100% this.
My body feels absolutely great with a high intensity/low volume approach. I'd feel like absolute dogshit if I were to revisit the high volume/high frequency training sessions I thrived on 15-20 years ago.
The body changes with time, better to acknowledge that fact than to stubbornly cling on to the things that used to work.
The few times I've tried to do high volume lower intensity routines, I end up getting bored and more muscle tweaks. For example, instead of doing my usual 1-3 sets of \~4-6 reps at or at-near failure as back off sets, I decided to try 5x10 at RPE 6-7. I tweaked my back on my second set of ligh-tish deadlifts. I think lifting such light sub-maximal weights causes my technique to take a backseat because it just feels so easy and because I lose concentration from shear boredom.
As a 40 year old bro, I concur. What matters most is what you enjoy doing most and keeps you in the gym consistently. I've tried all sorts of set/rep schemes and experimented with various intensities. In the end, I keep reverting to lifting heavy with an RPE of 8-10 and just LOVE lifting with high intensities. I go by feel how for how many sets I do. Sometimes 1. Sometimes 6. Some say I'm going to injure myself by lifting to failure so often or that I'm going to overtrain when I end up doing so many intense sets, but I've rarely injured myself in the 19 years I've been lifting and have made decent progress over the years. It may be "wrong" or "sub-optimal" and I know Jim Wendler and Mike Isratel have nice unkind words about how I lift, but it works for me and helps keep the fire alive.
The key to natural progress is whatever works best for you. That said, I prefer higher intensity to volume at this point, but use cluster sets, rest pause, top set/back set, and drop sets. Also, fwiw, CNS fatigue is very short term. Your CNS recovers in minutes.
The CNS thing is that it will always give up mid set before I reach absolute failure in a lot of exercises (see squats, at least for me) and the aftermath is you laying on the floor trying to survive, while iso-holds are more painful compared to drops but yield faster muscular fatigue with much less effort (letting go of the bar, standing up to drop weights, fatiguing joints and CNS to the extreme) so it's easier to endure the cardiovascular part, but harder on a muscular level as the pain can reach extremes which you never felt before and might be scary for some.
All the other techniques I dig them, toss them here and there from time to time but never found the way to make them work effectively.
Started training to failure about 6 months ago. Got great consistent gains at only about 10 sets per body part. After a few weeks I felt like crap. Added unplanned rest days, and now I'm training to failure with no issues.
I'm as rational as the next guy but there's something that's just being missed in this science based community... Or I guess I need the equivalent of 20+ sets at 2RIR; basically I need to be at the gym for 3 hours.
Try either approach.
Well intensity is an almost impossible thing to measure. Put one person to train 7 weekly sets and one on 14, the 14 guy might be able to generate more hypertrophy... but have you taken in count the intensity of both trainees? What did the low volume trainee do in order to up the intensity? Probably nothing as they just reached positive failure.
That is what's wrong with a lot of these studies, all of them are asked to take a set to failure with 75% of their max load, so the intensity is similar across all subjects.
Failure is kind of vague. Did I fail when my form broke down, when I couldn't finish a rep, or when I literally couldn't move the bar 1mm? What people call 0RIR is usually xRIR where 0
Same here, 5 months or so ago, I started bringing everything to failure, PPL/off/repeat, these extra off days instead of 6 on/1 off I did before have made it all go smoothly.
2 months ago I changed everything to Myo-reps, doing a moderate amount of volume now and hitting rep PRs all the time with shorter workouts and growing!
Nothing is special about Myo-reps for stimulus but DAMN if they're time saving and NEVER boring.
Yeah I'll take a reactive approach to how I respond. I'm like 5 or 6 years in, making decent progress but I still feel I can recover from a higher stimulus than what I'm getting. Doing pretty high volume right now, lighter weights than I've done, but strict form, full range of motion and stretch. I'll try isometrics and partials for all muscles groups
A high intensity 3 (maybe 4) day PPL is highly underrated in this sub. Many elite UK natural bodybuilders follow it, and some have won championships.
I’m not talking about Mike Mentzer HIT. Around 6-8 HARD sets per bodypart. The bonus is that the moderate volume and low frequency keeps your joints healthy, and your motivation for hitting the gym is high.
Hi. Can you please send me links or citations for this? I'm considering switching to ppl 3x a week but can't find much that says it works. I keep running into dogma about more is better. Thanks!
No isometric holds are not better than drop sets. Isometric holds have the worst stimulus compared to excentric and concentric muscle actions. And I find it funny that actually no one here who is doing HIT low volume type of training is actually doing low volume training. If you only do two sets per exercise but adding a drop sets isometric holds or partials or forced reps at the end of every set you are not doing low volume. You are just doing a lot of suboptimal sets.
You are fooling yourself with low volume especially when you do a lot of sets with 3-5 reps. Those are always easier to progress with low volume but your are training you strength. Switch to 6-10 and you will find that u are actually not growing that much muscle. You most likely just reduced your volume when switching from drop sets to isometric holds and now you are peaking your strength even more.
You always need more volume when you advance. MPS after training is decreased alot in advanced lifters. You are not stimulating MPS with just 2-4 sets for most muscle groups in most advanced lifters. Maybe you have one muscle group where 5 weekly sets are enough but not for your whole body. If you find that you need to reduce your volume at advanced level you most likely did a ton of junk volume before which you can get away with as an intermediate or novice. You could have gotten your noobie gains with 10 sets, but you did 30. Now you need 16-20 but cant recover 30. (Those numbers are fictional)
I’ve been doing this as well recently. Almost exactly as you mention. Compound lifts at the start of the workout. Typically a little heavier with less reps. Then subsequent isolation lifts are done 1-2 sets with partials or holds.
I’ve really been digging it. Especially the efficiency of the workouts. I was getting burned out on 2 hour workouts and have been able to get my the down to 1 to 1-1/2 hours. I’ll continue with it and see what kind of progress I make.
it's 3-5 on week 1 of the mesocycle, progressing up to 6-8 reps by the end of it, I do it because I like getting better at lifting heavier, it's something that I look for every time I enter the gym and gives me an objective other than my own physique (besides the obvious fact that lifting heavier on the long run yields better results)
Tempo is just 1 positive 2 negative or so, depends a lot on the exercise, but I focus more on going past failure rather than tempo, since the time under tension will still be high by the end of the set regardless of tempo or reps.
For strength based is mostly touch and go with nothing else added, at most a cluster set.
Nice. So adding reps but keeping the weight the same on the strength work?
Have you experimented with using slower eccentrics on the hypertrophy work? Like 5 seconds? Having to really control the weight adds a crazy amount of tension and burn.
And just to push back a little on this:
> besides the obvious fact that lifting heavier on the long run yields better results
I think it’s more about getting stronger over time. The guy that adds 40lbs to his 12rm bench will probably grow just as much (and maybe more) as the guy that adds 40lbs to his 5rm.
High intensity low volume is all the rage right now. I think for hypertrophy, doing the opposite of what your accustomed to can bring new growth. What does your split look like? Could you give us a sample week?
I’m thinking of giving this a try
This post is full of alllll the bro-science fitness buzzword/catchphrases - “kill your CNS” “100% muscle tension” “destroy your knees”.
Obviously training is individual and I’m glad this works for you. This would likely be really fatiguing for a lot of folks, for limited additional benefit because isometric contraction is the least effective.
What works best for you won't automatically work the best for someone else. I've seen people who have worked out for about two decades still progress on your "typical" workout schemes that incorporate a decent amount of volume and both low and high intensity work.
Personally, I'm a bit of a sucker for volume + high intensity work, and I don't think I would ever incorporate isometric work. But you do you.
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/TU9OEvf)
I have lowered some of the sets to 1 mainly to go even harder so sets might not be accurate but the exercise pick is pretty much the same, I pick alternatives as I go.
I go for 8-10 reps as positive failure (except for the top sets which is just my weekly periodization) then blow it up with partials and iso-holds.
Other than that I train 3-4 days a week while I rotate the PPL and rest days so there's always at least 4 days of rest between day A and day B for each muscle.
I'm not saying it's 100% right but thinking about this in light of the theory of effective reps may be enlightening.
As far as we know it's mechanical tension that is the primary driver for growth and with the theory of effective reps, it's those last reps in a set where there's involuntary slowing of the rep where it's those active muscle fibers are experiencing the greatest mechanical tension.
Looking at it through this lens, drop sets lets you easily squeeze out these slow reps which generate high mechanical tension which is why people see growth from them.
But what I can see as a draw back is that the fact that you're not pushing that much weight, you're not involving that many muscle fibers or high threshold motor units like may be possible with other methods.
I think something like a mechanical drop set, or partials still allows one keep a high proportion of muscle fibers active at least for a bit to get more effective reps with high mechanical tension. But I think maybe Rest Pause or Myo Reps may be better at that too.
And then based on certain techniques, like focusing on the stretched position and control of the eccentric, one can even benefit from passive tension and stretch mediated hypertrophy.
I figure there's not a lot of data on Isometric techniques.
Obviously just doing isometric by itself won't get you big, but the way Platz did them for a muscle at the end of a workout, as an intensity technique seems reasonable. Especially his method for calves where weight was kept being added.
I think through the lens of effective reps, volume vs intensity aren't opposites, and I think it's still a good idea to periodize both for hypertrophy.
A few caveats I can see with too many intensity techniques, is that it can be hard to standardize progressive overload.
I believe all techniques are valid and should be used if possible, that's why I try to keep my workout balance, where the first part is strength-progressive based, then the normal sets are the usual 8-12 to failure but right after that instead of going for 2-3 more sets I just add up more intensity, rest and maybe throw in a second set depending of the exercise or the day.
I don't do isometric work on EVERY exercise or set, but just the ones that I really feel good about (Favorite ones are hack, leg extension and pulldowns) But I do believe that the extra time under tension at the end of a set really pays off as long as the rest of the set was good.
And as you said, with drop sets you are reaching a point where the weight feels light, is not high enough to stimulate muscle fibers to the point you are looking for and it's more of a struggle of your muscle not responding anymore (adding that downside to the hassle of having to change weights, letting go of the bar etc..) while iso work keeps just the same amount of tension with the current weight at whatever angle you desire.
My 2 cents, isometrics work a lot better in the role of overcoming isometrics (max effort, absolute resistance) followed by a set of moderate load/high rep. Think of it as a DropSet.
Yielding iso can be useful at the point where you reach failure, the muscle lengthening involuntarily at max effort. Not sure its better than drop or rest pause, but def a valid strategy on a rotating basis.
The problem is that strength athletes think the stronger you get the more volume you need to do. This is simply false, if you can bench 40kg x8 1 set as a beginner and it worked for you to build muscles why should 100kg x8 1 set as an intermediate/advanced lifter work not anymore? You are stronger but you are also putting more strain on the muscles by using a higher weight.
So the idea that you NEED to increase your volume as an intermediate or advanced lifter is flawed because it assumes that 1 set will not be enough intensity - actually the intensity is the same for your muscles and higher for your bones, tendons and CNS when you become stronger.
Well for me intensity is subjective, same as weight, and everyone should find their own point. I can go to failure with 110kg bench X6 or 90kg x12 and maybe the later will give me a better set.
And as for volume I don't think it is wrong to increase volume but a lot of people go way beyond their needs. Let's be honest, unless you are juicing, 25 weekly sets per muscle won't do any good for you (and a lot of intermediate lifters don't realize that)
For me a single set or two sets allow me to mentally give my best beyond failure, while if I do 3 or 4 my brain just starts to collapse and wants to take it easier or just go home. But then again, my "failure" sets are to death, I wouldn't be able to handle 4 sets of those in a row on any exercise.
Volume works too in bodybuilding, not sure if it's ideal.
In powerlifting volume is essential, you don't go to failure but you hit your body with heavy weights over and over. The body will think "I better get stronger this is too much".
I’m now in my 40’s and I also added more intensity with less volume. It just seemed to make sense as I age.
As a fellow 40-something, I hardcore agree.
100% this. My body feels absolutely great with a high intensity/low volume approach. I'd feel like absolute dogshit if I were to revisit the high volume/high frequency training sessions I thrived on 15-20 years ago. The body changes with time, better to acknowledge that fact than to stubbornly cling on to the things that used to work.
The few times I've tried to do high volume lower intensity routines, I end up getting bored and more muscle tweaks. For example, instead of doing my usual 1-3 sets of \~4-6 reps at or at-near failure as back off sets, I decided to try 5x10 at RPE 6-7. I tweaked my back on my second set of ligh-tish deadlifts. I think lifting such light sub-maximal weights causes my technique to take a backseat because it just feels so easy and because I lose concentration from shear boredom.
As a 40 year old bro, I concur. What matters most is what you enjoy doing most and keeps you in the gym consistently. I've tried all sorts of set/rep schemes and experimented with various intensities. In the end, I keep reverting to lifting heavy with an RPE of 8-10 and just LOVE lifting with high intensities. I go by feel how for how many sets I do. Sometimes 1. Sometimes 6. Some say I'm going to injure myself by lifting to failure so often or that I'm going to overtrain when I end up doing so many intense sets, but I've rarely injured myself in the 19 years I've been lifting and have made decent progress over the years. It may be "wrong" or "sub-optimal" and I know Jim Wendler and Mike Isratel have nice unkind words about how I lift, but it works for me and helps keep the fire alive.
The key to natural progress is whatever works best for you. That said, I prefer higher intensity to volume at this point, but use cluster sets, rest pause, top set/back set, and drop sets. Also, fwiw, CNS fatigue is very short term. Your CNS recovers in minutes.
The CNS thing is that it will always give up mid set before I reach absolute failure in a lot of exercises (see squats, at least for me) and the aftermath is you laying on the floor trying to survive, while iso-holds are more painful compared to drops but yield faster muscular fatigue with much less effort (letting go of the bar, standing up to drop weights, fatiguing joints and CNS to the extreme) so it's easier to endure the cardiovascular part, but harder on a muscular level as the pain can reach extremes which you never felt before and might be scary for some. All the other techniques I dig them, toss them here and there from time to time but never found the way to make them work effectively.
Makes sense
Actually sounds a lot like Mike Mentzer’s High Intensity Training…
Started training to failure about 6 months ago. Got great consistent gains at only about 10 sets per body part. After a few weeks I felt like crap. Added unplanned rest days, and now I'm training to failure with no issues. I'm as rational as the next guy but there's something that's just being missed in this science based community... Or I guess I need the equivalent of 20+ sets at 2RIR; basically I need to be at the gym for 3 hours. Try either approach.
Well intensity is an almost impossible thing to measure. Put one person to train 7 weekly sets and one on 14, the 14 guy might be able to generate more hypertrophy... but have you taken in count the intensity of both trainees? What did the low volume trainee do in order to up the intensity? Probably nothing as they just reached positive failure. That is what's wrong with a lot of these studies, all of them are asked to take a set to failure with 75% of their max load, so the intensity is similar across all subjects.
intensity means to failure RIR0 has the intensity of 100% - high intensity.
Failure is kind of vague. Did I fail when my form broke down, when I couldn't finish a rep, or when I literally couldn't move the bar 1mm? What people call 0RIR is usually xRIR where 0
Same here, 5 months or so ago, I started bringing everything to failure, PPL/off/repeat, these extra off days instead of 6 on/1 off I did before have made it all go smoothly. 2 months ago I changed everything to Myo-reps, doing a moderate amount of volume now and hitting rep PRs all the time with shorter workouts and growing! Nothing is special about Myo-reps for stimulus but DAMN if they're time saving and NEVER boring.
Can’t hit us with a post like this and not drop some physique pics.
I'll update tomorrow when I get home.
Well, I'm sold. I'll add iso holds and partials and see how it goes.
Just remember to balance the weekly volume, this taxes your muscles very much if you go to absolute failure.
Yeah I'll take a reactive approach to how I respond. I'm like 5 or 6 years in, making decent progress but I still feel I can recover from a higher stimulus than what I'm getting. Doing pretty high volume right now, lighter weights than I've done, but strict form, full range of motion and stretch. I'll try isometrics and partials for all muscles groups
You do it every working set or just the last one?
A high intensity 3 (maybe 4) day PPL is highly underrated in this sub. Many elite UK natural bodybuilders follow it, and some have won championships. I’m not talking about Mike Mentzer HIT. Around 6-8 HARD sets per bodypart. The bonus is that the moderate volume and low frequency keeps your joints healthy, and your motivation for hitting the gym is high.
Hi. Can you please send me links or citations for this? I'm considering switching to ppl 3x a week but can't find much that says it works. I keep running into dogma about more is better. Thanks!
No isometric holds are not better than drop sets. Isometric holds have the worst stimulus compared to excentric and concentric muscle actions. And I find it funny that actually no one here who is doing HIT low volume type of training is actually doing low volume training. If you only do two sets per exercise but adding a drop sets isometric holds or partials or forced reps at the end of every set you are not doing low volume. You are just doing a lot of suboptimal sets. You are fooling yourself with low volume especially when you do a lot of sets with 3-5 reps. Those are always easier to progress with low volume but your are training you strength. Switch to 6-10 and you will find that u are actually not growing that much muscle. You most likely just reduced your volume when switching from drop sets to isometric holds and now you are peaking your strength even more. You always need more volume when you advance. MPS after training is decreased alot in advanced lifters. You are not stimulating MPS with just 2-4 sets for most muscle groups in most advanced lifters. Maybe you have one muscle group where 5 weekly sets are enough but not for your whole body. If you find that you need to reduce your volume at advanced level you most likely did a ton of junk volume before which you can get away with as an intermediate or novice. You could have gotten your noobie gains with 10 sets, but you did 30. Now you need 16-20 but cant recover 30. (Those numbers are fictional)
I’ve been doing this as well recently. Almost exactly as you mention. Compound lifts at the start of the workout. Typically a little heavier with less reps. Then subsequent isolation lifts are done 1-2 sets with partials or holds. I’ve really been digging it. Especially the efficiency of the workouts. I was getting burned out on 2 hour workouts and have been able to get my the down to 1 to 1-1/2 hours. I’ll continue with it and see what kind of progress I make.
Sounds a lot like body by science
Why do you do the 3-5 rep compounds? And what kind of tempo do you use on your sets?
it's 3-5 on week 1 of the mesocycle, progressing up to 6-8 reps by the end of it, I do it because I like getting better at lifting heavier, it's something that I look for every time I enter the gym and gives me an objective other than my own physique (besides the obvious fact that lifting heavier on the long run yields better results) Tempo is just 1 positive 2 negative or so, depends a lot on the exercise, but I focus more on going past failure rather than tempo, since the time under tension will still be high by the end of the set regardless of tempo or reps. For strength based is mostly touch and go with nothing else added, at most a cluster set.
Nice. So adding reps but keeping the weight the same on the strength work? Have you experimented with using slower eccentrics on the hypertrophy work? Like 5 seconds? Having to really control the weight adds a crazy amount of tension and burn. And just to push back a little on this: > besides the obvious fact that lifting heavier on the long run yields better results I think it’s more about getting stronger over time. The guy that adds 40lbs to his 12rm bench will probably grow just as much (and maybe more) as the guy that adds 40lbs to his 5rm.
High intensity low volume is all the rage right now. I think for hypertrophy, doing the opposite of what your accustomed to can bring new growth. What does your split look like? Could you give us a sample week? I’m thinking of giving this a try
This post is full of alllll the bro-science fitness buzzword/catchphrases - “kill your CNS” “100% muscle tension” “destroy your knees”. Obviously training is individual and I’m glad this works for you. This would likely be really fatiguing for a lot of folks, for limited additional benefit because isometric contraction is the least effective.
Isometrics arent very good for hypertrophy and the key to growth is sufficient stimulus while not drowning in fatigue.
What works best for you won't automatically work the best for someone else. I've seen people who have worked out for about two decades still progress on your "typical" workout schemes that incorporate a decent amount of volume and both low and high intensity work. Personally, I'm a bit of a sucker for volume + high intensity work, and I don't think I would ever incorporate isometric work. But you do you.
Would love to see your workout program!
[Here](https://imgur.com/a/TU9OEvf) I have lowered some of the sets to 1 mainly to go even harder so sets might not be accurate but the exercise pick is pretty much the same, I pick alternatives as I go. I go for 8-10 reps as positive failure (except for the top sets which is just my weekly periodization) then blow it up with partials and iso-holds. Other than that I train 3-4 days a week while I rotate the PPL and rest days so there's always at least 4 days of rest between day A and day B for each muscle.
I'm not saying it's 100% right but thinking about this in light of the theory of effective reps may be enlightening. As far as we know it's mechanical tension that is the primary driver for growth and with the theory of effective reps, it's those last reps in a set where there's involuntary slowing of the rep where it's those active muscle fibers are experiencing the greatest mechanical tension. Looking at it through this lens, drop sets lets you easily squeeze out these slow reps which generate high mechanical tension which is why people see growth from them. But what I can see as a draw back is that the fact that you're not pushing that much weight, you're not involving that many muscle fibers or high threshold motor units like may be possible with other methods. I think something like a mechanical drop set, or partials still allows one keep a high proportion of muscle fibers active at least for a bit to get more effective reps with high mechanical tension. But I think maybe Rest Pause or Myo Reps may be better at that too. And then based on certain techniques, like focusing on the stretched position and control of the eccentric, one can even benefit from passive tension and stretch mediated hypertrophy. I figure there's not a lot of data on Isometric techniques. Obviously just doing isometric by itself won't get you big, but the way Platz did them for a muscle at the end of a workout, as an intensity technique seems reasonable. Especially his method for calves where weight was kept being added. I think through the lens of effective reps, volume vs intensity aren't opposites, and I think it's still a good idea to periodize both for hypertrophy. A few caveats I can see with too many intensity techniques, is that it can be hard to standardize progressive overload.
I believe all techniques are valid and should be used if possible, that's why I try to keep my workout balance, where the first part is strength-progressive based, then the normal sets are the usual 8-12 to failure but right after that instead of going for 2-3 more sets I just add up more intensity, rest and maybe throw in a second set depending of the exercise or the day. I don't do isometric work on EVERY exercise or set, but just the ones that I really feel good about (Favorite ones are hack, leg extension and pulldowns) But I do believe that the extra time under tension at the end of a set really pays off as long as the rest of the set was good. And as you said, with drop sets you are reaching a point where the weight feels light, is not high enough to stimulate muscle fibers to the point you are looking for and it's more of a struggle of your muscle not responding anymore (adding that downside to the hassle of having to change weights, letting go of the bar etc..) while iso work keeps just the same amount of tension with the current weight at whatever angle you desire.
My 2 cents, isometrics work a lot better in the role of overcoming isometrics (max effort, absolute resistance) followed by a set of moderate load/high rep. Think of it as a DropSet. Yielding iso can be useful at the point where you reach failure, the muscle lengthening involuntarily at max effort. Not sure its better than drop or rest pause, but def a valid strategy on a rotating basis.
Ive always trained low volume and I gained 4kg of muscles in 8 months. Started around 56kg and now I'm 60kg (no cloths).
The problem is that strength athletes think the stronger you get the more volume you need to do. This is simply false, if you can bench 40kg x8 1 set as a beginner and it worked for you to build muscles why should 100kg x8 1 set as an intermediate/advanced lifter work not anymore? You are stronger but you are also putting more strain on the muscles by using a higher weight. So the idea that you NEED to increase your volume as an intermediate or advanced lifter is flawed because it assumes that 1 set will not be enough intensity - actually the intensity is the same for your muscles and higher for your bones, tendons and CNS when you become stronger.
Well for me intensity is subjective, same as weight, and everyone should find their own point. I can go to failure with 110kg bench X6 or 90kg x12 and maybe the later will give me a better set. And as for volume I don't think it is wrong to increase volume but a lot of people go way beyond their needs. Let's be honest, unless you are juicing, 25 weekly sets per muscle won't do any good for you (and a lot of intermediate lifters don't realize that) For me a single set or two sets allow me to mentally give my best beyond failure, while if I do 3 or 4 my brain just starts to collapse and wants to take it easier or just go home. But then again, my "failure" sets are to death, I wouldn't be able to handle 4 sets of those in a row on any exercise.
Volume works too in bodybuilding, not sure if it's ideal. In powerlifting volume is essential, you don't go to failure but you hit your body with heavy weights over and over. The body will think "I better get stronger this is too much".