Been searching for low volume high intensity training but couldn’t find a good workout routine.
How many set and reps considered as low volume? I wanna focus on chest, triceps and shoulders so I guess I need to hit them twice a week.
Can someone help me setup set and reps if I have these favorite exercises below?
Barbell bench press
Incline bench press
Incline dumbbell press
Triceps push down
Military press
Side lateral raises
Barbell curls
Deadlift
Lat push down
Leg press
Barbell shrugs
Dips
Are you asking for someone to create an entire program? There’s loads of stuff out there. Look for 3x week full body routines as they mostly focus on getting strong on the compounds so inherently end up lower volume/higher intensity
In terms of “how many sets/how many reps”, that’s way too vague and there’s no special bullet. The best thing to do is to cycle through several of these long-term. With that said, 10-12 sets per muscle group would be the low end of volume. If you’re focusing on chest, triceps and shoulders though I’d do a little higher volume for them (16 sets). Split that volume up through the week.
Are these programs you’ve looked up not good enough because there’s too much leg work? I wouldn’t advise just doing leg press + DLs and caling legs done. You’ll regret that.
I also see no vertical rows which will be vital with all that pushing you want to be doing. It’s important for symmetry, avoiding muscle imbalances, shoulder health, and believe it or not, improves your pushing.
Let’s first clarify what is meant by intensity. I say that because not all people understand it as a percentage of the maximum weight for one repetition. Some understand it that way, and others understand it as Dorian-style training, which means the effort put into the performance.
If we talk about the first case, you choose two workouts, in one you do Squats, Bench Press and Rows (in a 3x3 protocol with 90% of 1RM) and triceps extensions 2-3x12-15, and in the other workout Deadlifts (1x3-5) , Shoulder Press (3x3) and Chins-Up 2-3 sets x max reps and Biceps Curl 2-3x12-15. This is just an example of high intensity and low volume. There are certainly other options.
If we talk about intensity in the sense of effort, you do, for example, a split of Chest, Back and Shoulders in one workout and Legs and Arms in the other, training every other day 3 or 4 times a week. And you just alternate the training. You choose 2 exercises for each muscle in 2 working sets of 8-12 repetitions almost to failure. If you train 3 times in one week, you will do two times of one workout and one time of the other, but the next week it will be the other way around. And in reality, in two weeks there will be 3 trainings of each. This is also just an idea, there will surely be better suggestions.
If you can push yourself to leaving your bladder on the floor, it will be fine.
I’d read up on the below article, at least to get an appreciation for intensification methods.
Dr. Ellington Darden, one of the legitimate experts in this training style, is on this very forum providing programs and advice - I can’t imagine not taking advantage of that resource.
May I ask about your intentions? Are you doing low-volume to accommodate doing your push muscles twice a week? Or are you doing low volume because you want to and you want to double up on push frequency?
Blood and guts is actually regular training with last set taken to failure.
Hypertrophy is stimulated starting from being around 5 reps short of failure. Regular training most times is being 3-0 reps short of failure. Dorian did 2-3 regular sets and just took the last one to failure and beyond. Volume wise he did almost the very basic 3-5 sets per exercise.
As for taking sets to failure or even beyond - no studies so far show that it does anything more than just stopping 2 reps short.
Low volume would be Mike Mentzer training Marcus Reinhardt. Vids are on YouTube.
Dorian is awesome, but I always thought the real star of “Blood and Guts” was his training partner. I think everyone would lift one more rep if that guy was screaming at them.
