I bought one of those program collections from Amazon where it has around a dozen programs and fitness Ebooks in a bundle. Ive scanned most of them and Ive come across a few from the early 2000s and some from the 80s and 90s where its basically a few sets of 4-10 reps to failure per bodypart, done in a bro split from 4-6 days a week.
This is one example from the book I wrote down in my notes in case i fancied trying it, I think it was one geared towards new lifters who wanted to focus on aesthetics but build a strenght base. The idea was you need to hit a minimum of 5 reps on compound exercises and once you hit 10 you add weight. Isolation minimum you need to hit is 6 and you add weight once you get to 12.
I remember seeing others like max ot that had similar premises. Why did these style of programs die out?
In that ebook it actually says this is a boring but simple program and just use common sense choose a compound and an isolation for each muscle group lol. I guess thats why its part of an ebook bundle not some 99 dollar eceleb fitness ebook selling cookie cutter programs. I guess simple and boring isn’t very marketable.
I was douching around, reading about Max OT and I found this article. At the end the author gave an example of rotating your weekly split month by month.
So you could use the same lifts, but sometimes you’d be squatting earlier in the week or later in the week. Or biceps would be with abs and forearms for awhile, then with back for a month and finally with triceps.
It seemed like an easy way to change the weights, spread out the wear and tear on joints and just keep things interesting in the gym. Without much thinking.
I guess it’s not ground breaking, and the idea is built in to other long term programs but I’d never seen it explicitly laid out like that.
Some of the max ot stuff looks like one of these ebooks ive found called Hardcore linear hypertrophy from the 80s.
Its basically a two exercises per bodypart, except for larger multi faceted bodyparts like “shoulders” or “legs” and 3x6-8 per exercise set and rep scheme. Idea is to buy microplates and simply run a delayed linear bodybuilding progression for years. It comes as a 4 or 5 day split. The day day split looks similar to the other program I posted and the max ot stuff:
Somebody asked Thibaudeau about how to use drop sets in their program. C.T. gave a great answer that explains why/how to use “intensifier techniques” like drop sets and rest/pause in low volume programs.
Near the end is a cool 8 week progression, ramping Intensifiers as you go, then backing off before you start over again.
"The most obvious variable that impacts it is volume. The more volume per muscle or session you do, the least often you can use intensifiers.
If you look at an extreme (and well-documented successful program) case of low-volume, DC Training, it has really 1-2 work sets per muscle per week. The program use an intensifier (double rest/pause) pretty much all the time. Which can be done because of the extreme low volume of work.
On the other end of the spectrum, programs using 12+ sets per muscle in a workout should VERY rarely use intensifiers.
You need to understand what the purpose of intensifiers is. It’s NOT to get a bigger pump bro, it’s not to tear that muscle apart, it’s not to get a nasty burn in your muscles.
It is simply to get more effective reps in without having to do more sets.
If you are not aware of what “effective reps” are, then that’s the first thing you need to learn about. I talked about them often in articles.
Essentially “effective reps” are repetition that have a significant impact on stimulating muscle growth.
Without getting into the physiology of it (I’ve done so many times already), to be effective a rep must a) recruit the fast-twitch fibers and b) must require a high level of effort.
Essentially if you go to failure on a set, the last 4-6 rep will be effective (so by extension, if you stop 2-3 reps short of failure you’ll only have 2-3 effective reps per set).
Now, muscle growth IS dependant on volume. But NOT total reps (or sets) volume, rather, the volume of effective reps. You need 15-25 effective reps per muscle/per week to stimulate hypertrophy properly. More than that might provide better gains, but the dose-response curve flattens out after the 25 reps point. Meaning that after 25 effective reps, ay additional rep provide less and less benefit until there is no more benefit.
Anyway, what intensifiers are (for the most part) is finding a way to add reps once you hit failure on a set.
It can be done by:
Lowering the weight (drop set)
Taking a brief rest period (15-40 sec) then resume the set (rest/pause)
Reducing the range of motion (ROM drop set)
Switching to an “easier” version of the exercise, for example going to DB hammer curls once you hit failure on DB curls (mechanical drop set)
But in all 4 cases, the mechanism is the same: you add effective reps to a set even once you hit failure. As a result, you can provide up to 10-12 effective reps in a set rather than 4-6.
Now, intensifiers respond to the same rules are regular sets. Meaning that only the last 4-6 reps before failure are effective reps.
For example, if you do a drop set that looks like this:
You start by doing 10 reps to failure then you drop the weight and perform 8 more reps.
That drop set will give you 10 effective reps… but to me this is a poor drop set because you did 3 ineffective reps in your drop, meaning that you do more work for nothing.
As such, my recommendation when using intensifiers like drop sets and rest/pause (or mechanical drop set) is that you should not be able to do more than 5 additional reps. If you can do more than 5 in a drop set, you lowered the weight too much. If you can do more than 5 reps in a rest/pause you rested for too long.
Now, if you do a double drop set or a double rest/pause, it’s the same thing: you must use a drop that only allows for 5 additional reps or less.
For example:
Drop set
8 + 5 + 5 is good
10 + 8 + 7 is not
The reason is that the first double drop set gives you 15 effective reps out of 18 (83% effective) and the second gives you the same 15 effective reps but out of 25 (60% effective).
You are doing more work without stimulating more gains. And it can even be detrimental by causing more central fatigue, glycogen depletion and muscle damage.
Now that we understand this…
We can see why intensifiers are more useful for low-volume (low sets per muscle): it allow you to get enough effective reps for growth, compensating for the low number of sets.
If you are doing 12+ sets per muscle at a reasonable effort level (let’s say 2-3 reps in reserve) intensifiers are not needed because you get plenty of effective reps already, from the sheer volume of work you are doing.
In fact, with a higher volume of work, intensifiers can backfire by causing more central fatigue and muscle damage, both of which will hurt both the quality of your training and the gains from that (and likely the next) session.
Use of intensifiers during a low-volume/effort-based approach
If you do 5-9 work sets per muscle (which is a common volume for effort-based plans), to failure, intensifiers are not necessary. Simply going to failure with that amount of volume would give you 25+ effective reps, enough to stimulate growth optimally.
However, if the volume is lower than that, let’s say 1 (as in DC training) to 3 work sets per muscle you likely will need an intensifier to reach the proper number of effective reps to grow optimally.
Another way to use intensifiers is what I call “effort cycling”. This is best used with a very low volume of work (1 to 5 sets per muscle) in which we use intensifiers as a form of progressive overload (progressing increase in training stress).
Essentially, when the body under as certain level of stress it adapts to THAT level of stress, and the same level will be less effective the next time you do it.
One way to progressively overload is to add weight from session to session, another one is to ramp up the intensifiers.
For example (performed on the top set of an exercise):
After a while of seeing how i respond to different styles of training. Ive come to the conclusion I don’t do well with high frequency or high volume. And my CNS seems to be very sensitive to intensity. But I seem to be able to grow from a very low amount of high intensity sets.
Can you comment on how low “low volume” one can go while keeping a very high intensity and see continual progress? Ive been doing for example chest one day a week and all i do is flat dumbbell bench 3x4-10 and ive added noticable mass to my chest. But even that i find hard to recover from at this level of intensity.
My back has got noticeably bigger these last few months from the same kind of volume. My shirts are filling out in a way they never have around my back and traps. But again even around3-4 sets of rowing/pulling a week done on one day (back day) is actually exhausting.
Im asking because even though i can see yes I am growing, everywhere i look online seems to say minimum effective volume for say chest is like 8 sets. Im seeing novice lifters and intermediate lfiters on here doing 12 sets for chest a week etc. Its really confusing me how you can lift at all intensely while doing that many sets a week for a single body part.
Thanks for the drop set stuff thats actually part of the program i refered to earlier, it has cycles where drop sets are done, cycles where reverse pyramid sets are used and then rest cycles where you take 2-3 weeks off 3 times a year and do pushups, chinups and bodyweight stuff to avoid accumulated fatuige. It says the drop sets are used to modulate intensity but it says to only use one cycle of them as they can grind you into a hole fast.
Sory just had one more question on this, ive just been thinking of joining jordan peters coaching forum and on another forum im on members from there keep journals from his program template of single set full body EOD training. Some of those guys have made staggering progress in 12 months, one guy went from 11 inch arms to 17 inch arms in 16 months while keeping abs. The premise sound mental though. Basically its this EOD focusing on simply getitng more reps or heavier weight every single session, one working set on all exercises:
1.chest pressing movement
2.shoulder pressing movement
3.lateral delt raise
4.upper back row
5.lat row
6.bicep curl
7.tricep extension
8.squat movement
9.hamstring movement
10.calf raise
11.hyper or other lower back movement
12.crunches
There are various templates where some have a tricep pressing movement and and isoaltion, some have no side raise etc depending on their preference. Some post their PM from peters who guides them in the training. One guy started benching 75kg for 8 reps to failure last feb hes not benching 135kg for 11 reps and has gained about 20kg in weight.
Id never imagined you could get this kinda growth from one set? One guy over there who got props from peters started curling 8kg dumbbells to failure for 12 reps and he just posted his 2 year transformation and hes curling 30kg dumbbells for 10 reps and his arms have grown 5 inches and all hes done for 2 years is this program using olympic dumbbell handles and micro plates.
If it’s working, it’s working. If 3 or 4 sets makes you grow, keep doing it. Maybe it’s because you’re older or because you’re just coming back or something. You can always do more at some point in the future if you need to.
I don’t doubt any of Jordan Peterson’s stuff. Different guys in the Logs section here have used his Push/Pull/Legs, his Upper/Lower and his Full Body and liked them.
One big dude is making especially good progress on the Full Body routine and says it’s his favorite way to train.
I guess it’s not for everybody, but it works well for some dudes.
But yeah, I always liked Paul Carter’s “Intensity, volume, frequency. Pick the two you enjoy most and down-regulate the other”. If there’s something you’re making progress on and you don’t dread the gym, don’t change it because somebody else thinks something else is better. We all gotta find our place and bang that hammer until it no longer feels like our place, and then we either evolve or try something else.
