And then we have mad-lad pwn doing 60 rep deads.
In all seriousness, I feel high volume is not specific enough because it leaves the reader to interpret what that is.
Please tell me to sod off if what I’m contributing is too far off from PL to be of interest to you @MarkKO but to elaborate on my point, and it’s here I’ll be writing about programs I’m familiar with which are more BB-oriented or strength/hypertrophy/athletic-hybrid oriented (thus, possibly too far removed from your interests)
According to a study (Barbalho M Coswig
VS, 201) five-ten sets per muscle group led to better
results in muscle growth and strength gains than fifteen-twenty sets and people might take that in isolation and compare different programs.
The highest volume I could find in the ones I’ve been reading recently is in a high volume phase of a Meadows program. There’ll be 16 worksets (legs), or 15 sets of chest and 11 of shoulders in a workout but then it’ll be spread across 5 exercises, or 7 and everything is being hit. So, per muscle I’d say its in that 5-10 sweet spot. There’s some warmup sets on the first exercises but not on all of them.
The older CT programs might have 18 sets on a bench/chest/triceps day, but only 12 are at an RPE of moderate and above. There’s more overlap with the movements here than in a Meadows program, generally, I find. But again, it’s at the upper end of the range reported in the study.
Finally, something like BBB by Wendler, will have the lowest overall volume prescription but it’s the candidate that really has you hitting the same muscles without variation and then it’s more towards the middle of the five-ten prescription.
And I feel the low volume proponents just have a higher threshold for what they consider a work set to be. Or their writing is geared towards the very advanced trainee, and for most people asking them for training advice is like asking an elite lever alpine skiier what the best ski is when all you’re capable of yourself is not dying while going downhill.