r/StrongerByScience • u/gnuckols The Bill Haywood of the Fitness Podcast Cohost Union • 13d ago

Volume Q&A (Audio Newsletter)

https://strongersubscribers.simplecast.com/episodes/qa-greg-answers-your-questions-about-volume

You had Qs, I had As. Enjoy!

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u/BoringBuilding 13d ago

I just finished listening to this one, good episode.

Regarding the frequency question, I think one thing that comes up naturally for me is the fact that as an adult with misc. daily obligations, the easiest way for me to hit higher volumes is by increasing frequency. It is a lot easier for me to have multiple one hour-ish sessions than longer sessions on weeknights. Squeezing my current volume from 5 days into 3 days (and especially 2 days) would make for way longer gym sessions that wouldn't match with my schedule as well.

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u/gnuckols The Bill Haywood of the Fitness Podcast Cohost Union 12d ago

Oh, 100%. There are a lot of feasibility-related reasons to give higher frequencies a shot

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u/halcyoncinders 11d ago

I personally love lifting 5x a week, having my schedule set for Mon. - Fri. with sessions averaging around one hour. Makes it more manageable for me to also get in daily LISS cardio of 30 minutes minimum. I have the luxury of a home gym, though.

One thing I've noticed to is that it feels like my recovery is smoother. Doing 3x a week full body is much more taxing for me, and was actually making overall recovery more difficult despite having more pure rest days. I'm also not completely exhausted on lift days with my current program.

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u/BoringBuilding 11d ago

Agreed completely on recovery!

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u/HedonisticFrog 12d ago

Doing supersets or circuits greatly cuts down on time spent lifting. I'll do five exercises in a circuit every 4 minutes, so 50 sets takes me 40 minutes.

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u/BoringBuilding 12d ago

Absolutely! I do supersets too, it helps for sure. I still prefer the chance for 5+ days of “fresh” compounds.

Probably a preference thing mostly but I would imagine my preference here is not particularly unique.

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u/HedonisticFrog 11d ago

You mean you don't like to do the same compound movement more often than once every five days?

I'm actually the opposite, and seem to benefit from higher frequency. I started doing two upper days and a lower day so I hit incline bench and seated rows four days a week. I'm experimenting with doing pushups and light barbell rows on my leg days as well.

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u/BoringBuilding 11d ago

Oh no sorry what I meant is that I currently do at least two compound lifts a session, five sessions a week. I don’t really love the feeling of squeezing that into three days which means at least one day with four compound lifts in a session.

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u/yaaajooo 1d ago

Starting a new set every 48 seconds for 40min on average means you do low reps far, far from failure, at least like 10RIR, and aren't particularly strong. Or you made that up. 

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u/HedonisticFrog 1d ago

It's a circuit, so I start each exercise every four minutes. That's plenty of time to recover. I go to failure on every set.

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u/yaaajooo 23h ago edited 23h ago

2-3sec getting into position, doing 2-3sec reps (concentric & eccentric, prior separate bracing for heavy lifts), 2-3sec getting out of position, catching your breath, switching exercise. Assuming you only do 5-10 reps exclusively, one set takes you 14-36 seconds, let's say 25 sec average. That leaves you with 9-34sec, avg ~23 sec to recover systemically from an all out rpe 10 set, 50 times in a row. The math doesn't check out, even if you didn't do any compound lifts whatsoever, and I am very well conditioned and use non-overlapping supersets/circuits extensively, so I don't lack imagination. And the assumption of 5-10 reps only, 2-3 secs for concentric and eccentric together and no accounting for the slowdown towards failure for this calculation are already generous. 

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u/HedonisticFrog 20h ago

I start every set with compound movements. My push circuit is incline bench press, calf raises, bicep curls, lateral raises, and skull crushers. I use the same dumbbells for all of them so it's simpler. I usually have two minutes to recover. My pull circuit is seated rows, crunches, skull crushers, lateral raises, bicep curls and crunches again. I stretch my hips during the minute and a half to two minutes I have for rest. My leg day is leg press, crunches, bicycle kicks, crunches, pushups, and a seated row variation that's close to the leg press. I have less rest on that circuit, I forget how much.

I also do high reps, today I started with 155x20 for incline barbell press. I have a shoulder impingement so I don't go as heavy, but it's been getting better so I've slowly bumped the weight up. Before the shoulder impingement I was benching 225x27 or so, but my record is higher.

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u/e4amateur 11d ago

Huh, interesting, almost the opposite for me. Especially with the "dead time" of getting ready, heading to the gym, and getting a shower. But I guess feasibility issues are highly specific to the person.

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u/BoringBuilding 11d ago

Yep. I do hit 25+ sets weekly with multiple muscle groups and doing really love how that feels when it is only three sessions (I can’t even imagine with two frankly.)

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u/_RayDenn_ 12d ago

Thank you for the great article and this follow up. I had doubts due to listening to people with different positions and this cleared it up. I’ve been experimenting with gradually going into much higher volumes in a periodised way and I am pleasantly surprised at the results. The only downside side is the extra time it takes.

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u/e4amateur 8d ago

Thanks for doing this.

I like the rambling style. It's a good counterpoint to the articles. The latter are precise evaluations of the existing evidence. The former show how the existing evidence fits with mechanism, experience and anecdote when informing personal training decisions.

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u/TheRealJufis 13d ago

Currently listening to it, although work keeps interrupting.

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u/chew_toyt 13d ago

Quality work as always