Volume training: sometimes less is better and sometimes more is better
1 July 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I was asked this past weekend which side of the volume versus intensity issue I came down on. Depends what decade. I replied, not meaning to be cryptic. Back in the 1960s when I began training in earnest as a twelve year old determined to develop muscle for long ball hitting and blasting off tackle, volume was all the rage. Train the whole body three times a week was the general consensus. That made a man out of a boy real quick and inside two years I had packed on 50-pounds of muscle and began winning trophies. A typical routine might consist of squat, light breathing pullovers, barbell rows, clean and overhead press, power clean, deadlifts, snatches and curls. Thats a hell of a lot to fit into a single workout and sessions often lasted two hours. For a kid with an appetite like a young colt it posed no particular problem to be back two days later repeating the same gruesome routine. We had little confusion back then and the primal command was simple: seek to lift more in each lift.
It was a simplistic clarion call but back in the day we were simplistic to the max. Wed drive around in our 400-horsepower 4,000 pound muscle cars without seatbelts, smoke Marlboros while sitting with our open beer can in our lap as we burned rubber on our way to party at nightclubs with live rock bands. Hell they didnt even have warnings on cigarettes until 1965! I drank whole milk by the gallon, ate whole eggs by the dozen, consumed wonderbread by the loaf and probably slammed down 8,000 calories a day and I couldnt gain weight! I didnt understand that training three times a week using the brutal power exercises was over-training. I just did it because I was told to do it by experts. I ran everywhere and played seasonal sports every single day. I ate two lunches a day at the cafeteria (.35 cents for lunch, pints of milk for .3-cents) and usually nodded out in the next class. I was a great athlete and a terrible student. I ate anything and everything I wanted and I didnt care a wit about nutrient content or sub-component breakdown of ingredients which was good because they didnt have any nutrient breakdowns. I was young and super active and lean and the problem was gaining weight. I participated in football, wrestling, track and field and baseball.
What did I learn? When you are young and super active savage weight regimens and lots and lots of calories will build lots of muscle, power and strength. There comes a point when blasting each individual muscle three times weekly becomes counterproductive. The bodybuilders of that ancient day took volume training to extremes: Arnold, Franco, Robbie, Sergio, Zane and all the rest would often train twice a day, once in the morning for an hour and a half and again that evening for another 90-120 minute session. This was done six days a week and was called the double split. The Bulgarian Olympic lifters took volume to an absurd extreme when coach Ivan Abadjiev (lovingly called the butcher) began holding day long training sessions during which 90% weights were hoisted in three or four lifts over an eight hour period, five days a week.
The Bulgarian approach worked: they did the impossible and broke the stranglehold the mighty Soviet Empire held on Olympic style weight lifting. Powerlifters were the first to rebel against the more is better approach: they found it physiologically impossible to recover in time for the next session. Twice a week per muscle became the norm in the eighties and this jived nicely with the realities of the real world. Six day a week double split routines are fine for professional bodybuilders, the independently wealthy or bored no-children housewives but for those existing in the working world a lesser way was in order.
Interestingly two men emerged simultaneously and though pursuing different athletic goals used virtually the same training method to arrive at two distinctly different results. Dorian Yates captured six straight Olympia titles and Ed Coan is the Michael Jordan of powerlifting. Both ruled their respective sport with an invincible iron grip at the same time and both trained in similar fashion. Both Dorian and Ed would blast a muscle once a week, working up to a single all-out set of 5-10 reps then move on to the next compound multi-joint barbell or dumbbell exercises.
Dorian and Ed each used a few basic machines but the vast majority of training time was spent on ultra-basic barbell and dumbbell exercises. Dorian wanted the pure muscle mass all-out power training produced (providing calories are ample keeping the athlete in continual positive nitrogen balance) but the incredible strength he developed (435×8 in the smith machine incline) was a mere side benefit to his purpose: building maximum muscle mass. Ed was interested in strength. The massive muscles he grew as a direct result of being able to squat 900-pounds for repetitions, was a strictly a side benefit. Both men allowed the blasted muscle seven full days to heal and recover from the pounding. Each man might only work up to a single, all out set but that one all out set might be 805×5 in the deadlift for Ed or 1200×15 in the leg press for Dorian.
These two giants would train four times a week and methodically plow through their primordial workouts using bar-bending poundage in simplistic exercises. The combination of maximum effort (and beyond) using maximum weight and pristine technique gave each man what it was they wanted: size/strength. I wrote a feature article on the amazing similarities between the two for Muscle and Fitness and Dorian later told me that he thought it was the most interesting take on his training hed ever read. I found it profound that the worlds best built man and the worlds strongest man each independently arrived at a training template near identical.
How does this relate to you? It wont take you near as long to recover from a set of 185×8 in the bench press as it would for Ed after 505×8. Muscles do require time to recover. How long? That depends on a myriad of factors. How do you know when a muscle is healed and recovered and eligible for blasting once again? If you are sore to the touch, dog tired and lost the appetite, these could be indicators. The Bulgarians used blood pressure readings.
The iron rule of thumb goes as follows: it takes larger muscles and muscle groups (legs/back) longer to recover than smaller muscle groups (arms/calfs/abs/shoulders.) While its not productive to lift before youve adequately recovered from the previous session, it is missed opportunity to dawdle past the point of complete recovery. From the recovered point forward not training is wasted opportunity. How is your training structured? Are you using primarily barbell and dumbbell exercises in basic movements? If not, congratulations, youve just discovered how to take progress to the next level. Strike the balance between doing too much and doing too little. Neither volume nor intensity trumps one another; each is an appropriate training philosophy to be used at the proper time. They are tools in the tool chest; a hammer doesnt trump a saw
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