Thank you!
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This is how I’ve been training for awhile. I can’t remember the last time I took a set to failure. I mean I hit failure during some met-con work, but it’ll be like on a 25 lb DB press and second round of going for AMRAP for 0:40 with only like 0:20 rest lol.
It just suits me better. My workouts still kick my ass, but I never feel fried.
I’m experimenting with a different split… gonna go more strongman stuff like heavy carries, OHP, etc… then 1 or 2 back, chest, exercises. very minimalist while increasing my fight training. Low volume
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It comes down to your goals.
If your goal is to build endurance, adding volume is one strategy. I tend to agree moderately strong but submaximal effort is still helpful for this.
If you curl a five pound dumbbell until failure it is still junk volume since nothing happened until the muscles were almost fatigued and that took a long time.
A stupid example? Sure. But you see people doing huge amounts of unchallenging weight every day in a commercial gym. Maybe it makes for better selfies?
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100%, that’s why I made the point of people junk voluming through their entire workout. A few years ago many gym lifters would be all about “volume is everything” and so bang out dozens of ridiculous low weight high rep sets that give them close to zero muscle building stimulus. Overweight newbies will do this a lot, the whole “i’m just trying to tone” shenanigans, heh.
But then I think of something like 5/3/1 BBB. 5x10 Deadlifts. Those first 2-3 sets could be considered junk volume by some - similar to how people will do far too many reps on warmup sets before reaching a working set. You’ll get to the money reps through fatigue, but why not get there through less sets and heavier weight? Applicable to the 5x10’s, because the work capacity and mental strength gained from going through that will lead to a whole host of positive things in your body that will lead to more gains in the future.
The ability to train harder for longer. Yes we all know mechanical tension is key and some volume just hinders your ability to recover. Some of that I believe is trainable though.
There is such a trend towards low volume right now, high intensity and avoiding non-stimulative reps. Junk volume has exceded it’s original definition. I don’t see that as the full picture though and a lot of trainees are missing out when being so laser focused on one methodology.
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On occasion when i see young indvidual trying to gain weight. Claiming they just dont have the appetite to eat the needed calories. For me In " some" cases( not all)…
My gut tells me they are not pushing hard enough in the gym to stimulate a appetite.
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As someone who struggled to gain weight, I only kind of agree. Lifting heavier and/or for more volume does drive up the appetite for a bit, but then it tapers off and the body adapts.
What I think most of them need is a different distribution of calories. Eat something every few hours, and focus on the total calorie intake, rather than trying to fit it into preset meal times. If it takes an alarm clock and liquid calories to do it, so be it. Eventually the appetite will adapt.
You might not have much appetite at breakfast or whatever, but just get something in. A candybar and a protein shake. Just start the process of your body craving regular doses of food.
But some people do require a ton more calories than others, even with similar activity levels. Whether it’s because of bad digestion or fast metabolism. I’ve worked sedentary but mentally heavy jobs for most of my life, and it takes a lot of calories to fuel it.
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Alongside this, quite often these kids want to eat like a pre-contest bodybuilder: chicken, rice and broccoli. Good luck growing on that: it’s specifically designed to be bland and filling to get you through a tough dieting phase.
Dusty Hanshaw advised his 17 year clients to include 2 double double meals with a milkshake from In n Out as part of their regular gaining diet. Paul Carter’s “Blue collar mass” series advised the strategic use of candy bars for teenage lifters looking to gain, and he and Dan John both spoke on the merits of PBJs BETWEEN meals to get young dudes to grow.
It was legit one of the perks of growing up as a fat kid: I KNEW how to eat to grow. And I also wasn’t afraid to get fluffy: I’d been there before.
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I agree, because it’s often been me… getting too distracted to eat regularly during the day and then late evening forcing an obscene amount of calories in to the point of genuine discomfort
There’s also guys that say they can’t jack up their appetite and do their entire workout on a single cable machine. Getting under something heavy may be the fix for them.
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I suspect volume at 50-85% is still useful. Efficiency is not everything, a little bit of warmup is needed, but not that much. Not that long ago, every gym had that Stretching poster, but we now know that stretching should be dynamic and limited.
When I first started lifting, good knowledge was hard to obtain outside of bigger cities with famous gyms. It wasn’t in most mainstream magazines at all. Then T-Nation came along and prioritized both expertise and the science to challenge the mixed record of gym bro claims. Newbies probably now turn to TikTok and believe influencers with more charisma than knowledge. Since there is again plenty of misinformation, maybe good knowledge can again be hard for some to access.
At the risk of stereotyping, possibly some men think they can get unrealistic gains with enhancers rather than effort or don’t recognize the different factors at play for natural lifters. Possibly some women, buying that strength training is healthy, still might worry about gaining too much muscle or size, or prioritize looking good over becoming stronger. (And no reason to assume the reverse might not apply.)
And most people pursue too many vague goals, without a plan to achieve the most important ones. It is hard to have a very lean belly, build muscle and eat appropriately; and harder still given physiological realities and all the other stresses and vicissitudes of life. You cannot really have everything. But, of course, you don’t need to have everything.
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Mostly newbies, but on the odd ocassion they seem to catch people at higher levels. A half-decent lean enhanced physique with 0 clients = more valuable than an elite natural with a decades long backlog of coaching real people. “Logic” is a toughie.
I’ve seen some really strong dudes regress because they started focusing on a whole bunch of shiny new information that had no logic attached to it. Sometimes the best information is no information. Is that a controversial thing to say on a site like this? I hope not. Some of the most respectable guys in my gym don’t know a whole lot other than how to train hard. All make more progress than 90% of the people in there that are too busy worrying about a whole lotta nonsense.
“V-Grip cable rows are trash because you can get more range of motion doing it like THIS”.
“You don’t need overhead pressing because look at meeeeeeeeee”
“Feel your hamstrings more if you poke your tongue out and lift your pinky fingers whilst balancing a pillow on your head”
Even if some of the information is correct. It doesn’t mean it’s relevant to you, and it doesn’t mean what you were doing before was wrong.
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Training hard makes up for a lot of imperfections. What some don’t realize is that consistently showing up and working hard accounts for 80% of achievements. Worse, many focus on the trivial leftovers that don’t matter, or only apply once the other stuff is down.
You aren’t working hard just because you show up at the gym. You aren’t working hard if easily holding a conversation even if on an elliptical. You aren’t working hard if you show up at the gym with four other people and all take turns on one bench. Just because you do push-ups or stretching in a rack does not make them magical.
Looking back, I got the main things mostly right, but made plenty of mistakes. I achieved a few trivial things even some of the best T-Nation coaches did not. Still, there is always something new to learn. Apply what is useful. Disregard what is not. Don’t get too bogged down by details.
Hmmm. Now I feel bad for bringing my pillow to the gym… (Sticks out tongue.)
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True, I’ve noticed this trend too. Talk of “effective reps,” which always raises the questions effective at what? And is that your #1 goal? If I understand correctly, the answer is ultimately “effective at directly leading to new muscle fiber growth.” But I feel like cardiovascular, neurological, and even mental benefits of the extra “non-stimulating” volume is getting completely discarded, as these things only indirectly facilitate future muscle growth. I mean, the thing about doing 5x10 deadlifts is you get really fucking good at deadlifts! Better form, bar path, mind muscle connection…these things are invaluable and will undoubtedly inform your body to push that much more effectively on your next 3x6 day wherein you push closer to failure.
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Goals, goals, goals.
Have an intention when you lift.
As in life.
What are your goals?
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Doing five sets of ten deadlifts might inform my body to take a nap. As a volume enthusiast I do this occasionally. But it takes me longer to recover than it used to from volume deadlifting.
So I tend to mix fewer deadlifts with more rackpulls so I can lift heavier on both (applying Poliquin’s principles).
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That Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) sneaks it’s head in again!
80% (consistancy, working hard, compounds, nutrition, sleep, a balanced exercise selection with a reasonable amount of volume, progressive overload)
20% (all that other noise that could individually make small percentages of difference but not worth taking much notice of if the 80% isn’t in place)
If you deadlift 480kg, then maybe worry about the trivial things. A 0.5% extra here, a 0.25% extra there, a 1.5% extra there. That could be the thing to take you to 500kg. For the rest of us it serves mostly as a distraction.
@jskrabac Very well put.
You’ll see young dudes go past failure on kneeling one-arm pulldowns whilst holding their lats totally gassed at the end. You ain’t gonna see them do a single deadlift, let alone 5 sets of 10. The sad thing is, you wanna know what brings up all those little movements even the ones you aren’t doing? Adding 100lbs to your deadlift.
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I have more patience for really overweight people complaining about not being able to lose weight rather than super thin people complaining about not being able to gain weight.
Pb&J’s, shakes, whole milk, candy bars, orange juice…damn it’s so easy to get in an extra 1000 calories it’s ridiculous to complain about. What it really seems to amount to is kids hyper focused on keeping their abs but wishing they had muscles now but not being willing to let that happen.
Like how the hell is the body supposed to grow without the bare minimum input materials to make that happen.
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I gotta disagree sorry. We all have our own challenges. I find it piss easy to lose weight but I couldn’t possibly trivialise it for the people that struggle.
It may sound easy to just get 1,000 extra calories in to some people, especially when the majority struggle more with keeping it off, but there are extremes in the other direction too. When i was 125lbs first starting out at the gym I would literally regurgitate most of my surplus up. It was one of the most uncomfortable things I had to go to through. Eating too much in the morning would leave me feeling sick and bloated all day, eating too late would keep me up with acid reflux. Trying to balance it out throughout the day and finding foods that my body could tolerate during bulking was harder than anything else I had to learn surrounding training.
Just like for people struggling to lose; it’s an education, it’s access to the right information, and it’s sheer will to eat or not eat when all of your bodies signals are telling you the opposite.
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I subconsciously knew I believe this, but it’s nice to have it articulated.
You got a point about acid reflux and digestion. I can see this being problematic.
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