The Efficiency Paradox: Quality vs Quantity in Strength Training

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sFitness Programs and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and, mostimportantly, why things work.
Hence the name there is aMethod to the Madness.

(00:23):
Before I get started today, letme thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gilden of the Gilden GroupRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
service in home sales.
Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home
is worth?
386-451-2412, hello everybody.

(00:44):
886-451-2412.
Hello everybody.
Rob here and we're going totalk some fitness.
As usual.
I saw some research latelythat's been kind of recycled
once again, but it was alwayssomething that really grabbed my

(01:05):
interest and it was somethingthat I have really been
passionate about, like one ofthe areas of health and fitness
and strength and conditioningthat I always took an active
part in the debating process andall that good kind of stuff
because it's actually prettyinteresting.
And all that good kind of stuffbecause it's actually pretty

(01:26):
interesting.
But it was basically some newresearch done and you know, I
kind of laugh as I sit here whenI say new research done,
because this argument has goneback at least since the 1970s
and when I got involved in mycareer, starting my career in
the early 90s, it was a hottopic and I guess 90s it was a
hot topic and I guess kind ofcoming back as a hot topic, but

(01:49):
the science is pretty much moreclearer now and the science is
on the side, so it's not thatmuch debate, but there's still
some debate and that debate isquality versus quantity in
strength training and, to bemore specific, multi-sets versus
single-set protocols.

(02:11):
So I saw I wouldn't say anargument, but it was on one of
the social media platforms and aperson was going back and forth
with another person in theindustry I'm not really sure in
the physical fitness industry.
I should clarify I'm not reallysure if the one person had much

(02:36):
credentials at all.
I'm not really sure.
But I know the one person whowas going at him does and he's
pretty high up in my industry asfar as being a researcher, a
PhD guy, a guy that's authored alot of books and he's pretty
much high up with a lot of thesports medicine areas of focus.

(03:02):
So he knows what he's talkingabout.
That's the long and short of it.
I'm not sure if the other guydoes so much, I don't know, but
anyway, I came across theargument of this basically being
multi-set training versussingle set training, and the guy
that I know I follow him andsee what he has to say here and

(03:26):
there basically retweeted it, soto say.
And so that's where I saw itand so I read it and then I
opened it up and I opened up thestudy he was speaking of and it
just got me thinking.
It got me reminiscing a littlebit about how this was such a
huge debate in the 90s and herewe still are.

(03:46):
So he shared again theknowledge that pretty much we
know that it doesn't take nearlyas much volume as we think it
does to increase our strengthlevels.
All right, so let me break somestuff down for you a little bit.

(04:07):
Volume is how much work thatyou do, and work in regards to
strength training is going tocome down to the amount of
exercises you choose, the amountof sets you do, and I trust my
listeners here knowing thatbasically a set is a grouping of

(04:29):
repetitions.
So repetitions can come down toa product of volume as well.
So there are high volume folks.
Not too many left anymore.
They're kind of carryoverbodybuilders from the 1970s and

(04:51):
I'm going to explain that alittle bit.
So Muscle Beach is a big partof California and bodybuilding
lore and I'm a fan of a lot ofthose guys.
I think Arnold Schwarzenegger'sbeen a pretty good role model
through the years.
Well, a good role model I don'tmean to say pretty good, but I
mean I like him and everything,and he'll be the first to say

(05:15):
that he's not an expert inhealth and fitness, he is an
expert in bodybuilding.
I still think he gives prettygood advice.
I mean his latest thing istrying to get people moving
again and create some positivityin his podcasts and his emails
and stuff.
So I mean I think he's fine andI think his message has always

(05:38):
been good.
He makes it very clear thatwhen he was in his 20s training
as a bodybuilder and probablyhis 30s too I'm not quite sure
how old he was when he retiredfrom bodybuilding, but he makes
it clear that he was abodybuilder and he was not an
exercise physiologist and he wasdoing what he knew to do, based

(05:59):
on what the other guys weredoing.
So it's not a knock on him.
Some of the trainingmethodologies that they pushed
forward, it's just what theywere doing.
So it's not a knock on him.
Some of the trainingmethodologies that they pushed
forward, it's just what theywere doing.
Now, a lot of people have takenit since and not understood it
very well, but that's not hisfault.
But they would do a lot ofvolume.

(06:19):
So again, what volume is?
It's sets and exercises.
They would do sometimes twotraining sessions per day of
splitting up their body intodifferent muscle groups.
So he might do chest in themorning and then back at night,
and then the next day legs inthe morning and then shoulders

(06:41):
at night, and then the next dayhe might do biceps in the
morning and triceps at night,something like that.
They did a lot of differentvariety in their split routine.
So that is a high volume styleworkout and he would do upwards
of 20 sets per muscle group.
Now you have to.
You also have to keep in mindthat.

(07:03):
So those guys in those days andhe is very clear and open about
it, and it's just the culture ingeneral were taking a lot of
anabolic steroids, and anabolicsteroids help people recover.
That's what they do, they allowthe muscles to recover so
people can train more frequently, train harder and recover, and

(07:25):
that is why they grow.
So is that good?
Of course not.
That's not great for the healthand that's not anything that
I've ever advocated, but theycould get away with that very
high volume training becausethey were doing things like that
.
Now, a lot of people, as youmight guess, then saw how these

(07:46):
great pros were training andthey started to train that way.
And the next thing, you knowthe old, you know guys at your
local gym, at your local Gold'sGym, at your local World Gym, if
you remember that place, andnowadays at your local, say,
planet Fitness or LA Fitness orwherever, are kind of like
following similar split routines.

(08:09):
So that is called high volumetraining.
So I caught you up there.
Now let me talk a little bitabout intensity and then the
opposite approach to that, andthen I'm going to wrap it up for
you so you understand themethod to the madness.
So intensity isn't volume.
Intensity is how hard you train, meaning how close do you get

(08:32):
to what is called muscularfailure.
The closer you get to muscularfailure, the more intense the
set is.
So that's what intensity is Nowone of the problems I've always
had with some of the researchthey were doing when they were
comparing multi-set programsversus single set or low set

(08:54):
programs, is that they didn't doa good job in the studies I saw
in the earlier days ofquantifying and qualifying what
constitutes a set.
So somebody might say, yeah,they're doing four sets of 12 of
this and four sets of 12 ofthis and four sets of 12 of that
, and my question and manypeople's question was well, how

(09:17):
close were they to failure andcan we really call that four
sets?
I mean, what if they did 12reps but they could have done 20
, then that doesn't reallyconstitute a set.
So some of the earlier researchI have a problem with because
they never really clarified thatvery well.
So, and I'll get into theresearch and the more the latest

(09:39):
research in a second.
So the opposite of the highvolume folks were the very low
volume, high intensity folks andin the early days that was
called HIIT training, highintensity training, not to be
confused with H-I-I-T or highintensity interval training.

(09:59):
But HIIT training was purestrength training and it was
very high intensity, meaningevery set to failure and you
would do less sets.
Now there's a lot of peoplegiving credit for that way of
thinking.
One of the most famous wasArthur Jones, who invented
Nautilus, and he also inventedthe Nautilus style of training

(10:24):
and it was basically somewherearound 10 to 12 exercises,
taking the sets to failure, androughly 8 to 12 reps.
That varied a little bit andthat was all you did.
So you did essentially 10 to 12exercises.
You were in and out of the gymin 20 to 25 minutes, not
including your warmup anddepending on how fast you went.

(10:47):
So that was very high intensitytraining.
There were a lot of othervariations to that, like
different styles and differentpeople giving credit and all
that good stuff.
Now I happen to know and got toknow a lot of the old Nautilus
folks.
I never met Arthur because hehad passed by the time.

(11:08):
I met the folks that workedwith Nautilus.
I worked with the medicaldirector for quite some time.
I met Arthur Jones' son, whosename is Gary Jones and he is the
founder of Hammer Strength, andhe became a pretty close
acquaintance of mine that I gotto know, talk to.
He didn't really get into theexercise science side of things

(11:29):
as much as he got into theexercise manufacturing side of
things, obviously creatinghammer strength, which was a
brilliant idea, whichessentially if you don't know
what it is, it is selectorizedmachines using free weight.
So he was able to cross thebridge because there was all of
this silly, you know rumor thatyou know well, some real

(11:54):
athletes don't use machines,which is silly, and some people
shouldn't use free weights,which is also silly.
I mean, they're just tools.
And he was able to cross thebridge with hammer strength and
say, well, this is a machinethat uses free weights.
So, you know, let's everybodyuse this and they're great
pieces of equipment for sure, asis most good pieces of

(12:15):
equipment free weights, machines, all good.
So I got to know a lot of theearly guys that were involved.
So I was able to read a lot ofthe early research and studies
and I became an advocate more ofless volume, more intensity
style training.
I've never been a zealot.

(12:35):
I've never believed that it'sall or nothing was something.
I've never believed that onestyle of training works for
every single person, becausethat's just not true.
There are a lot of variables,including personalities and
psychological profiles, allkinds of things.
But I do know this and theresearch backs this up, that

(12:59):
lower volume.
And again, I'm not a zealot ofsaying, oh, one set per exercise
, it's like.
Well, that depends.
Is it a warmup set?
You know all these kinds ofthings has to be one set.
Now, I don't believe that.
I think there are many ways toget the Rome, so to say.
But I do know that less volume,higher intensity meaning

(13:24):
bringing your load, bringingyour set close to muscular
failure does work and that'swhat the latest research showed,
and it's just replicatingresearch I've seen over and over
and over.
And the thing I love about thisresearch is it's very clear.
Both work Like higher volumetraining with a little bit less

(13:47):
intensity.
And, let's face it, you can'tuse maximal intensity if you're
doing a lot of volume.
Right, I mean, that's justcommon sense.
And that's one of the beautiesof higher intensity, low volume
training is, you know, you'renot doing set after set after
set, so you give a lot morefocus and energy to that one set

(14:08):
.
I mean, it's just human nature,but the studies indicate that
both styles work, as long as youdon't over train with the
higher volume.
And that's a big if, like youdon't know.
I can guarantee you this.
If you're doing double splitroutines and you're doing 20
sets per muscle group, you'regoing to over train and I don't

(14:30):
care what you're taking.
That is just a recipe for overtraining.
Somebody might get away with itfor a week or two, but that is
absolutely overtraining.
But if you did something lessthan that, like, say, half the
volume, which is still prettyhigh volume training, yes,
that's going to make youstronger, and nobody ever said
it's not.

(14:50):
But here's the thing that thehigh volume folks need to
understand.
Low volume works too, and thestudies have absolutely shown
that.
They've taken differentexercises.
They've taken every exercise.
I've seen these studies withevery major gym exercise you can
do, from leg press to b, youwant to pick and the research is

(15:12):
absolutely clear that threesets of moderate intensity is
essentially equal to one set ofhigher intensity.
Now, again, there's a lot ofvariables, but the key to the

(15:32):
research is it works.
So if it works, why not do it?
I mean I can give you a whynots on both sides.
I mean, again, there's a methodto the madness why not do it?
Oh, I don't know.
Maybe, like you, have atendency to not handle your time

(15:53):
very well.
Like you know, you have a lotof time during the day and
you've had issues with going tobars and gambling.
I mean, I'm just beingfacetious here, but like, well,
that's a reason.
So like, if it's better for youto go to the gym and train
every day for an hour and a halfrather than go and waste your

(16:15):
money somewhere where maybe youshouldn't.
I mean, I'm being facetious,but I'm also not Like, in other
words, there's worse places tobe than a gym.
So that's a situation where youcan go.
Yeah, you know, I want to spendmore time in a gym because I
just like it there.
Well, there you go.
You can do that.
But just don't think that thatis superior, physiologically

(16:37):
speaking, than doing lowervolume.
So that would be a reason whyyou can do that.
Now, why would you want to dothe higher intensity?
Well, guess what?
The number one reason given tous experts and to the media and
everybody else why only 28% ofour population is physically

(16:59):
active Time.
Time is the number one reasonalways given I've harped on that
over, over and over on thispodcast and in my emails and
everywhere else Time.
Okay, there are some timeconstraints, of course.
I've also said in the past andI'll say it again it's also a
priority issue, but time isgiven.

(17:22):
So if you know you can go to thegym and strength train and you
can get in and out of there in30 minutes, do a full body
workout at pretty high intensityand I'll close with talking
about that here in a minute,because that's important Pretty
high intensity, and you can geteverything done two to three

(17:42):
days a week and then you can doyour other exercise, like cardio
and whatever, then I justsolved the problem for you and
now what you have to do is youhave to understand that it
absolutely does work.
Now you have to be mentallyprepared to give a good effort.
So again, if you're goingthrough a phase in your life

(18:06):
where you know you don't reallywant to go to the gym and give
it a lot of effort, but you likegoing because you see your
friends, so you want to go alittle bit more, or it's a good
place for you to escape, I getit.
Man, that is absolutely fine.
Go for it, that'll work.
I'm not one of those people thatsays it's this way or the
highway, or if you're not goingto give full effort mentally and

(18:29):
physically, why waste your time?
I don't believe that.
I think the only time it'sdangerous is if you're not
paying attention to your formand you get hurt.
But those are two differentthings.
But if we know that higherintensity, harder workouts that
are briefer and you don't haveto spend as much time in the gym
work and somebody has timeconstraints, why not?

(18:52):
I mean, it only makes sensethat someone would do that.
I can share all these studieswith you and show you I've
always been a person that saysyou know, let's put together the
program that works best for theindividual.
I like all styles of trainingfor the most part, but like

(19:13):
ultimately I always fall back tofor my own personal workouts.
It's like I can tend to be alittle bit of ADD and I can get
bored.
So if I know I'm going to thegym and I'm doing multi-sets on
an exercise, I'm just not goingto give it the full attention
that it deserves.

(19:33):
So I do better when I know I'mdoing a minimal amount of work
with maximal effort.
Does that mean like one set ofthis or that?
No, not necessarily.
It means I'm going to beproperly warmed up and I'm going
to give each exercise one maxeffort, for sure you know, and
then that's it.
But I might do a warm-up set ortwo.

(19:55):
So again, you don't have to be azealot, you just have to
understand the principles behindit that we grow, we get
stronger from intensity.
There is just no way aroundthat.
Sat there and you did threesets of 10, let's say, with five

(20:18):
pounds, just throwing randomweights out there, and you
normally can do 10 or 15 pounds,but you do three sets of 10
with five pounds of, say,dumbbell curls.
No, you are not gettinganything out of that
physiologically.
You are getting something outof there, burning some calories
and probably getting some maybesome good gym meditation, I like
to call it.
You're focused on working out.

(20:39):
Yeah, that's great.
So again, I don't say it's awaste of time, but it's.
You're not getting thephysiological strength benefits
from that.
So we do have to understandthat we get stronger via
intensity, not volume.
All right, and everybody'slevel of volume is up to them
how much time they have and whatis their motivation and what do

(21:02):
they like to do.
Those are all big parts of it,all right.
So I hope this helps you andplease share this podcast with
anybody that you think will helpthem get motivated and get to
the gym and put in a good effort, because I can't stress enough

(21:22):
how physical fitness is one ofthe best things we can ever do
for ourselves.
Exercise is a life and a gamechanger.
Thank you for listening totoday's show.
I ask you to please follow thisshow on wherever you get your
podcasts and also please hitautomatic downloads.

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(22:04):
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