As a trainer in New York City in the late 80's there was a peer reviewed journal called The Physician and Sportsmedicine (now defunct). It was basically required reading for all the trainers. I specifically remember a meta analysis stating that 80% of the results obtained from resistance training were acquired during one set of an exercise. It didn't mention how that set was performed though. Not sure if it was taken to failure or not. Anyway at 62 years old, I've been training now for 46 years. I've tried it all. Personally my best results were always from brief high intensity training. If training required 4-6 sets per exercise and being in the gym 5-6 days a week for up to 2 hours per training session, to see any meaningful results, I would have abandoned training long ago. To each his own though. I know some people who can't get enough of being in the gym. I have too many other commitments to justify that amount of training time. It's simple physiology, increase your intensity and you can decrease your training time. If that's not your cup of tea, than decrease your intensity and add more volume. Just my 2 cents.
I started implementing High intensity training principle for maximising muscle growth. The best part is i don't have to train as often and my training time is half of what it was prior. Now i just train once per week and just train for MMA for the rest of the week. The High intensity training preached by Arthur Jones and Mike mentzer just sounds more logical. I call this the productive way of bodybuilding.
I know I see them in the gym. Every 8 to 10 days. Its more like a social gathering. Cell phones out. 3 to 5 minutes between sets. And they look the same as they did 5 years ago. The only ones who look buff are the gifted guys on gear. And then those same people will be the ones attacking anyone who does hit. Someone asked me why I only come to the gym once in while. Some time ago. And I said because I want to grow. I know he didn't really understand. The more is better cant leave some people. It never will..
The studies showing an increase in strength with more sets are likely due to improved practice and skill, not necessarily increased muscular strength. So, even that’s a bust! 😂
I've come to think about it like this - your body is an adaptation machine. It adapts when it gets signals that it needs to. An extremely hard set that pushes the muscle to failure is sending the body the signal that it's time to adapt and get bigger. It's that simple. What's much more important is looking at how well you rest and your diet. That's going to be the key to really determine your long term success.
The excess protein synthesis was for repair, not growth. That is what Mentzer called "inroads" to growth. More sets create more damage which must first be repaired before any growth can be realized.
This was what made perfect sense to me at 22, I never gained a pound with training three days a week. In 6 months I gained 15lbs. Started lifting again and gained 5 lbs during the last 40 days. Don’t know why I stopped.
I grew like never before in my life doing 3 exercises. 1 light warm up set for each exercise. And 1 working set to failure. And I kept being able to add reps and weight for 12 weeks in a row. Then it stopped. And as I remember Mentzer saying in his magnum opus. As you get stronger. The stress on the body is increasing. And man was he right. Instead of resting 6 to 7 days between workouts. I started resting 8 to 10 days. And the plateau was again broken. And this amazed me. Thats when I realized why I could not progress when I trained 3 times a week. I was not allowing recovery. As mike said. No adaptive response takes place until the recovery process is complete. Thats why all those people who train 3 to 6 times a week. Dont realize many of them are cheating themselves out of awesome forward movement. Because before their bodies can even grow. They are tearing the muscles down again.
I’ve been training 3-5 days per week with 3-6 sets per muscle per workout and have been making progress just fine every week for the last 8 months straight
@@yaboiij6694 That's incredible. I'm 60 in July. So need that extra recovery time. But it pays off. My chest is closing on 48 inches and arms on 17 at 5 8". Very happy.
@@fender1000100 that’s great and I’m not trying to say you need to change your routine or anything like that. It’s possible that I’m experiencing better recovery since I’m still pretty young. I’m not sure how much age affects that sort of thing
@@yaboiij6694 Trust me you will find out with the passage of time. When I was 30 I thought I was superman. We all do. Most of my peers can't even train anymore. You know why? They have shot joints from years of ego lifting and serious volume overuse. I don't have an injury in my body. But I realize I truly need 8 to 10 days to recover. I let my body speak to me. When Im ready. I feel full buff. And im rearing to go. And thats always around 8 days after the previous workout. I've had guys in the gym asking me how I got my arms. I said how often do you see me in here? They say not often. That's how I got them I said. I reference Jay Vincent and Mike Mentzer. And say while I'm at home growing you are tearing your muscles down again before they have fully recovered and grown that tiny bit bigger and stronger.. The few that have listened to me are growing and loving it. But they are constantly fighting this more is better thinking. Its been the problem for DECADES. or there would be MILLIONS of buff guys walking around like Jay and me and others who follow this way. Not thousands and most of them that are buff who do inferior volume are on gear.
I've been recommending most people do 2 sets with an optional 3rd set in case they felt something went wrong in the set so they stopped early, and/or if they think they didn't actually reach failure. 1 set can work, but I don't think most people actually achieve failure, especially without a coach. So my baseline is 2 sets with an optional 3rd set if needed.
Great points man as usual. It took me aging over 50 to finally understand fully that exercise is a negative/injurious event, which you do on purpose to stimulate a small positive adaption over time. Exercise as little as possible with as much effort as possible done infrequently as possible. The resilience of youth fools most of us into buying into the popular nonsense.
Even back when I was an endurance athlete, I always tried to find the lowest volume of training that would still produce an increase in performance. All the high volume guys that tried to see what was the most training they could handle before they imploded were always getting sick and injured. Less is more. Quality over quantity.
I've been doing HIT for a year now and I've seen tremendous results and I've healed all my injuries from jiu-jitsu. I have the genetics of Tyson Fury so I'll probably never look like mentzer but I feel great and I'm injury free 👍
Did volume training for around 6 months , 5days a week, 2hours a day & got nothing, really no muscle tissue, then learnt about HIT & started gaining fast, currently not working out for a couple of months cuz i am not in my hometown bit will start in a month once i reach there
@@aliendroneservices6621 gotcha, but currently out of station for exams & i don't have some basic equipments as well & the food here is really nasty with almost no nutritional content, Therefore, planning to go home & train there for optimum growth stimulus
The closer to failure you train, the less volume you need. Where it doesn’t work is where people don’t train near failure and train high volume and get no where. If Jay’s content teaches you anything it’s the importance of intensity
I don’t care about optimal. I don’t want to be a body builder. I want the most time efficient method. That is HIT for me. It works and only takes 30 minutes twice a week. But ok, these 30 minutes are hard as hell. You got to go in the burn, through the burn and into the pain. Guess it’s not for everybody. If you don’t want to suffer, maybe volume is your way to go.
Imo most people can't take their body to that place of pain, to push the body to there furthermost limits. To dig deep within and push till you cannot physically push nomore. It takes unique mental fortitude that most people just dont have instilled in them.
Depends on the movement and the intensity. If I'm going to failure and beyond, one set typically for the exercise. If just to failure maybe two sets. If it's something like Calves or Abs where I do lne movement and they can tolerate the volume, maybe three sets.
I think i have found the sweet spot with high intensity training. I just do a full body workout once per week(1 set per exercise, 6 exercises to failure) on Saturday, then train for MMA , monday to friday. I feel amazing, I'm making visible gains and enjoying MMA. It just feels amazing.
My training has changed so much since following Jay. I actually look forward to training now instead of it being a chore. The only thing im not sure of is when i am fully rested and recovered, i do full body every 5-6 days.
Jay is the truth. In 28 days on his program, by changing my workout program to his, lost 4Ibs of fat and gained 1Ib of muscle, according to my DEXA scan. 243 Ibs down to 240. I even added healthy carbs back into my diet and went out drinking one night.
I am a 59 year old hardgainer, with a long sports background. I train for strength and hypertrophy twice a week, 45 minutes. Full body. But I also walk several miles every day and do HIIT bike sprints twice a week. Diet is about 70 carnivore and a bump up in carbs pre workout. Going well.
Hey jay, I do exactly blood and guts but i do miss out some exercises. The miss exercises are For chest biceps day i cant do nautilus bicep curl because my gym dont have that equipment instead i do dumbbell Preacher curl For legs i cant do single hamstring curl and standing calf raise no equipment as well For shoulder triceps do exactly the same except substitute Smith machine shoulder press for machine shoulder press For back i dont do deadlift I do exactly the same number of warm up sets and forced reps and negatives as i have a training partner I train my each body part 5 times each month which means i am hitting every muscle group every 6 days of the month I started training February 2024 and for first month i did full body and tried to learn the exercises I am 2 months and 20 days into blood and guts My no pump measurements are Right arm -15.5 inches grew 1 inch Left arm -15.2 inches grew 1 inch Right thigh -25.5 inches grew 2.5 Left thigh- 25.7 inches grew 2 Right calf-17 inches grew 0.5 Left calf -17.2 inches grew 0.5 By calves are quite big as i did cycle when i was 13,14 years old My age is 19 now and my height 5'10 and weight 84 kgs I do not take any supplements like creatine or protein powder Just wanna know do you think i am overtraining?
@@borkosogli3237 I’m on week 2 now of doing this. Today I tried super slow reps. They were about 12 seconds concentric and eccentric. My muscles never felt so destroyed. I did the reps till I could no longer move then kept it static till the body part failed. I was breathing like a freight train and my heart was racing by the end. I’m a believer already. Duh, the point is to train the muscle. Not to move a weight from point a to point b. Makes total sense. I’ve never seen anyone train in the gym like this.
@@zyxwfish But there is no point in moving that slow unless you want to prevent injuries better. It will create more fatigue. Just like doing sets of 30 will be more fatiguing thatn sets of 5, but the results are equal.
To me, doing more than a couple sets only makes sense if you need to ramp up for heavy weight or to substitute volume in as an intensity method on a comeback.
I think frequency is big part of this. Doing 1 set once a week vs doing 1 set 3x, there is a big difference. Only problem I have with HIT is what to do when you plateau? You cant increase volume or decrease volume, so you could realistically only change frequency and maybe rotate exercises. What do you think is the best frequency? I dont think most people would gain muscle doing 1 set a week in long term, whereas 3 sets maybe.
I like 5 working sets per muscle per week. Why? Idfk..I just like doing 5, and it gives me what I want. I get a monster pump and I'm sore for 3 or 4 days afterward..which I enjoy feeling. Is it "optimal?" No idea, but I enjoy it, I progress, I'm in and out in 45 mins, I'm consistent, and I never dread going to the gym. I have done full body training Arthur Jones style, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I do my low volume, high intensity PPL split done Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Make a video on how to actually train hard? I know it's just as simple as "train harder" but any tips for beginners to actually reach "failure failure" because even if we think we are, we probably aren't?
One thing needs to be understood and that's that most people even in the high intensity forums that you're on don't actually go to failure even when they think they do. There are only really two people that i've seen hit true muscular failure without a doubt and that would be you and Doug McGuff. I think a lot of people need to probably do more than one set simply because they are psychologically incapable of crossing the threshold to bring them to true MMF. Yes, one set is all you need but most people can't do it.
Yeah I think a lot of people have trouble being very uncomfortable. Mentally it's hard for them to push passed it. Cuz it sucks 😂 for me legs especially. Kills me every time
@@steviesaysstuff Case in point. Just this week on a "HIT" forum that Jay is also a part of there was a guy that posted his hack squat. The guy has someone counting his perfectly executed 10 count cadence and finished his set by racking his weights at the top. Newsflash: your muscles don't respond to cadence Einstein. To me that's a joke. That's your 1 set dude? If you hit true failure on a hack squat you should finish on your ass and you slide out of the machine when you're done. If you could rack your weights at the top you bitched out. People can talk crap about Sam Sulek all day but at least that kid trains harder than most of these "HIT" guys.
@sokaiya1 oh yeah dude trains super hard. I think the HIT community thinks it means one set and nothing else matters while ignoring what HIT stands for lol "HIGH INTENSITY". You're intensity is what matters. It's just happens to be possible to get a sufficient stimulus in 1 to 2 sets. That doesn't necessarily mean you HAVE to do it that way. Some of the HIT community is starting to sound like crossfitters lol
If you do the set right, then you only need one. Dorian became the original mass monster doing it. The others got where they got in spite of their training. Imagine if they had followed the Shadow?
But even Dorian acknowledged it wasn't just a single set. "Everybody knows Dorian Yates training is about the one set to failure, but we gotta warm up, so we gotta do two to three sets to warm up, and if we don't get to failure on this set, and it's too light we do another one. So the point is to get to failure safely and once you've gone to failure to move on. So however many sets it takes that's how many it takes. So it's not, 'you must only do one set'. We're doing totally four or five sets because we're warming up, so nobody should go in the gym and obviously try to do one set. I think most people know that but anyway, I'm saying it in case people get confused."--Dorian Yates
I would like to try one set to failure but my training is a mixture of weight lifting and calisthenics in a workout,I workout from home aswell so have no cables just a pull up bar a parallettes,and adjustable Dumbells and a bench could you apply just 1 set for calisthenics movements such as chin ups pull ups push ups dips etc
The truth is that studies “prove” absolutely nothing. At best, they provide a good estimate as a starting point for most people. Nevertheless, each individual must experiment within reasonable parameters in order to find what works best for them. I agree that one “properly” performed set to failure will give anyone good results. However, I personally enjoy doing about 3-6 sets total per exercise, taking only the final set to positive failure (earlier sets 1-2 reps shy of failure). I also start with 20 reps and slowly increase the weight (2 ½ lb increments) on each additional set. My final set to failure is usually for 10-12 reps. Is that optimal? Who knows? But I get great results with it, and I never get injured.
If it takes 1 week to recover full body but then I cant do full body anymore as it's too taxing and I have to split into two, then that's two workouts a week now. But you mention from your example of muscle overlap of biceps 6 sets total from twice a week (this implies full body twice a week). With the split now you are doing less sets, 3 sets, and not 6 sets as you mentioned. Will the results still be the same for biceps development either way? Assuming all else is equal, e.g. intensity, etc
I have a question, if doing FBW 1 series to fall 2 times a week, should he do what training to do, what progress by 1 repetition more? Does it happen that I do worse on some days?
wasn''t it about that you would need up to 5 extra sets to mimmick the effect of the first set? So 6 sets in total if you want some extra gains. Tbh i don't rlly care anymore. The truth is in the middle. i train full body 2 times a week and do a total of 5-6 sets total for body parts in 1 week. HIT and then bit heavier with RIR. Jay is def right. We parrot to much from others instead of reading it into ourselves. Jay and Paul are my go to
HIT or EDT are the only protocols I work eith. A lot of gym goers don't have the balls for high intensity training, so 4-6 sets is the only way for them. 8-10 reps followed by 3-4 mins rest on a smartphone doesn't cut it for me as I'm from an earlier vintage.
@@Brianconnors427 I find periodizing the two is productive, although I probably stray from the EDT 'rules' a little by going to momentary failure in the last 2-3 mins of the PR zone. Strictly speaking EDT seeks to avoid fatigue during the PR zone but I like to steal a little back from HIT at times.
@@martynlee7473i think that is quite an intelligent approach. As much as I focus on HIT I personally like to alternate periods of higher density approach like EDT. There is a similar approach i have been experimenting with another EDT spinoff called TVT (Time Volume Training) by Nick Nilsson.
If you are going to read studies, you should first take a primer in statistical math. Then you will be able to quite quickly discern if the study is valid.
You can. But if you're already doing say, a pull down and a Chest Press, which sufficiently hit the bis and tris, it's not necessary. I still do like a Curl and a skull crusher I just like to
I love it when "evidence based " influencers make prescriptions based on studies of untrained women who did leg extensions for 6 weeks Personally I don't even think per muscle group, I tend to do 3-5 exercises for an entire workout with half being compound lifts. Works great in my n of 1 definitive study
My conclusion: More sets equal more gains. But obviously there must be an upper limit, you can't train non-stop. Also doing just one set per muscle per week is better than no training at all. Maximum recoverable volume is highly individual. For some 10 to 20 sets per muscle per week may be optimal while for others it's too much. I always recommend to start with low volume and increase it once you can't progress anymore. It also depends on how much time somebody can or wants to spend training. More time = more volume = faster gains. This doesn't mean you can't progress when you spend less time training, the gains will just come slower.
@@Black-Circle Muscle hypertrophy is the result of the (intense) work (volume) you do. More work (to a certain point) means more hypertrophy. This is the conclusion Schoenfeld et al. came to in a meta-analysis that even Jay quoted in another video. Jay just misinterpreted the data.
