Been using this for 4 months now, it's a STEAL at 60 euro per year. Helped me a lot since I would either train too much (weekly volume) or with too low intensity (bad progression scheme).
Well to get shoulders i did 10 sets of 10 day in day out. When i stoped it got small. Oter thing i noticed i did a forced cut(got sick 3 weeks without training and barely eating). My upper body, looks like ive never trained. My legs, had 0 reduction in size. Its well my personal observations. My arms dont grown ive tried everything.
I think most natties would agree, If your lifts are increasing in reps or weight there is no need to add more volume. Doing so leaves it harder to recover from and chasing PRs becomes way tougher.
Disagreed. You could be making even more gains if you add more volume. Yes, you could be off worse if you do more Sets. But then you know that increasing Volume beyond what you did before you were progressing consistently is too much. How would you know without ever trying?
@@robopoke-w9t usually recovery, muscle soreness, and fatigue indicate if you pushed for enough sets. If you are barely recovering before your next session, you don't need to try for more sets. Many people stop short of that limit and those could benefit from pushing harder (either with more intensity or more volume) as you suggested. But it's not correct to say you have to try it first, because there are fatigue indicators that signals you have already reached your limit, if you know what to look for.
@@robopoke-w9t I think that high volume will produce quick gains for sure but there is nowhere to go or progress from there. If volume is kept low to moderate, you have.more energy to push for extra reps or weight on the bar. There also a valid agreement that high volume creates muscle swelling/ inflammation/bloat in the muscle, so the muscle will appear bigger. In my experience this swelling can last last up to six days. It's also worth noting that most studies measure the muscle around 3-4 days after the last traing session, so there there still might be some bloat in there. 8 week studies show that high volume groups do better ( in those 8 weeks), but what if the study lasted a few years? Honestly, I think the groups that are applying progressive overload on low-moderate volume would do better. Plus, they wouldn't be exhausted gym rats!
As more studies came out and more are done, the clear picture seems to be that, when not taking each set (all sets) to actual concentric failure, more volume is needed. We got back to the main crux of WHY there are many different strength/hypertrophy training protocols: There are many different ways to increase mechanical tension ( the key to increase both strength and hypertrophy). Different people react differently to training stimulus Different people PREFER different training protocols ( some people wanna annihilate the muscles, some only want to stimulate, some wanna be there for hours, some want to get done and get out).
Welp. Primary driver for hypertrophy is volume whilst strength is intensity. Keep it simple man 😂 why you think body builder stay in the gym for hours? Doing volume right? Why you think strength athletes stay for 45-60 mins at max? Because of high intensity and heavy weights yeh? 😊
I love the way you introduce new studies without leaving the knowledge we already have behind, I wish there was a channel like yours for various other areas of science, thank you!!
I think this is a viable option if you're stuck with your progression (your numbers are not going up for weeks), so adding a few more sets for that new stimulus is a smart option
@RAWS420I think this lines up with traditional knowledge: as training age and strength increases, so does the percentage of 1RM needed to induce gains. So beginners can do 12+ reps with gains, whereas advanced lifters frequently need to push 85-95% in order to advance. Simultaneously, you'll need more sets to compensate for the lack of reps. I think this is demonstrated in the lack of confidence in the super high set group, they probably weren't trained athletes and quickly overtrained.
Tbh if you're not improving over a period of a few weeks it probably means you're either doing something wrong or you've overtrained. An active deload phase is probably better than adding more sets
The discussed study compared the effects of maintaining a constant number of sets versus progressively increasing sets over weeks on muscle hypertrophy. 31 trained men participated, focusing on exercises for the quads. They trained with varying rep ranges and ensured progressive overload. The study had three groups: The fixed set group: performed 22 weekly sets for the quads throughout the study. The four-set group: added four sets every two weeks, reaching 42 sets in the final week. The six-set group: added six sets every two weeks, totaling 52 sets by the end. Results showed that the groups progressively increasing their sets tended to have better muscle hypertrophy than the fixed set group. Particularly, the six-set group showed the most gains, but with a wider confidence interval, suggesting more variability among participants. The study fits into the broader body of research that has differing recommendations on optimal set numbers for muscle growth. Previous studies have suggested that 12 to 18 weekly sets (with longer rest intervals) might optimize hypertrophy. However, this new study suggests that for some trained individuals, performing more than 20 sets weekly for specific muscles might be beneficial. There's also the idea of progressively increasing sets over time as a potential strategy for muscle growth, which this study supports. But individual responses can vary, so there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. The alpha progression app was mentioned as a tool to help tailor and track workouts based on evidence-based guidelines. In conclusion, while the 12-18 set recommendation remains a good starting point, individuals might benefit from experimenting with their volume based on their responses.
I have been training my clients like this for years with great success. For quads for example usually, we would start with something like 12 sets on w1, 14 sets on w2, 16sets on w3, 18 sets on w4, 6-8sets (deload) on w5, then 13sets on w1 of the new cycle, and so on... (every set is to 1-2 RIR until last week) The reasons I find it very effective are; 1) people seem to take training more seriously when they are aware this is gonna get harder and harder 2) it's a very smooth progressive overload ride. It's progressive both at meso and macro level 3) justified deloads make fatigue management much easier If my client is also interested in strength, I like to throw 1 cycle of 4-5 weeks (including deload) of strength training. This helps with resensitization to high-volume, it also gives us a new chance to check how strong they have become. After that, we would go back to 12 sets on w1 but we are starting with heavier weights based on our recently measured strength. After a few cycles when(if) the athlete's work capacity increases and if they feel like they can handle more volume we might start the first week from 13-14-15sets. Long story short, I find it a very safe way of increasing volume over time. But I like to add it works because you increase volume and force resting periods to ensure full recovery, I would say as long as you can get these 2 things right probably it doesn't matter what the protocol is in the long term. PS: sorry I know its a lot of text :D but for this protocol to work we cannot ignore deloads, otherwise, we should be adding +2 sets forever, and you know how that story ends :))
Thanks for sharing your experience. What are the average durations of the training sessions? What is the body part split that you are using? The training sessions must be getting longer as you go through the training block, if keeping rest periods fixed.
There are people who do reviews of papers who say lower volume higher intensity is the best approach because you can’t replace intensity, there are also those who say more volume the better. There’s no clear cut answer. Also, I don’t think anyone in their right mind is doing 20-25 sets for legs or 8 sets of squats a session, let alone 52 weekly sets for legs. It’s just absurd!
It is so refreshing to have a channel to go to that actually calmly analysed this study as opposed to the borderline insane screaming that has been happening in a lot of the online fitness world. Thank you House of Hypertrophy.
OK here's what I've experienced. I used to raise my weekly sets from 9 to 12 to 15 (and sometimes to 18) for major body parts over a 3 week period without trying to increase the load. Sometimes I could add reps, or add a little weight but the goal was to match the last week and add sets. I didn't grow during the 3 week period, but when I cycled back to 9 sets per bodypart I did and I always set PRs on the week when I cycled back down in volume. I even cut back for 2-3 weeks a few times and got extended progress so I was doing something like 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 9, etc.
Wanted to mention, I checked back on my records, and the SECOND week of taking my volume back down tended to be gold. So I might do something like 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 12, 15 etc. That second week of lower volume had me looking my best and setting all kinds of rep PRs.
Intermediate lifter here, hit a platue months ago in terms of size and strength moving really slow, barely made any noticeable gains. Bumped my sets from 12 to 36 a week with 30 secs rest time and ate more protein with a surplus and my back exploded in 2 months. Don't need no study on this, its logical the more sets the more damage the more food/rest/nutrition you need the more your body gets accustomed to it overtime.
I think the 6 set/week increase result, reflects the reality of individual variability…genetically well recovered individuals will succeed, but the one that struggles to recover will lag behind or even decrease in performance
25 years ago I trained high volumes to failure. I spent 3 to 4 hours in the gym 4 to 5 days a week. I got big FAST, of course with the right nutrition and not much stress in my life at the time. So, at least for me, I can say that high volumes work like crazy. It’s not easy to stay free of fatigue and injury though, as I said, I did this when my life was otherwise not very demanding (university…) and I was able to absolutely prioritize workout.
Hey house of hypertrophy, By any chance would you be able to make a longer form video which discusses the overall scientific literature for general muscle growth and concepts used in your videos, I love watching them but I'm often lost. This would be able to help me and other people understand the videos you post better. Thanks for all your help in my progress bro.
Chris Beardsley did a very in depth analysis of the sets. When he calculated how many sets to failure this would equate to, it was 6-9 sets to failure per session. This fits in line with James Krieger’s analysis of volume per session theory. This study had less volume than Brad Schoenfeld’s previous study done in a similar manner.
I like your thorough comment, can you please explain to me how many sets per week and per workout is ideal? And are all of those sets close to or till failure? as in RIR 0-2? Should you be increasing those sets week by week until you need an eventual deload? Where did you learn this info and where can I learn more? Thank you!
@@souvizz1262if you’re training to failure, you’re getting more volume per set and you’re also getting more stimulative reps. The last 2 reps of a set to failure are disproportionately more stimulative for muscle growth. If you did 2 sets to failure, that would equate to something like 3-3.5 sets to 2 reps in reserve. For each additional set you add, you do add more stimulus with less and less benefit to muscle growth up until somewhere around 8 sets in 1 session. You can perform multiple sessions in a week, so if you were doing 2 sessions for a muscle group that would be 16 sets in a week. This is high volume if you’re training to failure and moderate volume if you’re training with 2 reps in reserve due to how stimulative each rep to failure is. You can train 20+ sets a week to 2-4 RIR and you’ll get gains, but the amount of fatigue accrued from calcium-ion related fatigue and muscle damage will be much higher than if you did something like 10-12 sets to failure for a muscle group in a week with similar muscle gains. Muscle damage inhibits muscle growth, and the lower the sets you do the less muscle damage you will accrue the better you’ll be able to grow. Training to failure also causes a decent bit of muscle damage as well, but the overall total number of sets required to match what 1 set of failure will outpace how much damage you cause. How many repetitions you choose to do will also impact how much muscle damage you cause. A set of 15-20 reps to failure will cause more damage than a set of 6-10 reps to failure, but both have the same hypertrophic stimulus. I recommend checking out Chris Beardsley as he did an entire podcast on this study, he’s a well respected researcher that cuts through the fat well and explains all of what I am saying much better.
@@mebpoli01Fitness is very forgiving. Doing anything with intensity and progression will give you much of available progress no matter your training structure and philosophies
I use volume as just another variable to break through plateaus, also sometimes rearranging and prioritizing certain lifts earlier in my training session. For instance i didnt make any rep gains on barbell OHP for about 4 weeks, stuck at 175x 12, 11, 10. So i swapped it with incline bench which was making steady gains (first movement of the 1st upper body session for the week for me) and after a few weeks i hit 12x3 and moved up 5 lbs.
Was your experience that you still performed at 12 11 10 at the start of your new prioritization? I would think maintaining performance on OHP despite seeing steady gains on incline bench beforehand would indicate some improvement.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but with the approach of 3 sets a 12 reps and 3 minutes rest compared to 5 sets with a one-minute break, I reach approximately the same number of repetitions close to failure. If I now increase the number of sets, the number of repetitions close to failure naturally also increases. However, this also significantly increases the junk volume witch produces fertigue. The danger of overtraining seems to be the biggest issue for me here.
Progressive increases in volume is the standard way of building muscle with clubs. Increasing the weight is second priority. Increasing the reps third.
Love your content but u have no clue how excited i got when u hinted abt more strength centric content as thats truely my intrrst and mg favourite creator together
@@Haise-san yep, brought up my delts really well and helped me reach a 75 kg ohp, its great but quite fatiguing, def should deload afterwards but great results
I believe this highlights that most people can and should do more and that pushing yourself to YOUR limit is optimal for growth. However, your limit is your limit. Most people either dont know it, or cannot voluntarily push to it, which is why programs or competition can be of help. In the max sets group I believe what you are seeing as far as variability is concerned is some are now beyond their limit and not recovering properly. It does highlight though, most people can do more and ultimately not sticking to a program could be the most optimal method IF people could accurately guage theirs limits and were highly motivated to flirt with them. Thats the tough part. Most dont get to their limit regularly. Successful Bodybuilders seem to have a very inate ability to find this limit and work with it each workout. Undoubtedly I would benefit in a cardio sense from trying harder but it is not enjoyable for me to do so and hence my cardio results are very middling compared to my weight training results.
I feel like I can somewhat gauge my limit, when it's not about enduring the hards of training, but noticeably feeling like you can't do the last sets/exercises property even if you push through it
Cool study’s. I find for me 15 or so sets is great for most of the large muscle groups. However my delts, triceps and back can handle like double that volume easily…biceps fatigue quick and don’t need tons of sets but can handle more frequency. So just feel out your body and how you recover for yourself
I think that it may be because of adaptation. Increasing by 6 sets every week changes a lot the way we are stimulated. It's like doing 6 weeks increasing weight then 6 weeks increasing reps ect... Making cycle of growth on different variable to create different stimulus is the way to go !
Our subconscious, director of our system, is preoccupied with self-preservation and longevity and it will only give as much as demanded by external stimuli. So, this all makes sense with that and I think that study is a direct reflection of that.
It's called progressive overload, until you have to deload. It should be how most people set up their programs (always push for more reps, sets, and weight than the last training session). Usually I start with about 6-10 exercises per day (4-6 days a week), with only 2 sets of each, with 2-3 RIR and progressively push till I get to 4-6 sets per exercise and 0-1 RIR (all the time upping the weight if I get 11 or more reps, in a set). I find keeping the the reps under 15 helps me mentally get through it and starting off with just two sets with 2-3 RIR makes it easy to start. Key tips: maintain tempo (slow consistent dicentric), higher time under tension (slow down the movement and control the weight), form failure = 0RIR (end of set or drop the weight)
Does it really matter if they were at rpe 8 or 6 or even 4? To a degree yes but even rpe 4 produces decent gains and doing 22 sets of that intensity or even up to 52 sets will grow your muscles. Is it efficient or even fun? Probably not but it clearly works.
@H3aby84 Sure but if they're RPE 4 then it would make sense that the 52 set group would beat out the other groups. That doesnt prove the 52 set group would beat 10 sets per week at RPE 10.
@@Youngster543210 you're right that 10 sets @ rpe 10 might be just as good but these studies on high volume or even extreme volumes show that intensity doesn't have to be very high. If you just do enough of lower intensity sets you get the same effect or better. At least until some study proves that much fewer sets at very high intensity or even failure produces better or equal results.
@@H3aby84 I see your point, the problem is that many of these studies say they have participants train to failure when in reality if you actually trained 50 sets to failure you'll quickly find out that's pretty much impossible. Plus, even if you were training at a lower RPE there's no way you should need 40 extra sets. That's just nonsense. Most people don't just have endless amounts of time to burn in the gym doing all of these sets plus it's not even necessary and you would make better gains just training harder. Most people in the gym need to train harder, not easier. They need to learn how to make the sets that they do perform, productive.
If you're looking for a topic to cover, I suggest looking at how diet affects hypertrophy. I tried to research how much of a caloric surplus would be optimal for hypertrophy, but found conflicting data and didn't even understand some of the stuff I found. I think it's an interesting topic with a lot of circulating pseudoscience that you could shed some light on
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 🏋️ *A study compares fixed weekly set numbers to progressively increasing sets for muscle hypertrophy, sparking controversy and interest in the fitness community.* 01:41 💡 *Gradually increasing sets led to greater muscle gains, though results were variable among individuals.* 02:56 📚 *Previous research suggests 12-18 weekly sets per muscle group optimize hypertrophy, with longer rests between sets.* 05:06 🔍 *Considerations: The study focused on quads, most sets weren't to failure, and rest intervals were longer, impacting fatigue and effort.* 07:23 🤔 *The study raises questions about whether gains were due to the number of sets or the act of progressively increasing sets bi-weekly.* 08:32 💡 *Experimentation: Gradually increasing sets could be beneficial, with practical applications in training, but further research is needed for validation.* 10:07 📊 *Summary: While the study suggests potential benefits of increasing sets for muscle growth, individual variations exist, emphasizing a tailored approach to training.*
8:17 Yeah Mike is really cool. If some people dont know, he is running Renaissance Periodization youtube-chanel with A LOT of great information from both practical and scientific point of view.
There's an inverse relationship (mutual exclusive) between how hard (intensity) you push the sets and how long (duration) your session lasts. Simple put you can't go all out (max effort) for a long period of time. That's the same reason why sprinters can't sprint beyond the 400 meters.
I’m coming to the end of my first training block; it was very much getting used to the gym, perfecting techniques, and 20 weekly sets per muscle group. I’m going to design my next block, might throw in a few things from this !
I am going to do my own study on why HIT is the best for muscle growth. Give me 5-10 years and I will have an arsenal of naturals that look like they are on gear
Resting weeks are important for to avoid overtraining with increasing sets for long term. Maybe taking 2 weeks off after six weeks and then start over?
They are not training hard at all that is the only way. So most of the sets are ineffective… they might be comparing 2-3 effective sets versus 4-5 or 6-8.
It's certainly a lot of sets, but bear in mind they only performed 52 weekly sets for 2 weeks out of the 12 weeks (the previous weeks before where spent working up to that number) - also it was just for the quads :)
@@vvlaunaythat's Not the only way, did you not listen to the video. They said they all trained the same, 2 reps till failure. You have to also consider the training method Overreaching. I suggest you do some research, Overreaching can break you out of standard training diminishing returns. It's essentially effective over training. I've used training methods like these and they do work the best for me. And I've been training for 6 years. 3 of those used overreaching, and All my sets were either to failure Or were 85% muscle failure ranges. (I can't relate to HoHypertrophys thought that it's possible they were training to "voluntary failure". That's a concept that only exists for those who dont train intensely or give themself enough time to rest in between)
@@zenralochow do you ensure that people are training 2 reps short of failure ? How do you even do 10 sets 2 reps short of failure with 2 minutes between sets ? That is not 2 reps short of failure that’s 6 reps or more.
@@vvlaunay No its not, it's just being able to recover from short burst of muscular fatigue quickly. For perspective, My one rep dumbbell Bench is 110, my 3-6 rep: 105, my 10-12 reps 90. I'm telling you I can perform my first set to failure And then the next 3 without dropping in rep count. I can only do this for several exercises each muscle group. Don't know why it contradicts data, but I notice a direct correlation to adapting to the volume training or overreaching training method
That awesome! Thank you! As I mentioned i use to ridiculously high number of set that would make David Goggins blush. With joking aside when does rhabdomyolysis set in with too much work or does it for a healthy person? Maybe a future show suggestion.
This has been used by strength guys and bodybuilders for a while already. Specialisation programs allow you to grow for example your biceps or calves a lot by allocating much of your volume to those muscles. But it means other muscles stay on maintenance because no natural can sustainably train their entire body like that. And then strength guys have been using volume periodisation for ages. Every week they add a set until they peak, deload by reducing the sets back to baseline and then change to a different percentage or close variation of the lift and build back up.
I’d like to see more about this ‘general body limit’. Is there research on it? I’d like to know what the limiting factor is on training different muscles, assuming it is spaced out and muscles are trained in a fairly fresh state.
@@jmass4207 I don't know of any dedicated official research. It's based on the experience of bodybuilders over the last few decades. You can't train your entire body for 20+ hard sets per week and expect to sustain it as a natural. The limiting factor is any number of things: joint pain, injury risk, CNS fatigue, mental burnout, time constraints, energy depletion, loss of sleep, stress levels.
If they’re feeling overly fatigued, then it’s too much, regardless of muscle gains. Mainly because they’re neurosystem is going to be taking on too much. What I’ve seen (and this works for me, might not work for you) is when i do 3 sets 10-12 reps, once i hit a time where i can’t really go up in weight anymore (or not reaching the last few reps), i will typically keep the same weight and add a 4th set to it. Once i do that for a couple weeks, maintaining the same weight, i will take away the 4th set and go up in weight by about 5lbs. Typically i will see a weight increase. But recovery is your best friend. Lots of protein+water and sleep. It has been proven more sets in a week works, but it also has shown that your neurosystem is going to take too much and eventually cause pain/damage to your muscles. I think a recent study has shown that no more than 3x a week at 3-4 sets is optimal? Even so, if you’re not recovering, then you have to reduce it down to maybe 2x a week at 3-4 sets. Just use common sense. If you’re feeling it’s too easy, go up in weight. If it’s too heavy and you’re not reaching your rep ranges, then lower your weight. If you’re not recovering fully for the next session, take an extra day while also maintaining proper protein, water, and sleep.
I cannot imagine 40 sets of squats or leg press in a week. Of course I'm not a competitor either and am 45, but damn. I am ok with the gains I get by doing two sets of leg extension (both to failure and beyond) followed by the 3-4 sets of squats, the last set to fail. PER WEEK. At least for quads.
The legs are already subjected to a lot of volume even in sedentary people compared to other muscle groups. Show me a study that concludes neck training needs even any more than about 10 sets a week before hitting diminishing returns lol.
If you are a beginner and are considering doing this much volume weekly, you should know that for beginners using a lot of volume could be very hard on the tendons and is dangerous.
There are two points that I feel that were only briefly mentioned but deserve a lot of attention: 1 - The amount of time per session for a single muscle is only viable for professionals. A 100+ minute training session only for quads (adductors and glutes as well as 2/3 of the volume is on compound exercises that have been shown in other research to have meaningful hypertrophy for these muscles) is not viable for a non-professional. 2 - The confidence interval for area has overlapped, with the 6-set increase per week group having higher variability than the 4-set increase per week. Meaning that a lot of people doing that routine would see same or perhaps similar results with a more modest increase in their weekly sets volume. It seems to be one more study that ends up finding some upper ceiling level of weekly volume.
Think this way instead, the big three Intensity Volume Frequency will all need to be manipulated in different ways, at different times, to keep progression moving throughout your lifting span. Less so in the beginning, more so as progress continues. This is the main FACT that you need to concern yourself with. Now take your deep dive with learning how they relate to each other and you can leave the studies behind. Bodybuilding has always produced a different look compared to other lifters, even if sets reps and or weights were compared. This has perplexed many, because of the lack of understanding the missing key is making the muscle do the work. That is what separates the look. This as well makes flaw to many studies because you can never know who is just moving the weight with joints, leverage and some muscle vs who is making the muscle move the weight.
so basically "increasingly volume over a micro/macro cycle, all other variables equal is one effective form of hypertrophy." just proving what a lot of people already knew
Its simple as that: As much volume as necessary, as little as possible. The less volume, the more intense the workout must be, leading to muscle failure. The training should be structured so that the volume is regenerated in a way that allows for progressive overload. Thats why different systems like HIT and volume training works🤷🏼♂️
True। i am training for years strength is gaining consistently but not size। after a year of injury i started from decreasing the vooume surprisingly the muscle growth is more and clearly visible
I've seen many videos but I'm always confused about the increasing weekly sets thing. If I increase set every week aren't I gonna add more volume? Also when would I knw when to stop? Sorry I might seem stupid but.. please tell me
Unless the subjects are separated by how long it takes them to recover from exercise, then your results will always be confusing. Some people can recover in 1 day, while others need 7 days.
While it's possible that there could be some sort of outlier factor that makes this study not applicable to most people or an issue with the methodology, the idea that humans respond to gradually increasing sets in our lower body isn't too surprising considering our genetic advantage over most animals is distance running. It also holds up when you look at the quads of resistance-for-distance athletes like cyclists.
Individuals may vary in maximum recoverable volume / intensity, which will affect the benefits of increased volume. MRV could be affected by macronutrient and micronutrient levels, sleep, stress, and other factors. For myself, I get 2.2 g protein per kilo body weight minimum, often more, and it appears to increase my leanness and muscle mass as measured by looking in the mirror, perhaps due to increased protein synthesis and much reduced carb intake. Just my experience, not quite science.
37 weekly sets of 0-2 RIR ONLY for quads with compound exercises lmao. And people will think they need to do it for most of muscle groups to achieve best gains, however what they will achieve is overtraining.
The problem with this is, I don’t want to do so many sets, because that’s crazy. I’d rather do less sets and train to failure on the last set of the exercise and close to on the other. Also resting long enough is important.
I dont mark anything down or overthink it. My plan of attack is always to just push myself to my absolute limit in terms of getting to failure, but not to overdo it either. Really intense with not much rest between sets for 45 minutes, or longer rest for 1 hour, which i do for legs.
@@HypertrophyUniversity-km6ey It wasn't a story, 'bro'. To share and learn as well.. since we spend our whole life learning. isn't that what people come to do in the comments? Share experiences? Sorry my comment made you upset, Mr. University.
We have to keep on mind that the error bars shown are confidence intervals, they are influenced by - but are not - the variance. And the confidence intervals all overlap. This means that this result is statistically perfectly compatible with the hypothesis of the increasing weekly sets NOT being better for overall gains. The result is interesting and definitely a clue for future research, but the result is simply too weak to draw a conclusion from.
Interesting but doesn't really matter for 99.999% of the people that workout. Optimising to this degree is a waste of time less you are some chemically assisted paid athlete or fitness model / bodybuilder. The benefits of weight training for health are not from working out like this. People - your lifting sessions are fine if you are in the gym for 30 minutes - workout like a cross-training routine. Move from station to station for eight body parts (mostly using compound movements) and repeat your cycle to or three times. The time wasted in the gym is by lifting methods and then the long resting times that are often used (2 minutes to 5 minutes for people really going heavy compound movements). Spending 1 or 2 hours in the gym is insane. A set takes 20 seconds. The resting times, time that most people spend talking with their friends, or wasted working in a group of three people so you're waiting for your next set is even longer is why routines take so long. A 20 second working cycle and 120 seconds of rest makes a set of 3 per exercise take 7 minutes. That is 24 sets per hour. Do you really need an hour or more in the gym? My workouts aren't very long at all, I maybe do 16 working sets in a day at 6 days per week. Some people would call that a wusser routine but how many people can, without warming up, bang out 20+ pull-ups? I train those one to two times per week so not even making them a focus. I just happen to pass a kids playground on some of my cardio sessions. I'm also in my 50's.
I am always skeptical about the results in ANY study, because ACCURATELY measuring true muscular hypertrophy on trained individuals only after 12 weeks is IMPOSSIBLE, no matter the method used. Not hard. IMPOSSIBLE. But results can show a trend. That being said, in my opinion this study shows more that increasing sets is another form of progressive overload that will LIKELY result in more growth, rather than that ultra high volumes are effective. Now if they took this group, with these number (progressing from 22 weekly sets to over 50), and another that started with 8 up to 24 or so, and compared the results between the 2, then we would have a more "fair" answer regarding the number of sets. Another point. I don't care who you are. You are not doing 22-52 hard sets of quads per week without resulting in the hospital in the long term. I bet this study will get disputed soon by other studies. The same way that Schoenfelds volume research was disputed and proven to not be all that accurate.
I usually try to push as much volume as I can without doms. This also can explain how I exploded after getting back to the gym. Though it could be a bunch of things
One massive issue with studies like these is that they are almost always untrained individuals. In relation to this study it could be said that smaller muscles can cope with more volume than larger muscles. So a trained individual of 10 years is not going to be able to cope with volume anywhere near that of somebody training for the first time taking part in a study. So as always I would take this study with a pinch of salt and scepticism, as that’s what any scientist would do, then if multiple studies suggest the same results then you can really start to draw up some conclusions.
It's hard enough to convince people they have time to workout without making them feel like if they don't spend hours in the gym, every day, there's no point... I'm also not so sure these studies would have reached the same conclusions with people working regular jobs, with families and commitments and since the science also shows we need a lot of sleep, it just becomes academic. Normal people, even amateur bodybuilders (not on drugs to help recovery) living their lives, can't workout like this.
Welp, I have grown one more cm to my arm(42cm now) and I do one set of curls in a week+1-2 sets of cable pulldowns. There is a huge difference between going to or almost to failure and going far beyond failure.
My voice is just monotone haha - see some of my older videos and you may be able to recongize the slight progression in my voiceover (but I still have a long way to go) The editing and research is also just me, seeing some of the older videos can also show how my editing has improved somewhat overtime (but also I still have a long way to go) Nevertheless, thank you for checking out the videos and I hope they deliver some kind of value at the very least :)
i do 1 set of decline bench 3x per week and get 275 for 5 or on my 12 rep 225 for 12. Incline 3 sets a week and i get 110 for 5 on dumbells or the 90 dumbells for 12 reps . I do not go to failure but I do incremental upping of weights.. I do whole body workout and am done in 40min,. Nattie 100% . I am also 52
It would have been more interesting to have a group with a fixed number of sets equal to the average number of sets of the group progressing their volume with time
Nothing gets anywhere clos3 to Mike Mentzer Training. Works out beautifully. All you guys do is over training. Gyms are big bucks business,.not for your health.
I believe that it makes a lot of sense that as you progress in the gym, you need more volume for the same stimulus, and as you add more volume and reach the point where it is too much to recover from or fatigue is kicking in, you deload. I first got this idea watching a video from Layne Norton. There are some studies on trained subjects where people make no gains throughout the program, why? Because training volume relative to previous volume is more important than total volume. That being said, it is also very possible that you benefit much more from higher volumes if your sets are of low quality, far from failure, and so on. So paradoxically, the pros might need less volume to make progress, but they will aim for higher volumes anyway because they are already so close to their genetic potential
The data literally showed half of people responded directly opposite of this training. Did I read that graph right? Good for those who this works for. You have to learn about your body, genetics and wisdom.
Very interesting, but pratically speaking, how could I integrate an increase in volume with a ppl where I already do +/-20 weekly sets for all my muscle groups ? My sessions already last between 1h30 and 2h with a good warm-up. I don't want to spend my life in the gym ^^'
What all these studies miss is the total recovery for your whole body. You can push 50 sets for a muscle group (like quads) but you can't push that for your whole body; otherwise your muscles including quads won't recover. These studies get participants to focus on a single muscle group and report results. So, if you want to focus on a single muscle, you can push volume on that, but you have to maintain or even lower the number of sets for other muscles.
You’re most likely doing too much volume if you’re hitting around 20 sets. If you are hitting 20+ sets then you are most likely not pushing each set hard enough or your exercise selection is off.
Hi, I have recently seen a TedX talk from John Jaquish speaking about variable resistance training. I wonder what you might have to say about that since you do sour research veeeery well
Hey i have a question! :) What do you think, if someone started gym already doing a good amount of weekly sets.. lets say twenty. Isnt he going to have the same benefits of someone reaching the same number of sets gradually? Anyway, congrats i really appreciate your content and watched every single video of yours! I will keep supporting your channel
Thank you my friend, that's a great question. Unfortunately, the research isn't sufficient enough to answer that question yet! I think some studies in the coming months and years might answer this, and I'll have videos on that when they arrive :)
Could you do a video about endurance please? I and lots of others would like to know how to be able to do 100+pushups of anyworkout at all like Goggins 💪
Hey All, Feel free to check out the Alpha Progression App: alphaprogression.com/HOUSEOFHYPERTROPHY
Been using this for 4 months now, it's a STEAL at 60 euro per year. Helped me a lot since I would either train too much (weekly volume) or with too low intensity (bad progression scheme).
Well to get shoulders i did 10 sets of 10 day in day out. When i stoped it got small.
Oter thing i noticed i did a forced cut(got sick 3 weeks without training and barely eating). My upper body, looks like ive never trained. My legs, had 0 reduction in size.
Its well my personal observations. My arms dont grown ive tried everything.
I think most natties would agree, If your lifts are increasing in reps or weight there is no need to add more volume. Doing so leaves it harder to recover from and chasing PRs becomes way tougher.
Agreed! If you're making great progress across time, there's not an urgent need to change anything :)
Disagreed. You could be making even more gains if you add more volume. Yes, you could be off worse if you do more Sets. But then you know that increasing Volume beyond what you did before you were progressing consistently is too much. How would you know without ever trying?
@@robopoke-w9t usually recovery, muscle soreness, and fatigue indicate if you pushed for enough sets. If you are barely recovering before your next session, you don't need to try for more sets. Many people stop short of that limit and those could benefit from pushing harder (either with more intensity or more volume) as you suggested. But it's not correct to say you have to try it first, because there are fatigue indicators that signals you have already reached your limit, if you know what to look for.
That's certainly the case for me.
@@robopoke-w9t I think that high volume will produce quick gains for sure but there is nowhere to go or progress from there. If volume is kept low to moderate, you have.more energy to push for extra reps or weight on the bar.
There also a valid agreement that high volume creates muscle swelling/ inflammation/bloat in the muscle, so the muscle will appear bigger. In my experience this swelling can last last up to six days. It's also worth noting that most studies measure the muscle around 3-4 days after the last traing session, so there there still might be some bloat in there.
8 week studies show that high volume groups do better ( in those 8 weeks), but what if the study lasted a few years? Honestly, I think the groups that are applying progressive overload on low-moderate volume would do better. Plus, they wouldn't be exhausted gym rats!
As more studies came out and more are done, the clear picture seems to be that, when not taking each set (all sets) to actual concentric failure, more volume is needed.
We got back to the main crux of WHY there are many different strength/hypertrophy training protocols:
There are many different ways to increase mechanical tension ( the key to increase both strength and hypertrophy).
Different people react differently to training stimulus
Different people PREFER different training protocols ( some people wanna annihilate the muscles, some only want to stimulate, some wanna be there for hours, some want to get done and get out).
volume is needed to compensate for the lack of intensity
Welp. Primary driver for hypertrophy is volume whilst strength is intensity. Keep it simple man 😂 why you think body builder stay in the gym for hours? Doing volume right? Why you think strength athletes stay for 45-60 mins at max? Because of high intensity and heavy weights yeh? 😊
@@PhiyackYuh Mike Mentzer didn't stay for hours.
@@GibranCamus-fh2wk You can't train to failure with high volume..
@@yourfrenghost3028 there has to be some level of intensity to drive a sense of "need" to get stronger/bigger
I love the way you introduce new studies without leaving the knowledge we already have behind, I wish there was a channel like yours for various other areas of science, thank you!!
Same, it's good shit.. science needs to be looked at as a whole, since some evidence and papers can be sketchy.
4:45 Plugg N B music 🎶💪😤
I think this is a viable option if you're stuck with your progression (your numbers are not going up for weeks), so adding a few more sets for that new stimulus is a smart option
Potentially! Provided you're feeling recovered enough and able to handle more :)
@RAWS420I think this lines up with traditional knowledge: as training age and strength increases, so does the percentage of 1RM needed to induce gains. So beginners can do 12+ reps with gains, whereas advanced lifters frequently need to push 85-95% in order to advance. Simultaneously, you'll need more sets to compensate for the lack of reps. I think this is demonstrated in the lack of confidence in the super high set group, they probably weren't trained athletes and quickly overtrained.
@RAWS420no you weren’t you’re lying buddy you tried more sets then went inconsistent 🤡🤡🤡🤡
Tbh if you're not improving over a period of a few weeks it probably means you're either doing something wrong or you've overtrained. An active deload phase is probably better than adding more sets
The discussed study compared the effects of maintaining a constant number of sets versus progressively increasing sets over weeks on muscle hypertrophy. 31 trained men participated, focusing on exercises for the quads. They trained with varying rep ranges and ensured progressive overload. The study had three groups:
The fixed set group: performed 22 weekly sets for the quads throughout the study.
The four-set group: added four sets every two weeks, reaching 42 sets in the final week.
The six-set group: added six sets every two weeks, totaling 52 sets by the end.
Results showed that the groups progressively increasing their sets tended to have better muscle hypertrophy than the fixed set group. Particularly, the six-set group showed the most gains, but with a wider confidence interval, suggesting more variability among participants.
The study fits into the broader body of research that has differing recommendations on optimal set numbers for muscle growth. Previous studies have suggested that 12 to 18 weekly sets (with longer rest intervals) might optimize hypertrophy. However, this new study suggests that for some trained individuals, performing more than 20 sets weekly for specific muscles might be beneficial.
There's also the idea of progressively increasing sets over time as a potential strategy for muscle growth, which this study supports. But individual responses can vary, so there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. The alpha progression app was mentioned as a tool to help tailor and track workouts based on evidence-based guidelines. In conclusion, while the 12-18 set recommendation remains a good starting point, individuals might benefit from experimenting with their volume based on their responses.
I have been training my clients like this for years with great success. For quads for example usually, we would start with something like 12 sets on w1, 14 sets on w2, 16sets on w3, 18 sets on w4, 6-8sets (deload) on w5, then 13sets on w1 of the new cycle, and so on... (every set is to 1-2 RIR until last week)
The reasons I find it very effective are;
1) people seem to take training more seriously when they are aware this is gonna get harder and harder
2) it's a very smooth progressive overload ride. It's progressive both at meso and macro level
3) justified deloads make fatigue management much easier
If my client is also interested in strength, I like to throw 1 cycle of 4-5 weeks (including deload) of strength training. This helps with resensitization to high-volume, it also gives us a new chance to check how strong they have become. After that, we would go back to 12 sets on w1 but we are starting with heavier weights based on our recently measured strength.
After a few cycles when(if) the athlete's work capacity increases and if they feel like they can handle more volume we might start the first week from 13-14-15sets.
Long story short, I find it a very safe way of increasing volume over time. But I like to add it works because you increase volume and force resting periods to ensure full recovery, I would say as long as you can get these 2 things right probably it doesn't matter what the protocol is in the long term.
PS: sorry I know its a lot of text :D but for this protocol to work we cannot ignore deloads, otherwise, we should be adding +2 sets forever, and you know how that story ends :))
Thanks for sharing your experience. What are the average durations of the training sessions? What is the body part split that you are using? The training sessions must be getting longer as you go through the training block, if keeping rest periods fixed.
60 sets for quads seems like not a good idea lol
There are people who do reviews of papers who say lower volume higher intensity is the best approach because you can’t replace intensity, there are also those who say more volume the better. There’s no clear cut answer.
Also, I don’t think anyone in their right mind is doing 20-25 sets for legs or 8 sets of squats a session, let alone 52 weekly sets for legs. It’s just absurd!
It is so refreshing to have a channel to go to that actually calmly analysed this study as opposed to the borderline insane screaming that has been happening in a lot of the online fitness world. Thank you House of Hypertrophy.
Seriously we need smart meat heads.
Refreshing he playing Plugg N B music 4:45 💪😤🎶🎶🎶🎶
What really amazes me is that there are studies to prove every belief and no one is wrong
OK here's what I've experienced. I used to raise my weekly sets from 9 to 12 to 15 (and sometimes to 18) for major body parts over a 3 week period without trying to increase the load. Sometimes I could add reps, or add a little weight but the goal was to match the last week and add sets.
I didn't grow during the 3 week period, but when I cycled back to 9 sets per bodypart I did and I always set PRs on the week when I cycled back down in volume. I even cut back for 2-3 weeks a few times and got extended progress so I was doing something like 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 9, etc.
i will give something like this a shot for shoulders and chest i will let you know the result
Interesting thx for Sharing
Wanted to mention, I checked back on my records, and the SECOND week of taking my volume back down tended to be gold. So I might do something like 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 12, 15, 9, 9, 12, 15 etc. That second week of lower volume had me looking my best and setting all kinds of rep PRs.
Intermediate lifter here, hit a platue months ago in terms of size and strength moving really slow, barely made any noticeable gains. Bumped my sets from 12 to 36 a week with 30 secs rest time and ate more protein with a surplus and my back exploded in 2 months. Don't need no study on this, its logical the more sets the more damage the more food/rest/nutrition you need the more your body gets accustomed to it overtime.
I believe on low set number but hight intensity workout
Gotta comment, its House of Hypertrophy afterall!
I think the 6 set/week increase result, reflects the reality of individual variability…genetically well recovered individuals will succeed, but the one that struggles to recover will lag behind or even decrease in performance
25 years ago I trained high volumes to failure. I spent 3 to 4 hours in the gym 4 to 5 days a week. I got big FAST, of course with the right nutrition and not much stress in my life at the time. So, at least for me, I can say that high volumes work like crazy. It’s not easy to stay free of fatigue and injury though, as I said, I did this when my life was otherwise not very demanding (university…) and I was able to absolutely prioritize workout.
Hey house of hypertrophy,
By any chance would you be able to make a longer form video which discusses the overall scientific literature for general muscle growth and concepts used in your videos, I love watching them but I'm often lost. This would be able to help me and other people understand the videos you post better.
Thanks for all your help in my progress bro.
Chris Beardsley did a very in depth analysis of the sets.
When he calculated how many sets to failure this would equate to, it was 6-9 sets to failure per session. This fits in line with James Krieger’s analysis of volume per session theory.
This study had less volume than Brad Schoenfeld’s previous study done in a similar manner.
I like your thorough comment, can you please explain to me how many sets per week and per workout is ideal? And are all of those sets close to or till failure? as in RIR 0-2? Should you be increasing those sets week by week until you need an eventual deload? Where did you learn this info and where can I learn more? Thank you!
@@souvizz1262if you’re training to failure, you’re getting more volume per set and you’re also getting more stimulative reps. The last 2 reps of a set to failure are disproportionately more stimulative for muscle growth.
If you did 2 sets to failure, that would equate to something like 3-3.5 sets to 2 reps in reserve.
For each additional set you add, you do add more stimulus with less and less benefit to muscle growth up until somewhere around 8 sets in 1 session. You can perform multiple sessions in a week, so if you were doing 2 sessions for a muscle group that would be 16 sets in a week.
This is high volume if you’re training to failure and moderate volume if you’re training with 2 reps in reserve due to how stimulative each rep to failure is.
You can train 20+ sets a week to 2-4 RIR and you’ll get gains, but the amount of fatigue accrued from calcium-ion related fatigue and muscle damage will be much higher than if you did something like 10-12 sets to failure for a muscle group in a week with similar muscle gains.
Muscle damage inhibits muscle growth, and the lower the sets you do the less muscle damage you will accrue the better you’ll be able to grow. Training to failure also causes a decent bit of muscle damage as well, but the overall total number of sets required to match what 1 set of failure will outpace how much damage you cause.
How many repetitions you choose to do will also impact how much muscle damage you cause. A set of 15-20 reps to failure will cause more damage than a set of 6-10 reps to failure, but both have the same hypertrophic stimulus.
I recommend checking out Chris Beardsley as he did an entire podcast on this study, he’s a well respected researcher that cuts through the fat well and explains all of what I am saying much better.
22 weekly sets to more than 50, for one muscle? The ghost of Mike Mentzer gonna have a field day with this one
Mike Mentzer is the flat-earther of fitness community. His training modality is plain simple wrong. Don’t follow that contemptible liar.
😂😂😂
@@mebpoli01 he exaggerated results but he wasn't COMPLETELY wrong, I've been seeing good results following his routine
Wrong!!!@@mebpoli01
@@mebpoli01Fitness is very forgiving. Doing anything with intensity and progression will give you much of available progress no matter your training structure and philosophies
I use volume as just another variable to break through plateaus, also sometimes rearranging and prioritizing certain lifts earlier in my training session.
For instance i didnt make any rep gains on barbell OHP for about 4 weeks, stuck at 175x 12, 11, 10. So i swapped it with incline bench which was making steady gains (first movement of the 1st upper body session for the week for me) and after a few weeks i hit 12x3 and moved up 5 lbs.
Was your experience that you still performed at 12 11 10 at the start of your new prioritization? I would think maintaining performance on OHP despite seeing steady gains on incline bench beforehand would indicate some improvement.
Yessss I am so looking for the videos on strength Vs hypertrophy!
Maybe I'm mistaken, but with the approach of 3 sets a 12 reps and 3 minutes rest compared to 5 sets with a one-minute break, I reach approximately the same number of repetitions close to failure. If I now increase the number of sets, the number of repetitions close to failure naturally also increases. However, this also significantly increases the junk volume witch produces fertigue. The danger of overtraining seems to be the biggest issue for me here.
Progressive increases in volume is the standard way of building muscle with clubs. Increasing the weight is second priority. Increasing the reps third.
Love your content but u have no clue how excited i got when u hinted abt more strength centric content as thats truely my intrrst and mg favourite creator together
great video, i'll experiment on my delts with this idea, thanks for creating insightful and accessible videos around these topics.
Did you experimented with it? Do you find it did any good? 🤔
@@Haise-san yep, brought up my delts really well and helped me reach a 75 kg ohp, its great but quite fatiguing, def should deload afterwards but great results
I'm always very skeptical when it comes to studies carried out in Brazil.
appreciate your work, Mr. House 😊
Thank you my friend, I appreciate you for checking it out! :)
Great video as always!
Thank you dude, as always! :)
42 sets/week? This is insane. I would end up overtrained and my performance would go down.
I believe this highlights that most people can and should do more and that pushing yourself to YOUR limit is optimal for growth. However, your limit is your limit. Most people either dont know it, or cannot voluntarily push to it, which is why programs or competition can be of help. In the max sets group I believe what you are seeing as far as variability is concerned is some are now beyond their limit and not recovering properly. It does highlight though, most people can do more and ultimately not sticking to a program could be the most optimal method IF people could accurately guage theirs limits and were highly motivated to flirt with them. Thats the tough part. Most dont get to their limit regularly. Successful Bodybuilders seem to have a very inate ability to find this limit and work with it each workout. Undoubtedly I would benefit in a cardio sense from trying harder but it is not enjoyable for me to do so and hence my cardio results are very middling compared to my weight training results.
I feel like I can somewhat gauge my limit, when it's not about enduring the hards of training, but noticeably feeling like you can't do the last sets/exercises property even if you push through it
@@Haise-san yeah, the mental side is huge.
Cool study’s. I find for me 15 or so sets is great for most of the large muscle groups. However my delts, triceps and back can handle like double that volume easily…biceps fatigue quick and don’t need tons of sets but can handle more frequency. So just feel out your body and how you recover for yourself
Cool story?
Im now 20 years into training and I do now 4000 sets per week
love your videos,as always bro
Thanks so much!
I’d be interested to see correlations between high repetition numbers with wear & tear on the joints.
I think that it may be because of adaptation. Increasing by 6 sets every week changes a lot the way we are stimulated. It's like doing 6 weeks increasing weight then 6 weeks increasing reps ect... Making cycle of growth on different variable to create different stimulus is the way to go !
Our subconscious, director of our system, is preoccupied with self-preservation and longevity and it will only give as much as demanded by external stimuli. So, this all makes sense with that and I think that study is a direct reflection of that.
It's called progressive overload, until you have to deload. It should be how most people set up their programs (always push for more reps, sets, and weight than the last training session). Usually I start with about 6-10 exercises per day (4-6 days a week), with only 2 sets of each, with 2-3 RIR and progressively push till I get to 4-6 sets per exercise and 0-1 RIR (all the time upping the weight if I get 11 or more reps, in a set). I find keeping the the reps under 15 helps me mentally get through it and starting off with just two sets with 2-3 RIR makes it easy to start.
Key tips: maintain tempo (slow consistent dicentric), higher time under tension (slow down the movement and control the weight), form failure = 0RIR (end of set or drop the weight)
if you workout, you know 22 weekly sets is A LOT for quads, i doubt they were even close to rpe 8
These high volume protocols are a joke
Does it really matter if they were at rpe 8 or 6 or even 4? To a degree yes but even rpe 4 produces decent gains and doing 22 sets of that intensity or even up to 52 sets will grow your muscles. Is it efficient or even fun? Probably not but it clearly works.
@H3aby84 Sure but if they're RPE 4 then it would make sense that the 52 set group would beat out the other groups. That doesnt prove the 52 set group would beat 10 sets per week at RPE 10.
@@Youngster543210 you're right that 10 sets @ rpe 10 might be just as good but these studies on high volume or even extreme volumes show that intensity doesn't have to be very high. If you just do enough of lower intensity sets you get the same effect or better. At least until some study proves that much fewer sets at very high intensity or even failure produces better or equal results.
@@H3aby84 I see your point, the problem is that many of these studies say they have participants train to failure when in reality if you actually trained 50 sets to failure you'll quickly find out that's pretty much impossible. Plus, even if you were training at a lower RPE there's no way you should need 40 extra sets. That's just nonsense. Most people don't just have endless amounts of time to burn in the gym doing all of these sets plus it's not even necessary and you would make better gains just training harder. Most people in the gym need to train harder, not easier. They need to learn how to make the sets that they do perform, productive.
If you're looking for a topic to cover, I suggest looking at how diet affects hypertrophy. I tried to research how much of a caloric surplus would be optimal for hypertrophy, but found conflicting data and didn't even understand some of the stuff I found.
I think it's an interesting topic with a lot of circulating pseudoscience that you could shed some light on
Next year, I will have videos on these topics :)
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🏋️ *A study compares fixed weekly set numbers to progressively increasing sets for muscle hypertrophy, sparking controversy and interest in the fitness community.*
01:41 💡 *Gradually increasing sets led to greater muscle gains, though results were variable among individuals.*
02:56 📚 *Previous research suggests 12-18 weekly sets per muscle group optimize hypertrophy, with longer rests between sets.*
05:06 🔍 *Considerations: The study focused on quads, most sets weren't to failure, and rest intervals were longer, impacting fatigue and effort.*
07:23 🤔 *The study raises questions about whether gains were due to the number of sets or the act of progressively increasing sets bi-weekly.*
08:32 💡 *Experimentation: Gradually increasing sets could be beneficial, with practical applications in training, but further research is needed for validation.*
10:07 📊 *Summary: While the study suggests potential benefits of increasing sets for muscle growth, individual variations exist, emphasizing a tailored approach to training.*
8:17
Yeah Mike is really cool.
If some people dont know, he is running Renaissance Periodization youtube-chanel with A LOT of great information from both practical and scientific point of view.
There's an inverse relationship (mutual exclusive) between how hard (intensity) you push the sets and how long (duration) your session lasts. Simple put you can't go all out (max effort) for a long period of time. That's the same reason why sprinters can't sprint beyond the 400 meters.
Thanks for presenting this data in an easy to digest method. I wonder what sort of results we'd see if the participants had a week to deload
I’m coming to the end of my first training block; it was very much getting used to the gym, perfecting techniques, and 20 weekly sets per muscle group. I’m going to design my next block, might throw in a few things from this !
my favorite training style so far in years of training is something close to mike mentzers heavy duty system
I used to do 5 variations @4 sets, cut it down to 3 sets instead and voila, grew after stuck for years
I am going to do my own study on why HIT is the best for muscle growth. Give me 5-10 years and I will have an arsenal of naturals that look like they are on gear
The next step is to test how high the correlation is between people who did 37 sets for the quads and psychopathy
Resting weeks are important for to avoid overtraining with increasing sets for long term. Maybe taking 2 weeks off after six weeks and then start over?
How TF do you do 50+ sets. That’s crazy
They are not training hard at all that is the only way. So most of the sets are ineffective… they might be comparing 2-3 effective sets versus 4-5 or 6-8.
It's certainly a lot of sets, but bear in mind they only performed 52 weekly sets for 2 weeks out of the 12 weeks (the previous weeks before where spent working up to that number) - also it was just for the quads :)
@@vvlaunaythat's Not the only way, did you not listen to the video. They said they all trained the same, 2 reps till failure. You have to also consider the training method Overreaching. I suggest you do some research, Overreaching can break you out of standard training diminishing returns. It's essentially effective over training. I've used training methods like these and they do work the best for me. And I've been training for 6 years. 3 of those used overreaching, and All my sets were either to failure Or were 85% muscle failure ranges. (I can't relate to HoHypertrophys thought that it's possible they were training to "voluntary failure". That's a concept that only exists for those who dont train intensely or give themself enough time to rest in between)
@@zenralochow do you ensure that people are training 2 reps short of failure ? How do you even do 10 sets 2 reps short of failure with 2 minutes between sets ? That is not 2 reps short of failure that’s 6 reps or more.
@@vvlaunay No its not, it's just being able to recover from short burst of muscular fatigue quickly. For perspective, My one rep dumbbell Bench is 110, my 3-6 rep: 105, my 10-12 reps 90. I'm telling you I can perform my first set to failure And then the next 3 without dropping in rep count. I can only do this for several exercises each muscle group. Don't know why it contradicts data, but I notice a direct correlation to adapting to the volume training or overreaching training method
That awesome! Thank you! As I mentioned i use to ridiculously high number of set that would make David Goggins blush. With joking aside when does rhabdomyolysis set in with too much work or does it for a healthy person? Maybe a future show suggestion.
This has been used by strength guys and bodybuilders for a while already. Specialisation programs allow you to grow for example your biceps or calves a lot by allocating much of your volume to those muscles. But it means other muscles stay on maintenance because no natural can sustainably train their entire body like that.
And then strength guys have been using volume periodisation for ages. Every week they add a set until they peak, deload by reducing the sets back to baseline and then change to a different percentage or close variation of the lift and build back up.
I’d like to see more about this ‘general body limit’. Is there research on it? I’d like to know what the limiting factor is on training different muscles, assuming it is spaced out and muscles are trained in a fairly fresh state.
@@jmass4207 I don't know of any dedicated official research. It's based on the experience of bodybuilders over the last few decades. You can't train your entire body for 20+ hard sets per week and expect to sustain it as a natural. The limiting factor is any number of things: joint pain, injury risk, CNS fatigue, mental burnout, time constraints, energy depletion, loss of sleep, stress levels.
If they’re feeling overly fatigued, then it’s too much, regardless of muscle gains. Mainly because they’re neurosystem is going to be taking on too much. What I’ve seen (and this works for me, might not work for you) is when i do 3 sets 10-12 reps, once i hit a time where i can’t really go up in weight anymore (or not reaching the last few reps), i will typically keep the same weight and add a 4th set to it. Once i do that for a couple weeks, maintaining the same weight, i will take away the 4th set and go up in weight by about 5lbs. Typically i will see a weight increase. But recovery is your best friend. Lots of protein+water and sleep. It has been proven more sets in a week works, but it also has shown that your neurosystem is going to take too much and eventually cause pain/damage to your muscles. I think a recent study has shown that no more than 3x a week at 3-4 sets is optimal? Even so, if you’re not recovering, then you have to reduce it down to maybe 2x a week at 3-4 sets. Just use common sense. If you’re feeling it’s too easy, go up in weight. If it’s too heavy and you’re not reaching your rep ranges, then lower your weight. If you’re not recovering fully for the next session, take an extra day while also maintaining proper protein, water, and sleep.
I cannot imagine 40 sets of squats or leg press in a week. Of course I'm not a competitor either and am 45, but damn. I am ok with the gains I get by doing two sets of leg extension (both to failure and beyond) followed by the 3-4 sets of squats, the last set to fail. PER WEEK. At least for quads.
Yea whose got time for this is what i want to know
The quads as a muscle benefits extremely well from tons of volume. Would be interesting to see this study applied to other muscle groups
The legs are already subjected to a lot of volume even in sedentary people compared to other muscle groups. Show me a study that concludes neck training needs even any more than about 10 sets a week before hitting diminishing returns lol.
If you are a beginner and are considering doing this much volume weekly, you should know that for beginners using a lot of volume could be very hard on the tendons and is dangerous.
If you do 40+ sets a week for one muscle where do you find the time and energy for all the other exercises?
My question is, were they doing ONLY quads? I think you can slap more volume on a muscle if it is the only muscle you are training.
There are two points that I feel that were only briefly mentioned but deserve a lot of attention:
1 - The amount of time per session for a single muscle is only viable for professionals. A 100+ minute training session only for quads (adductors and glutes as well as 2/3 of the volume is on compound exercises that have been shown in other research to have meaningful hypertrophy for these muscles) is not viable for a non-professional.
2 - The confidence interval for area has overlapped, with the 6-set increase per week group having higher variability than the 4-set increase per week. Meaning that a lot of people doing that routine would see same or perhaps similar results with a more modest increase in their weekly sets volume. It seems to be one more study that ends up finding some upper ceiling level of weekly volume.
Think this way instead, the big three Intensity Volume Frequency will all need to be manipulated in different ways, at different times, to keep progression moving throughout your lifting span. Less so in the beginning, more so as progress continues. This is the main FACT that you need to concern yourself with. Now take your deep dive with learning how they relate to each other and you can leave the studies behind. Bodybuilding has always produced a different look compared to other lifters, even if sets reps and or weights were compared. This has perplexed many, because of the lack of understanding the missing key is making the muscle do the work. That is what separates the look. This as well makes flaw to many studies because you can never know who is just moving the weight with joints, leverage and some muscle vs who is making the muscle move the weight.
so basically "increasingly volume over a micro/macro cycle, all other variables equal is one effective form of hypertrophy."
just proving what a lot of people already knew
Its simple as that: As much volume as necessary, as little as possible. The less volume, the more intense the workout must be, leading to muscle failure. The training should be structured so that the volume is regenerated in a way that allows for progressive overload.
Thats why different systems like HIT and volume training works🤷🏼♂️
True। i am training for years strength is gaining consistently but not size। after a year of injury i started from decreasing the vooume surprisingly the muscle growth is more and clearly visible
I've seen many videos but I'm always confused about the increasing weekly sets thing. If I increase set every week aren't I gonna add more volume? Also when would I knw when to stop? Sorry I might seem stupid but.. please tell me
yes, and or reduce intensity.. all these "studies" are bs to an extent...
If they trained other upper and lower body muscles it would be impossible for their bodies to handle such high volume and would get worst results....
Unless the subjects are separated by how long it takes them to recover from exercise, then your results will always be confusing. Some people can recover in 1 day, while others need 7 days.
While it's possible that there could be some sort of outlier factor that makes this study not applicable to most people or an issue with the methodology, the idea that humans respond to gradually increasing sets in our lower body isn't too surprising considering our genetic advantage over most animals is distance running. It also holds up when you look at the quads of resistance-for-distance athletes like cyclists.
I’m expecting elite content like always
💪 Thank you dude!
Individuals may vary in maximum recoverable volume / intensity, which will affect the benefits of increased volume. MRV could be affected by macronutrient and micronutrient levels, sleep, stress, and other factors. For myself, I get 2.2 g protein per kilo body weight minimum, often more, and it appears to increase my leanness and muscle mass as measured by looking in the mirror, perhaps due to increased protein synthesis and much reduced carb intake. Just my experience, not quite science.
37 weekly sets of 0-2 RIR ONLY for quads with compound exercises lmao. And people will think they need to do it for most of muscle groups to achieve best gains, however what they will achieve is overtraining.
30-40 sets a week per muscle doesnt sound unheard of, always did that much or more, and this has been doing great for me personaly.
Am I understanding that you’re doing in the rep range of 60-100 total on a muscle group each day?
Hell yeah, another new video.
💪 I appreciate your support as always dude!
The problem with this is, I don’t want to do so many sets, because that’s crazy. I’d rather do less sets and train to failure on the last set of the exercise and close to on the other. Also resting long enough is important.
I dont mark anything down or overthink it. My plan of attack is always to just push myself to my absolute limit in terms of getting to failure, but not to overdo it either. Really intense with not much rest between sets for 45 minutes, or longer rest for 1 hour, which i do for legs.
Cool story, bro. Then wtf are you doing here, "overthinking" it?
@@HypertrophyUniversity-km6ey It wasn't a story, 'bro'.
To share and learn as well.. since we spend our whole life learning. isn't that what people come to do in the comments? Share experiences? Sorry my comment made you upset, Mr. University.
8-12 sets for bigger muscles performed with proper intensity, and 6-10 sets for smaller muscles with proper intensity is enough for most people.
Your videos are amazing
We have to keep on mind that the error bars shown are confidence intervals, they are influenced by - but are not - the variance. And the confidence intervals all overlap. This means that this result is statistically perfectly compatible with the hypothesis of the increasing weekly sets NOT being better for overall gains.
The result is interesting and definitely a clue for future research, but the result is simply too weak to draw a conclusion from.
4:45 PLUGG N B MUSIC 🎶💪😅😅😅😅😅
Interesting but doesn't really matter for 99.999% of the people that workout.
Optimising to this degree is a waste of time less you are some chemically assisted paid athlete or fitness model / bodybuilder.
The benefits of weight training for health are not from working out like this.
People - your lifting sessions are fine if you are in the gym for 30 minutes - workout like a cross-training routine. Move from station to station for eight body parts (mostly using compound movements) and repeat your cycle to or three times.
The time wasted in the gym is by lifting methods and then the long resting times that are often used (2 minutes to 5 minutes for people really going heavy compound movements).
Spending 1 or 2 hours in the gym is insane. A set takes 20 seconds. The resting times, time that most people spend talking with their friends, or wasted working in a group of three people so you're waiting for your next set is even longer is why routines take so long.
A 20 second working cycle and 120 seconds of rest makes a set of 3 per exercise take 7 minutes. That is 24 sets per hour. Do you really need an hour or more in the gym?
My workouts aren't very long at all, I maybe do 16 working sets in a day at 6 days per week. Some people would call that a wusser routine but how many people can, without warming up, bang out 20+ pull-ups? I train those one to two times per week so not even making them a focus. I just happen to pass a kids playground on some of my cardio sessions. I'm also in my 50's.
I do rpe 10 with 6-10 reps for most heavy lifts and 10-15 for lighter lifts. If I can do the max rep, I add more weight.
I am always skeptical about the results in ANY study, because ACCURATELY measuring true muscular hypertrophy on trained individuals only after 12 weeks is IMPOSSIBLE, no matter the method used. Not hard. IMPOSSIBLE. But results can show a trend. That being said, in my opinion this study shows more that increasing sets is another form of progressive overload that will LIKELY result in more growth, rather than that ultra high volumes are effective. Now if they took this group, with these number (progressing from 22 weekly sets to over 50), and another that started with 8 up to 24 or so, and compared the results between the 2, then we would have a more "fair" answer regarding the number of sets. Another point. I don't care who you are. You are not doing 22-52 hard sets of quads per week without resulting in the hospital in the long term. I bet this study will get disputed soon by other studies. The same way that Schoenfelds volume research was disputed and proven to not be all that accurate.
This would work well if you take a serious deload for the next 4 weeks, still with volume that is conducive to muscle growth
I usually try to push as much volume as I can without doms. This also can explain how I exploded after getting back to the gym. Though it could be a bunch of things
What is your accent/where are you from? Love the videos!
Thank you dude, born in the UK :)
To a beginner like me, this looks insane!
Take this with a huge grain of salt
One massive issue with studies like these is that they are almost always untrained individuals. In relation to this study it could be said that smaller muscles can cope with more volume than larger muscles. So a trained individual of 10 years is not going to be able to cope with volume anywhere near that of somebody training for the first time taking part in a study. So as always I would take this study with a pinch of salt and scepticism, as that’s what any scientist would do, then if multiple studies suggest the same results then you can really start to draw up some conclusions.
It's hard enough to convince people they have time to workout without making them feel like if they don't spend hours in the gym, every day, there's no point... I'm also not so sure these studies would have reached the same conclusions with people working regular jobs, with families and commitments and since the science also shows we need a lot of sleep, it just becomes academic. Normal people, even amateur bodybuilders (not on drugs to help recovery) living their lives, can't workout like this.
I do like 8-10 sets of quads a week at most and I get stronger every week and legs are toast almost the entire week.
Do what works for you
Agreed. 4 sets of squats 6-8 reps 2 times a week and my legs are SHOT
Welp, I have grown one more cm to my arm(42cm now) and I do one set of curls in a week+1-2 sets of cable pulldowns. There is a huge difference between going to or almost to failure and going far beyond failure.
1 weekly set? Are you doing crazy drop sets and negatives?
Can’t believe I’m really subscribed to an ai channel but I appreciate whoever put these videos together
I could believe it lol.
My voice is just monotone haha - see some of my older videos and you may be able to recongize the slight progression in my voiceover (but I still have a long way to go)
The editing and research is also just me, seeing some of the older videos can also show how my editing has improved somewhat overtime (but also I still have a long way to go)
Nevertheless, thank you for checking out the videos and I hope they deliver some kind of value at the very least :)
@@HouseofHypertrophyso well spoken youre accused of being an AI
@@HouseofHypertrophy oh, well I appreciate you efforts and time that you put in for us even more brother shalom
@@alanh7247it sounds like you are mocking him
i do 1 set of decline bench 3x per week and get 275 for 5 or on my 12 rep 225 for 12. Incline 3 sets a week and i get 110 for 5 on dumbells or the 90 dumbells for 12 reps . I do not go to failure but I do incremental upping of weights.. I do whole body workout and am done in 40min,. Nattie 100% . I am also 52
It would have been more interesting to have a group with a fixed number of sets equal to the average number of sets of the group progressing their volume with time
Nothing gets anywhere clos3 to Mike Mentzer Training. Works out beautifully.
All you guys do is over training. Gyms are big bucks business,.not for your health.
I believe that it makes a lot of sense that as you progress in the gym, you need more volume for the same stimulus, and as you add more volume and reach the point where it is too much to recover from or fatigue is kicking in, you deload. I first got this idea watching a video from Layne Norton. There are some studies on trained subjects where people make no gains throughout the program, why? Because training volume relative to previous volume is more important than total volume.
That being said, it is also very possible that you benefit much more from higher volumes if your sets are of low quality, far from failure, and so on. So paradoxically, the pros might need less volume to make progress, but they will aim for higher volumes anyway because they are already so close to their genetic potential
I don´t see that there is the food-factor added to the studies...but with different nutrition, there are always different outcomes, of course...
The data literally showed half of people responded directly opposite of this training. Did I read that graph right? Good for those who this works for. You have to learn about your body, genetics and wisdom.
Very interesting, but pratically speaking, how could I integrate an increase in volume with a ppl where I already do +/-20 weekly sets for all my muscle groups ? My sessions already last between 1h30 and 2h with a good warm-up. I don't want to spend my life in the gym ^^'
If you're making good progress with what you're currently doing, I would just keep doing that :)
What all these studies miss is the total recovery for your whole body. You can push 50 sets for a muscle group (like quads) but you can't push that for your whole body; otherwise your muscles including quads won't recover. These studies get participants to focus on a single muscle group and report results. So, if you want to focus on a single muscle, you can push volume on that, but you have to maintain or even lower the number of sets for other muscles.
Youre already overdoing it a bit. Slow your eccentrics down and you'll see how to make every rep count, so you can bring overall volume down somewhat.
You’re most likely doing too much volume if you’re hitting around 20 sets. If you are hitting 20+ sets then you are most likely not pushing each set hard enough or your exercise selection is off.
Hi, I have recently seen a TedX talk from John Jaquish speaking about variable resistance training. I wonder what you might have to say about that since you do sour research veeeery well
Hey i have a question! :)
What do you think, if someone started gym already doing a good amount of weekly sets.. lets say twenty. Isnt he going to have the same benefits of someone reaching the same number of sets gradually?
Anyway, congrats i really appreciate your content and watched every single video of yours! I will keep supporting your channel
Thank you my friend, that's a great question. Unfortunately, the research isn't sufficient enough to answer that question yet! I think some studies in the coming months and years might answer this, and I'll have videos on that when they arrive :)
Good channel to fall asleep to however im done anyway
Could you do a video about endurance please? I and lots of others would like to know how to be able to do 100+pushups of anyworkout at all like Goggins 💪
I will consider this! :)
@@HouseofHypertrophy 🙏