10 Reasons Volume is KING for Size and Strength
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- Опубліковано 27 лип 2024
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0:00 High Intensity
3:11 #1 Skill Development
4:32 More Work = More Mass
5:46 Can Be Used with HIT Tactics
7:18 It's More Reliable
8:07 Increases Capacity
9:32 BOOSTCAMP
10:10 Burns More Calories
11:25 Doesn't Actually Take 3 Hours
13:01 It's ESSENTIAL for Strength
14:24 I'ts HARD
15:58 Gives More Tools for Sticky Lifts and Muscles
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EDIT #1 The image at :28 is Ed Corney, not Mentzer. My fault; when I proof-watched the vid, I looked at it and deadass thought "that's Mike Mentzer".
EDIT #2 Not taking shots at the Bioneer, that was just a visual example of tempo work. I opted to leave the names out of who I was talking about and that caused confusion in that clip.
I’m glad you corrected this. It was the first thing I noticed. I mean, I saw it was corney with just the silhouette…but I’m a bodybuilding nerd from the 80s, so…
If it is a bodybuilder with a mustache.... is Mentzer. Yes, all of them. ^^
Mike Mentzer not Ed Corney Change it ASAP.
@@cezsr9646 what about Bannout?
Thanks for clarification, I did think it was a shot at Bioneer - I love that guy!
Heavy weights and high reps, this is where the gold is at. - Tom Platz
Tom trained legs once every 2 weeks
@@Blindguardianfan1998 Nope. Leaving aside the fact that he did that once his legs were already massive, the quote is;
"So I squatted twice a month and did other 'accessory' machine movements like leg extensions, leg curls, and hack squats on alternate weeks." Tom Platz "Tom Platz Talks Leg Training, How Tom Platz built those legs by Lara McGlashan-Volz"
@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines Good to see you here.
This is a contradictory statement. If you are able to do “high” reps, then by definition it is not “heavy”for you
But heavy weights allow less reps. How to do high reps with it?
The great thing about not training to failure or taking sets to 0 RIR is that you can if you want/need to. If you're doing 5x5 on pullups and you're not progressing, maybe the reason isn't volume but intensity. Crank that to 8/7/6/5/5 and you might suddenly grow. Doing the opposite works too. If you're doing 8/7/6/5/5 and you're not recovering, reduce it to 5x5 and see if that helps. Intensity is just another variable you can manipulate.
Boom. 100-effing-%
Hypothetical lifter.. epic
I've said the very same many times as advice. Eg Best way to increase amount of reps at a weight is to increase weight / drop reps for a serious strength boost. Next workout u get more reps at the lower weight u were looking for. This is why 1s and 3s r needed at least periodically
@@stevenanddaisysjourney8922 Word.
"Intensity is just another variable you can manipulate." This...
Volume is so powerful you might even grow a 6th finger like the guy in the thumbnail.
😂
🤣
I'v been doing HIT now for 2 months, results are great. No injuries no shoulder or elbow pain, feeling stronger and more rested throughout the week. Saves me time too.
show us your results and don't be vague about it
People don't realize that our nervous system needs rest, not just the localized muscle groups that were previously trained.
Mike said that the localized muscles recovers faster than the whole (nervous) system, after the recovery, you have to rest more for growth.
My tendonitises, joints pain, chronic fatigue and months upper back soreness (they're caused by high volume workout) has been mitigated and relieved by training infrequently, and yet the results are better. I replaced those tons of sets with some aerobic training, the strength training is anaerobic. Anaerobic training refers to low duration and high intensity, and guess what does aerobic training refer to?
One more quote from Mike Mentzer: "If you don't rest enough, you don't grow enough".
@@bloodeagle2945 This is so accurate. I train bjj 2x a week and I used to get injuires all the time because of my overtrained body. Now I do 2x a week 35 min strength workouts instead of 2 hours and my bjj strength improved drastically. When you are natty, you’re body only can handle a certain amount of stress.
The problem is that people who take steroids and are genetically gifted think they have more knowledge about strength training, when often thats not the case. Its just that their bodies can handle more stress.
Ive broke through my platoue with Hit . I was overtraining.
I've been working out for a little over a year. Paying attention to ingredients, and trying to eat better too. I'm mainly doing it to lose weight, but I've also put on quite a bit of muscle. I had basically stopped getting more noticeable muscle. I started doing HIT, on my arms mainly. Some days on chest, never on legs. Arms jumped up quick and got stronger, and were much more sore, and for longer too. I'm going to keep doing it until I stop seeing increases, and then I'm going to go back and forth from HIT, to high volume, from month to month, or two weeks to two weeks or something. I've also come to believe, maybe variety is key. My failure doing volume just isn't anywhere near the same after effects as one set to complete failure. I'm almost thinking any nay sayers just haven't ever done it correctly. We are living in the land of post 2020 though. So it doesn't surprise me that the mindless masses don't agree with something true. Their programming works well lol
"Volume is the dial that turns the smoothest" that's such an excellent distillation of the concept. Thanks Bromley, always killin it.
Don't forget peds with volume
I’ve done years of volume training and made good gains in size and strength. Then, in a few months of HIT training my gains in size and strength come at least 5x faster. I come to the gym refreshed, energized and stronger each and every workout. With volume training I plateaued for a year straight.
Exactly.
What kind of hit do you do? Do you work with reps and sets or time?
It seems that a good degree of variation in training volume and intensity can break plateaus.
thats because you got used to the same sort of stimulus... anything other than major volume would break your plateau...
Sure you did
I've noticed that a balance of both works perfect for me. maybe 2-3 cycles of a high volume program followed by 1-2 cycles of heavy, high intensity style programming.
I'm a faithful believer that we should pass by all the spectrum of high/low intensity & volume based on how we feel and what our body needs, not only to grow but to maintain and preserve
Yeah, this. I got into HIT after super high volume for a couple years and it worked really well. But HIT became far too taxing (mentally), and switched back into a medium level volume with solid intensity and loving the higher capacity to lift. Switching around is the key to breaking plateaus as a natural.
The perfect balance of high intensity and volume is what causes growth. Not one extreme or the other.
By what mechanism does this occur?
This is the only weight training video anyone needs to learn from when it comes to getting it in. Thank you. I ripped my shoulder today. I wish I could have watched this video before going. Lol
I continue to learn tons from your videos about lifting and programming! Currently running bullmastiff and loving the volume and workload. Plan on running it thru peak phase in time to mark some strength milestones for my 50th. Thanks for the great content!
Can't thank you enough for your recommendation on using 'volumizing' as an approach to build muscle. Aged 46, and getting beat up from a lower volume and higher load approach for nearly a year, I copied your recommendation near verbatim. Its been only three months, and am already seeing more gains than I did previously! Thank you once again for your high quality content.
Agreed! I listen to some of the guys, mostly one, whom Bromley is critiquing. I can't go 1-set-to-failure at a sufficient intensity (heavy enough) for the same reason. It just beats up the tendons and joints more than a lighter load for a couple more reps and one more set. I see most errors come in slamming to extremes in training methods. If we told people that peppermint is good for systemic blood flow and should be part of your re-workout (just made that up), they'd start eating pounds of peppermint & every product would have "real peppermint crystals" in it.
Based on everything I've seen in gyms over the years absolutely everyone who has any results at all has trained high volume or has built their base using high volume and have moved to very high intensity methods with a bunch of added volume such as westside methods etc. Most ppl I've seen with good results train between 1 to 3 muscle groups a day and train them once or no more than twice a week. They lift medium loads for higher volume 12 to 20 sets per body part and go heaver occasionally . The older guys were all training this way. Plenty of sets lighter weights not so intense in terms of heavy weight , this also gives cardio and strength endurance which is far more important for most ppl. I hear lots of ppl say that volume causes injury but from what I've seen it's intensity that causes injury. Dorian and Ronnie ended up injured through intensity and sheer poundage, not volume. Look at Jay cutler he lifts less weight but has always been a pure volume guy and he's fine. The good thing about high volume is you can have intensity as a variable this means you can push heavy weights and use drop sets etc ocasionaly. With Hit there are no variables you have to destroy yourself in the gym every time. It's not sustainable.
What’s your workout routine ?
@@paradoks7487 I train full body, 3x per week. Following a heavy / light / medium approach to training. The 'volumizing' approach recommended by Alexander Bromley works well for going past a plateau. Post the plateau, I drop the volume.
This video exactly the kind of high-quality, polished content I'd expect from someone with a wealth of information and a skillful editor to go with it. I'm glad you took the feedback to heart on the gvs vid and changed the approach to using tons of jump cuts and flashy effects; this is certainly head and shoulders above that video in production quality and makes it much more enjoyable to watch. Keep up the good work man, I'm excited to see your channel grow and reach a wider audience.
Thanks, I might actually re-do Geoff's video because it was part of a test for a few different editors. This is actually Leo, a different editor than that one. He's done nothing but impress me so far!
@Chris nah i'm 17 i love this style of video
Heryerdeyiz
@@enesingenc7661 💪
funny you say that because he used a picture of Ed Corney while talking about mike mentzer
My experience as a guy that's done bodybuilding without steroids for the better part of 20 years and built a pretty good physique. I did high volume training for the first 18 years. Started off working hard but using crappy form. Got alot stronger but my physique wasn't that great. I decided to put my ego aside after 10 years and lightened the weight using better form while still doing high volume. Physique got much better. Took a couple years off and got fat. Decided to get back in the gym a year and a half ago and decided to try HIT. By using HIT principles at almost 41 years old I've put on far more muscle and way faster. Also there are many ways to go about doing it. Mramericaheart is a great resource. There's more than one way to build muscle but in my experience HIT has worked for me
@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines I prove it in the gym everyday. High volume can work too. Every body wants to be on a team. I'm just going by my own results. Good luck on your journey
@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines Have you ever actually tried HIT training?
@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines different strokes for different folks. It has worked for me but may not for everybody. God bless and best wishes
My UA-cam proves it along with all the other low volume guys lime JP, Scott S., Capitan Kirk...Marty G. Talks a lot about the minimalist approach...it works.
@@oldskoolbodybuildingroutin7178 maybe it just didn’t work for you.
Intensity definetly is King and Volume is Queen. If you train 10 RIR you can do as much volume as you want with that low proximity to failure your high treshold motor units will never be activated and set under mechanical tension and therefore wont trigger MPS.
You're getting so good at making videos I can't put my finger on exactly what. It's not just the new editor, you're spitting bars, making sense making sense, being relatable af all that good stuff.
love the more subtle editing approach
As someone who has trained for 38 years now(started at 14, I'm 52 now) this video is totally spot on. I've done all the systems at some point over the years. High volume, short of failure builds muscle, period.
Also volume helps with injury prevention. You can do more work overall but each rep is less weight trying to tear your ligaments apart. Most people aren't looking to compete and shatter records and care about how their body remaining functional as they age. Volume helps build up more support in your body to prevent injuries as weight increases
High volume also more chance of overtraining which lead to injury though too so both have downsides
Over training in the lifting context might not exist as far as what most lifters do for the most part. Maybe. I think I’d get bored of weight training mentally before I was over trained physically.
@@patricknoone2152 Our body adapts to an style pr other, but we have limitations on that adaptations because of the specifics of our body composition and how it manages itself, we could make hormones in a completely different way just because one variable, so find the thing that works for you is always the key, so attaching to something that works to others is not always the best because you may have better possibility to adapt to other specific system
Your channel as become by far my favorite no bullshit source of info over the years. Thanx for the great content
I've done many types of workouts in my fitness journey. Started of with putting all the books in my school bag and doing 50 curls with each arm, to bodybuilding split, to my now hypertrophy and strength splits.
I've done Hit, read Mentzers books, a lot of what he said makes sense. I got bigger and stronger doing 1 workout per week. But I got bigger and stronger still doing more volume.
My take away from HIT was intensity. I thought I worked out hard, but when an empty bar can humble you it is quite the experience. Those slow concentric reps really trained me for grinding out max effort reps and absolutely got me over a few plateaus with my pressing. It also showed me the importance of recovery above all else and not to be afraid of taking a week off and to actually schedule into your training.
Like you said, everyone is different, we all react differently to certain stimulus, weight training is no different. You should check out Dante Trudel and his Doggcrapp training. That was another training program I enjoyed, and actually might start incorporating some elements of it back into my current training.
Nice..... I do believe the best take away people can learn from Mike.. is rest.
Also he never said you had to only work out once a week. He said why not start there. You have to start somewhere.
I think people have blow his philosophy into a religion.
I’m still finding myself doing shoulder press after chest session with an empty six and a half foot bar…
After a year's good progress in the gym mainly with low reps strength work, I have now started a high volume step loading program(after following your advice). Just a couple of weeks in and my stubborn skinny arms having arms have grown 0.5 inches! The best part of this approach that I like is that I can maintain proper technique on every rep.
Hell yeah bro!!❤
That's exactly how you should train.
Every 4 months switch it up.
Body builders train through high reps.
They also switch it up once that stops working and go back to low rep high weight
This is the way
Variation is important. After a few months of low rep training I always switch to high rep training and it is noticeable. Then once I feel burned out on high reps I again switch to low reps.
I've just done exactly the same thing, grew quite strong this year from HIT, but I'm almost sure I've lost size (female, 52, been lifting since I was 18). I'm now transitioning into the higher reps more sets and shorter breaks, loving it and excited to see the results.
Thanks for this. I’ve listened to mikes tapes and he’s so well articulated and speaks with such confidence it’s hard to think he’s wrong. I think of genetically gifted people they can train any which way and still grow.
That’s right. Genetics will ultimately determine it. Why smash yourself with volume overuse?
I've spoken to Dorian.He said"If you can't get it done in three sets,you're not training hard enough".Good advice for natty and older lifters who need systemic recovery to grow.
Learned from Frank Zane's workouts easiest way to grow in size and strength is to increase volume over time, then reset volume and increase weight and with that weight increase volume over time and again reset the volume and add more weight and repeat this. So it's both, increasing load through weight and volume. I've never seen growth and progress faster than that. I think doing this allows the muscles to adapt efficiently to new weight and is good for avoiding injury. He does not advocate for failure and seemed to do fine, but I've always assumed failure really just means to the point where the weight is no longer being controlled efficiently and the mind muscle connection is beginning to fade.
This is an interesting approach. Are you saying for example the first workout you do 3 sets of say 10 then next workout 4 sets then next workout 5 sets to how many sets would you go before the reset adding weight and reducing back to 3 sets?
@@roobsrooby6589 He recommends starting with 3 sets, 12, 10, 8 reps. The way I took it was each set, the progression of weight to volume is paired. So for first set of 12, say you're working with 55lb pullovers, you can add weight for the remaining sets, but overall you need to get to a point with whatever weight produces "failure" at those reps for the set to become easy, where you can maintain mind-muscle connection. Once at that point, your next workout you will add an additional set. This allows you to asses how easy it actually was. Then next workout after that, you add say 5lbs to and go back to three sets and repeat. The next workout will begin with 60lbs, and again stagger the weight across the sets if you can. You might not even be able to, the same weight might get you to the point where mind-muscle connection breaks and the reps for said set. Somedays are better than others. He's not against 5x, but as a bodybuilder apparently he prefers slightly higher reps. When I started I was doing strength, and I did the same approach. Only when I could finish my last "add/eval" set with no break mind-muscle, no inefficiency in form or technique would I add weight which would adjust over all sets. The only time I ever deviated from this I incurred the worst injury I've ever had, an SI separation. I've mostly recovered from that, but this system/method whatever...allowed me to progress after years of not being able to do much and now maintain. I believe you have to allow the body to adapt to the weight, but the only way to be sure how well it's adapted is to test it with additional sets, seems to work the best all around. And adaptation can take several weeks at a certain point which I think is where people get into trouble. They think that they should add more weight and force their body to adapt. But really they should probably do more volume. I suspect Zane discovered this in his 1979 season when he started to add additional heavier sets for size. He said that's the most amount of work he ever did in his sessions. I think do that he incidentally discovered a way to asses what his progression could/should be in the coming sessions.
So week1 12@55, 10@55, 8@55: week2 12@60, 10@55, 8@55: week3 12@60, 10@60, 8@55: week4 12@60, 10@60, 8@60: weekX 12@60, 10@60, 8@60, 5@65: weekX+1 12@65, 10@60, 8@60...repeat. It's week X because it may take several weeks to complete that work.
@@oldskoolbodybuildingroutin7178 Excellent, thanks for your explanation. This is something I can really use.
@@whipivy Thank you for your detailed explanation.
Hello, Alexander (Alex?). I really appreciate this video and the points you made here as I am approaching an interesting point in my training in regards to these two approaches.
I have gone through periods of using both separately, and mixing the two. I was able to get to my strongest point in squats and deadlifts when I was alternating reverse pyramiding and high volume workouts on a weekly basis several years ago. Progress was then waylaid by some life events, and I have spent the time since trying to find that right mix of ingredients again.
Most recently, I got into the Yates style of lifting, not exactly the HIIT that Mentzer proposed as I train alone and now in my basement instead of in a commercial gym. What I have found in the past few years has been that, for me, legs and back are best done together and at the beginning of the workout week so I can end on deadlifts. This approach allowed me to go all in on both squats and rows, which supercharges my deadlifts. Then a day of rest before doing chest and shoulders, and then another day of rest before doing biceps, triceps, and core.
The point of overlap for me has been when I have gotten stronger on lifts. Whereas when I started, I was only able to do 3 sets including the warm up, now my strength allows me to jump in weight so significantly that it has to be spread across 4 sets or more sometimes in order to be done safely. The reason being you simply can't jump from 135 to 315, or more, safely. It must be spread out. The point I'm trying to make is that with the strength gains I saw from adopting more of the Yates style to begin with, I have been able to now lean more into higher volume by adding more sets as I get stronger.
Thank you for bringing this topic to the forefront. Social media tends to morph a “my way or the highway” concept
Hi, this is the first video I saw from you and I just wanted to say that it was perfect. Everything is so well said that you just had my attention the whole time
Editing is getting so much better now, thanks for listening to the subscribers and improving bro brilliant quality
Edit: Road to 1M Alex, we’re with you 😂 No because genuinely your information is THE BEST I’ve come across in this niche and the more people that watch you the better educated the world will be, so keep doing what you’re doing and we hope you keep growing ❤️
What do you use to cut videos and edit?
Markus had high volume. on bench he die 10sets angled and 10 sets flat
I have a powerlifting coach and he's worked well for me, he said our main goal is getting bigger, period. I've never gotten stronger without getting bigger and vice versa. I do think there is skill involved in strength but more important than that is leverages
Well thought out and spoken. You are super easy to listen to. Great video.
Brother that was ed corney on the start of your video. High volume trainer a great legend
This dropped at the perfect time. I'm on week 2 of 70s PL and did the squat day yesterday. It almost took me out and I questioned continuing, but I'm going to keep at it and adapt to this crazy volume. Thanks Bromley
What is 70s PL?
@Brandon Young one of Bromleys programs. I think its in base strength.
exactly the same for me hahaha just finished my week 1 squat day and just saw this. i'll take it as a sign
Did the first squat day of 70s power lift this week and am considering the same. Not really. I just finished his bullmastiff program which was several weeks of very heavy, very low volume training as i worked up to my 1RM.
Now I'm back to volume training with 70s PL. It's nice to go between the training methods.
I just finished the base phase of that an strength is threw the roof
My main takeaway is that they both work, it just depends on your primary goals, and ultimately you'll need to incorporate both. Changing the training stimulus once your body is adapted to a particular volume or intensity is key.
Hit doesn’t work.
I look at like this. If you LOVE weightlifting and its basically your hobby then you should fo volume approach bc you will be in the gym more and most of the guys dont train till failure so they wont need to recover as long. You will get big and you will make gains
If you hate weightlifting or find it boring or want time for other hobbies then do HIT so you are in and out of the gym in 40min once every 3-4 days.
The key to HIT is
(1) the slow reps 4sec down 2 at peak contraction and 4 sec up.
(2) Training till failure on your 1 set and superset if any on the particula exercise
(3) Negative reps, partner assist, or rest pause to verify that you went till failure
(4) long recovery time.
guess i gained 6 kg of air in 6 weeks and god is helping me lift a ton of more weight lil buddy@@AntiHit-ps7zj
Doing less volume is not "changing the stimulus".
@@caiofernando less volume would also imply higher intensity, and if doing less sets, might make some room for different exercises you weren't doing before. So yes it would be changing the stimulus. If you're used to doing 3 sets of 10-12 and then all of a sudden switch up to heavy 3x3s that would obviously be a stimulus change. Or even vice versa. Basically getting your body accustomed to one things and then changing it to spur on new growth. Which if I remember correctly, was kind of what this video mentioned, but I might be wrong, it's been 6 months since I watched it. But what do I know, I've only been lifting 20 years, so you can honestly believe whatever you want at this point, I don't really care.
Excellent work! Very well made video. The effort you put into making high quality informative as well as entertaining content is highly commendable. 💪👍
I follow your minimalist hypertrophy program. It works for now
Currently doing high-intensity. Growing like never before. Plus all the issues with tendonitis and chronic fatigue I was having with volume are gone. Will go back to volume in a bit to mix things up, but HI is giving me way better results with a small fraction of the time investment. Always have at least 1, often 2, rest days between workouts. Needed too. Have a spotter take me way past failure, then a couple rounds of waiting 10 secs to get 1-2 more reps in with very slow eccentrics. Additional sets really do seem pointless after that level of muscle shock.
Underrated comment. Been doing the same thing, except I’ve been taking more days off (3-4) because HIT helped me find out that I sleep like shit and can’t recover. I’ve been to a sleep doctor, and apparently have some sort of insomnia. Now I will fix my sleep and recover better, something I otherwise would never have found out.
I agree 100% with the tendonitis and fatigue. Don't get as sore either but grow more.
Lies
Lee Priest always said if you wanted to bring up a body part you had to murder it! He was a huge volume guy! More and more sets even if it was a smaller muscle like biceps 💪
I enjoyed what you said it made sense, I've tried different types of training and I found that high intensity with volume works good for me the key for me is making sure I rest and recover before the next session
Great video, lot's of valid points - Recently I've been experimenting with a combination of volume and hit ... Figuring out the correct amount of intensity seems to be the key... If you push the intensity too high and with high volume... Then it can be more difficult to recover from.
Like everything, there is a balance. The biggest thing I’ve taken from Mentzer, Yates, and Haney is the importance of rest. Haney calls them “growth days” which when stated that way, allows a person with a high drive to actually take a day of rest instead of trying to squeeze another workout day into their schedule. In my younger Army days all I did was workout seven days a week. Now in my older days I see more progress after taking days off.
That is what I am learning now at 61 I’m still hitting it hard, but my body has taken a beating from both bodybuilding and 25 plus years in the military. Decided to down size from 230 to 205, five years ago. Probably made a difference. But it is a challenge. To those younger lifters like my sons I tell them to ease up on the throttle because I’m the long run you will end up paying for it.
@@williebarreto3248 yeah bro going to hit legs after a 5 mile run or 12 mile ruck is a young man’s game lol
@@thekitchenvillain those were the good old days.
I always wondered if the issue was that the big guys essentially forgot what they had to do to get that big so they swear by very little volume because they have to do so little to keep the gains they currently have🤔
Great point. I don't think it would have worked as well if it wasn't on the back end of all the volume.
Same here. Mentzer is not among us but I find Dorian´s funny claims about training for Mr Olympia 45 mins 3 or 4 times a week more a way of trying to stay relevant and get attention with shocking reveals than something to take seriously. We gym rats we know we enjoy the gym and for most of us barely 2 hours of work per week will be more a punishment than a good thing...so imagine a Mr Olympia champion...
@@pablov1323 I don't necessarily even take it that way. I think he really went about things that way but he negated what it took to get there. He used to follow magazine workouts as a kid, not to mention the time he spent behind bars doing what a lot of those guys do: a ton of volume
@@pablov1323 I say he’s being honest. Because 1 he admits to relying on 2 sets. And that was probably at least 3 sets per exercise since he did “pre exhaust” sets while warming up which is basically at least RPE 7 which we know can stimulate hypertrophy. 2 when he switched to “1 set” he is doing at least 2 sets because again doing warm up sets/ pre exhaust that are in that higher RPE range. And 3 clearly he was on a high dose of steroids which is going to have a different training effect. The minimum effective volume and maximum recoverable volume are different. As a natty it’s just hard to hit sets “hard” every exercise, every session, every week. Your cns, joints, endocrine system etc is taxed along with muscles
@@anthonyurso3554 yes agree. He kind of makes up figures and trick us with the warming up sets actually being straigth sets...and all you described can hardly fit in 45 mins session (that also probably were a thing in some phases but not the usual)
This is a beast of a video! Couldn't have put it any better. 👍
A focused discussion, raising some good points and funny at times too!
This is why I hate the term "junk volume". Is it really junk volume when, at the very least, you're burning more calories? Many of the people concerned about "over-training" have never approached anything close to overtraining.
Exactly. They don’t know what overtraining actually is.
Agreed
One real example that I can think of for overtraining would be Army Ranger training. Some of those guys end up with rhabdomyolysis during RASP if they aren't careful.
So, I agree, most people are not even close to that.
In terms of hypertrophy, junk volume will not help you gain muscle. It will, however, burn more calories. What's your goal? Lean smaller muscles or bigger larger muscles?
It is junk volume because the goal of resistance training(for most people) isn't to burn as many calories as possible, it's to stimulate muscle growth. Especially if you're trying to maintain a calorie surplus.
So if muscular growth peaks at a certain number of sets, any set performed after is wasting both time and resources.
For hypertrophy and for my body, intensity >>>>>>>> volume. I used to be in the gym for 2-3 hours before doing lots of volume for each muscle group.
But since 2023 I have been doing supersets, giant sets and drop sets while significantly dropping the volume. Grew a lot due to this
Still volume.
Same here. Cuts out a lot of the junk volume.
Same here. Plus I don't have time as a parent and with a busy schedule. Even if HIT is not best, it's definitely effective and efficient. I also was always getting hurt with volume work and never get hurt now because of the emphasis on control and proper warm ups, which I don't mind because the working set lifts are short
But if you went the other way and started with more intensity and less volume and switched to more intensity and less volume, you'd also grow. Your body adapts more to newer stresses.
I guarantee if a powerlifter spent 2 months doing bodybuilding or a bodybuilder spent 2 months doing powerlifting it would benefit them both in their own sport.
I completely agree with the volume approach 👍💪
Awesome presentation!!! Very informative, thought provoking and helpful!!
There will be always high volume vs high intensity discussions, both styles brought out some well known men, so both can work. I think it depends a lot on your type of body, style and how your muscles are built of (slow, fast muscle fibers).
I can build up my technique better with lower reps, but each rep better focused.
It also depends an the goal, mass or strength, I generally always was hit fan or at least more intensity focused. I'm still more fan of it. Especially natty tend to say that.
I did your bullmastiff program almost to the finish (before I got sick), my strength was pretty bad after that, I was more or less at the same level as in the beginning or even more weak. On the other side my mass increased a lot, especially it was a completely different look compared to what I was before. My problem simply was, that eg 5x5 at 70% (last set is 5+) that 4x5 is actually pretty simple, easy to do. But it is still heavy enough to destroy yourself, and in last amrap set, the power is missing, I end up at 6-7 reps, but until that 5 reps it was quite simple again, so I probably could do 10x5 with that weight, but not many reps more per set. But just 6 or 7 reps isn't enough to really make strength progression at that 70%. It was too slow progress because all the high volume killed my amrap sets, but was also not enough to getting stronger, and since I never reached heavy range near of 1rm (both real 1rm but also calculated based on the amrap sets, eg 70% should be 11 reps to hit rpe 9,5-10, but I failed way before every single workout. On the opposite site, 70% at only 7 reps is only rpe 6 or maybe 6,5 so I never was any close at a heavy set, because that 4 sets before killed all my strength, I'm simply not made to make progress in strength with high volume, that is a fact and there are others as well) At the end, my strength but also my technique for heavy weights has completely gone. Difficult to describe what I mean, but I think you can follow.
Compared to a hit workout which I did before, I could easy hit 10 or 12 reps with that same (70%) weight. Then a backoff with 20% less weight but 14 to 16 reps set to really burn the muscle out and to get a good amount of volume.
But in summary of course you are right, volume itself is needed for programming, you have 3 parameters, volume, intensity and frequency, you need to find a combination of them to reach your goals. You need a minimum amount of volume of course, but especially for nattys, it is better to reach it with higher frequency and intensity but less volume per workout (both reps and amount of exercises) but do the important stuff more often and heavy.
But also high(er) volume can work, after bullmastiff I did smolov Jr bench, the number of sets and rep ranges are pretty similar, but with more intensity, meaning you are really finished after 7x5 but not with 70 % but with 80%. This built up more strength (closer at rpe 10), and doesn't require amrap sets (but for that the power is missing as described before)
Just my 2 cents :)
This is the point in your lifting career where you will have to experiment.
No matter how many videos I see on the subject, there never seems to be enough custom tailoring to the individual or the time/context of when to implement intensity techniques or to back off.
This is the most challenging thing to communicate. There needs to, eventually, be a level of lifter’s intelligence that needs to be EXPERIENCED so that you intelligently move forward in your lifting journey.
HIT, high volume, somewhere in between, Rep ranges, lifting tempo, rest times…it doesn’t matter what you can think of there is someone out there claiming one thing or another is definitively better. Research proves that it’s so highly variable in the differences we see participants responding to different stimuli (some better to volume others to intensity).
I think more people should choose something (probably HIT first because it teaches you how to lift intensely and you can always add volume later when necessary) and stick with the program in a caloric surplus to see how they respond.
I have tried so many programs over the years in different time periods and one thing I can say is that every program will teach you a valuable truth of your own body. Taking these bits and pieces of information will guide you in the right direction to your own customized plan that will work for you and while you can teach the things you learn it may not work for others.
I only do 4 sets for hamstrings because this is what is optimal for me, but perhaps someone else may need something like 12+ sets to see a response.
I never train over 10-12 sets per bp a week ever anymore, but others might thrive off 18 or 20 sets a week. Failure is what has worked best for me. I don’t feel fatigued as some information out there claims, but I’m also smart about what I do take to failure.
Training a squat to failure is one of the dumbest ideas you can do, but a pendulum squat or hack squat is more than ok for me due to the targeted stimulus to the quads.
It’s superfluous how much people argue over intensity and volume when the simple fact is that we are all different and we will absolutely respond differently to training depending on training age, the lifts being performed, genetics, or how long you’ve had that lift in your routine.
I totally agree except that I think multi set training when you start lifting can be advantageous in that it develops that initial skill quicker for noobie lifters. If not for that I'd think single set training would be the default rational starting point
Very well stated! Lots of programs, theories and techniques work. You have to find what works in reality. That can also be more than one modality for you personally. This is much more logical than attacking one way of doing things.
@@bobjenkins4925 I like that line of thought. Getting in a few extra sets will help solidify movement patterns and form, could be good to introduce back off setss early in someone's lifting career because they can go hard at first and then still reap strength/Hypertrophy/experience benefits from a few back off sets
100% agreed couldn’t have said it better. See my comment above more recently than you. HIT is the best, how do you do it then? You do HIT however you have to in order to make it HIT for you. You must stress the muscle or it has no reason to grow. If Alex was right here, then I could just do skill work all the time, and over a longer period of time, I could grow the same amount of muscle as he can using his training. But I wouldn’t. Because volume is not the most important factor, intensity is. And his training is more intense than doing basic volume skill work all of the time forever. Basic logic.
I've been lifting for about 20 years, you're the first person to say this so eloquently. You read my mind. Mike Menzter has been popping up on my feed a lot lately. I have a 13 month old child and a hybrid of his program is what has allowed eto keep my physique in check since it's less time at the gym. It's been a life saver.
Love all the weightlifting clips !
Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention - Plato
I agree wholeheartedly with your content in this video. But I also agree wholeheartedly with HIT style training and many other styles of cyclic training methods too.
Absorb What Is Necessary, Discard What Is Not - Bruce Lee
All styles, methods of a well thought out program have their place in a persons life.
Can’t We All Just Get Along - Rodney King
I personally like the old Soviet training cycle for strength and endurance. Only add weight if the last set is easy to finish.
Week 1. 3x5 to 5x5, high weight.
Week 2. 8x8 to 10x10, medium weight.
Week 3. 20x10 to 25x10, light weight.
Week 4. Active recovery and cardio.
And repeat.
This is confusing and I’m just trying to learn … what is 3x3 or 5x5 ? 3 reps 3 sets?
@@Hillbillyhomeowners3x5 means 3 sets of 5 reps
@@harman5453 that sounds dangerous especially for new people.. I’m still learning form … before I put big weight on . I don’t want my form to fall apart .. I just started lifting tho
I'm one of the folks who does what works for him & currently uses two sets on nearly everything. It's like being politically homeless, the volumeers don't want me, the HITTERS won't take me!
Excellent discussion! There is more than one path in a attempt to reach the summit.
HIT/HD has been a revelation after years of being topped out through a volume approach. I really think anyone serious about hypertrophy who feels progress is stalled owes it to themselves to try HIT/HD, even if only for four weeks.
I'll just add my 2 cents here. I was a die hard HIT guy back in my 20s. For a full five years I actually documented my progress in a notebook that I don't possess anymore for which I will go into. One of the things that really struck me about Mike Mentzer was his ability to articulate well. His principles certain made sense, but as with a lot of things (and as you point out in the video) having good principles doesn't necessarily translate into good practices. I stopped training HIT at the age of 28 because I had become so disgruntled by the program I was even going to quit training altogether because I just didn't find progress, enjoyment or satisfaction in it. I remember watching a training video of Markus Ruhl and thinking to myself "This is not how I train." Not that Markus was a big Volume guy or anything, but his reps weren't 10 seconds long and he wasn't in the gym for 15 minutes. I essentially became an contrarian overnight and started training much more sets and much quicker reps.
Now I'm not going to shit on High Intensity Training because I do believe it has some good things about it. It's just too much in one direction and it's very formulaic where I feel program and training flexibility would be better served. It does teach about proper caidence and form, not neglecting the static and/or negative portions of the rep and more abstractly one of the core tenants of HIT being that you don't have an infinite supply of recovery resources it indeed very true. It is kind of obvious however that you don't have an infinite supply of anything; recovery or not. HIT just takes these things too far into the extreme to be viable and I just didn't get any decnet progress out of it in the end.
HIT is a boring, miserable and unstimulating form of training and again it was almost enough to put me off training forever. I was blindly moving forward completely uninterested in trying other methods because I believed so much in the program. I do still do HIT occationally, but it is now a part of a wide range of techniues at my disposal. It's good for a short sharp workout if I'm in a rush and can't train very long that day. There's just too many variables on a daily basis that go into how you feel and function to adhere to one very strict protocol. Sometimes I go to failure, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I take a cold shower and sometimes I don't. The feeling of freedom and agency from choosing how I approach a session is something that will always trump strict adherance from me and it's actually paid off in terms of progress. I'm not stressed out pushing a weight too quickly or not reaching failure on a given set. I love supersets, forced reps, partials and all other manner of things that all add to my list of tools to achieve my goals.
So in conclusion I think HIT and Mike Mentzer had some good principles, but again they just take them too far. He's not a scientist (even though in his talks he'll mention exercise science quite a lot), he's an idea guy. Ideas need to be tested and ironically put through the scientific method and I don't think HIT really was. AND it's boring as fuck. Enjoy your workouts for god sack. It's not a sin.
You couldn't have said it better. Mike sure makes it sound like the best thing ever and his peak physique was something to behold.
once i stopped training like a mad man doing all the reps high volume and went to training till failure with heavy ass weight on 1 - 2 sets per exercise then resting for 4 or 5 days before back in has been a massive game changer for me muscle wise. depends what your goals are i guess. the bare minimum and a log book has been gold for me. and i just eat normal now no supplements, making the most gains ive ever made
Prove it or you’re just spewing another fantasy.
@@AntiHit-ps7zj Yeah, take some more copim....hahahahahaha, the high-volume gospel mustn't be touched!
14:18 Laird Ross is the reason I started adding more volume and AMRAP sets to my programs. Dudes a beast. And then I found you!
nah mate you're bang on in fact I think you're doing Gods work with this information.
Good video Alex.
6:30 I think much of this is justifying laziness. This is what I've seen, people like to hear good things about their bad habits.
Great content. I actually agree with your perspective 100%. Us humans like to make everything some kind of a religion. I'm not a powerlifter nor a body builder. I'm just mid
50s dude that wants to stay in shape. So I switch it up so that way it doesn't get boring. Different paths to the mountain top .
You’re a really good communicator btw! Subscribed
So much terminology thrown around here that went over my head 😅 definitely feel like a kid at the grown folks table
Been hitting high volume training for a while but after a couple of HIT Mike mentzer vids, my timeline became flooded with HIT videos and I’ve been really unsure if I should be trying HIT. This video couldn’t come at a better time and breaks down everything in great detail. Thanks!
I think this is the information I needed to hear. I'm a 6'6" lifter who's been struggling to put on lean mass for the past year. I don't think nutrition is the problem because I track my macros. I think it's my training. I've been following 5/3/1 for 2-3 years and I've been on a plateau for 6 months. I think my skill/technique has definitely improved, but overall I'm hitting walls.
You can fall back on 5/3/1 now and then, but you need a different program. Tru Bullmastiff, and you'll get out of that plateau
Roids brother
Spend 8 weeks doing no fewer than 10 reps at a reduced load, adding in sets if it is too easy. The last set needs to be pretty killer, ie you can’t do another set of ten. Rest no more than 90secs between sets. See how you feel after 8 weeks. (In my experience it needs to be 8 weeks for the program to get traction). Then go back to strength for 4 weeks, which will will feel like a holiday. Take a week off then go back to tens, raising the overall weights a little.
I'm so glad I found your channel.
wow, information and nice editing :) I can watch this for hours
@0:23 that is Ed Corney
Shit you're right; that was my mistake. I made a note on the pinned comment.
0:21 Mike Mentzer is Ed Horney suddenly
Corney?
Nicely spoken rant - well done, thank you🖖
I totally agree with this video. I use to workout for very long sessions and lots of reps ( I mean I would even do extra body weight sets in the afternoon and again before going to bed). And as I put myself in the category of hard gainer, I have discovered this one set method. I feel it suits me well because I feel I don't over train/ burn too much calories and don't over stress my nervous system. I very recently started training with weights again, using this one set approach, ( though I would fall easily into doing one more and one more) . I have seen positive results in my mass and strength, without eating more, nor I even use creatine or extra protein shake( let alone any steroids). I have gained 2.5 kg of muscle mass within a month, with periods of up to a week without lifting , and just a little body weight. Getting back to the topic of one set to failure at the gym....Since then, I tempt to feel a bit stressed with my session if I get hooked and stayed longer at the gym by doing 1 or 2 extra sets.. However, I came to the conclusion that I like to use both worlds, even if I wasn't sure I was sabotaging my gains. Thank you for explaining clearly. All the best to your channel and to your work.
The photo of the bodybuilder that you put with Dorian at the beguining is not Mike Mentzer. Thats Ed Courney fellow bodybuilder of Arnold and Franco Columbo.
I thought I was the only one to notice this too 😂
On gear volume is absolutely key
Gear is always a natty excuse for not working enough
This isn't even remotely true
This makes a lot of sense. Thank you, sir.
Excellent and well thought out.
Something that often is ignored about dorian yates training is that he was still getting a good amount of volume from warmups.
Go look at him training. Look at his programs in old magazines. He wasnt doing warmups in a traditional sense. He was doing pyramid sets up to an all out top set with forced reps and negatives.
Its literally just semantics. Dorian was doing a top set focused pyramid approach and only counting the top set. No one with a brain can tell me that 4 sets at rir1 are warmups.
Yeah his program shows 15-20 sets per body part. No one counts his warm up sets.
DY’s approach is similar to an old bodybuilding approach, where the last was the stimulus set. The first sets pre-exhaust the muscles, but the final set where you go all out is the one that stimulates growth. Proponents of slow reps done in a single set say that you can exhaust the muscles in a single set. They are right from physiological point of view, but in practice, trainees (without a coach) struggle to achieve muscular failure in a single set. If you do HIT properly, your volume must increase. Simply adding more volume without an increase in strength won’t result in hypertrophic gains, if anything it can lead to muscle loss. I switched to hit after 2 years of high volume, and I have to say that everybody has been complimenting me. My approach is similar to DY, but I do less volume than him for obvious reasons. I think that the HIT principles cannot be refuted (train when you are fully recovered, go hard on all your training sessions, focus on compounds), but how they apply to each individuals, can lead to very different training routines
High Intensity Low Volume works for me. I just do less free weights so skill isn’t much of a factor. However, I was already a very good athlete from basketball and sprinting in track and field. So high intensity was always my strong suit. I think high intensity works because by high intensity, it most truly means reaching muscular failure. However possible. Whether through yes one all out balls to the wall set, or 2-5 sets of lighter weight and the muscular failure spread out that way. You said for example, children causing you to lose sleep (I would know) can be an external factor that affects one’s ability to solely aim for high intensity. But in my opinion that isn’t true. You may not be able to do your heaviest weight for more reps sure, but you can do a lighter weight done more times over a however many more sets it takes within reason and using common sense about it, and still reach muscular failure. For example if you are running a high intensity program and need to do 4 plates for 10 reps as your new pr, and your kids kept you up the night before, maybe go for a 20 rep max which will obviously be a lighter weight(s), but break it up over 4 sets of 5 and manipulate other variables like tempo and ROM to best achieve muscular failure safely that it going to going to actually contribute to your hypertrophy goals. I hope this made sense. But it’s best learned through experience.
Awesome video brother 👊
I switched from Mentzer low volume back to high volume. So before I would have been against this, now I love this video.
Mike literally said to do as little training as possible.....because you could always add more if it wasn't enough. Kinda like the actual stuff he said, and I sometimes wonder if his "successors" even actually listen to his stuff.
I don't necessarily disagree with what you said. On a side note, however, if a person has done 30/40 reps of strict pull ups in say 5 sets, does he really need to then do 3/4 sets of chest supported rows and lat pull downs and again pile on 3/4 sets of one arm Db row. Can't the volume be restricted to 2 hard sets of each exercise after pull ups. After all he is training his back muscles in all the exercises.
Ahhh...that's not Mike Mentzer you show in the first pic...It's Ed Corney. I'm 53, mostly used high volume for years. Never achieved a large physique but looked healthy. But after discovering Mike's videos a few years back, I was able to progress and put on size. I think each individual has to find out what works best for them and tweak workouts where they can. Be safe out there everyone. Keep grinding!
Based on your profile pic I am skeptical
I’m finishing up a great 4 week 5x5 focus plan and a remix on my diet. Once completed I’m moving to a more hypertrophic regime with lower weight and a rep rang of 10-15 with about 4 working sets.
I love keeping things in a push pull leg split to make sure I’m hitting things at least 2x a week. But I also love throwing in a full body, unconventional exercise day. I started introducing a single day of strongman competition style work to add some flavor into my week. I got a keg, a bunch of sandbags, a homemade yoke, a converted truck tire and towing cable for sled drags and pulls or rows, and some stones. Focusing on carry’s, cleans and shouldering, rows / pulls, presses and squats and throws. It’s a lot of fun and the variations in training keep it fresh and enjoyable. I’ve seen some of the best gains and progress since I introduced at least 1-2 unconventional lifting days to my workouts.
I tend to do well with one or two heavy sets 3-5 reps, then backing off to three to four sets of 6-12
Great Video. Someone had to articulate this as comprehensively as you've done. I love olympic weightlifting and I am all up for 1 Rep/ 2 Rep max sets. But hypertrophy and volume go together like peanut butter and jelly. Thanks for the video brother.
great video my man
In my early 30's, I was stuck in many of my lifts after spending lots of time working on the popular 5x5, and similar, routines. I figured I had maxed out what my 5'10" 170lb frame could achieve (I also love to run, which surely contributed to my lack of gains, plus limited genetics). One day I started working out with a guy who was just an out-and-out powerhouse and he told me that he mainly did volume work. I decided to give it a try. instead of lower rep training, we were hitting 5 to 7 sets of 12-15 reps. On chest work for example, we did bench press, incline dumbbell press and then finished off with triceps push downs for another 4 sets of 12. I was blitzed for the first month and started doubting whether this was going to work for me. No sooner had this crossed my mind, I started getting stronger-and bigger. My bench press, which was stuck at 275 shot to 315 in a matter of four months. This happened with all of my compound movements. Bodyweight-wise, I gained 10 pounds and would have definitely gotten heavier had I not been running. Volume worked wonders for me. I will say this: Make sure that you back off on any program once you feel that you are beginning to regress. I didn't and ended up injuring my rotator cuff. I still incorporate volume training as well has lower rep work; it all has its place. You have to be patient and experiment with what works for you.
Great video.
you can do both, people pretend like doing every set to *actual* failure takes you out for a week but it doesn't, you really just need to build the correct conditioning and tolerance so you can hit muscles hard AND often, there are cases where you prob shouldn't take things to failure like squats or deadlifts because you get enough stimulus by approaching the line, but your isolations 100% need to be taken very seriously
It’s not a matter of conditioning or endurance it’s recovery. Recovery usually is the limiting factor. And it can only be reduced to a certain point.
The bigger you are the longer recovery takes.
You may feel 100% but if your lofts aren’t at least matching last weeks lifts.. by definition you haven’t recovered. High intensity is REQUIRED when you reach a certain size unless you want to be living in the gym.
@@Herenow11 You don't need to be 100% recovered to go in the gym and perform lol what do you think the human body is made from wet tissue paper or something?
@@Herenow11which is why you shouldn't go to failure on big compounds like he is saying.
That’s not Mentzer in the opening picture. It’s Ed Corney
This is VERY effective and the way I have trained the last 5 years. The volume, w/ quality reps, and blistering speed in between sets, with weight that fails u @ 8 -12 reps, is a HELL OF A WORKOUT! The hardest part is the minimal / none rest periods between sets because it will blitz yo ass. I usually superset one big body part w/ a small for upper body, then hit the lower body afterwards in same workout - same way. You will have to drop your weights, or u will not make it through the workout. Go home, get good rest, rinse & repeat. 😊
Bad Ass brother. Great information, thank you!
Intensity and not overtraining and recovering is king
You've never been within 10 square miles of overtraining
But if you occasionally do more high rep, high volume training in the aerobic zone then you build more capillarization and mitochondria which then allows you to train harder and recover in the future.
And "overtraining" can mean so many different things. You can overtrain the muscles, the CNS or the tendons and ligaments. Those are all very different things.
I know I've definitely reached the point of overtraining because I literally almost died from Rhabdomyolysis, or my muscles bleeding from excessive damage and clogging up my kidneys. But that was mainly from physical labor work. 12+ hour shifts with a moving company sometimes 7 days in a row.
@@AlexanderBromley Thanks for saying the truth. Finally.
People really think that reaching failure, reaching your own limits is something easy, is like a walk in the park that you're used to do everyday...
Back when I was a young bloke when we had pet dinosaurs, I was doing a power lifting program with a bit of overall body building thrown in, but training the bodybuilding movements in a power lifting style, low reps, heavy weights. I had been pretty much stuck with not much progress for 6 months, so I tried something radical. I switched to 20 reps for all exercises. God those squats were hard, I used to lay on the floor for 5 mins after a set waiting for my heart to explode. When I first started, I increased the weight on my 20 rep sets pretty quickly, and when I hit the wall, and dropped to 15 reps in increased the weight a bit then dragged out whatever quick gains I could from that. Then I dropped to 12 reps, then eight, then 5 reps. By the time I was back on 5 reps, this took about 4 months, my bench, which was previously 280lbs for 5 reps had gone up to 350lbs for 5 reps. My squat went from 330lbs for 5, to 470lbs for 5. I added 10lbs of pure muscle and looked leaner then when I started. I was however, back to being stuck at my new size and strength, with repeated cycles of same approach delivering minor improvements. So, I got another maniacal idea. After reading Johnny Fuller's 10 sets of 32 reps insane workout, I decided to give it a try. I went on 4 weeks annual leave from work, and I devoted it all to training. Every exercise at ten sets of 30 reps. I had to break my workouts into 3 workouts per day, each over an hour long. By the time my four weeks leave was over, I was doing more for 30 reps then I could previously do for 20, then I stepped it down gradually in the fashion I had used before. By the time I was back on 5 reps, I was doing approx 10% more weight then previously. I had also added about another pounds and was showing abs for the first time since a skinny bag of bones teenager. I was now 92kgs, at 5'11" with abs and veins, and pecs like Arnold and shoulders as wide as a barn door lol Completely natural, and this was back in mid 80s. I had transformed into a monster.
My conclusion is this, Mike Mentzer, Dorian Yates can suck my dick. There workout advice is worthless as far as I'm concerned because unless you are on massive doses of steroids like them, you probably wont get jack shit out of following HIT. Steroids makes stuff work that would otherwise not. If you want mass.....volume, volume, and more volume. There is a limit of course, but up until that limit is reached, more is better.
I like the growth you stated when doing the 20R program. How many of these 20 rep sets did it take of each exercise? That is impressive. I am 5 11 185... i can bench 225 five times but haven't progressed. I am definitely going to try the 20 rep gig.
@@tjburr1968 I done 4 sets each, and I picked a weight that would allow me to get the first couple of sets at 20 reps without too much trouble, and then fight like crazy for it on third set. Forth set I would fail and just take short pauses between reps to squeeze out the rest of the reps. By the way, I used very small weight increases. I had 1.25 lb weights, and I also had 0.25 lb incremental weights which my father had made in his powerlifting days. They were like really big washers. You have to make tiny, tiny weight increases. On some of the dumbell exercises, I added only one 0.25 lb washer to one side of the dumbell at a time. But that extra 0.25lb adds an extra 5lb to the total workload of the set over 20 reps. It's like adding 1lb to a set of 5, or 5lbs to a single as far as workload increase. Once I milked out every increase I could get, I dropped to 15 reps, which increased the weight I could handle, and then adopted the same approach. You can buy incremental weights now, but back then, I had never seen or heard of them. My father was the first person I know of that used them. He was a champion powerlifter with world records in his weight class in over 40s lifting.
@@TheOzStu should i experience soarness regularly or just in the beginning days of starting this 4‐ 20R program? Also how often did you work out when you started the 20R deal?.
@@tjburr1968 If you're doing it property, in other words, hard, you will get sore.......don't wait for soreness to go away. The weights you will be handling at 20 reps wont be heavy enough to injure you. Just grit your teeth and push on. You'll find after a while doing it, you will be getting the most enormous pumps. I was 22yo when I first done it. That means I had a lot of recovery ability. I trained 6 days a week on a split routine. Legs and delts one day, chest and back another, and arms and abs another. I done a lot of different movements for each body part. I'm 60yo now. I'm three years out of successful cancer treatment, and I haven't trained for over 10 years. I started again a few weeks ago and I'm using same system but with less movements and and not pushing as hard. I'm already seeing results. I have no doubt I wont be able to handle of recover from my grueling 22yo workouts, but I'm just dialing it back and expecting less from my body accordingly. But it's working. My goal this time is just to obtain a decent condition slightly muscular physic of a bit bigger then average size. I'm old after all and can't expect much.
@@TheOzStu thanks for both of your informative replies. I like what you say about soarness. I personally like being soar the following day and that is reason why I asked because my progressively weight incr routine 15R 10 10 8 6 (Arnolds book) routine never gets me soar. Only time i get soar is when i do something i haven't done regularly. I think this 20R 4 sets is going be a game changer for me. Thanks as gain for your inspiration. Your experience the fact you learned from a professional is definitely worth knowing. You are also right on about these characters on steroids offering advice about how to lift for size on youtube are completely disingenuous and pointless of them to offer.
Good luck on your cancer recovery. You familiar with the Jason Vale cancer recovery story?
Thank you for this insight. 🙌🏻
Example of HIT mixed with high volume: Week 3 of Bullmastiff has 4 sets of 12-15 reps of leg extensions. You can just do them a straight across with somewhat challenging weight or you can channel your inner Tom Platz and begin slowing the tempo and increasing the weight halfway through until the last set goes to failure or beyond.
A lot of programs are like that. But it's because the volume gives you that option if you feel masochistic enough (or have just watched too many Tom Platz videos).
I thought for a minute you were bashing on the Bioneer. But that wouldn't apply to him, his fitness approach is sensible.
Not at all. That was just a visual example
Probably Jay Vincent.
I’m just an amateur but I have done a lot of research and the method I found most endorsed by experts and professionals is 8-12 reps to failure 3-5 sets . I don’t know if that’s high volume but for me it seems to be a good mix of skill and intensity. I think your cardiovascular fitness would make this different for everyone though.
Thats perfect.
It's a trial-and-error thing sometimes. Sometimes it´s a good idea to add more volume as long as you can recover from it. Sometimes it´s just adding a little bit of weight. The most important thing you mentioned is a realistic usage of all the power that's why I look across all kinds of workout routines from Combat sports specific to CrossFit, Bodybuilding, and strongmen. There are great exercises in each discipline and something I really would love to see is that some guys from each corner stick their heads together to form a well-rounded workout to have the best out of each. Build the physics you adore, get strong but also flexible and athletic
Very good information video. Training hard does not mean you have to add more weight to the bar. Adding sets or additional reps is the secret weapon to build strength.