Low Volume vrs. High - Your best gains?

[Tom Treutlein]

Okay, granted if we're talking when you first started lifting, you may have made better gains simply because you were a beginner. But, in general, what type of program worked better for you? Which allowed your joints to stay healthy (no pain, or problems)? Which style of training built you the most mass? Strength? Which one was generally more fulfilling after you left the gym?

Come on guys, I wanna hear it. I'm curious to see how many low-volume advocates there are, and how many high-volume ones counter them.

Oh...if there was any other sort of principle factored in, let's hear it (i.e., periodization, Rest Pause sets, drop sets).

 

[coolcolj]

do both, but not at the same time

Glenn Pendlay

most people get stuck in a rut in training. bodybuilders for example often get stuck in the one time per week per bodypart rut, and that determines how many sets they do, the intensity they use, etc. since they are not going to change frequency, they end up not changing much over time.

you have to continually challenge your body with things it is not adapted to... and by the way i think westside does a good job of this. HOWEVER, much of westside is based off a sort of linear scheme, no matter how much louie says he doesnt agree with that sort of thing... in westside you have "waves" of a sort, where the volume goes down and the resistance goes up, but for the most part the overall stress on the body stays the same week after week (with the exception of circa-maxima), stays the same or gradually goes up as you accomodate yourself to more and more training.

it is my belief that the overall stress on the body must change week to week, and periods of very high stress must be incorporated periodically into training, periods of stress so high that you can only keep it up for between a week to 3 weeks, any more than this and you would run yourself into the ground. research shows that these periods of very high stress have a powerfull effect on the body, making it more able to handle subsequent high stress training up to a year after the initial loading period.

once you are no longer a beginner, your body simply does not respond well to "average" training... people make progress still, but often it is because they gradually up the training stress to a point that is result producing without any clear plan... and this leads to lost training time because the buildup to this required stress level takes too long, and then often the high stress levels are continued for too long, leading to high performance followed by lower performance for a while becasue of inadequate restoration.

if you allow from the start that that you are going to have to take your body to the edge at least once every training cycle, you can plan when you do it, and how long you have to recover from it, you can have shorter training cycles, more precisely timed peaks, generally more progress.

the best system to my knowledge that has been documented to work in this manner is an 8 week training cycle where weeks 3 and 4 are high stress, weeks 2 and 5 are normall stress, week 1 is low stress, and weeks 6,7, and 8 are peaking weeks.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

I expected that exact answer from you.

What does he mean by low, normal, and high stress? Higher %RM? More volume? More intensity? I'm guessing closer to your 1RM, with less volume. Periodization, yes?

 

[coolcolj]

he is talking about overall fatigue inroads into the body/organism
not just per exercise, I mean as a whole over a week of training.
It can be done with volume or training frequency or a combo of both.
Weights will be can be altered as well, light in the light periods, usually moderate in the high stress, and heavy in the peaking for a strength athlete.

the basic principle is to create big contrast in loading on the body. Go from one extreme to the other, so your not in the middle like the average person does in the gym, but yet you don't want to kick your ass for too long because you will overtrain and go backwards.

Its as easy as going hard for 1-2 weeks, training frequently and high volume, and then go easy for 3weeks with less frequency and volume. It willl take that long to recover and gain.
Just like carb depletion in a way, starve the body of carbs, then load up to overfill above normal etc, but in reverse

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Hmm, sounds interesting. Whether or not I'm capable of putting together a descent program around it in the future remains to be discovered. Hopefully I could. Perhaps you could throw a slight idea at me? I'm guessing you can incorporate sprints in the higher stress weeks to overload the body.

 

[coolcolj]

well you could do 5x5 3 times a week for 2 weeks, and then 3x3 for 3weeks twice a week, then 1 week of easy high rep stuff and then repeat

note the difference in volume/freq. off course this is an extreme example, although I have trained like this in the past
Mainly for specialisation in a lift like the squat.

You could, but if the gym is the main goal then it may not help you as much and tear you down faster.

this is mainly for strength, as far as an example goes for muscle mass, its as easy as cranking the volume count up for 2 weeks and then drop it way down to give the body breathing space

ie 6x6 twice a week for 2weeks and then 2x10 once a week for a week. And then 2x10 twice a week for 2weeks. Just an example off the top of my head.

 

[coolcolj]

The other methods I'm currently using is,

alternating lower volume higher frequency sessions with, higher volume, lower frequency sessions in the ratio of 4:1 or 6:2

So I train moderate volume for 4 workouts every 4 days and then on the 5th one I crank it up and take a week off and then repeat for the 4:1 ratio

 

[b fold the truth]

Everything works.

Nothing works for long.

B True

 

[casualbb]

Varying LOAD is the stimulus for growth, not varying volume.

Everybody makes that mistake, because lower volume usually means lower-rep sets which usually means higher weight. So everybody thinks it was the volume change. No, it was the weight.

 

[coolcolj]

Long duration isometric holds cause a lot of hypertrophy as well. In the 30-50sec area and this falls in neither high volume or load camp, infact the loads are quite low relatively speaking, but lots of tension over a long period of time

 

[Dorian'sDisciple]

I used to be very arrogant and assume i knew it all...now i know nothing except one thing:

99% of trainers overtrain...this can be simply be doing too much:more than is required..or doing so much that gains cease. Almost all the guys you see in the gym these days would benefit from a reduction in overall volume...even those enhanced

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Alright...but where did your best gains come from?

 

[bran987]

best gains came from low volume compound exercises

 

[zxe003]

Everything works.

Nothing works for long.

B True

I agree, alternating between all techniques are what have been most effective for me. I find that regardless of one's efficiency, if all I do is one, I'll eventually hit a peak where the gains come slow or not at all. I constantly change up my routines, including volume, so that every work out is intense.

 

[majutsu]

low volume for me. But dorian's point is what I see. Also, Casual BB makes a great point about low-volume workouts -- they're often heavy, heavy compound programs. So what really made the difference is probably the weight. But, of course, I can't go that heavy without a low-volume routine (without physiologic collapse that is).

 

[PancakeFiend]

both work as long as you can continue to add some weight to lifts

 

[casualbb]

For me, personally, I do HST. That's considered a low-volume program because each workout session you may do 2-3 sets for a bodypart. However, there are three sessions a week.

So when you examine things on a weekly basis, the volume is actually medium-to-high. Not training to failure allows higher volume to be used without overtraining.

 

[guldukat]

For the most part I've gained the best with low volume, but my higher volume experiences weren't very well thought-out. Had I done a 5x5 or something similar to B-Fold's training I probably would've liked it a lot, too.

 

[coolcolj]

The way I am training now for the last 11 weeks have been the most productive for me, see my training journal thread for details

It sorta bounces between moderate and high volume. There is a reason for everything I do.
Work capacity is built up with a sound program design and structure, which in turn improves your rate of gains so that you keep gaining as you get stronger and pile on more training time under belt. Rather than plateau and stall as you get more advanced.

Volume of training toleration is largely a work capacity thing, you can increase it as I said above.

 

[bigp3]

by switching to low volume I have gained 55lbs in a year and a half. It works for me!!

 

[Tom Treutlein]

I hear 55 from you and 40 from Debaser...hot damn.

 

[coolcolj]

forgot to mention, my session volume is autoregulated, I do what my body gives me.

No second guessing required, I do exactly what is needed to make gains by the next session, not a set less or more.

 

[TheOak84]

i used to lift in the 3-6 rep range with 3-5 sets for about 4 years, i made awesome strength gains. but recently i switched to 8-12 rep range and added a few more sets. i get the best pumps and a great feeling. not to mention adding more size. i was talkin to a trainer guy, he said for 6 months he lifts for power and strength, and the other 6 months he lifts for hypertrophy, still keeping some power movements. hes nicely built. around 5'10, 220, natural. im pretty sure, because hes not 'soft' looking like some juicers, if that makes sense.

ive never really kept track of how i lift, but i have just started. i love lifting heavy, but for now, 8-12 reps for me