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Many times I get emails from clients asking me if I were to choose one way of training which way would I choose?  To answer this question I always answer with “It depends.”  It depends on the clients current training program, tolerance to exercise, commitment level, nutritional status, recovery status, and many many other factors.  For me in my training though I love High Volume work most of the time.  By high volume I mean at least 8-15 working sets per muscle group.  Rep ranges from 8-50.  In a perfect situation I would start with a core movement per muscle group for 3-5 sets of 6-10 reps.  After the core movement I would probably turn up the volume with higher reps and limited rest intervals.  I would train each muscle group as often as I could while allowing for complete recovery (probably allowing 5-8 days of recovery per muscle group hit with 2 or 3 days off per week).

Ok, there you have some basics of how I would train.  Let move on to the why I would train this way.  First off, each muscle group has literally millions of muscle fibers per motor unit.  I don’t believe there is any way you could possibly hit all those available muscle fibers with low volume.  Yes, its true each set is probably training the same fibers as the set before,but it would make sense to me that additional sets could possibly call upon some additional fibers.  I also believe that those trained muscle fibers should be totally fatigued and trained to high levels to cause enough trauma to elicit an adaptive response (change in muscle mass).  I don’t see how doing just 1 or 2 sets can possibly totally fatigue available muscle fibers enough to cause a response over the long haul.  1 or 2 sets would probably stimulate some muscle fibers but not totally fatigue.  I do see value in low volume training just not every workout for months on end.  This situation is especially present in an advanced athlete where diversity is even more important.  Additionally there is some research to suggest that higher volume exercise causes a stimulation of growth hormone in the body which is powerful in building muscle and losing body fat.

Why such a`variety of rep ranges?  Well, again lets look at available muscle fibers within a muscle group.  All muscle groups have a variety of muscle fiber types.  For the sake of this entry lets just talk about fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers.  Actually, science is showing us there may possible be 6 different fiber types, but for simplicity lets just talk about 2 types.  Fast twitch fibers tend to be recruited by powerful muscular contractions for a short period of time (rep ranges of 4-8ish maybe), and slower twitch muscle fibers are recruited and trained when the time under load or work is longer than fast twitch muscle fibers (maybe 8-50 reps).   I can’t stress that this is all somewhat hypothetical as no one knows for sure, but when you look at the science it sure makes sense.  So to train a whole lot of the available muscle fibers you can see why it is vital to train in all rep ranges.  Stressing lower reps,heavy loads, fast twitch training first as those muscle fibers change the most through strength work.  Then moving to higher repetition, short rest interval to hopefully recruit many unstimulated fibers.

There are many more reasons I love High Volume strength training.  I could write a whole dissertation on the topic and get much more in depth than most of you care to know.  Bottom line, I believe for most folks, most of the time, you will get much better results from performing a lot of work per muscle group.  Following that high volume work by adequate days of recovery.  Clear as mud right:)

Have a Great Day and Stay Strong,

Michael