There is another limitation that may have been overlooked: muscle protein synthesis. If our nutrition and endocrine system isn’t providing enough proteins and hormonal response, we aren’t going to grow. Likewise, if our body cannot “keep up the pace” so to speak, with repair vs the damage, more volume is going to drive us into a catabolic state. I could be missing something here…
This is potentially true, but MPS and acute hormone responses to training don't really match directly with actual hypertrophy outcomes. They are theoretical mechanisms, but not really something we can make conclusive statements about 👍
Systemic Fatigue: lol (I laugh because I hate it) some years ago I experimented and trained 6 days a week, per muscle group getting between 30-47 sets a week, the daily lifted work load was 58-62k kg every day for a 3 weeks. I could only continue this level of volume for 3 weeks, I was so fatigued I had cognitive lag almost one second, I'd nap in the day uncontrollably besides the night sleeps. The amount I needed to eat was about 5-6k calories, just to feel right. Now, my volume per mucle group range between 3-4 sets per week (chest) to 14 arms and the rest somewhere in between. I am always trying to balance my volume need and the hypertrophy that comes from it, my cortisol release and the catabolism that comes from it, and systemic fatigue and the additional hunger that comes from it either benefitting muscle mass or fluff mas. An act of balance, everyone is different and dynamicaly changes in time I think. Ohhh, the videos are great as always Peter, gets us thinking. : )
Yes, I have experienced similar symptoms from excessive training too. Like you said, it is best to individualised your volume and be open to the fact that your volume tolerance may change over time 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 👍You're doing good content, keep them up, I'm not a learned person in this field like you, so what you put out gets our mental cogs turning, which in turn improves our understanding of our own past positive/negative experiences and hopefully been wiser with this sport in future. : )
Awesome video 👍 I'd love to see a video about how much muscle growth a natural bodybuilder can achieve. How to know if we already hit plateau, etc? Is there any standard to measure if someone is a novice or Intermediate or advanced?
Amount of growth you can achieve is highly variable person to person. There is no way to know if you are at your genetic ceiling. The only thing you can do is apply your 100% best effort and give it time. There is no standard way to measure your level of advancement. Beginners tend to make gains easily with minimal attention to detail. Intermediates need to start doing thing relatively well in order to progress. Advanced need to nail most of the details if they want to make gains. Practically speaking, these stages tend to overlap each other, and it’s actually a spectrum rather thaN discrete stages
I agree with the last comment, I would want to grow with less volume than more, saves times, fatigue and joint wear, it's more efficient. 1 set of calve work per week is enough, I have perhaps the worlds best calves (yes I'm exaggerating but seriously 1 set is all it takes), chest only needs 3, 1 up, 1 mid, 1 down, but triceps and arms I need tons as they are my worst parts especialy biceps. I can train 30-40 sets for biceps continualy each week, but I do less due to time constrains. So yea, without babbling on too much, it's too varied from person to person and within different parts of an individual. Take care.
Love the channel so much great and top quality information!! But question when you say volume meaning totals sets per week, is that all sets or just working sets? Because obviously not al sets are the same. For example 5 sets of bench when 2 are warm Ups is really 3 total sets?
As an intermediate lifter, I do 3 sets of isolation and 3 sets of compound movements. Twice per week, for all muscle groups. Total of 12 sets per muscle per week. First 2 sets close to failure. Second 2 sets to absolute muscle failure. Third 2 sets? Beyond failure!!! Drop sets, rest/pause, negatives, etc. Absolute annihilation. 45 minutes and I'm out of the gym.
Do warm ups count as volume? I've only counted working sets. I find that 7 - 8 sets for back and chest and slightly higher numbers for arms and shoulders are all I can handle to recover from. Granted I'm 57, don't sleep so well anymore, and I have a full time job. I do what I can for legs due to injuries and reconstructive surgeries ( right shoulder too ). Getting back to it, if I take that one set to failure where warm ups are not even close, are warm ups still counted? Are calories and protein a necessity for recovery? I don't get the full 1 - 1.5g of protein / kg but I get close with supplements and my caloric intake probably isn't where it should be. What can aid in recovery too?
Awesome video. Btw i also think that this depends on the recoverability of different muscle groups (some muscles can just simply recover from a lot of volume, while others can’t. ) So would you recommend a more auto-regulated training where you’re managing and changing volume for different muscle groups across the weeks depending on how they’re recovering (is there any overlapping soreness or fatigue, is the muscle recovering just on time or way too early in time before it’s next session, are we underperforming or performing on track etc.)
Good question. I wouldn't try to autoregulate each week, rather I would select a volume and run that for 1 mesocycle and see how you feel. Then each mesocycle you can adjust volume to suit your recovery capability for each muscle 👍
What about the problem of junk volume. I've seem people seem to suggest 10-20 sets per muscle or muscle group per week. It would be good to know which ones we should train more and which we should train less due to the nature of the muscle. You touched upon a study that mentioned 45 sets per week for quads. Are there any other studies that expand on this idea?
I dont really believe there is true 'junk volume', rather i think it is more of a case of diminishing returns. This video coves this in more detail th-cam.com/video/wM7dXrw7FbQ/w-d-xo.html
@@FlowHighPerformance1 Junk volume not in the sense of doing too many sets, that there isn't a benefit. I'd look at it more as sets which don't provide any hypertrophic benefit, so essentially sets too many reps from failure to be simulative.
I say lower sets on big muscle groups and higher on small muscles just because they recover quicker. I see guys at the gym doing 5-6 exercises for big muscle groups in one day twice a week. 3 months later they look the same. Smh
Hello, I have a question on the Golgi tendon organ. Does it sense rate of tension besides just total tension? Can it shut everything down if tension develops really fast, but the total tension is not really critical? It seems to be so because strength training is good for overloading GTOs, but doesn't result in improvements in drop jumps like 60cm-80cm . But yet if someone trains strength and then does plyos, performance in drop jumps seems to skyrocket. Do you know any article/book where it is certified. I've met this idea in Zatsiorsky's "Science and practice of strength training"
@@FlowHighPerformance1 thank you for answering. I really respect that you just answered so directly. The only thing other people have done better than you is they have successfully hidden the fact that they don't know. Because I ask a lot on TH-cam and everyone answers, but with this question, suddenly everyone stopped seeing my comments. If I ever find info about the GTOs, I'll share it with you
More and more people know, that volume is NOT the main driver of hypertrophy. It is more about keeping it intense and frequent but low on volume. Most advanced recreational lifters lack regeneration, not volume.
I see that you put the higher priority muscles into the max volume range , however what if my priority is all upper body ? My training program is PPL and can i go for around 20 sets per each upper body muscle since i want them all developed asap ? or , is it better to stick with a moderate volume with around 15 sets ? Hopefully i could explain my question well
Yes, you can train with higher volume for all upper body muscles. Although, you may run into practical issues, such as workouts taking longer to complete. If you have the time, go for it 👍
I've got a question, is the level of the trainee a limitation as well? May be theres a beginner that wants the fastest rate of muscle growth, prescribing 20 sets per week, let's say for the chest, would be adequate?
Yes, this is definitely a consideration. However, a beginner should work up to high volumes slowly over time, rather than going straight to high-volume training 👍
No this is a common myth. Both high and low rep ranges can build muscle. Muscle definition comes down to leanness (how much body fat you have) which is controlled by nutrition 👍
Since we are trying to bring up muscle groups that are lagging if we are doing 20 sets a week for those muscles, do we still need to progress in those sets weekly or will doing 20 sets count as progression?
You dont need to increase sets each week. Check out this video comparing static vs increase volume throughout a mesocycle th-cam.com/video/1Nv87a11-Ig/w-d-xo.html
I agree with sheen d ⬆️. I dont believe there is truly such thing as 'junk volume' but more volume is probably less additionally effective (ie. diminishing returns) 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 I’d argue that any volume that exceeds one’s ability to effectively recover and fully benefit from muscle protein synthesis is “junk volume” even though it’s still “doing something.” Junk food is still junk food even though it has some macros in it.
I don't think we have any solid evidence showing that more volume can make a training session less hypertrophic. MPS doesn't really correlate directly with actual hypertrophy outcomes
@@FlowHighPerformance1 ah, that’s where we aren’t on the same page. I’m not arguing that it’ll eventually make it “less hypertrophic” per say, but a certain level of diminishing returns means the efficiency isn’t there. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Burning glycogen, exhausting the CNS, driving up obligated recovery time… just for a fraction of the effective stimulus of the first few sets.
I understand how important is number of sets for hypertrophy....but needs a practical application....if you want to grow your biceps and calves...and you put them at last.....You are already fatigue after doing the rest of the workout( if you train close to failure, of course) ....So you do 5 sets in a workout for biceps...but it's not gonna be quality sets....That's my opinion....In my training, for example...I train legs 2x week...and calves are my weak point...and I start with them
The problem with Meta Analysis is the People that they get experimented. Why??? They said "Trained men" how can they know if its trained men?? Some of them just not training to failure and just go easy for years and they claim the title "Trained men" and some of them are Fake Natty. Thats the flaws of some meta analysis. My only evidence for this is my self. When i lower my volume i see significant gains. How? Because i dont trade Intensity over Volume. The more volume you do, the Less intensity you will put on work the less gains you'll get. I rather do less volume but giving greater quality sets in each body part.
True, we don't know exactly what they are referring to when stating they are 'trained'. Yes, you could certainly see greater gains from lowering volume, if you compensate with greater intensity 👍
People are scared to do to much that's the problem your body is capable of so much more than u think , people say 10 sets on biceps is to much well for most it isn't just listen to your body
@@FlowHighPerformance1 I don't have time to debate, but you are citing the contraversial Schoenfeld's paper while there is planty of evidence that lower volume is at least as, if not more effective than high volume training, and practical experiance shows that as well, especially in long term. How Schoenfeld got those results might lie in flawed statistics, him personally doing assessment while not being blinded, indirect tricep and bicep load, questionable subject's failure on squats etc. Over 8-12 sets a week per muscle group will in most people not lead to more hypertrophy.
There is another limitation that may have been overlooked: muscle protein synthesis.
If our nutrition and endocrine system isn’t providing enough proteins and hormonal response, we aren’t going to grow. Likewise, if our body cannot “keep up the pace” so to speak, with repair vs the damage, more volume is going to drive us into a catabolic state.
I could be missing something here…
This is potentially true, but MPS and acute hormone responses to training don't really match directly with actual hypertrophy outcomes. They are theoretical mechanisms, but not really something we can make conclusive statements about 👍
Systemic Fatigue:
lol (I laugh because I hate it) some years ago I experimented and trained 6 days a week, per muscle group getting between 30-47 sets a week, the daily lifted work load was 58-62k kg every day for a 3 weeks. I could only continue this level of volume for 3 weeks, I was so fatigued I had cognitive lag almost one second, I'd nap in the day uncontrollably besides the night sleeps.
The amount I needed to eat was about 5-6k calories, just to feel right.
Now, my volume per mucle group range between 3-4 sets per week (chest) to 14 arms and the rest somewhere in between. I am always trying to balance my volume need and the hypertrophy that comes from it, my cortisol release and the catabolism that comes from it, and systemic fatigue and the additional hunger that comes from it either benefitting muscle mass or fluff mas.
An act of balance, everyone is different and dynamicaly changes in time I think.
Ohhh, the videos are great as always Peter, gets us thinking. : )
Yes, I have experienced similar symptoms from excessive training too. Like you said, it is best to individualised your volume and be open to the fact that your volume tolerance may change over time 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 👍You're doing good content, keep them up, I'm not a learned person in this field like you, so what you put out gets our mental cogs turning, which in turn improves our understanding of our own past positive/negative experiences and hopefully been wiser with this sport in future. : )
Glad to hear the content is helpful 👍
This is such excellent explain about volume
glad to hear it 👍
Awesome video 👍 I'd love to see a video about how much muscle growth a natural bodybuilder can achieve. How to know if we already hit plateau, etc? Is there any standard to measure if someone is a novice or Intermediate or advanced?
Good question, and a very difficult one to answer. I may make a video on this at some point 👍
Amount of growth you can achieve is highly variable person to person. There is no way to know if you are at your genetic ceiling. The only thing you can do is apply your 100% best effort and give it time. There is no standard way to measure your level of advancement. Beginners tend to make gains easily with minimal attention to detail. Intermediates need to start doing thing relatively well in order to progress. Advanced need to nail most of the details if they want to make gains. Practically speaking, these stages tend to overlap each other, and it’s actually a spectrum rather thaN discrete stages
10 sets per session for biceps is high, especially for a natural lifter. The same for triceps, rear and front delts etc.. Less is more...
Volume is all relative to each individual 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 to a degree unless someone is incredibly naturally gifted to tolerate high volume.
I would say someone who is naturally gifted is someone who can grow from very low volumes
I agree with the last comment, I would want to grow with less volume than more, saves times, fatigue and joint wear, it's more efficient. 1 set of calve work per week is enough, I have perhaps the worlds best calves (yes I'm exaggerating but seriously 1 set is all it takes), chest only needs 3, 1 up, 1 mid, 1 down, but triceps and arms I need tons as they are my worst parts especialy biceps. I can train 30-40 sets for biceps continualy each week, but I do less due to time constrains. So yea, without babbling on too much, it's too varied from person to person and within different parts of an individual. Take care.
Journal articles are referred to but citations are not given. It would be very useful if I could look up the studies
There was one study cited, and that is linked in the description
In this scenario (the volume allocated split), what would be the form of progressive overload?
This video should help th-cam.com/video/fD4OyUDfL3U/w-d-xo.html
Love the channel so much great and top quality information!! But question when you say volume meaning totals sets per week, is that all sets or just working sets? Because obviously not al sets are the same.
For example 5 sets of bench when 2 are warm Ups is really 3 total sets?
Just working sets 👍
As an intermediate lifter, I do 3 sets of isolation and 3 sets of compound movements. Twice per week, for all muscle groups. Total of 12 sets per muscle per week. First 2 sets close to failure. Second 2 sets to absolute muscle failure. Third 2 sets? Beyond failure!!! Drop sets, rest/pause, negatives, etc. Absolute annihilation. 45 minutes and I'm out of the gym.
Nice work 👍
Do warm ups count as volume? I've only counted working sets. I find that 7 - 8 sets for back and chest and slightly higher numbers for arms and shoulders are all I can handle to recover from. Granted I'm 57, don't sleep so well anymore, and I have a full time job. I do what I can for legs due to injuries and reconstructive surgeries ( right shoulder too ). Getting back to it, if I take that one set to failure where warm ups are not even close, are warm ups still counted? Are calories and protein a necessity for recovery? I don't get the full 1 - 1.5g of protein / kg but I get close with supplements and my caloric intake probably isn't where it should be. What can aid in recovery too?
Only working sets taken close to failure count as volume 👍
Protein is necessary for recovery yes. But who cares if you are taking 10g less? Only if you are consuming very little you should worry.
💯
Awesome video. Btw i also think that this depends on the recoverability of different muscle groups (some muscles can just simply recover from a lot of volume, while others can’t. ) So would you recommend a more auto-regulated training where you’re managing and changing volume for different muscle groups across the weeks depending on how they’re recovering (is there any overlapping soreness or fatigue, is the muscle recovering just on time or way too early in time before it’s next session, are we underperforming or performing on track etc.)
Good question. I wouldn't try to autoregulate each week, rather I would select a volume and run that for 1 mesocycle and see how you feel. Then each mesocycle you can adjust volume to suit your recovery capability for each muscle 👍
What about the problem of junk volume. I've seem people seem to suggest 10-20 sets per muscle or muscle group per week. It would be good to know which ones we should train more and which we should train less due to the nature of the muscle. You touched upon a study that mentioned 45 sets per week for quads. Are there any other studies that expand on this idea?
I dont really believe there is true 'junk volume', rather i think it is more of a case of diminishing returns. This video coves this in more detail th-cam.com/video/wM7dXrw7FbQ/w-d-xo.html
@@FlowHighPerformance1 Junk volume not in the sense of doing too many sets, that there isn't a benefit. I'd look at it more as sets which don't provide any hypertrophic benefit, so essentially sets too many reps from failure to be simulative.
Yes, that it a good way to look at junk volume 👍
I say lower sets on big muscle groups and higher on small muscles just because they recover quicker. I see guys at the gym doing 5-6 exercises for big muscle groups in one day twice a week. 3 months later they look the same. Smh
Hello, I have a question on the Golgi tendon organ. Does it sense rate of tension besides just total tension? Can it shut everything down if tension develops really fast, but the total tension is not really critical? It seems to be so because strength training is good for overloading GTOs, but doesn't result in improvements in drop jumps like 60cm-80cm . But yet if someone trains strength and then does plyos, performance in drop jumps seems to skyrocket. Do you know any article/book where it is certified. I've met this idea in Zatsiorsky's "Science and practice of strength training"
Good question, however, this is beyond my knowledge. Sorry i can't be of any help 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 thank you for answering. I really respect that you just answered so directly. The only thing other people have done better than you is they have successfully hidden the fact that they don't know. Because I ask a lot on TH-cam and everyone answers, but with this question, suddenly everyone stopped seeing my comments. If I ever find info about the GTOs, I'll share it with you
No problem at all. Yes, I am completely open to the fact that I don't know everything! Keep me posted 👍
What are your thoughts on 5x5 for pull-ups, with progressive overload? Current adding 20kg plate
I think it's great. However, you don't have to always do 5x5. You can do 5 sets of whatever rep ranges you want - for hypertrophy that is 👍
More and more people know, that volume is NOT the main driver of hypertrophy. It is more about keeping it intense and frequent but low on volume. Most advanced recreational lifters lack regeneration, not volume.
Here are my thoughts on that topic th-cam.com/video/F81erjtx6F0/w-d-xo.html
I see that you put the higher priority muscles into the max volume range , however what if my priority is all upper body ? My training program is PPL and can i go for around 20 sets per each upper body muscle since i want them all developed asap ? or , is it better to stick with a moderate volume with around 15 sets ? Hopefully i could explain my question well
Yes, you can train with higher volume for all upper body muscles. Although, you may run into practical issues, such as workouts taking longer to complete. If you have the time, go for it 👍
I am not sure but shouldn't the Y-axis be labeled as "muscle size" and not "muscle growth"?
Yes, you are correct 💪
Thank u sir 🙏
No problem 👍
I've got a question, is the level of the trainee a limitation as well? May be theres a beginner that wants the fastest rate of muscle growth, prescribing 20 sets per week, let's say for the chest, would be adequate?
Yes, this is definitely a consideration. However, a beginner should work up to high volumes slowly over time, rather than going straight to high-volume training 👍
How about cycling sets each week bc some studies have shown benefits
Possibly. However, I haven't seen any convincing evidence supporting this 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 are there any studies on reducing volume and it’s effects on muscle growth
I can't recall any specific studies which looked this 🤔
I heard that high reps define your muscles better than Low reps where as Low reps build more muscle mass, is that true?
No this is a common myth. Both high and low rep ranges can build muscle. Muscle definition comes down to leanness (how much body fat you have) which is controlled by nutrition 👍
Your recovery from your workout will dicate how many sets you should do not one size fits all.
True. But you body can also adapt to lower/higher level of volume too 👍
Since we are trying to bring up muscle groups that are lagging if we are doing 20 sets a week for those muscles, do we still need to progress in those sets weekly or will doing 20 sets count as progression?
You dont need to increase sets each week. Check out this video comparing static vs increase volume throughout a mesocycle th-cam.com/video/1Nv87a11-Ig/w-d-xo.html
Do you think that junk volume really exist or more is always better until we start to feel the limiting factors that you’ve mentioned?
Diminishing returns exists
I agree with sheen d ⬆️. I dont believe there is truly such thing as 'junk volume' but more volume is probably less additionally effective (ie. diminishing returns) 👍
@@FlowHighPerformance1 I’d argue that any volume that exceeds one’s ability to effectively recover and fully benefit from muscle protein synthesis is “junk volume” even though it’s still “doing something.”
Junk food is still junk food even though it has some macros in it.
I don't think we have any solid evidence showing that more volume can make a training session less hypertrophic. MPS doesn't really correlate directly with actual hypertrophy outcomes
@@FlowHighPerformance1 ah, that’s where we aren’t on the same page. I’m not arguing that it’ll eventually make it “less hypertrophic” per say, but a certain level of diminishing returns means the efficiency isn’t there. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Burning glycogen, exhausting the CNS, driving up obligated recovery time… just for a fraction of the effective stimulus of the first few sets.
I understand how important is number of sets for hypertrophy....but needs a practical application....if you want to grow your biceps and calves...and you put them at last.....You are already fatigue after doing the rest of the workout( if you train close to failure, of course) ....So you do 5 sets in a workout for biceps...but it's not gonna be quality sets....That's my opinion....In my training, for example...I train legs 2x week...and calves are my weak point...and I start with them
There are a few studies looking at exercise order and show that whether you train a muscle first of last, the hypertrophy effects arent different 👍
7:31 OMG a perfect routine. How can I obtain a copy of it???
There are similar templates to this that you can purchase at www.flowhighperformance.com/training-templates 👍
The problem with Meta Analysis is the People that they get experimented. Why??? They said "Trained men" how can they know if its trained men?? Some of them just not training to failure and just go easy for years and they claim the title "Trained men" and some of them are Fake Natty. Thats the flaws of some meta analysis. My only evidence for this is my self.
When i lower my volume i see significant gains. How? Because i dont trade Intensity over Volume. The more volume you do, the Less intensity you will put on work the less gains you'll get. I rather do less volume but giving greater quality sets in each body part.
True, we don't know exactly what they are referring to when stating they are 'trained'.
Yes, you could certainly see greater gains from lowering volume, if you compensate with greater intensity 👍
What to tell about Dorian Yates who do only 1 set and win mr. Olympia.
I would love it if I could only do 1 set and win Mr. Olympia
People are scared to do to much that's the problem your body is capable of so much more than u think , people say 10 sets on biceps is to much well for most it isn't just listen to your body
Yes, I think most people can handle more volume than they think 👍
Lot of misconception here based on flawed evidence.
How so?
@@FlowHighPerformance1 I don't have time to debate, but you are citing the contraversial Schoenfeld's paper while there is planty of evidence that lower volume is at least as, if not more effective than high volume training, and practical experiance shows that as well, especially in long term.
How Schoenfeld got those results might lie in flawed statistics, him personally doing assessment while not being blinded, indirect tricep and bicep load, questionable subject's failure on squats etc.
Over 8-12 sets a week per muscle group will in most people not lead to more hypertrophy.
Thank you for providing your opinion. Will take this information into consideration for future content 👍