We’re fortunate to live in an era where folks like Dr Brad Schoenfeld and other researchers are consistently working on practical research to answer specific questions that lifters want to know. We’re also fortunate that folks like Greg Nuckols and James Krieger are doing analyses outside of the peer reviewed research to keep the community on the cutting edge of data-informed training.
In the last couple years, there has been a veritable renaissance of publications designed to assess what are the appropriate ranges for big-picture training variables like volume, intensity and frequency, for the purpose of maximizing hypertrophy and strength. In this article I’m going to take the findings as they relate specifically to hypertrophy, and help you create training programs that utilise this information. First, let me summarise the most important findings in recent years:
- Higher volumes are generally associated with greater hypertrophy [1], with the caveat that doing excessively high volumes can actually slow your rate of gains [2, 3].
- What “excessive” is, is likely related to your training age, i.e. the closer you are to your muscular ceiling, the more you must do to keep advancing. This is shown when contrasting recent studies on German Volume Training [2, 3], in which novice lifters doing fewer sets gained more muscle mass than those doing more, with the dose-response relationship of volume and hypertrophy among well trained subjects shown in a soon-to-be published study by Schoenfeld and Krieger (to see how this new study impacts the relationship between volume and hypertrophy, become a Weightology subscriber and you can get access to James’ in house meta-analysis).
- Higher volumes may also be useful for those who are poor responders to resistance training. In a recent article by Brad Schoenfeld in the Strength and Conditioning Journal, Brad speculates that much like is the case with endurance training and the effect on VO2 Max, higher volumes of resistance training can help poor responders get a “normal” hypertrophy response to training [4]. Additionally, James Krieger has hinted that their unpublished data suggests this to be the case as well. Also, he speculates that a practical solution to reaching the requisite high volumes needed to see progress in advanced lifters and poor responders, is muscle group specialization cycles (more on this in a bit).
- Intensity of effort (proximity to failure) is more important than intensity of load (percentage of 1RM). Unless you are working with less than ~30% of 1RM [5]- which is simply too light to effectively induce hypertrophy, even training to failure – or if you are working with loads heavier than ~5RM [6]- which prevents a set from lasting long enough for it to maximally stimulate hypertrophy – a decent proxy for ”hypertrophy inducing volume” is the number of “hard sets” (6 RPE+) completed. Thus, you can likely count the number of working sets in the 6-20 rep range to quantify volume as a bodybuilder (not that lighter and heavier sets do nothing, rather they just do less in a set to set comparison).
- We have pretty solid data showing that muscle group training frequencies of 2-3x/week provide superior hypertrophy when compared to volume-matched frequencies of 1x/week [7]. Additionally, there may be a dose response relationship between frequency and hypertrophy, even when volume matched, going above 2-3x/week (check out Greg’s in house meta).
- With that said, frequency is largely useful because it allows session quality to be maintained when performing higher volume training by preventing marathon sessions.
- When considering high volume, high frequency training, exercise selection becomes critical such that movements that cause any soft tissue or joint stress are not candidates for increased frequency and/or volume.
- All in all, performing 10+ sets working sets in the 6-20 rep range, per week, per muscle group, and training each muscle group at least twice per week is a good starting point. If you plateau for an extended period (can’t increase load or reps at the same load) while following these guidelines, and form, nutrition, sleep and recovery are all optimized, it may mean that to keep progressing volume needs to be increased. Based on the data, I suggest a decent top end recommendation is 20-30 sets per muscle group.
So, let’s say you are plateaued, and you’ve ensured your technical proficiency with your movements is in place, you aren’t chronically training at too low of an RPE (consistently more than 4-5 reps from failure on average), you also aren’t chronically training to failure (average RPE chronically around 9-10+), you are getting 8+ hours of sleep per night, you are eating at least 0.7g/lbs of protein per day, and you are in a slight surplus (100-300kcals), it might then be worth attempting a volume increase. How do you do that? Trust me, in my years as a coach and an athlete, doing 30 sets per muscle group per week using primarily compound movements and pushing moderate to high RPEs is a recipe for burnout or an injury for most people. Thus, you need to be savvy and tactical rather than hardcore and stubborn to do so in a safe and effective manner. This where like James suggested, body part specialization comes into play.
In Part 2 next month I’ll actually outline what these cycles look like! Stay tuned!
[Update: here is part 2!]
References
- Schoenfeld, B.J., D. Ogborn, and J.W. Krieger, Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis.J Sports Sci, 2017. 35(11): p. 1073-1082.
- Amirthalingam, T., et al., Effects of a Modified German Volume Training Program on Muscular Hypertrophy and Strength.J Strength Cond Res, 2017. 31(11): p. 3109-3119.
- Hackett, D., et al., Effects of a 12-Week Modified German Volume Training Program on Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy—A Pilot Study.Sports, 2018. 6(1): p. 7.
- Schoenfeld, B. and J. Grgic, Evidence-Based Guidelines for Resistance Training Volume to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy.Strength & Conditioning Journal, 2018. 40(4): p. 107-112.
- Lasevicius, T., et al., Effects of different intensities of resistance training with equated volume load on muscle strength and hypertrophy.Eur J Sport Sci, 2018. 18(6): p. 772-780.
- Schoenfeld, B.J., et al., Differential Effects of Heavy Versus Moderate Loads on Measures of Strength and Hypertrophy in Resistance-Trained Men.J Sports Sci Med, 2016. 15(4): p. 715-722.
- Schoenfeld, B.J., D. Ogborn, and J.W. Krieger, Effects of Resistance Training Frequency on Measures of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Sports Med, 2016. 46(11): p. 1689-1697.
Really interesting topic! Can’t wait till the part 2.
Thanks Eric. Looking forward to part two. I have been experimenting with volume due to the recent research showing its effect on hypertrophy. Using an upper lower split 2 times a week. One upper / lower split focusing on 6 to 8 reps. The second split on sets of 12 reps.
In the past I would do the same amount of sets in the 6 to 8 rep range. So as an example 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps. Once I could get 3 sets of 8 I would increase the weight and start the process over.
In my new approach instead of trying to increase the reps which is a small volume increase per week I am trying the following. Week 1 – 3 sets of 6, Week 2 – 4 sets of 6, Week 3 – 5 sets of 6, Week 4 – deload 2 sets of 6. The weight stays the same for weeks one to three. Maybe a slight decrease in weight for the deload. At this point I would increase the weight and start the cycle over.
Is cycling the volume like this a good idea or do you think keeping the number of sets consistent to be a better strategy?
Thanks,
Dean
Glad you enjoyed Dean! Simple answer, definitely a reasonable approach. I have played with this approach recently and I think it’s effective. With the previous approach you’d get 11 sets over a period of 4 weeks (including deload) in the present you get 14, which is a reasonable increase that shouldn’t blow you out that also allows higher volume while still cycling out fatigue with the deload and lower set weeks, so I think it’s a good system. Just need to try it out and see how it goes!
Thanks for replying Eric, looks like I have found a viable approach. So far so good on trying this new way. I have completed week three and will start my deload on Monday. I may tweak things a bit more once I read part two of your post. I have increased the number of sets for all exercises on my 4 day upper/lower training split. The biggest difference in addition to the added volume is I find myself focusing on the quality of each set rather then adding additional reps or weight and potentially pushing to hard and using bad form and getting injured.
Well that is absolutely a good thing (quality over quantity)! Part 2 might give you some more ideas if you find you plateau in growth or that the cumulative volume on all body parts simultaneously in weeks 2-3 in your setup becomes problematic 🙂
Excited for Part 2!
Thank you for the insightful article. I have a question related to spreading the volume across the week purely for muscle hypertrophy. I understand that different muscle groups would recover at different rate and therefore theoretically some muscles could be hit 3-5 times per week. E.g. delts, biceps.
What I am struggling to find information on is the minimum volume (defined as number of working sets) per training session per muscle group for an adequate/effective response of muscle hypertrophy.
For example, say one has determined their required volume for the week for a muscle group to be 10 sets, what is more optimal (and by how much):
Workout 1 – 4 sets, Rest, Workout 2 – 4 sets, Rest, Work out 3 – 2 sets.
Versus
Workout 1 – 5 sets, Rest, Workout 2 – 4 sets, Rest, Work out 3 – 1 set
Essentially what I am trying to understand is if 1 working set for a muscle group in 1 session is suboptimal (for muscle hypertrophy), even if we reach the total volume goal for that week. I’d imagine the answer would be dependent on the muscle group.
Thanks,
Dominic
Dominic, I see no reason why there would be a minimal volume threshold per session. It has more to do with an adequate amount of progressive tension overload over time. No one would be able to state with surety that either of those scenarios you put forth would be better or by how much. These data I’ve posted are just to help you get an idea of the broad strokes, how you set it up can be done in many ways, all equally valid, and that no one can say for sure is better than any other way.
Great stuff Eric. Curious when you say “performing 10+ working sets in the 6-20 rep range”, is that just compound exercises? Or if not, how would you typically divide that volume between compound & isolation assuming hypertrophy is the goal?
No it is both, we don’t quite have the ability to assess how much a set contributes to a given muscle group, so we currently just count both compound and isos as a 1:1. So for example, bench press would count as a set towards triceps, chest and front delts. While a tricep pushdown counts towards triceps. Is that actually a fair comparison for stress on the triceps? Probably not, but hard to quantify.
Eric – I have enjoyed following you for a while, learned lots from videos. Much appreciated for the dedication and weight lifting knowledge. Am older 50, we loved to hear your perspective in regards to the confusion of adequate reps per exercise. BTW! I recently completed The Max Muscle Plan and results were good except for my arms. Now am thinking starting a Specialization program for arms. It’s a total of 75 set for 1st week for biceps and triceps and alternating on week 2 just 50 sets and you would continue same pattern for 6 weeks. Basically a deload every other week. Your thoughts please, loved this article.
Polo so pleased to hear you enjoyed it! As far as your question, unless you mean 50-75 reps, and that was a typo, I definitely would not be doing that. 50-75 sets is an astronomical amount of volume if we’re talking hard working sets, and more likely to net you tendinitis in your elbows than anything else. 10-20 sets per muscle group in a “balanced” program is where most people should start. Advanced bodybuilders often find 15-25 is more the range they end up needing (but not everyone) and for a specialisation cycle I wouldn’t go much higher than the top end of that, say 25-35 sets while lowering volume on other body parts.
Posted this on mobile reddit:
Couple questions:
Point 4: Is there a reprange that corresponds to something like 30-50% 1RM?
Point 5 and 7: Are compound exercises more likely to cause soft tissue/joint stress with high frequency/high volume than isolation exercises?
If so, are there any isolation exercises you shouldn’t train with high frequency/high volume?
Yes but reps allowed at a given % becomes more and more individually variable the further you get from 100% and it varies exercise by exercise. That said probably somewhere between 20-40.
RE compounds, not necessarily. Knee pain on leg extensions, and tendinopathy from arm work are pretty damn common. Again, this also is very individual related to prior injury history, variations in training load related to what you are adapted to, and more importantly I didn’t make recommendations in this article regarding volume and frequency, just rest periods and how to use rest-pause/drop sets, which don’t require a specific volume or frequency.
Thank you for responding.
You do make recommendations for volume and frequency however I don’t see anything about rest periods and rest-pause/drop sets.
If rest-pause/drop sets don’t require any specific volume/frequency then it’s basically what you can recover from and progress on without stalling for extended periods yes?
Another question, is it worth it to try to increase volume and/or frequency when trying to lose weight or will it more likely lead to overtraining/recovery problems?
Stefan, my bad, I have been getting a bunch of questions on my rest periods article that was just published, and I got an email notification about this comment, and I responded before I realized that this question wasn’t on that article lol. Apologies. And I meant they don’t require a specific volume/frequency to be done, like you can do 1 or 100 per week, you can ignore that part of my response as I was thinking you were asking about the other article.
As to your last question, there isn’t a fixed answer to this. What if someone who is new to training is trying to lose weight and they only train 30 minutes in a single session per week? What if they were overtraining before they ever even started their diet?
Thanks again. We all make mistakes sometimes 🙂
So I guess one has to just experiment with volume/frequency and see what works.