December 24, 2025 • 28 mins
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--
Most lifters are either doing too little volume to stimulate muscle growth or piling on so much that they're just accumulating fatigue without results.
If you're hitting the gym consistently but not seeing the gains you want, your training volume is probably the problem.
In this replay of one of our most popular episodes, learn the 12 evidence-based rules to make training volume work for muscle growth, especially for busy lifters over 40.
Learn exactly how many hard sets per muscle group you need each week, why proximity to failure matters more than total reps, and how to find your personal volume sweet spot, especially if you're over 40 and want to build muscle efficiently without burning out or wasting time.
Whether you're doing too little and wondering why you're not growing, or doing too much and feeling exhausted, this framework will help you dial in your volume for your body, goals, and lifestyle. Stop guessing and start engineering your strength training for maximum hypertrophy.
Episode Resources:
- Prefer community support and live call for your training and fat loss? Join Wits & Weights Physique University for just $27/month with training templates, course library, and community support (podcast listeners get a free custom nutrition plan with code FREEPLAN)
- Read the Stronger by Science article on training volume by Greg Nuckols
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why volume determines muscle growth
5:54 - Rule 1: Hard sets per muscle group
7:16 - Rule 2: Train near failure
9:00 - Rule 3: Understanding diminishing returns
10:14 - Rule 4: Optimal weekly set ranges
11:40 - Rule 5: Does rep range matter?
13:10 - Rule 6: Strength vs. hypertrophy
15:24 - Rule 7: Periodize your volume
17:00 - Rule 8: Recovery sets your ceiling
19:02 - Rule 9: Eliminate "wasted" volume
20:20 - Rule 10: Compound vs. isolation lifts
21:35 - Rule 11: What to track?
23:00 - Rule 12: The MOST important rule
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:00):
If you are lifting weights but not seeing the
muscle growth you expect, theproblem might not be your
effort.
It could be your trainingvolume.
Too little volume and you'releaving gains on the table.
Too much and you're justaccumulating fatigue without the
results.
Today I'm breaking down the 12rules of training volume that
will help you find your sweetspot, especially if you're over
(00:22):
40 and want to build muscleefficiently without wasting time
in the gym or risking burningout.
Before we dive in, if you wantpersonalized guidance on your
training volume, recovery, andnutrition all in one place,
check out my Fitness Lab app.
It's like having a coach inyour pocket who knows your
schedule, your goals, yourequipment, and your body.
And right now, through January2nd, you can get 20% off at
(00:45):
witsandweights.com slash app.
Now let's get into the 12 rulesthat will transform how you
think about training volume.
A replay from one of our mostpopular episodes this year.
If you're hitting the gymconsistently but still not
seeing the muscle growth youwant, you might be making one
critical mistake with yourtraining volume.
(01:05):
Most lifters either do way toolittle to stimulate growth, or
they pile on so much thatthey're just spinning their
wheels and burning themselvesout.
Today we're gonna break down 12evidence-based rules of
training volume that separatethe muscle builders from the
muscle stragglers.
You'll discover why yourcurrent approach to sets and
reps might be holding you backin the one rule about proximity
(01:26):
to failure that will transformevery set from here on out.
And today we're applying thatsystematic engineering thinking
(01:54):
to one of the most misunderstoodaspects of muscle building, and
that is training volume.
Volume, the V-word.
You know, as engineers, aspeople who like to think through
these things, we don't justthrow more resources at a
problem and hope that it works.
We optimize, we find theminimum effective dose that
(02:15):
produces the maximum results.
And that is what we need to dowith your training volume.
Whether you're doing too littleand wondering why you're not
growing, or you're doing toomuch, wondering why you feel
burned out, you're always tired,exhausted.
Today's episode is gonna giveyou a framework to dial in your
volume for your body, yourgoals, your lifestyle, and your
training.
Before we get into those 12rules, I do want to share
(02:38):
something pretty exciting thatjust happened recently.
And that is that we justlaunched the new Wits and
Weights Physique University.
And I'm happy to say it's at afar more accessible price point
at just $27 per month.
It was 87, it's now 27.
We do have an 87 option formore direct access to our not
one but two coaches in there,myself included.
(02:58):
And this $27 price point nowstill gives you access to the
complete course library, ourprivate community, our training
templates, and really so muchmore in there, monthly QAs, live
calls, but without the pressureof weekly check-ins or constant
cadences that some of ourmembers were saying was just a
(03:19):
little too much.
This is for those of you whoare looking to get support and
get an education to know what todo and how to do it, with some
kick in the butt along the way,but without it feeling like it's
taking over your life.
Because I know we're busy.
And here's the best thing forpodcast listeners.
If you join by the end of Julyusing the special link in the
(03:40):
show notes, it's the only linkthat'll get you this.
You'll get a custom nutritionplan from me, absolutely free.
I think I just butchered mywords.
That's a custom nutrition plan,which is normally a $47 add-on,
but I'm going to throw it infor free and create that for you
when you use the specialpodcast listener link in the
show notes.
And that's the same plan that Icreate for my private clients,
(04:04):
now available to you in theprogram.
And I'm giving it to you freeas a podcast user for early
access to the new WWPU launchingin August.
So you've got to take advantageof that by the end of July.
Go use a link in the shownotes, and we're gonna help you
build that physique and createthe healthy lifestyle you want.
So let's talk about trainingvolume.
But first, I want to givecredit to where it is due
(04:25):
because today's episode wasinspired by an excellent and not
surprisingly highly thorough,well-researched article called
The New Approach to TrainingVolume by Greg Knuckles at
Stronger by Science.
Shout out to you, Greg.
Greg is one of the smartestminds in the strength and
conditioning world.
And I'm gonna include a link tothat article in the show notes
because it's completely worthreading.
(04:46):
And when I work with folks,when I work with clients, yes,
I'm a nutrition coach, buttraining, strength training is a
huge part of this.
And I see the same patternscome up over and again.
They come to me confusedbecause they've tried this
program, that program, highvolume, low prog low uh low
volume, maybe German volumetraining, I don't know.
You know, the minimalistroutines, everything.
(05:07):
And nothing seems to be workingfor them or working
consistently.
And that's because I thinkthere's some fundamental
principles that govern howvolume drives muscle growth.
We talk about intensity a lot,about load, weight on the bar.
There's definitely a almostdogmatic thinking around
intensity versus volume in somecircles.
But I want to give volume theplace that it deserves today.
(05:30):
I want to treat volume like atraining variable.
That's all it is.
It's a training variable.
I don't want to treat it likethat.
It is that.
And it produces a predictableoutput when you apply it
correctly with the inputs,right?
It's not a mysterious art form.
Yes, there seems to be somelevel of art, let's say, when it
comes to lifting, but it reallycan be broken down into some
(05:50):
principles that you can test andexperiment with to see what
works.
So let's start with it.
Rule number one volume is bestmeasured in hard sets per muscle
group.
So right off the bat, Iprobably surprised you because
you think of volume as totalsets, period.
But I think the most importantconcept here is how we measure
volume.
(06:10):
Most people think of it interms of tonnage, sets times
reps times load, or just puresets, right?
But what really drives musclegrowth, hypertrophy, is the
number of hard sets performedper muscle group per week.
And we know this, it's wellestablished in the literature.
We're not talking abouttraining to failure, we're
talking about training in someproximity to failure, regardless
(06:34):
of whether you're doing fivereps or 15 or 20 reps, whether
you're using 135 pounds or 405pounds.
And this matters becausetonnage, tonnage is not really
super helpful because it can beinflated by submaximal work that
doesn't actually produce thetension that you want for
growth.
But hard sets are objective,they actually standardize for
(06:58):
effort.
They standardize for effort.
So when we talk about traininghard and being close to failure
within a few repshire of failureand getting that muscle
tension, that is what drives theadaptation we're looking for.
And you simply have to haveenough of it per week, period.
That's rule number one.
Very important rule.
Rule number two proximity tofailure then determines a set's
(07:21):
effectiveness.
So this is going to build onrule one.
A set's growth stimulus dependson how close you get to
failure.
The final reps before failureare often referred to as
effective reps.
And whether you believe thatthe reps before them are junk
volume or not, all the reps arenecessary to get to that point.
(07:42):
And those reps toward the endcreate the most mechanical
tension and motor unitrecruitment, which is why they
tend to be the ones giving youthe most stimulus and thus quote
unquote effective, not tominimize the other reps.
But more and more researchsupports this idea.
And we know this because ofsupersets, because of myOREPs,
because of failure typetraining, et cetera.
(08:04):
And the mechanism is that asyou approach failure, your body
is forced to recruit more highthreshold motor units.
And these are primarily fasttwitch muscle fibers, and those
have the greatest growthpotential.
And so the guideline here ispretty simple.
Just train most of your sets towithin one to two reps shy of
failure.
I'm gonna say for big compoundlifts, it might be even three or
(08:24):
four.
If you're using an RPE scale,that's eight to ten.
If you're using RIR, that'szero to two reps left in the
tank.
Again, bigger lifts can maybeget an extra rep shy from
failure.
But most of you are probablynot even training in that regime
anyway, even if you think youare.
I'm just gonna be honest.
And also, this doesn't meanthat every single set has to be
(08:45):
a grinder.
Sometimes you have to grind, ithappens, but it shouldn't be
that way for the vast majorityof your volume.
It should just be highlychallenging.
So that's rule number two isproximity to failure, is what
determines how effective a setis.
Rule number three is that morevolume equals more growth, but
only to a point.
There's a dose responserelationship between volume and
(09:08):
muscle growth.
And like any good engineer willtell you, returns diminish past
a certain point.
Diminishing returns.
It's a law of the universe formost things.
If you do six sets per week fora muscle group, it's gonna be
better than three, but 20 isn'tnecessarily much better than 15.
It might be a tiny bit better,but not much.
And then at some point, 20 or25 or 30 sets might be worse for
(09:32):
you because of the overallfatigue for the week and the
lack of recovery.
The research shows us thathypertrophy plateaus or
regresses when volumes get toohigh, right?
25 to 30 plus sets per week fora single muscle group is to put
a number on it.
And then you're creating,again, more fatigue than you can
recover from.
So the practical takeaway ispush volume gradually, see how
(09:55):
you respond, monetary recovery.
You might be a hyperresponder,a lower responder.
You might need more or less,right?
On average, women need morevolume than men.
You're gonna need more volumewhen you're well fed and well
nourished than when you're in afat loss phase, right?
So it's gonna be contextual.
And more, again, is not alwaysbetter, especially if it means
you can't recover betweensessions.
Rule number four, most liftersthrive on 10 to 25 hard sets per
(10:20):
muscle per week.
Now that's a big range.
And what I usually, if I go ona podcast and somebody asks for,
I'll usually say like 10 to 15,because for the average person
with the average busy lifestyle,going four days to the gym,
it's it's perfectly solid,optimal place to be, or
practically optimal place to be,I should say.
But the sweet spot is reallybroad, 10 to 25 sets.
(10:42):
And where you fall in thatrange is gonna depend on your
training age, on your ability torecover, and again, your
individual responsiveness.
So if you're a beginner, juststart with 10 to 15.
If you're intermediate, youmight need 15 to 20.
If you're advanced, you mightneed even more than that, but
it's gonna depend on the liftand your recovery and all that,
right?
And if you spread the volumeover multiple sessions per
muscle group, so you have maybeupper, lower, upper, lower is a
(11:05):
classic split, a four-day split,where you're hitting your
biceps and your shoulders andyour chest and your back a
couple times a week, directlyand indirectly, you're gonna get
probably better growth becauseof the frequency and then less
fatigue because of the rotationand splitting it up compared to
trying to cram it all into onebrutal session or just a few
(11:25):
sessions.
Rule number five the rep rangedoesn't really matter for
hypertrophy, but your effortdoes.
And this might be surprising,right?
But I've seen and I've workedlike with my coach Andy Baker,
he's a genius at this stuff.
He will throw in there into hisprogramming, especially the
bodybuilding style, tons ofdifferent rep ranges.
And it almost doesn't seem tomake any rhyme or reason until
(11:49):
you go a level deep and you lookat some of the other training
variables, like the order of thelifts and whether it's a big
compound lift or not, et cetera.
But here's the thing as long assets are taken with proximity
to failure, and again, not totalfailure, please don't consider
this failure training.
That is not what I'm saying.
In fact, that could be aterrible idea to take everything
to failure.
We don't want to do that.
(12:09):
And there are plenty of peoplewalking around jacked, strong,
you know, with great muscledevelopment, that always train
several reps away from failureand not to failure.
So please.
But as long as you do that,muscle growth is going to occur
across a wide range of reps.
And it kind of makes sensebased on what we talked about
before.
Whether it's five reps or 30reps, it's getting that tension,
(12:31):
right?
Getting that fight motor fight,motor fiber recruitment.
Research from Schoenfeld, greatguy, I like to reference all
the time, shows that hypertrophyis pretty much the same whether
it's low rep doing three tofive reps or high rep doing 25
to 35 when both groups trainedclose to failure.
And so a practical way to dothis is use lower reps for
(12:54):
compound movements, higher repsfor isolation work, and it
balances fatigue management withthings like joint stress and
systemic stress, systemicfatigue, central nervous system
fatigue.
So the rep range isn't asimportant as we think, guys.
That's my point.
But the effort's reallyimportant.
Rule number six strength gainsare load specific.
Okay, so now if you're this isthis is giving you a little bit
(13:18):
of a break in the last rule inthat if your goal includes
building maximal strength, notjust muscle size, you have to
understand that strength gainsare load specific.
If you want to build maximalstrength, you have to lift heavy
loads, probably in the one tosix rep range.
Referring to my episodestrength versus hypertrophy, we
talked about roughly 65% of yourmax and higher gets you into
(13:39):
that strength regime, which thenby definition gets you into
these lower reps.
And that's going to improveyour neurological or
neuromuscular adaptation, whichis like the coordination between
and within your muscles thatconnects to your nervous system
and your brain, and yourmovement patterns.
So if you're focused on bothhypertrophy and strength, you're
you're going to want to have amix of the two.
And that's why I like methodslike top set back off, where you
(14:02):
start with a heavy set in, say,four to six, and then you drop
the weight 10%, maybe, and thenyou go, you know, eight to 10.
And that's where you thenaccumulate volume.
Um, I ran, I've run severalprograms that were set-based,
that were volume-based, that dida great job of going
sub-maximal to accumulate thevolume, and then going heavy to
(14:23):
push up the numbers and thestrength peak, right?
And that's this philosophy.
All right, so just a quickbreak here.
We're talking about programminga lot.
We're talking aboutstrategically thinking about how
you lift.
We're talking about principles.
This is what we teach insidephysique university.
And that's why I think it's soimportant.
We get into the nitty-gritty ofeach of these separately in
(14:44):
chunks that are easy to digestand think about.
And the new tier I just talkedabout at 27 a month is going to
give you access to not only thetraining templates that apply
these principles, but the wholecourse library that breaks down
the science behind thesedecisions.
And of course, access to me andour other coach and the
community.
And remember that podcastlisteners get a custom nutrition
(15:05):
plan free if you join by theend of July.
Please take advantage of this.
It'd be silly not to at the newlow price and getting that for
free.
Use the link in the show notes.
People pay a lot more for thisstuff, and you're getting it as
part of a community because Iwant it to be accessible and
affordable.
So check that out.
Wits and weights physiqueuniversity, 27 a month, free
nutrition plan.
If you use the link in the shownotes, all right, let's get to
(15:26):
rule number seven, which is toperiodize volume over time for
long-term gains.
So you want to periodize yourvolume.
Ah, well, we've heard ofperiodization before.
We talk about that in thenutrition context.
But when it comes to musclebuilding, it's not going to be a
line.
It's not going to be a straightline.
You're not going to just growlinearly and, you know, pack on
two pounds of muscle a week, amonth forever.
(15:47):
Well, a week would be nice, amonth forever.
And then training shouldn't belinear either.
Once you get past the novicelinear progression, which even
itself isn't always perfectlyquote unquote linear, right?
Because the load doesn'tnecessarily go up the same from
session to session.
Your tolerance for volume isgoing to improve with time.
The more you practice themovement patterns, the more
(16:08):
tolerance you're going to have.
So your body's going to changeinto a different beast than it
was in how you handle volume andhow it benefits you.
And so cycling between higherand lower volume blocks is going
to enhance your adaptation andprevent your burnout.
I do this myself.
I go between an undulating,periodized, set-based program
where I'm packing on lots andlots of submaximal volume, and
(16:30):
then I'll switch over to a veryminimalist kind of strength
program and everything inbetween, you know, hypertrophy
blocks, et cetera.
So this would be like if youdid six weeks at a pretty high
volume, you know, 18, 20 sets aweek.
And then you switch to what didI say, six weeks or eight weeks
at much lower reps, much lowervolume, but you're going heavy.
(16:54):
And then you're pushing thenumbers.
And this is going to alternatebetween the strain you put on
your joints, the fatigue youfeel physically, mentally,
allows your body to adaptproperly.
I was going to saysupercompensate, but that word
is very loaded today.
So I'm not going to use thatword.
But you can adapt and hit weakspots, improve movement
patterns, improve hypertrophy,improve strength, improve all of
(17:15):
it.
Rule number eight (17:15):
your recovery capacity is going to
determine your volume ceiling.
This is super important.
This is where the engineeringpiece comes in you've got to
figure this out through testingand measuring.
Volume is only productive ifyou can recover from it.
And your ceiling depends onyour resource stack, your
(17:35):
metabolic stack.
What is that?
That's sleep, that's nutrition,that's carbs, that's your
stress level.
Yes, even your age, yes, evenyour training history, your
injury history, et cetera.
All of that stuff stacked ontop of each other is your
recovery capacity, even yourgenetics, even your gender.
Because again, I said before,on average, women tend to
recover better than men and needmore volume.
(17:56):
In this context, noteverything, because women do
other, tend to do other thingslike too much cardio, et cetera.
I'm not gonna get into that.
I want you to watch for thewarning signs of what we call
overreaching.
Okay, none of you have to worryabout overtraining.
It's just not gonna happen.
But overreaching, this is whereyou have soreness that's
persistent, it doesn't go away.
This is the poor sleep.
(18:16):
You'll you never feel like youcan get enough.
This is where you don't feelmotivated, right?
So mentally you're not there.
Your regression, yourperformance regresses, okay?
And if you see any of thesesigns, your volume has exceeded
your recovery capacity.
And of course, it's gonna getexacerbated when you are
depriving yourself of calories.
And maybe you're doing it onpurpose in a fat loss phase, or
maybe you're doing it becauseyou're not quite confident yet
(18:40):
in how to eat and how much toeat, or you don't know what your
metabolism is, and so you'reunder-eating without realizing
it.
Even if you're not losingweight, you still could be
under-eating.
So, what you want to do here ispick a baseline that's
reasonable and then increaseyour volume gradually and assess
your recovery.
Measure your biofeedback,measure your energy, your
recovery.
You could just use a one to 10scale and say, what am I this
(19:02):
week?
Am I a three?
Am I a seven?
Am I a six?
And correlate it with the otherthings you're doing and your
whole metabolic, your stressstack, your sleep, your
nutrition, your stress, yourblah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All right.
You can use RPE tracking if youwant.
You can use other biohackingmetrics or biometrics like HRV,
you know, if you have an auraring.
(19:22):
You could just use subjectivescores like we talked about with
the biofeedback.
Really up to you.
In physique university, we havewhat's called a biofeedback and
physique tracker, and it has abunch of these laid out for you
with a drop-down for scores, andit's lined up with your
measurements.
So you can kind of track weekafter week how these are
trending against all the otherthings, and then voila, you
(19:46):
understand your recoverycapacity.
All right, rule number nine outof 12 junk volume sabotages
progress.
Now, I was hesitant to even usethis word or this phrase, but
I'm gonna define.
Define it.
And I think in this definition,it is a real thing.
And that is sets that are tooeasy, sets that are too far from
(20:07):
failure, or sets that arepoorly executed, that all
they're doing to you is they'readding fatigue without giving
you the benefit of theadaptation.
Notice that I said sets.
I didn't say reps because Idon't believe there's junk reps.
I think even if you're doing 20reps, the first 10 reps aren't
(20:28):
junk.
There's a benefit to those.
Whole different topic foranother day.
I'm talking about sets.
If you do a set that is justtoo easy, and I'm talking far
submaximal or nowhere close tofailure, and unless that was
your intent for some otherreason, other training variable
like speed work, for example,it's not going to give you a
(20:50):
benefit, right?
If a set is poorly executed,even if it feels hard, it's not
going to give you benefitbecause you're probably
compensating or you're going totwinge or tweak something,
you're going to injure yourself,you're not going to get the
direct benefit you're going for,right?
And that's a problem too.
And that could even come fromloading up too heavy, like
beyond what you could actuallyhandle right now and ego
lifting.
(21:10):
Every set should have apurpose, right?
Get rid of those filler setsthat aren't doing it for you.
Right.
If you're doing, if yourprogram calls for four sets and
three of those sets are junk,you're probably better off with
two really hard sets or a hardtop set and a hard back off set.
In fact, I like it for thatreason for many people.
It saves time and it gives youthe mental fortitude to push
toward failure because you knowit's only two sets and it's two
(21:31):
different weights.
It's a great strategy, guys, ifyou want to try it.
Right.
And remember the warm-up sets,that is just for preparation and
warming up.
That doesn't that's not foraccumulating the volume.
The volume comes to the workingsets.
All right, rule number 10 isthat compound lifts demand fewer
sets and isolation work.
This should go by definition bydefinition, but let me explain
(21:53):
what I mean.
Compound movements that usemultiple joints recruit multiple
muscle groups, they generatehigher systemic fatigue.
They require thus fewer setsper muscle group to be
effective, period.
Right?
Three sets of barbell squatsare gonna sufficiently stimulate
quads, glutes, hamstrings, butyou're probably gonna need maybe
four, five, six sets of bicepcurls or leg extensions to
(22:14):
create the same growth stimulusbecause the isolation movements
create lower systemic fatigueand of course are just hitting
those muscle groups.
So don't go crazy with yoursets for your big lifts, is all
I'm saying, especially somethinglike a deadlift.
You know, sometimes one setcould be enough, one or two
sets.
It depends on, depends on yourgoals, depends on the rep range,
et cetera.
(22:35):
Rule number 11, I want you totrack progress, not just volume,
because volume is just it's avariable and it's a tool.
And honestly, I don't eventrack it per se.
I guess the way I would put itis that a program should be
written inherently to add setsor add volume if that's the
point, but then it's written infor you.
(22:57):
You're not like winging it andsaying, oh, maybe I'm gonna add
another set today and I'm gonnaprogress in sets.
It's not like that.
I think reps are a little moreon the fly, load is a little
more on the fly.
Although, again, you still wantto be intentional about
thinking, what did I do lasttime?
What's my capability now?
How am I feeling in my warm-up?
You know, what should I be ableto uh express today?
(23:19):
But volume is more fixed intothe program, if that makes
sense.
If anybody disagrees, let meknow.
I've never understood anyonewho, not understood, I've never
heard of anybody who says, Ithink I'm just gonna add extra
sets today.
Okay, now I actually take thatback a little bit because for
isolation work, you might havein your program, you know, do
(23:39):
anywhere from four to six setsof these bicep curls.
And then it's kind of a choice,right?
But even then, I wouldrecommend picking one and
sticking with it as you progressfor the next block, right?
Like if it's four to six inyour program, go it, pick one,
like five, and do five everytime.
This is in contrast to a setprogression-based program that
(24:01):
says, okay, we're gonna go threesets and four sets and five
sets, then we're gonna reset ata higher load and go three sets
and four sets and five sets.
That's different.
So, yes, you should probablylimit adjusting one variable at
a time, and that's usually loador reps.
It could be both.
It's rarely, I'm going to say,volume, but you will adjust
volume over longer blocks oftime.
(24:24):
And you will also be trying toget better at doing hard sets.
That can definitely, I'll say,progress.
And when you move to a newmovement, let's say six weeks
later, you rotate out ofmovement.
It is not uncommon that thatfirst session, you're not quite
optimal.
And so you're gonna become moreefficient the next few
sessions.
That makes sense.
(24:45):
All right, rule number 12, thelast rule for today is that
volume is individual.
You have to experiment andadjust.
There is no one size fits allnumber for volume.
There just isn't.
I don't care.
Look at all the research, andit's all over the place.
Genetics, muscle fiber type,lifestyle, stress, food, all the
things we talked aboutinfluence your volume tolerance
and needs, and your own volumeability will change with your
(25:06):
training age, with how you'vetrained, with your fatigue, et
cetera.
Fat loss, muscle building interms of your diet.
So start with the guidelines Igive you today and then tweak it
and test it.
If you're trying to figure outwhat volume works for you and
you have a range like we talkedabout, if there's a four to six,
start at four.
Start at four and then do thata couple weeks.
Then go to five, see how thatmakes you feel, then potentially
(25:28):
go to six, right?
And see where it goes.
You know, if if I don't know,if you get a better pump, if the
soreness is manageable, if yourlifts progress, you feel like
you're in the sweet spot, great.
That's where we're trying toget to.
Now there's a really coolconcept in the research called
volume landmarks.
Not sure if you've heard ofthis.
And research suggests thatthere are three of these: your
minimum effective volume, yourmaximum adaptive volume, and
(25:51):
your maximum recoverable volume.
And this is a more advancedthing.
I'm just going to touch on itreal quickly, but this has to do
with periodizing your training.
Your minimum effective volumeis the smallest amount that
produces growth.
Your maximum adaptive volume isthat sweet spot where you get
the best gains, right?
So it's not, it's a highervolume than your minimum, and it
(26:11):
gives you the most gains, butthen your maximum recoverable
volume is the upper limit beforeyou start going backward.
So the magic here happens whenyou can identify those landmarks
for you.
So it's really just the rangeand the sweet spot in the
middle, right?
What's the lowest, what's thehighest, what's the sweet spot
in the middle?
And then you can push up towardthat maximum to get even more
(26:35):
gains, but with diminishingreturns if you have a high
recoverability.
Conversely, if you have a lowrecoverability, you might need
to get closer to your minimumeffective volume, like for
example, a fat loss phase.
It's pretty cool when you cankind of identify that and
intuitively feel it out overtime.
So training volume, I don'tthink it has to be this
mysterious, complicated thingthat requires years of trial and
error and being a masterprogrammer to figure it out.
(26:56):
I think your body's gonna tellyou what's going on.
And I think you just can't jumpall over the place.
You have to be systemic andtake your time and be patient,
stick with one thing for awhile, document what's going on,
change a variable, try itagain, you know, whether it's
your frequency or the volume,and just be an engineer about
it.
You have inputs, you haveoutputs, you have feedback
mechanisms, use themsystematically, and you're gonna
(27:18):
be good.
You're gonna be good.
But if you need help, that'swhat other people are for.
And you know what?
Having people to lean on to getform checks to talk about
programming accelerates yourresults.
So definitely join us in thenew Wits and Weights Physique
University.
Again, just 27 per month.
That's a steal.
Um, you get access to trainingtemplates, the principles,
lifting lessons.
You get all the stuff onnutrition, our whole course
(27:38):
library.
I mean, there's a lot of stuffin there, guys.
I don't even want to overoverwhelm you, but there are
courses on macros, onmetabolism, on calories, on
menopause, on mindset.
I'm working on a couple courseson how to use AI and how to set
up your nutrition phases.
There's just more and morecoming in with lots of great
people in there, super smart,trying to help each other out.
(27:59):
And don't forget that you as apodcast listener get an
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If you join by the end of Julyand use the special link in the
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If you want to stop guessing,if you want to get clarity on
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We'll help you out.
Until next time, keep usingyour weights.
Actually, keep using your wits,lifting your weights.
(28:22):
And remember that volumewithout intelligence is fatigue.
But volume with the 12 rules Italked about today is how you
get some serious muscle growth.
I'm gonna talk to you next timehere on the Wits and Weights
podcast.
If you are lifting weights but not seeing the
muscle growth you expect, theproblem might not be your
effort.
It could be your trainingvolume.
Too little volume and you'releaving gains on the table.
Too much and you're justaccumulating fatigue without the
results.
Today I'm breaking down the 12rules of training volume that
will help you find your sweetspot, especially if you're over
(00:22):
40 and want to build muscleefficiently without wasting time
in the gym or risking burningout.
Before we dive in, if you wantpersonalized guidance on your
training volume, recovery, andnutrition all in one place,
check out my Fitness Lab app.
It's like having a coach inyour pocket who knows your
schedule, your goals, yourequipment, and your body.
And right now, through January2nd, you can get 20% off at
(00:45):
witsandweights.com slash app.
Now let's get into the 12 rulesthat will transform how you
think about training volume.
A replay from one of our mostpopular episodes this year.
If you're hitting the gymconsistently but still not
seeing the muscle growth youwant, you might be making one
critical mistake with yourtraining volume.
(01:05):
Most lifters either do way toolittle to stimulate growth, or
they pile on so much thatthey're just spinning their
wheels and burning themselvesout.
Today we're gonna break down 12evidence-based rules of
training volume that separatethe muscle builders from the
muscle stragglers.
You'll discover why yourcurrent approach to sets and
reps might be holding you backin the one rule about proximity
(01:26):
to failure that will transformevery set from here on out.
And today we're applying thatsystematic engineering thinking
(01:54):
to one of the most misunderstoodaspects of muscle building, and
that is training volume.
Volume, the V-word.
You know, as engineers, aspeople who like to think through
these things, we don't justthrow more resources at a
problem and hope that it works.
We optimize, we find theminimum effective dose that
(02:15):
produces the maximum results.
And that is what we need to dowith your training volume.
Whether you're doing too littleand wondering why you're not
growing, or you're doing toomuch, wondering why you feel
burned out, you're always tired,exhausted.
Today's episode is gonna giveyou a framework to dial in your
volume for your body, yourgoals, your lifestyle, and your
training.
Before we get into those 12rules, I do want to share
(02:38):
something pretty exciting thatjust happened recently.
And that is that we justlaunched the new Wits and
Weights Physique University.
And I'm happy to say it's at afar more accessible price point
at just $27 per month.
It was 87, it's now 27.
We do have an 87 option formore direct access to our not
one but two coaches in there,myself included.
(02:58):
And this $27 price point nowstill gives you access to the
complete course library, ourprivate community, our training
templates, and really so muchmore in there, monthly QAs, live
calls, but without the pressureof weekly check-ins or constant
cadences that some of ourmembers were saying was just a
(03:19):
little too much.
This is for those of you whoare looking to get support and
get an education to know what todo and how to do it, with some
kick in the butt along the way,but without it feeling like it's
taking over your life.
Because I know we're busy.
And here's the best thing forpodcast listeners.
If you join by the end of Julyusing the special link in the
(03:40):
show notes, it's the only linkthat'll get you this.
You'll get a custom nutritionplan from me, absolutely free.
I think I just butchered mywords.
That's a custom nutrition plan,which is normally a $47 add-on,
but I'm going to throw it infor free and create that for you
when you use the specialpodcast listener link in the
show notes.
And that's the same plan that Icreate for my private clients,
(04:04):
now available to you in theprogram.
And I'm giving it to you freeas a podcast user for early
access to the new WWPU launchingin August.
So you've got to take advantageof that by the end of July.
Go use a link in the shownotes, and we're gonna help you
build that physique and createthe healthy lifestyle you want.
So let's talk about trainingvolume.
But first, I want to givecredit to where it is due
(04:25):
because today's episode wasinspired by an excellent and not
surprisingly highly thorough,well-researched article called
The New Approach to TrainingVolume by Greg Knuckles at
Stronger by Science.
Shout out to you, Greg.
Greg is one of the smartestminds in the strength and
conditioning world.
And I'm gonna include a link tothat article in the show notes
because it's completely worthreading.
(04:46):
And when I work with folks,when I work with clients, yes,
I'm a nutrition coach, buttraining, strength training is a
huge part of this.
And I see the same patternscome up over and again.
They come to me confusedbecause they've tried this
program, that program, highvolume, low prog low uh low
volume, maybe German volumetraining, I don't know.
You know, the minimalistroutines, everything.
(05:07):
And nothing seems to be workingfor them or working
consistently.
And that's because I thinkthere's some fundamental
principles that govern howvolume drives muscle growth.
We talk about intensity a lot,about load, weight on the bar.
There's definitely a almostdogmatic thinking around
intensity versus volume in somecircles.
But I want to give volume theplace that it deserves today.
(05:30):
I want to treat volume like atraining variable.
That's all it is.
It's a training variable.
I don't want to treat it likethat.
It is that.
And it produces a predictableoutput when you apply it
correctly with the inputs,right?
It's not a mysterious art form.
Yes, there seems to be somelevel of art, let's say, when it
comes to lifting, but it reallycan be broken down into some
(05:50):
principles that you can test andexperiment with to see what
works.
So let's start with it.
Rule number one volume is bestmeasured in hard sets per muscle
group.
So right off the bat, Iprobably surprised you because
you think of volume as totalsets, period.
But I think the most importantconcept here is how we measure
volume.
(06:10):
Most people think of it interms of tonnage, sets times
reps times load, or just puresets, right?
But what really drives musclegrowth, hypertrophy, is the
number of hard sets performedper muscle group per week.
And we know this, it's wellestablished in the literature.
We're not talking abouttraining to failure, we're
talking about training in someproximity to failure, regardless
(06:34):
of whether you're doing fivereps or 15 or 20 reps, whether
you're using 135 pounds or 405pounds.
And this matters becausetonnage, tonnage is not really
super helpful because it can beinflated by submaximal work that
doesn't actually produce thetension that you want for
growth.
But hard sets are objective,they actually standardize for
(06:58):
effort.
They standardize for effort.
So when we talk about traininghard and being close to failure
within a few repshire of failureand getting that muscle
tension, that is what drives theadaptation we're looking for.
And you simply have to haveenough of it per week, period.
That's rule number one.
Very important rule.
Rule number two proximity tofailure then determines a set's
(07:21):
effectiveness.
So this is going to build onrule one.
A set's growth stimulus dependson how close you get to
failure.
The final reps before failureare often referred to as
effective reps.
And whether you believe thatthe reps before them are junk
volume or not, all the reps arenecessary to get to that point.
(07:42):
And those reps toward the endcreate the most mechanical
tension and motor unitrecruitment, which is why they
tend to be the ones giving youthe most stimulus and thus quote
unquote effective, not tominimize the other reps.
But more and more researchsupports this idea.
And we know this because ofsupersets, because of myOREPs,
because of failure typetraining, et cetera.
(08:04):
And the mechanism is that asyou approach failure, your body
is forced to recruit more highthreshold motor units.
And these are primarily fasttwitch muscle fibers, and those
have the greatest growthpotential.
And so the guideline here ispretty simple.
Just train most of your sets towithin one to two reps shy of
failure.
I'm gonna say for big compoundlifts, it might be even three or
(08:24):
four.
If you're using an RPE scale,that's eight to ten.
If you're using RIR, that'szero to two reps left in the
tank.
Again, bigger lifts can maybeget an extra rep shy from
failure.
But most of you are probablynot even training in that regime
anyway, even if you think youare.
I'm just gonna be honest.
And also, this doesn't meanthat every single set has to be
(08:45):
a grinder.
Sometimes you have to grind, ithappens, but it shouldn't be
that way for the vast majorityof your volume.
It should just be highlychallenging.
So that's rule number two isproximity to failure, is what
determines how effective a setis.
Rule number three is that morevolume equals more growth, but
only to a point.
There's a dose responserelationship between volume and
(09:08):
muscle growth.
And like any good engineer willtell you, returns diminish past
a certain point.
Diminishing returns.
It's a law of the universe formost things.
If you do six sets per week fora muscle group, it's gonna be
better than three, but 20 isn'tnecessarily much better than 15.
It might be a tiny bit better,but not much.
And then at some point, 20 or25 or 30 sets might be worse for
(09:32):
you because of the overallfatigue for the week and the
lack of recovery.
The research shows us thathypertrophy plateaus or
regresses when volumes get toohigh, right?
25 to 30 plus sets per week fora single muscle group is to put
a number on it.
And then you're creating,again, more fatigue than you can
recover from.
So the practical takeaway ispush volume gradually, see how
(09:55):
you respond, monetary recovery.
You might be a hyperresponder,a lower responder.
You might need more or less,right?
On average, women need morevolume than men.
You're gonna need more volumewhen you're well fed and well
nourished than when you're in afat loss phase, right?
So it's gonna be contextual.
And more, again, is not alwaysbetter, especially if it means
you can't recover betweensessions.
Rule number four, most liftersthrive on 10 to 25 hard sets per
(10:20):
muscle per week.
Now that's a big range.
And what I usually, if I go ona podcast and somebody asks for,
I'll usually say like 10 to 15,because for the average person
with the average busy lifestyle,going four days to the gym,
it's it's perfectly solid,optimal place to be, or
practically optimal place to be,I should say.
But the sweet spot is reallybroad, 10 to 25 sets.
(10:42):
And where you fall in thatrange is gonna depend on your
training age, on your ability torecover, and again, your
individual responsiveness.
So if you're a beginner, juststart with 10 to 15.
If you're intermediate, youmight need 15 to 20.
If you're advanced, you mightneed even more than that, but
it's gonna depend on the liftand your recovery and all that,
right?
And if you spread the volumeover multiple sessions per
muscle group, so you have maybeupper, lower, upper, lower is a
(11:05):
classic split, a four-day split,where you're hitting your
biceps and your shoulders andyour chest and your back a
couple times a week, directlyand indirectly, you're gonna get
probably better growth becauseof the frequency and then less
fatigue because of the rotationand splitting it up compared to
trying to cram it all into onebrutal session or just a few
(11:25):
sessions.
Rule number five the rep rangedoesn't really matter for
hypertrophy, but your effortdoes.
And this might be surprising,right?
But I've seen and I've workedlike with my coach Andy Baker,
he's a genius at this stuff.
He will throw in there into hisprogramming, especially the
bodybuilding style, tons ofdifferent rep ranges.
And it almost doesn't seem tomake any rhyme or reason until
(11:49):
you go a level deep and you lookat some of the other training
variables, like the order of thelifts and whether it's a big
compound lift or not, et cetera.
But here's the thing as long assets are taken with proximity
to failure, and again, not totalfailure, please don't consider
this failure training.
That is not what I'm saying.
In fact, that could be aterrible idea to take everything
to failure.
We don't want to do that.
(12:09):
And there are plenty of peoplewalking around jacked, strong,
you know, with great muscledevelopment, that always train
several reps away from failureand not to failure.
So please.
But as long as you do that,muscle growth is going to occur
across a wide range of reps.
And it kind of makes sensebased on what we talked about
before.
Whether it's five reps or 30reps, it's getting that tension,
(12:31):
right?
Getting that fight motor fight,motor fiber recruitment.
Research from Schoenfeld, greatguy, I like to reference all
the time, shows that hypertrophyis pretty much the same whether
it's low rep doing three tofive reps or high rep doing 25
to 35 when both groups trainedclose to failure.
And so a practical way to dothis is use lower reps for
(12:54):
compound movements, higher repsfor isolation work, and it
balances fatigue management withthings like joint stress and
systemic stress, systemicfatigue, central nervous system
fatigue.
So the rep range isn't asimportant as we think, guys.
That's my point.
But the effort's reallyimportant.
Rule number six strength gainsare load specific.
Okay, so now if you're this isthis is giving you a little bit
(13:18):
of a break in the last rule inthat if your goal includes
building maximal strength, notjust muscle size, you have to
understand that strength gainsare load specific.
If you want to build maximalstrength, you have to lift heavy
loads, probably in the one tosix rep range.
Referring to my episodestrength versus hypertrophy, we
talked about roughly 65% of yourmax and higher gets you into
(13:39):
that strength regime, which thenby definition gets you into
these lower reps.
And that's going to improveyour neurological or
neuromuscular adaptation, whichis like the coordination between
and within your muscles thatconnects to your nervous system
and your brain, and yourmovement patterns.
So if you're focused on bothhypertrophy and strength, you're
you're going to want to have amix of the two.
And that's why I like methodslike top set back off, where you
(14:02):
start with a heavy set in, say,four to six, and then you drop
the weight 10%, maybe, and thenyou go, you know, eight to 10.
And that's where you thenaccumulate volume.
Um, I ran, I've run severalprograms that were set-based,
that were volume-based, that dida great job of going
sub-maximal to accumulate thevolume, and then going heavy to
(14:23):
push up the numbers and thestrength peak, right?
And that's this philosophy.
All right, so just a quickbreak here.
We're talking about programminga lot.
We're talking aboutstrategically thinking about how
you lift.
We're talking about principles.
This is what we teach insidephysique university.
And that's why I think it's soimportant.
We get into the nitty-gritty ofeach of these separately in
(14:44):
chunks that are easy to digestand think about.
And the new tier I just talkedabout at 27 a month is going to
give you access to not only thetraining templates that apply
these principles, but the wholecourse library that breaks down
the science behind thesedecisions.
And of course, access to me andour other coach and the
community.
And remember that podcastlisteners get a custom nutrition
(15:05):
plan free if you join by theend of July.
Please take advantage of this.
It'd be silly not to at the newlow price and getting that for
free.
Use the link in the show notes.
People pay a lot more for thisstuff, and you're getting it as
part of a community because Iwant it to be accessible and
affordable.
So check that out.
Wits and weights physiqueuniversity, 27 a month, free
nutrition plan.
If you use the link in the shownotes, all right, let's get to
(15:26):
rule number seven, which is toperiodize volume over time for
long-term gains.
So you want to periodize yourvolume.
Ah, well, we've heard ofperiodization before.
We talk about that in thenutrition context.
But when it comes to musclebuilding, it's not going to be a
line.
It's not going to be a straightline.
You're not going to just growlinearly and, you know, pack on
two pounds of muscle a week, amonth forever.
(15:47):
Well, a week would be nice, amonth forever.
And then training shouldn't belinear either.
Once you get past the novicelinear progression, which even
itself isn't always perfectlyquote unquote linear, right?
Because the load doesn'tnecessarily go up the same from
session to session.
Your tolerance for volume isgoing to improve with time.
The more you practice themovement patterns, the more
(16:08):
tolerance you're going to have.
So your body's going to changeinto a different beast than it
was in how you handle volume andhow it benefits you.
And so cycling between higherand lower volume blocks is going
to enhance your adaptation andprevent your burnout.
I do this myself.
I go between an undulating,periodized, set-based program
where I'm packing on lots andlots of submaximal volume, and
(16:30):
then I'll switch over to a veryminimalist kind of strength
program and everything inbetween, you know, hypertrophy
blocks, et cetera.
So this would be like if youdid six weeks at a pretty high
volume, you know, 18, 20 sets aweek.
And then you switch to what didI say, six weeks or eight weeks
at much lower reps, much lowervolume, but you're going heavy.
(16:54):
And then you're pushing thenumbers.
And this is going to alternatebetween the strain you put on
your joints, the fatigue youfeel physically, mentally,
allows your body to adaptproperly.
I was going to saysupercompensate, but that word
is very loaded today.
So I'm not going to use thatword.
But you can adapt and hit weakspots, improve movement
patterns, improve hypertrophy,improve strength, improve all of
(17:15):
it.
Rule number eight (17:15):
your recovery capacity is going to
determine your volume ceiling.
This is super important.
This is where the engineeringpiece comes in you've got to
figure this out through testingand measuring.
Volume is only productive ifyou can recover from it.
And your ceiling depends onyour resource stack, your
(17:35):
metabolic stack.
What is that?
That's sleep, that's nutrition,that's carbs, that's your
stress level.
Yes, even your age, yes, evenyour training history, your
injury history, et cetera.
All of that stuff stacked ontop of each other is your
recovery capacity, even yourgenetics, even your gender.
Because again, I said before,on average, women tend to
recover better than men and needmore volume.
(17:56):
In this context, noteverything, because women do
other, tend to do other thingslike too much cardio, et cetera.
I'm not gonna get into that.
I want you to watch for thewarning signs of what we call
overreaching.
Okay, none of you have to worryabout overtraining.
It's just not gonna happen.
But overreaching, this is whereyou have soreness that's
persistent, it doesn't go away.
This is the poor sleep.
(18:16):
You'll you never feel like youcan get enough.
This is where you don't feelmotivated, right?
So mentally you're not there.
Your regression, yourperformance regresses, okay?
And if you see any of thesesigns, your volume has exceeded
your recovery capacity.
And of course, it's gonna getexacerbated when you are
depriving yourself of calories.
And maybe you're doing it onpurpose in a fat loss phase, or
maybe you're doing it becauseyou're not quite confident yet
(18:40):
in how to eat and how much toeat, or you don't know what your
metabolism is, and so you'reunder-eating without realizing
it.
Even if you're not losingweight, you still could be
under-eating.
So, what you want to do here ispick a baseline that's
reasonable and then increaseyour volume gradually and assess
your recovery.
Measure your biofeedback,measure your energy, your
recovery.
You could just use a one to 10scale and say, what am I this
(19:02):
week?
Am I a three?
Am I a seven?
Am I a six?
And correlate it with the otherthings you're doing and your
whole metabolic, your stressstack, your sleep, your
nutrition, your stress, yourblah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All right.
You can use RPE tracking if youwant.
You can use other biohackingmetrics or biometrics like HRV,
you know, if you have an auraring.
(19:22):
You could just use subjectivescores like we talked about with
the biofeedback.
Really up to you.
In physique university, we havewhat's called a biofeedback and
physique tracker, and it has abunch of these laid out for you
with a drop-down for scores, andit's lined up with your
measurements.
So you can kind of track weekafter week how these are
trending against all the otherthings, and then voila, you
(19:46):
understand your recoverycapacity.
All right, rule number nine outof 12 junk volume sabotages
progress.
Now, I was hesitant to even usethis word or this phrase, but
I'm gonna define.
Define it.
And I think in this definition,it is a real thing.
And that is sets that are tooeasy, sets that are too far from
(20:07):
failure, or sets that arepoorly executed, that all
they're doing to you is they'readding fatigue without giving
you the benefit of theadaptation.
Notice that I said sets.
I didn't say reps because Idon't believe there's junk reps.
I think even if you're doing 20reps, the first 10 reps aren't
(20:28):
junk.
There's a benefit to those.
Whole different topic foranother day.
I'm talking about sets.
If you do a set that is justtoo easy, and I'm talking far
submaximal or nowhere close tofailure, and unless that was
your intent for some otherreason, other training variable
like speed work, for example,it's not going to give you a
(20:50):
benefit, right?
If a set is poorly executed,even if it feels hard, it's not
going to give you benefitbecause you're probably
compensating or you're going totwinge or tweak something,
you're going to injure yourself,you're not going to get the
direct benefit you're going for,right?
And that's a problem too.
And that could even come fromloading up too heavy, like
beyond what you could actuallyhandle right now and ego
lifting.
(21:10):
Every set should have apurpose, right?
Get rid of those filler setsthat aren't doing it for you.
Right.
If you're doing, if yourprogram calls for four sets and
three of those sets are junk,you're probably better off with
two really hard sets or a hardtop set and a hard back off set.
In fact, I like it for thatreason for many people.
It saves time and it gives youthe mental fortitude to push
toward failure because you knowit's only two sets and it's two
(21:31):
different weights.
It's a great strategy, guys, ifyou want to try it.
Right.
And remember the warm-up sets,that is just for preparation and
warming up.
That doesn't that's not foraccumulating the volume.
The volume comes to the workingsets.
All right, rule number 10 isthat compound lifts demand fewer
sets and isolation work.
This should go by definition bydefinition, but let me explain
(21:53):
what I mean.
Compound movements that usemultiple joints recruit multiple
muscle groups, they generatehigher systemic fatigue.
They require thus fewer setsper muscle group to be
effective, period.
Right?
Three sets of barbell squatsare gonna sufficiently stimulate
quads, glutes, hamstrings, butyou're probably gonna need maybe
four, five, six sets of bicepcurls or leg extensions to
(22:14):
create the same growth stimulusbecause the isolation movements
create lower systemic fatigueand of course are just hitting
those muscle groups.
So don't go crazy with yoursets for your big lifts, is all
I'm saying, especially somethinglike a deadlift.
You know, sometimes one setcould be enough, one or two
sets.
It depends on, depends on yourgoals, depends on the rep range,
et cetera.
(22:35):
Rule number 11, I want you totrack progress, not just volume,
because volume is just it's avariable and it's a tool.
And honestly, I don't eventrack it per se.
I guess the way I would put itis that a program should be
written inherently to add setsor add volume if that's the
point, but then it's written infor you.
(22:57):
You're not like winging it andsaying, oh, maybe I'm gonna add
another set today and I'm gonnaprogress in sets.
It's not like that.
I think reps are a little moreon the fly, load is a little
more on the fly.
Although, again, you still wantto be intentional about
thinking, what did I do lasttime?
What's my capability now?
How am I feeling in my warm-up?
You know, what should I be ableto uh express today?
(23:19):
But volume is more fixed intothe program, if that makes
sense.
If anybody disagrees, let meknow.
I've never understood anyonewho, not understood, I've never
heard of anybody who says, Ithink I'm just gonna add extra
sets today.
Okay, now I actually take thatback a little bit because for
isolation work, you might havein your program, you know, do
(23:39):
anywhere from four to six setsof these bicep curls.
And then it's kind of a choice,right?
But even then, I wouldrecommend picking one and
sticking with it as you progressfor the next block, right?
Like if it's four to six inyour program, go it, pick one,
like five, and do five everytime.
This is in contrast to a setprogression-based program that
(24:01):
says, okay, we're gonna go threesets and four sets and five
sets, then we're gonna reset ata higher load and go three sets
and four sets and five sets.
That's different.
So, yes, you should probablylimit adjusting one variable at
a time, and that's usually loador reps.
It could be both.
It's rarely, I'm going to say,volume, but you will adjust
volume over longer blocks oftime.
(24:24):
And you will also be trying toget better at doing hard sets.
That can definitely, I'll say,progress.
And when you move to a newmovement, let's say six weeks
later, you rotate out ofmovement.
It is not uncommon that thatfirst session, you're not quite
optimal.
And so you're gonna become moreefficient the next few
sessions.
That makes sense.
(24:45):
All right, rule number 12, thelast rule for today is that
volume is individual.
You have to experiment andadjust.
There is no one size fits allnumber for volume.
There just isn't.
I don't care.
Look at all the research, andit's all over the place.
Genetics, muscle fiber type,lifestyle, stress, food, all the
things we talked aboutinfluence your volume tolerance
and needs, and your own volumeability will change with your
(25:06):
training age, with how you'vetrained, with your fatigue, et
cetera.
Fat loss, muscle building interms of your diet.
So start with the guidelines Igive you today and then tweak it
and test it.
If you're trying to figure outwhat volume works for you and
you have a range like we talkedabout, if there's a four to six,
start at four.
Start at four and then do thata couple weeks.
Then go to five, see how thatmakes you feel, then potentially
(25:28):
go to six, right?
And see where it goes.
You know, if if I don't know,if you get a better pump, if the
soreness is manageable, if yourlifts progress, you feel like
you're in the sweet spot, great.
That's where we're trying toget to.
Now there's a really coolconcept in the research called
volume landmarks.
Not sure if you've heard ofthis.
And research suggests thatthere are three of these: your
minimum effective volume, yourmaximum adaptive volume, and
(25:51):
your maximum recoverable volume.
And this is a more advancedthing.
I'm just going to touch on itreal quickly, but this has to do
with periodizing your training.
Your minimum effective volumeis the smallest amount that
produces growth.
Your maximum adaptive volume isthat sweet spot where you get
the best gains, right?
So it's not, it's a highervolume than your minimum, and it
(26:11):
gives you the most gains, butthen your maximum recoverable
volume is the upper limit beforeyou start going backward.
So the magic here happens whenyou can identify those landmarks
for you.
So it's really just the rangeand the sweet spot in the
middle, right?
What's the lowest, what's thehighest, what's the sweet spot
in the middle?
And then you can push up towardthat maximum to get even more
(26:35):
gains, but with diminishingreturns if you have a high
recoverability.
Conversely, if you have a lowrecoverability, you might need
to get closer to your minimumeffective volume, like for
example, a fat loss phase.
It's pretty cool when you cankind of identify that and
intuitively feel it out overtime.
So training volume, I don'tthink it has to be this
mysterious, complicated thingthat requires years of trial and
error and being a masterprogrammer to figure it out.
(26:56):
I think your body's gonna tellyou what's going on.
And I think you just can't jumpall over the place.
You have to be systemic andtake your time and be patient,
stick with one thing for awhile, document what's going on,
change a variable, try itagain, you know, whether it's
your frequency or the volume,and just be an engineer about
it.
You have inputs, you haveoutputs, you have feedback
mechanisms, use themsystematically, and you're gonna
(27:18):
be good.
You're gonna be good.
But if you need help, that'swhat other people are for.
And you know what?
Having people to lean on to getform checks to talk about
programming accelerates yourresults.
So definitely join us in thenew Wits and Weights Physique
University.
Again, just 27 per month.
That's a steal.
Um, you get access to trainingtemplates, the principles,
lifting lessons.
You get all the stuff onnutrition, our whole course
(27:38):
library.
I mean, there's a lot of stuffin there, guys.
I don't even want to overoverwhelm you, but there are
courses on macros, onmetabolism, on calories, on
menopause, on mindset.
I'm working on a couple courseson how to use AI and how to set
up your nutrition phases.
There's just more and morecoming in with lots of great
people in there, super smart,trying to help each other out.
(27:59):
And don't forget that you as apodcast listener get an
exclusive bonus today of acustom nutrition plan absolutely
free instead of paying theadd-on.
If you join by the end of Julyand use the special link in the
show notes.
If you want to stop guessing,if you want to get clarity on
all this stuff, join us.
We'll help you out.
Until next time, keep usingyour weights.
Actually, keep using your wits,lifting your weights.
(28:22):
And remember that volumewithout intelligence is fatigue.
But volume with the 12 rules Italked about today is how you
get some serious muscle growth.
I'm gonna talk to you next timehere on the Wits and Weights
podcast.
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