volume? - what the research says 10:00 - What are the factors that determine if you respond well to high volume training? 14:00 - How much does lifestyle and recovery ability influence your volume tolerance? 20:30 - Do people make better on low volume routines (sometimes)? 22:57 - When should we INCREASE volume? 26:33 - The minimum effective dose vs maximum amount of volume 29:54 - The difference between doing the most we can and the minimum effective dose 35:20 - Schoenfeld's 45 set-study 39:04 - Martin Berkhan, and people who swear by very low volume programs 41:09 - What volume should we choose for ourselves? 42:30 - How should we modify our volume? (what to look for) 43:40 - How much volume does Mennno do? 48:45 - Volume per session - what's too little, whats too much? (training frequency talk) 51:00 - Counting effective reps instead of sets 56:20 - Where can we find you?
Great guest (as expected) and awesome job steering the conversation in the ditection of practical advice with your follow up questions, Abel. You hit just the right flavour with this one
If you cba to read all this, I just wanna say I really enjoyed this episode :) Just had an epiphany last week when I listened to this, and I've already listened to this twice now. I was also like you obsessed with quality sets, almost to the point where I started questioning the purpose of even doing a second set if you can't use the same weight for the same amount of reps as the first set. This pretty much forced me into low volume full body training, and when I inevitably stall I force gains with more food eventually ending up with a really poor muscle to fat gain ratio and having to cut. Seems like Menno did something similar in his early days too. Since last week I jumped on super high volume training push/leg/pull everyday with 20-40 sets per muscle group depending on how you count, and I'm loving it. The only set that I care about for performance is the first set of the first exercise, the remaining sets I just focus on good contractions for 8-20 reps at whatever weight my body is able to use. And I'm eating until I'm full whenever I'm hungry, probably ~4k calories. Honestly Abel, I think people like us have made this whole thing a lot more complicated than it is. It always confused me that the bros at the gym seemed to get better results from doing to me seemingly useless exercises with way too low weights at times, while at the same time having worse nutrition and recovery. For some time I blamed it on genetics, but I never really believed that to make *that* much of a difference and that I really would be that much of an outlier. Also the argument that lifters on gear could "get away" with doing "junk volume" also didn't sit well. Sure they have elevated anabolic hormones, but the basic principle of muscle growth shouldn't change, they are still human. This whole thing just became so much more enjoyable. To grow you really just have to push your body in the gym, eat to sustain the training and sleep. And that was what I was all about from the start. More effort -> more results. To think that it took me 10 years to come full circle to realize this is ridiculous (and yes I have made some decent gains along the way and probably picked up a thing or two). Anyway, also enjoyed listening to your personal journey lately about letting go of the obsession to stay too lean and never growing, and trying the more aggressive fat loss approach. I'm definitely doing something similar next time I cut. I did a really slow 6 month cut last year and tbh lots of it was a waste of time. I could have went way harder, especially in the beginning. The hard part about cutting is not hunger, but the feeling of making 0 progress in the gym and wasting your time, when you know that you need to put on more size to get where you want in the long run.
Let me guess an update after 1 year.. it didnt last long. You have written this while high on enthusiasm of doing more work and predicting it will lead somewhere special while chances are, it didnt lead anywhere. "Since last week I jumped on super high volume training push/leg/pull everyday with 20-40 sets per muscle group depending on how you count, and I'm loving it." Yes you are loving it cause you change your work habits and now you feel more producitve b fact is our bodies are fantastic in adapting to something in 1 week, 1 month, even 3 months. But then adaptation stops, added value is no more and actually becomes negative. You soon realize that you are bashing your body, getting nothing positive out of it and you are essentially forced to lower work being done eithercause of psychological aspect or simply cause of some sort of injury. Thats why even PRO athlethes burn out even only stress they get is from the TRAINING, lets not even compare regular dude that has family and job on the side. I have done the same, believe me, grass is greener on the other side mentality sucks in lifting and overall in life. Around 10-15 quality sets per muscle group is around 4 sessions 60min+ of gym per week. That already is hefty amount for regular dude and that amount of work will yield 90+% of what you can achieve in terms of muscular potential. Get from that what you want.
@@haktezak7413 both right and wrong, it seems to me that going hard for some time until you stall (but not past) and then cutting back on volume/intensity, back and forth seems to work the best. I have no idea about what actually happens from a biological standpoint, but usually the next time around you are just stronger/bigger. Getting stuck doing either or for a long period of time leads to stallouts that don't fix themselves, in my experience. Trying to find "the perfect volume" has never really worked out for me. I always eventually stall out (or even regress somewhat). It's possible that these cycles don't need to last for long periods of time (several weeks/months), and I'm currently experimenting with ~1 set daily for a limited amount of exercises, trying to push PRs everytime. I take a rest day for any of the exercises if I stall 2-3 days in a row. It's an easy format for home training, not too efficient going to the gym every day though. Seeing some good results so far. Really the same concept as before but with a shorter time scale. What I stand by though is that I felt really good working out that much for those first 2 months, since I was also eating well. Eventually stalled though unfortunately and even started regressing some.
@@Postermaestro I dont want to preach to someone else what to do and how to do it niether I think I have any credibility to do so, but I personally dont think you current approach will work cause if you are truly an intermediate lifter then expectin a feedback in terms of strenght and especially hypertrophy in matter of 2 to 3 days is simply not gonna happen. Rather, what it should be expected is, related to strenght, feedback around 1 month and hypertrophy, observable objective standpoint, 3 months. And that is why very high volume phase for intermediate lifter feels so good. You get instant feedback ( not instant in terms of days, rather couple of weeks) ike you would get as novice lifter but price is that you get hit by fatigue and eventually minor injuries that set you on straight path to regressing. Which is why that those phases, as you mentioned cannot simply work long period of time and we simply dont know is it even worth it to cycle it or just have stable moderate volume that you do all year long. What I would do in your place and what I have been doing for the last year and a half (been lifting for overall 6 years) is gathering data trough applying different training styles but still being in moderate range. On the one side, I am trying to conclude a range that I am willing to spend in a gym as most important factor and on the otherside I have quality of training/amount of volume. "Trying to find "the perfect volume" has never really worked out for me." See, I dont agree with this. I do agree that you cannot find perfect volume but you can for sure find a perfect optimal RANGE but in order to do that, you need alot of data trough a long period of time.
@@haktezak7413 worth mentioning is that I work mainly in the 15-30 rep range, in which case it is actually feasible to track progress within a much shorter time frame for obvious reasons. Personally I have not made the best progress whenever I meticulously tracked progress and/or food, but when I relied on autoregulating based on performance and feel. I'm not new to the gym so I'm not completely talking out of my ass, have a 180x7 conventional deadlift for whatever that's worth. I would deadlift 1-2 sets about once a week and progress in some way or form almost every time. The fact that I was performing drastically better in the lift that I was solely relying on autoregulation finally made me give up the obsession over training programs, tracking volume etc.
Loved this, I am addicted to the podcasts on this channel and revive stronger. So glad you are discussing training volume more in depth since that has been by far the most confusing part about training for me, so many contradictions from seemingly intelligent people. Anyway, thank you so much Abel and Menno.
Just discovered your channel and wanted to thank you for the work. All content, no bullshit. Love these interviews - I think this channel is criminally underrated, and the timestamps are a time saving godsend.
It might have sounded like Menno shot down a lot of Abel's low (perhaps "conservative") volume ideas but I think the two both really agreed on the reasoning and were NOT suggesting unreasonable amounts of work
didnt feel like that actually, I think he just outlined that what we feel like an amount of volume that is not-recoverable is actually is just often not feasible given our life constraints, priorities, etc
Wow. Menno is so wise about training. And a great physique. The natties are so good and informed, they are going to reinvent weight-training for the upcoming young men.
No clue what his intent was but, if anything, I'd assume that dietary cholesterol could transiently increase serum cholesterol which could have beneficial effects on recovery since cholesterol is used to repair damaged muscle tissue.
@@archmaesterofpullups Okay, but does dietary cholesterol even affect serum cholesterol? My understanding of the current research is that dietary cholesterol doesn't affect serum cholesterol much unless someone is a hyper responder. If I have misunderstood the research, please let me know. Source: examine.com/nutrition/will-eating-eggs-increase-my-cholesterol/
Does anyone have a link to the study mention at 52:45 where a 12 RM weight was performed at sets of 7 reps, with sets added on and muscle growth occurring in linear response?
Couple of questions - I know this video is a couple months old but 1) At the 55:08'ish, you asked Menno if there's a benefit to doing 12-15 reps, then doing "mild?" reps after that... I'm not sure I understand what you meant by your question.. Can you clarify? 2) When discussing volume 'per muscle' group, how do you count things like front, lateral, rear delts? There's a lot of back muscles as well (lats, traps, lower back, rhomboids), upper pecs, pecs, tricep heads, etc... In other words, what's the master list of the "muscle groups" that these guys refer to.
CrimsonCape great questions... Menno has a new video out with Jeff Nippard, he trains full-body each day, you can see at least one complete session. I would guess he picks up the different muscles in the back, for example, by hitting it from different angles; deadlift one day, rowing one day, pull ups one day, etc. all building to his 20-30 sets per body part. As for that list of body parts, I would guess (based on his routine with Jeff) that he goes by six: legs, calves (he does front/rear legs and calves with Jeff), shoulders (he does lateral raises), chest (converging press, also front delts/triceps), back (straight arm pull downs), arms (I cant remember I think they do one arm exercise). But he gives half the exercises to his lower half! At least if this one routine is anything to go by.
When someone says someone is “untrained,” does that mean they’ve never lifted? If someone has been lifting for only 6 months, but they’ve been consistent the entire time, are they considered untrained? What’s the threshold?
At about 22:00 he says something i cant make out on the topic of nutrition and recovery. I caught the words “omega” something and “cholesterol intake” but i couldnt exactly tell what he said. Id really like to know more on this topic, does anyone know if he has written specifically on nutrition for recovery or where i could learn more? I thought it was really just a matter of macros but he is saying theres much more to it. Thanks in advance.
Again, very helpful! Literally was just thinking "whats the optimal volume for me? Or, whats MY MEV" As I definitely think its higher than the recommended 10 sets . This was very helpful
When Menno talks about sets per day, does he mean the average over a week or does he train every muscle group every day? He was talking about this specifically when talking about his experimental training periods, doing the 3, 6, 8 and 10 sets per day he said.
@@ssdabel okay, that sounds insane hahah. Is full-body training 7 days a week optimal then? I thought muscle protein synthesis lasted for at least 24 hours for most muscle groups and personally enjoy my training sessions more if I'm well recovered (better pumps and less aches) . What training frequency would you recommend for bulking, maintaining and cutting?
@@jonathanhijlkema8247 full body training daily is not necessarily optimal but it can be viable and helpful when you're trying to fit in a ton of volume. I've done it and managed to recover from it pretty well for what its worth
With all the jargon and acronyms he casually throws in, it is hard to catch some things, but I think he addressed this. Consider that you won't feel near as tired (after good rest and nutrition) the day after doing only 2 sets on a muscle group, than the day after doing 5 or 10 sets. And that these aren't necessarily to failure. How warm up sets or supersets fit in, tho, is curious to me.
Great interview! A bit confused by Menno's suggestion at 5:37 that equivalent mechanical tension can be achieved with different loads, provided sets are taken close to failure. But surely, mechanical tension on the muscle is greater when the load is greater, no? Could you please clarify?
Hmm... I can see that as one approaches failure in a given set, more high-threshold fibers are recruited (as per the size principle), but I don't generally think of this as increased mechanical tension on the fibers themselves, which would seem to depend on the load that they are subjected to. But perhaps I'm missing something..
Y Fish time-under-tension... he expressly says that lifting heavy weights means fewer reps and therefore less time under tension for the muscle: 5 reps of 100lbs = 500, 15 reps of 70lbs = 1,050... and potentially three times as long. He gives this formula early on and calls it “total work”.
@@quentinnewark2745 Thanks for the reply. I don't think 'time under tension' is considered a relevant factor for hypertrophy anymore, except in BB magazines. But work seems to be (work= force x distance). In general, I think the field suffers from a general lack of consistency in how terms are defined. For instance, I've seen at least 3 different definitions of 'volume' circulating around. No wonder we're still confused on how to optimize our training..
Hi Abel. Menno uses strength and the "strength standards" as a strong predictor of how advanced you are. What I don't understand is how menno says longer rest for powerlifters results in better strength gains, but not necessarily muscle gains which is driven by volume. Surely if I am training across a rep range of let's say 5, and I: A) use lower volume for recovery and gain more strength vs B) use higher volume, gain more muscle but less overall strength at 5RM. Strength (other than getting better at performing the lift) is the primary driver of muscle growth. How can Menno say that you can gain less strength like point B above (lets say 5RM) but gain more muscle than A above.
I wouldn't say strength is the primary driver of muscle growth. Muscle growth is *one* driver of strength gains, and strength gains are a side effect of muscle growth. Powerlifters are stronger but not necessarily bigger (and are often smaller) than bodybuilders, because strength is a skill that you practice specifically when you're training with low reps, long rest periods, specialize in certain lifts, etc
two questions: he says near the beginning that there is not really a limit to volume whcih one can do, however he then goes on to say that the ideal range is 10-30 sets per week per muscle group. What does this mean is my first question. My second question is: how can someone feel satisfied having only done 10 sets for a muscle group in a week. I mean, if you stick to a push pull legs split routine, that means that you do 5 sets of bench press on monday and then maybe 5 sets of incline on the thursday and thats all you do for chest??
Maybe next time leave the video of the interview, it's a bit weird to stare at Menno's physique the whole time lol. Amazing interview, I'm re-listening to the volume month and gaining new insights ;-) Thanks for the great content
23:45 “How do you really measure progression? You can measure your strength progression reasonably well, but research finds the RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VOLUME AND MUSCLE GROWTH IS FAR GREATER than for strength.”
So overtraining (not improving or going backwards) acts as dead mans switch with volume? If you are improving, your body can take the volume, if not, then...
A few more comments, if I may. In most studies of muscle hypertrophy, subjects increase the load once they reach the top of the specified rep range. But volume (number of sets) is kept constant- and yet they grow! Doesn't this contradict Menno's thesis that volume is the critical driver of muscle hypertrophy? It would seem that increasing load is what is driving muscle growth in all of these studies. Could you please clarify? Also, it is currently being debated (see Cody Haun's recent work) whether the increase in muscle size with the increase in number of sets (volume) reflects water accumulation/'sarcoplasmic' rather than 'myofibrillar' muscle growth (that of the actual contractile tissue). Thus, I believe that some skepticism regarding the suggestion that 'load doesn't really matter for hypertrophy- only volume' is warranted given the current state of the literature..
No, it does not contradict the study. Here is why: There is a minimum effective dose of volume in terms of hard sets per week. This minimum dose is going to grow you well for a long time (so long as you progressively overload weight and reps). But, you could be getting slightly better gains by increasing sets week to week. It's small, but noticeable. For example, you could grow fine doing 12 sets of chest per week for years. But you could grow better if you cycled volume, overreached, deloaded, and repeated. So while keeping sets the same week to week and focusing on load progression works, you could be getting better progress doing both sets and load progression.
Thanks for the reply. I have no quarrel with what you wrote. But at 6:39 Menno says "sets per week per muscle group as the most direct, practical measure of muscle growth". There is no mention of load progression as being relevant at all, despite what has been abundantly shown the scientific literature. Hence my original comment.
@@copernicus99 I think he means that the science is showing that more sets is directly correlated to more growth. That doesn't mean load progression or rep progression isn't amazing for hypertrophy. I think it just means that there is a massive correlation between increasing sets and better muscle growth. For example, 1 set per week wouldn't grow anyone but the untrained, even if you added weight to the bar. But if you take someone doing 10 sets vs someone doing 1, you can clearly find that they will grow much better, regardless of the load progression.
Yes, I agree! Incidentally, it's still being debated, however, how much of the growth that results from increasing volume is due to water accumulation and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, as compared with myofibrillar hypertrophy. Indeed, it is still unclear what measures of hypertrophy that have been utilized in the literature are actually measuring (cf. latest work by Cody Haun).
How come Dr. Mike has such a big repetition drop off each set? Does that mean Mike is not recovering well? Edit: Is it the case that big drop off in repetitions something to do with sports supplements?
Menno is starting to annoy me. In one podcast he is talking how mev and mav is not a good approach for progressing in volume. Here he talks about increasing from mev to mav. He says: better more volume, then he says: too much volume is bad. So should you leave constant volume ? Increase it week by week ? What’s after that ? Increasing volume for ever will kill you. I know and understand that this stuff is very complicated, but he should be more clear on his statements and position. You ask him easy questions and then he talks shady. Sorry for this comment but I believe I am not alone starting to see that Menno started telling interesting facts but no clear advices. Sometimes he just say something because it attracts attention, like a snob. Again, sorry, hope somebody agrees with me.
He didn't say that you should progress from MEV to MRV here - he just acknowledged that there is such a thing as a minimum effective volume, not just a maximum recoverable volume.
I feel like all of this volume evidence of "more is more" (to a point which is far further than what we thought) is making all of these splits of only 3-4 times a week deprecated. Im trying to piece together an upper/lower split or a pull-quad/pull-ham split (both 4 days per week) with hypertrophy in mind and with accordance to these new volume findings, and it's almost impossible to do if you want to hit each muscle group and not fall into the junk volume range (and spend ridiculous amount of time of 2+ hours in the gym each session). I feel like 4 days per week split is always going to be lesser than 5 days and also 5 < 6 days, simply by the fact of spreading the load more evenly. So while frequency doesn't inherently produce bigger hypertrophic response, you can argue that it does indirectly aid in more quality work and better rest which in result will help with producing more muscle growth. Which is sad to see as a person who just simply doesn't have the time to go to the gym 6 days a week unless he wants to sacrifice his career, love life and friends - and yet likes to train 'optimally'. It's almost demotivating...
Why is it "demotivating" to think that putting more time and effort in to something will yield greater results? I don't anyone is saying you can't build a good physique doing less than "optimal", but if "more is more" is true then shouldn't that be liberating to know what you need to do to get better and allow you to self-assess how important improving in the gym is to you in the context of the rest of your life. Stalling and not knowing what direction to go (up or down) is much more demoralising and frustrating in my opinion.
People have gotten huge and very close to their genetic limit in the 8-20 sets/week range focusing on quality work. I’d rather just do drugs than doing some retarded 45 sets/week program as a natural thinking that’ll give me the last few lbs of muscle.
Anybody else think menno has a similar physique to Greg’s ? One does high volume the other does low. Just an observation. Also wonder what Menno thinks of Eric’s findings that more volume while it could lead to “faster” gains can also set you up for faster little niggles, aches and possible injuries that may put you out of the gym for a bit of time ?
They both have good shoulders, its just anatomy and genetics, plus a well developed musculature, that's it :) Regarding the volume and niggle question, Mike would agree with this largely, he talked about his 70 sets/muscle group experiment and how he was dealing with lots of niggles and the entire split was designed around injury prevention
Intensity trumps volume. Advocating 30 sets per muscle is nuts to me. If you can perform 30 sets a week for Back you must be working submaximally to the point where you are just doing fluff and pump. Hell, 20 sets is a lot.
That's why you dont immediately jump from 10 sets/week to 30. You need to condition your muscles and body to be able to handle and adapt to more volume slowly and gradually. This is the concept of work capacity Just because you can only handle 10 sets now, doesnt mean you cant work up to handling and growing from 30 sets a year from now. You can train your body to recover from more as long as you are patient and gradual.
Time-Stamps:
0:50 - How important is training volume compared to the other factors in training?
02:09 - How to best quantify training volume?
06:45 - What's the optimal training volume? - what the research says
10:00 - What are the factors that determine if you respond well to high volume training?
14:00 - How much does lifestyle and recovery ability influence your volume tolerance?
20:30 - Do people make better on low volume routines (sometimes)?
22:57 - When should we INCREASE volume?
26:33 - The minimum effective dose vs maximum amount of volume
29:54 - The difference between doing the most we can and the minimum effective dose
35:20 - Schoenfeld's 45 set-study
39:04 - Martin Berkhan, and people who swear by very low volume programs
41:09 - What volume should we choose for ourselves?
42:30 - How should we modify our volume? (what to look for)
43:40 - How much volume does Mennno do?
48:45 - Volume per session - what's too little, whats too much? (training frequency talk)
51:00 - Counting effective reps instead of sets
56:20 - Where can we find you?
this is like crack for us lifting nerds
oh yeah
This is your best one yet, Abel. The part where you asked Menno about his own training was particularity cool!
thank you! felt like that too, haha
It blows me away how articulate Henselmanns is and what incredible command of English he has. This despite it not being his mother tongue.
It’s pretty common in Europe to be honest
Great guest (as expected) and awesome job steering the conversation in the ditection of practical advice with your follow up questions, Abel. You hit just the right flavour with this one
thanks, glad oyu think so!
If you cba to read all this, I just wanna say I really enjoyed this episode :)
Just had an epiphany last week when I listened to this, and I've already listened to this twice now. I was also like you obsessed with quality sets, almost to the point where I started questioning the purpose of even doing a second set if you can't use the same weight for the same amount of reps as the first set. This pretty much forced me into low volume full body training, and when I inevitably stall I force gains with more food eventually ending up with a really poor muscle to fat gain ratio and having to cut. Seems like Menno did something similar in his early days too. Since last week I jumped on super high volume training push/leg/pull everyday with 20-40 sets per muscle group depending on how you count, and I'm loving it. The only set that I care about for performance is the first set of the first exercise, the remaining sets I just focus on good contractions for 8-20 reps at whatever weight my body is able to use. And I'm eating until I'm full whenever I'm hungry, probably ~4k calories.
Honestly Abel, I think people like us have made this whole thing a lot more complicated than it is. It always confused me that the bros at the gym seemed to get better results from doing to me seemingly useless exercises with way too low weights at times, while at the same time having worse nutrition and recovery. For some time I blamed it on genetics, but I never really believed that to make *that* much of a difference and that I really would be that much of an outlier. Also the argument that lifters on gear could "get away" with doing "junk volume" also didn't sit well. Sure they have elevated anabolic hormones, but the basic principle of muscle growth shouldn't change, they are still human.
This whole thing just became so much more enjoyable. To grow you really just have to push your body in the gym, eat to sustain the training and sleep. And that was what I was all about from the start. More effort -> more results. To think that it took me 10 years to come full circle to realize this is ridiculous (and yes I have made some decent gains along the way and probably picked up a thing or two). Anyway, also enjoyed listening to your personal journey lately about letting go of the obsession to stay too lean and never growing, and trying the more aggressive fat loss approach. I'm definitely doing something similar next time I cut. I did a really slow 6 month cut last year and tbh lots of it was a waste of time. I could have went way harder, especially in the beginning. The hard part about cutting is not hunger, but the feeling of making 0 progress in the gym and wasting your time, when you know that you need to put on more size to get where you want in the long run.
Let me guess an update after 1 year.. it didnt last long. You have written this while high on enthusiasm of doing more work and predicting it will lead somewhere special while chances are, it didnt lead anywhere.
"Since last week I jumped on super high volume training push/leg/pull everyday with 20-40 sets per muscle group depending on how you count, and I'm loving it."
Yes you are loving it cause you change your work habits and now you feel more producitve b fact is our bodies are fantastic in adapting to something in 1 week, 1 month, even 3 months. But then adaptation stops, added value is no more and actually becomes negative. You soon realize that you are bashing your body, getting nothing positive out of it and you are essentially forced to lower work being done eithercause of psychological aspect or simply cause of some sort of injury. Thats why even PRO athlethes burn out even only stress they get is from the TRAINING, lets not even compare regular dude that has family and job on the side.
I have done the same, believe me, grass is greener on the other side mentality sucks in lifting and overall in life.
Around 10-15 quality sets per muscle group is around 4 sessions 60min+ of gym per week. That already is hefty amount for regular dude and that amount of work will yield 90+% of what you can achieve in terms of muscular potential. Get from that what you want.
@@haktezak7413 both right and wrong, it seems to me that going hard for some time until you stall (but not past) and then cutting back on volume/intensity, back and forth seems to work the best. I have no idea about what actually happens from a biological standpoint, but usually the next time around you are just stronger/bigger. Getting stuck doing either or for a long period of time leads to stallouts that don't fix themselves, in my experience. Trying to find "the perfect volume" has never really worked out for me. I always eventually stall out (or even regress somewhat).
It's possible that these cycles don't need to last for long periods of time (several weeks/months), and I'm currently experimenting with ~1 set daily for a limited amount of exercises, trying to push PRs everytime. I take a rest day for any of the exercises if I stall 2-3 days in a row. It's an easy format for home training, not too efficient going to the gym every day though. Seeing some good results so far. Really the same concept as before but with a shorter time scale.
What I stand by though is that I felt really good working out that much for those first 2 months, since I was also eating well. Eventually stalled though unfortunately and even started regressing some.
@@Postermaestro I dont want to preach to someone else what to do and how to do it niether I think I have any credibility to do so, but I personally dont think you current approach will work cause if you are truly an intermediate lifter then expectin a feedback in terms of strenght and especially hypertrophy in matter of 2 to 3 days is simply not gonna happen. Rather, what it should be expected is, related to strenght, feedback around 1 month and hypertrophy, observable objective standpoint, 3 months.
And that is why very high volume phase for intermediate lifter feels so good. You get instant feedback ( not instant in terms of days, rather couple of weeks) ike you would get as novice lifter but price is that you get hit by fatigue and eventually minor injuries that set you on straight path to regressing. Which is why that those phases, as you mentioned cannot simply work long period of time and we simply dont know is it even worth it to cycle it or just have stable moderate volume that you do all year long.
What I would do in your place and what I have been doing for the last year and a half (been lifting for overall 6 years) is gathering data trough applying different training styles but still being in moderate range. On the one side, I am trying to conclude a range that I am willing to spend in a gym as most important factor and on the otherside I have quality of training/amount of volume.
"Trying to find "the perfect volume" has never really worked out for me." See, I dont agree with this. I do agree that you cannot find perfect volume but you can for sure find a perfect optimal RANGE but in order to do that, you need alot of data trough a long period of time.
@@haktezak7413 worth mentioning is that I work mainly in the 15-30 rep range, in which case it is actually feasible to track progress within a much shorter time frame for obvious reasons.
Personally I have not made the best progress whenever I meticulously tracked progress and/or food, but when I relied on autoregulating based on performance and feel. I'm not new to the gym so I'm not completely talking out of my ass, have a 180x7 conventional deadlift for whatever that's worth. I would deadlift 1-2 sets about once a week and progress in some way or form almost every time. The fact that I was performing drastically better in the lift that I was solely relying on autoregulation finally made me give up the obsession over training programs, tracking volume etc.
Thank you Abel and Menno. So informative. Makes me reevaluate my whole perspective on training.
fan of volume,
1.how many sets/day for single muscle group?
2.how much time/singlesession you spent in gym?
3.how many days from the same group?
Loved this, I am addicted to the podcasts on this channel and revive stronger. So glad you are discussing training volume more in depth since that has been by far the most confusing part about training for me, so many contradictions from seemingly intelligent people. Anyway, thank you so much Abel and Menno.
Thanks a lot! This is the volume month so lots of discussions like this are to come!
Just discovered your channel and wanted to thank you for the work. All content, no bullshit. Love these interviews - I think this channel is criminally underrated, and the timestamps are a time saving godsend.
I'd love to see more discussion like around 52:00, challenging the concept of junk volume.
been discussed on the channel a few times: just hit a search on junk volume there!:)
It might have sounded like Menno shot down a lot of Abel's low (perhaps "conservative") volume ideas but I think the two both really agreed on the reasoning and were NOT suggesting unreasonable amounts of work
didnt feel like that actually, I think he just outlined that what we feel like an amount of volume that is not-recoverable is actually is just often not feasible given our life constraints, priorities, etc
Appears Menno is a really down to earth person
Thanks, love these podcasts!
pleasure!
Wow. Menno is so wise about training. And a great physique. The natties are so good and informed, they are going to reinvent weight-training for the upcoming young men.
agreeeed!
Cool to hear GSP doing fitness research.
Great interview! So much to digest from this one....
loving the podcast, keep it up Abel 👍
thank you! will fo sho!
Awesome ! Great questions ! Lots of gems to take away !
glad u liked it!
AWESOOOOOOME! Mennooooo’s back on it! The man with the beard! 🙌
Dropping some knowledge bombs! 💣
Thank you Abel and Menno for taking the time for this! 🙏
@@icejumperke pleasures all mine thanks for checking!
What does cholesterol intake have to do with recovery capacity?
No clue what his intent was but, if anything, I'd assume that dietary cholesterol could transiently increase serum cholesterol which could have beneficial effects on recovery since cholesterol is used to repair damaged muscle tissue.
@@archmaesterofpullups Okay, but does dietary cholesterol even affect serum cholesterol? My understanding of the current research is that dietary cholesterol doesn't affect serum cholesterol much unless someone is a hyper responder. If I have misunderstood the research, please let me know. Source: examine.com/nutrition/will-eating-eggs-increase-my-cholesterol/
the more cholesterol you eat, the bigger you get, linear relationship
just kidding
@@ssdabel only if the spoon you eat it with is made from Valyrian steel.
Does anyone have a link to the study mention at 52:45 where a 12 RM weight was performed at sets of 7 reps, with sets added on and muscle growth occurring in linear response?
Couple of questions - I know this video is a couple months old but 1) At the 55:08'ish, you asked Menno if there's a benefit to doing 12-15 reps, then doing "mild?" reps after that... I'm not sure I understand what you meant by your question.. Can you clarify? 2) When discussing volume 'per muscle' group, how do you count things like front, lateral, rear delts? There's a lot of back muscles as well (lats, traps, lower back, rhomboids), upper pecs, pecs, tricep heads, etc... In other words, what's the master list of the "muscle groups" that these guys refer to.
CrimsonCape great questions... Menno has a new video out with Jeff Nippard, he trains full-body each day, you can see at least one complete session. I would guess he picks up the different muscles in the back, for example, by hitting it from different angles; deadlift one day, rowing one day, pull ups one day, etc. all building to his 20-30 sets per body part. As for that list of body parts, I would guess (based on his routine with Jeff) that he goes by six: legs, calves (he does front/rear legs and calves with Jeff), shoulders (he does lateral raises), chest (converging press, also front delts/triceps), back (straight arm pull downs), arms (I cant remember I think they do one arm exercise). But he gives half the exercises to his lower half! At least if this one routine is anything to go by.
myo-reps - a rest-pause training technique, read up on it, pretty simple :) hope it helps after 10 months haha.
When someone says someone is “untrained,” does that mean they’ve never lifted? If someone has been lifting for only 6 months, but they’ve been consistent the entire time, are they considered untrained? What’s the threshold?
Untrained is pretty much never lifted before or not in the recent past at least. 6 months experiencs is a novice usually
SSD Abel Ah, ok, thanks.
At about 22:00 he says something i cant make out on the topic of nutrition and recovery. I caught the words “omega” something and “cholesterol intake” but i couldnt exactly tell what he said. Id really like to know more on this topic, does anyone know if he has written specifically on nutrition for recovery or where i could learn more? I thought it was really just a matter of macros but he is saying theres much more to it. Thanks in advance.
Michael Powers omega 3... fish is a good source. As for ‘more’ I guess track down his website/blog?
Again, very helpful! Literally was just thinking "whats the optimal volume for me? Or, whats MY MEV" As I definitely think its higher than the recommended 10 sets . This was very helpful
When Menno talks about sets per day, does he mean the average over a week or does he train every muscle group every day? He was talking about this specifically when talking about his experimental training periods, doing the 3, 6, 8 and 10 sets per day he said.
Yep multiply those by 7
@@ssdabel okay, that sounds insane hahah. Is full-body training 7 days a week optimal then? I thought muscle protein synthesis lasted for at least 24 hours for most muscle groups and personally enjoy my training sessions more if I'm well recovered (better pumps and less aches) . What training frequency would you recommend for bulking, maintaining and cutting?
@@jonathanhijlkema8247 full body training daily is not necessarily optimal but it can be viable and helpful when you're trying to fit in a ton of volume. I've done it and managed to recover from it pretty well for what its worth
@@ssdabel okay, thanks!
With all the jargon and acronyms he casually throws in, it is hard to catch some things, but I think he addressed this.
Consider that you won't feel near as tired (after good rest and nutrition) the day after doing only 2 sets on a muscle group, than the day after doing 5 or 10 sets. And that these aren't necessarily to failure.
How warm up sets or supersets fit in, tho, is curious to me.
Great interview! A bit confused by Menno's suggestion at 5:37 that equivalent mechanical tension can be achieved with different loads, provided sets are taken close to failure. But surely, mechanical tension on the muscle is greater when the load is greater, no? Could you please clarify?
not necessarily - you just have to compensate with lighter loads by doing more work - tension primarily comes from fatiguing the muscle fibers acutely
Hmm... I can see that as one approaches failure in a given set, more high-threshold fibers are recruited (as per the size principle), but I don't generally think of this as increased mechanical tension on the fibers themselves, which would seem to depend on the load that they are subjected to. But perhaps I'm missing something..
Y Fish time-under-tension... he expressly says that lifting heavy weights means fewer reps and therefore less time under tension for the muscle: 5 reps of 100lbs = 500, 15 reps of 70lbs = 1,050... and potentially three times as long. He gives this formula early on and calls it “total work”.
@@quentinnewark2745 Thanks for the reply. I don't think 'time under tension' is considered a relevant factor for hypertrophy anymore, except in BB magazines. But work seems to be (work= force x distance). In general, I think the field suffers from a general lack of consistency in how terms are defined. For instance, I've seen at least 3 different definitions of 'volume' circulating around. No wonder we're still confused on how to optimize our training..
Awesome podcast
thank you!
Hi Abel.
Menno uses strength and the "strength standards" as a strong predictor of how advanced you are. What I don't understand is how menno says longer rest for powerlifters results in better strength gains, but not necessarily muscle gains which is driven by volume.
Surely if I am training across a rep range of let's say 5, and I:
A) use lower volume for recovery and gain more strength vs
B) use higher volume, gain more muscle but less overall strength at 5RM.
Strength (other than getting better at performing the lift) is the primary driver of muscle growth. How can Menno say that you can gain less strength like point B above (lets say 5RM) but gain more muscle than A above.
I wouldn't say strength is the primary driver of muscle growth. Muscle growth is *one* driver of strength gains, and strength gains are a side effect of muscle growth.
Powerlifters are stronger but not necessarily bigger (and are often smaller) than bodybuilders, because strength is a skill that you practice specifically when you're training with low reps, long rest periods, specialize in certain lifts, etc
What does he say at 22:01, the word before „cholesterol“? Thanks!
Omega 3
two questions: he says near the beginning that there is not really a limit to volume whcih one can do, however he then goes on to say that the ideal range is 10-30 sets per week per muscle group. What does this mean is my first question. My second question is: how can someone feel satisfied having only done 10 sets for a muscle group in a week. I mean, if you stick to a push pull legs split routine, that means that you do 5 sets of bench press on monday and then maybe 5 sets of incline on the thursday and thats all you do for chest??
If 10 sets isn't enough for you, your training intensity is really low and you have no idea how to train
Maybe next time leave the video of the interview, it's a bit weird to stare at Menno's physique the whole time lol. Amazing interview, I'm re-listening to the volume month and gaining new insights ;-) Thanks for the great content
23:45 “How do you really measure progression? You can measure your strength progression reasonably well, but research finds the RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VOLUME AND MUSCLE GROWTH IS FAR GREATER than for strength.”
So overtraining (not improving or going backwards) acts as dead mans switch with volume? If you are improving, your body can take the volume, if not, then...
A few more comments, if I may. In most studies of muscle hypertrophy, subjects increase the load once they reach the top of the specified rep range. But volume (number of sets) is kept constant- and yet they grow! Doesn't this contradict Menno's thesis that volume is the critical driver of muscle hypertrophy? It would seem that increasing load is what is driving muscle growth in all of these studies. Could you please clarify? Also, it is currently being debated (see Cody Haun's recent work) whether the increase in muscle size with the increase in number of sets (volume) reflects water accumulation/'sarcoplasmic' rather than 'myofibrillar' muscle growth (that of the actual contractile tissue). Thus, I believe that some skepticism regarding the suggestion that 'load doesn't really matter for hypertrophy- only volume' is warranted given the current state of the literature..
Volume is sets * reps * weight.
No, it does not contradict the study.
Here is why:
There is a minimum effective dose of volume in terms of hard sets per week. This minimum dose is going to grow you well for a long time (so long as you progressively overload weight and reps). But, you could be getting slightly better gains by increasing sets week to week. It's small, but noticeable. For example, you could grow fine doing 12 sets of chest per week for years. But you could grow better if you cycled volume, overreached, deloaded, and repeated. So while keeping sets the same week to week and focusing on load progression works, you could be getting better progress doing both sets and load progression.
Thanks for the reply. I have no quarrel with what you wrote. But at 6:39 Menno says "sets per week per muscle group as the most direct, practical measure of muscle growth". There is no mention of load progression as being relevant at all, despite what has been abundantly shown the scientific literature. Hence my original comment.
@@copernicus99 I think he means that the science is showing that more sets is directly correlated to more growth. That doesn't mean load progression or rep progression isn't amazing for hypertrophy. I think it just means that there is a massive correlation between increasing sets and better muscle growth. For example, 1 set per week wouldn't grow anyone but the untrained, even if you added weight to the bar. But if you take someone doing 10 sets vs someone doing 1, you can clearly find that they will grow much better, regardless of the load progression.
Yes, I agree! Incidentally, it's still being debated, however, how much of the growth that results from increasing volume is due to water accumulation and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, as compared with myofibrillar hypertrophy. Indeed, it is still unclear what measures of hypertrophy that have been utilized in the literature are actually measuring (cf. latest work by Cody Haun).
AmaZing
He doesn’t say anything about rpe
So is he doing now 40 reps per body part per week?
he is doing 14
How come Dr. Mike has such a big repetition drop off each set? Does that mean Mike is not recovering well? Edit: Is it the case that big drop off in repetitions something to do with sports supplements?
Nope, strong people often dont have great work capacity
I wish you had better mics
I agree. I think some of the problem may be audio compression due to the messaging system.
@@77dris unfortunately my regular podcast recording thing didnt work here, had to resort to google hangouts.
Menno is starting to annoy me. In one podcast he is talking how mev and mav is not a good approach for progressing in volume. Here he talks about increasing from mev to mav. He says: better more volume, then he says: too much volume is bad. So should you leave constant volume ? Increase it week by week ? What’s after that ? Increasing volume for ever will kill you. I know and understand that this stuff is very complicated, but he should be more clear on his statements and position. You ask him easy questions and then he talks shady. Sorry for this comment but I believe I am not alone starting to see that Menno started telling interesting facts but no clear advices. Sometimes he just say something because it attracts attention, like a snob. Again, sorry, hope somebody agrees with me.
He didn't say that you should progress from MEV to MRV here - he just acknowledged that there is such a thing as a minimum effective volume, not just a maximum recoverable volume.
I feel like all of this volume evidence of "more is more" (to a point which is far further than what we thought) is making all of these splits of only 3-4 times a week deprecated. Im trying to piece together an upper/lower split or a pull-quad/pull-ham split (both 4 days per week) with hypertrophy in mind and with accordance to these new volume findings, and it's almost impossible to do if you want to hit each muscle group and not fall into the junk volume range (and spend ridiculous amount of time of 2+ hours in the gym each session). I feel like 4 days per week split is always going to be lesser than 5 days and also 5 < 6 days, simply by the fact of spreading the load more evenly. So while frequency doesn't inherently produce bigger hypertrophic response, you can argue that it does indirectly aid in more quality work and better rest which in result will help with producing more muscle growth.
Which is sad to see as a person who just simply doesn't have the time to go to the gym 6 days a week unless he wants to sacrifice his career, love life and friends - and yet likes to train 'optimally'. It's almost demotivating...
Yep, I do firmly believe that if we want to look decent its paramount that we give up love and career. But i think thats only normal.
Just kidding.
Why is it "demotivating" to think that putting more time and effort in to something will yield greater results? I don't anyone is saying you can't build a good physique doing less than "optimal", but if "more is more" is true then shouldn't that be liberating to know what you need to do to get better and allow you to self-assess how important improving in the gym is to you in the context of the rest of your life. Stalling and not knowing what direction to go (up or down) is much more demoralising and frustrating in my opinion.
People have gotten huge and very close to their genetic limit in the 8-20 sets/week range focusing on quality work. I’d rather just do drugs than doing some retarded 45 sets/week program as a natural thinking that’ll give me the last few lbs of muscle.
I've recently come to the same conclusion and feel your pain
Dont get menno denying cns fatigue, why else would people like jared and mike prioritize muscle groups when advanced? Anybody? Awesome podcast though
He never denied fatigue?
Anybody else think menno has a similar physique to Greg’s ? One does high volume the other does low. Just an observation.
Also wonder what Menno thinks of Eric’s findings that more volume while it could lead to “faster” gains can also set you up for faster little niggles, aches and possible injuries that may put you out of the gym for a bit of time ?
They both have good shoulders, its just anatomy and genetics, plus a well developed musculature, that's it :)
Regarding the volume and niggle question, Mike would agree with this largely, he talked about his 70 sets/muscle group experiment and how he was dealing with lots of niggles and the entire split was designed around injury prevention
Intensity trumps volume. Advocating 30 sets per muscle is nuts to me. If you can perform 30 sets a week for Back you must be working submaximally to the point where you are just doing fluff and pump. Hell, 20 sets is a lot.
Agreed.. I think that 6-12 sets per muscle grup is more than enough
@@franciscoaguiar2120 Yea, after 3 hard sets I am really spent. If I did that 3 times a week that's only 9 sets.
6-12 is likely more than enough to make progress, but not to make the fastest progress. Your body can handle way more than you think.
That's why you dont immediately jump from 10 sets/week to 30.
You need to condition your muscles and body to be able to handle and adapt to more volume slowly and gradually. This is the concept of work capacity
Just because you can only handle 10 sets now, doesnt mean you cant work up to handling and growing from 30 sets a year from now. You can train your body to recover from more as long as you are patient and gradual.
Mr. Dorian Yates dislike this
This is so confusing. He contradicts himself constantly.
A steroid user lecturing noobs about training.... priceless!