 Less Is MoreWhen considering total training volume and frequency, there is always one rule that will universally hold true; less is more. This is not just something that I tell the girls in my life, it is a rule that I adhere to strictly with the training of all of my athletes. It is always better to err on the side of doing too little than doing too much. Before you start conjuring up images of Mike Mentzer and think I am recommending that you do one extended drop set, once a month, let me explain how I came to follow this rule as gospel. Growing up I was always the skinniest, weakest kid in school. When I started training I did the usual high volume bodybuilding stuff that everyone else did. Long story short, I never started making progress until I cut my volume and frequency to nearly a quarter of what it was. Throughout the years I would stray from the path from time to time and during those periods my progress would usually come to a screeching halt. As soon as I returned to a lower volume and frequency approach my results would sky rocket again. Of course I have the worst genetics in the world and you could argue that that is the only reason why this approach works for me. Anyone with better genetics could surely handle high volume training, you could argue. This is true, they could...for certain time periods. But the question is, is it really necessary and will it bring about better results? Fortunately I have had the opportunity to test this theory on nearly 500 athletes over the last ten year s so I am pretty confident in my conclusions. With most beginners I set up a basic three day a week, full body template with the focus being on a few big, basic exercises. The total set volume usually ranges from 18-25 per workout. Below is a sample beginner routine I use with most young kids: Note: This is their first weight training program which comes after a few months or even a year or so of bodyweight only training and basic beginner drills. Setting up this kind of training is beyond the scope of this article and is an article in itself. For our purposes here we will skip that and take a sample program of a freshman in high school that is looking to get big and strong and has already gone through the prerequisite bodyweight only training. Monday 1) Trap Bar Deadlift Sets: 4 Reps: 6 Rest: 120 2A) Bench Press Sets: 4 Reps: 6 Rest: 60 2B) Chin Up Sets: 4 Reps: 6 Rest: 60 3) Swiss Ball Crunch Sets: 2 Reps: 10 Rest: 90 Wednesday 1) Squat Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 120 2A) 1 Arm DB Row Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 60 2B) Incline DB Press Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 60 3A) Side Flexion on Swiss Ball Sets: 2 Reps: 15 Rest: 60 3B) 1 Arm DB Shrug Sets: 2 Reps: 15 Rest: 90 Friday 1A) DB Step Up Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 1B) Chain Suspended Pushup Sets: 2 Reps: amap (as many as possible) Rest: 90 2A) Back Extension or 45* Back Extension or Reverse Hyper Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 2B) Hanging Body Row aka Fat Man Pullup Sets: 3 Reps: amap Rest: 90 3A) Cable Woodchopper Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 3B) Decline Sit Up Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 4) Barbell Curl Sets: 2 Reps 15 Rest: 90 You will notice that this workout is a far cry from some of the typical bodybuilding crap that most kids do. The volume is nowhere near what many high school kids do and training three days a week is very unusual for the avid high school lifter. The major difference, however, is the results this system will yield. This type of template works extremely well with beginners and never fails to pack on incredible amounts of size and strength. After one to two years on this type of system I typically begin to split the workouts into upper/lower splits and introduce a fourth day to the training week. During these workouts the total set volume comes up a little and usually works out to be 12-18 sets per workout. One of the biggest keys to my success, I feel, has been the use of the delayed transformation effect and the implementation of planned deload weeks. There is nothing new or revolutionary about how I do this as it has been done for years and written about several times by many different people. The information that I used to come up with this system is readily available to anyone who wants it yet so many people do not choose to use it for some reason. It is well known that the body works best in three week cycles. It is also known that is difficult to make continued progress on the same program for much longer than three weeks. To take advantage of this fact I have my athletes train at a high volume (20-28 sets) for three weeks straight. During these three weeks the intensity increases steadily. On the fourth week we have a deload week where we cut the total set volume by 50%. The following week the athletes will come back refreshed and stronger. This is the realization of the delayed transformation effect. With more inexperienced athletes I tend to cycle max effort work in four week waves where they will usually start the first week with sets of four to five reps and over the course of the next month steadily decrease the reps and finally hit a one rep max on the final week. A sample of this is provided below: Incline Bench Press Sets: 5,6,4,1 Reps: 4,3,2,1RM Rest: 120 Note: Each number represents a week of training so you would do five sets of four on week one, six sets of three on week two, etc. There are several ways in which I cycle max effort work at this level, this is just one example. Eventually when this four week wave starts to provide less than optimal results, I switch them over to a three week max effort wave which would look something like this: Safety Bar Box Squat Sets: 3,5,1 Reps: 5@80-85%, 3@85-90%, 1RM Rest: 180 Or Trap Bar Deadlift Sets: 1,1,1 Reps: 5RM, 3RM, 1RM Rest:180 The fourth week would still be a deload week in which there would be no max effort work and instead the athlete would just do assistance work at a reduced set volume. There are better and more scientific or even more instinctive ways to monitor training volume but the problem is when you are dealing with overly eager high school or college athletes they will always be raring to go balls to the wall every day of the week. Each day when a high school or college athlete arrives at my gym, I ask them how they are feeling that day. The response is almost always the same, "Great!" Unfortunately, at thirty years old, I am eight years past my prime and rather beat up so I can't remember the last time I felt "great!" Actually that's a lie, after an hour or so of drinking on a Saturday night I pretty much feel invincible but that's a whole other story for me and my shrink to discuss. So, while monitoring training volume based upon feel on a daily basis is really the optimal method, it is not always practical considering the population you may be working with. That is why I choose the planned deload weeks. You also have to take into account that most athletes are not seasoned lifters who know how to listen to their bodies on a daily basis. They only know that they have to keep pushing themselves harder and harder and that turning it down seems like giving up. This is just the nature of the beast; completive, successful athletes are born with that attitude and it is hard to convince them sometimes that less is more. After years of training a given athlete, one of the changes I will often make is to reduce his high to low volume ratio from three to one to two to one. While he used to train at a high volume for three weeks followed by a one week unloading period, the stronger and more neurologically efficient he becomes, the less high volume training he will be able to tolerate. When a situation like this arises and I see that progress is starting to slow down I will begin to switch the athlete over to two weeks of high volume followed by a one week deload. This method works extremely well with the more advanced athlete. There are endless ways to manipulate volume of both max effort and assistance work but explaining every way I do this would turn this article into a book. Hopefully the examples above have provided some useful information for you to work with. As much as we may try to plan the optimal cycling of training volume, there is no way to account for the daily stresses of life. Emotional stress is far more difficult to recover from than physical stress and has to be taken into account when planning training volume. During exams, job interview weeks, breakups or any other stressful times in life it is always necessary to lower your training volume. Even though the stress is not physical it will wreak havoc on your ability to recover from a normal training sessions and must be considered. In an ideal world, with an experienced lifter, training volume is something that you don't really even have to think about and should monitor itself. Some days you feel great, well... good at least, and will want to push it. Do those extra sets of dumbbell presses and curls if you want. Other days you will feel like death and only manage to get through six to ten sets before calling it a day. This is known as cybernetic periodization and is an advanced method to be used by those with years of experience. It is the optimal way to monitor training volume. There is no fancy scientific formula to follow here; it's all based on feel. Once you get to this level and know when to back off, when to turn it up, when to skip workouts, and when to take weeks off; you will truly have mastered the art of training. No matter if you are an absolute beginner or an experienced veteran with twenty plus years of training experience under your belt, the rule of less is more will always hold true. Recently this has been proven to me on a routine basis through the results of some of my friends who train with me at my gym. This is a group of guys who range in age from late twenties to early forties. They all work full time jobs and many have families. I had all of them training four days per week for a while but decided to cut them back to three days. Instantly their rates of progress went through the roof. Coincidentally, all of them just happened to be getting busier and busier in their professional and personal lives and began to miss workouts. Twelve workouts per month had been reduced to an average of nine to ten. You know what happened? They got stronger! This is not just one guy either; this is true across the board for seven of my close friends. Two of them work together and were both promoted to new positions and basically put in charge of running the company they work for. They trained once a week for a month straight and still came in at the end of the month and set new PR's on the bench press! With all of the newfound stress that they were under that was probably the optimal training volume for them at the time and all they could handle. Dave Tate explained to me, earlier this year, how he now only trains three days per week and is making better progress than ever. I have recently started to spread my usual four day Westside style split out across 8-10 days instead of the usual seven and my progress has been better than ever even though I am in the height of my busy season training athletes twelve hours per day. I did this due to necessity because it is difficult for me to find any time at all to train during the summer, so I just get a workout in whenever I can. I have many clients doing this split as well and their progress has improved since we implemented this method. As you get stronger, you will always have to reduce your total training volume. These are results that you can't argue with. I have seen it time and time again over the last ten years in my gym with close to 500 athletes and I have heard the sentiments echoed by my friends Dave Tate, Jim Wendler and many of the strongest lifters in the world. The verdict is in and the gavel has been put down on this issue... less is ALWAYS more. Jason Ferruggia Performance Enhancement Specialist |
