"Getting better at recovering from the work which stimulates hypertrophy is not necessarily the same as being able to stimulate more hypertrophy by doing more work." Eric should patent this statement and turn it into a t-shirt.
Great episode, as always. I'd be interested in seeing Israetel's response. It feels like there are so many different theories on how to optimally progress that it can lead to paralysis by analysis or constantly changing directions and chasing a different target. "In the pursuit of what's optimal, we shouldn't abandon what's working" (1:13:56) wise words.
Eric didn't offer the study as a counter example but as a "hey this is the closest thing we have", since for example it didn't consider MRV, (and curiously enough, the point at which diminishing returns started to occur was around the general volume landmark for MRV), or the fact that the increase from 10 to 32 sets was done at a 4 sets per week rate, which is super fast, or the lack of analysis of the overreaching component (reduced gains at the end are supposed to be countered by delayed hypertrophic supercompensation during and after the deload). Since Mike's method doesn't involve any of that and Eric didn't address any of Mike's rationale behind it, there's no much content for a response. It's as Eric mentions, it may be better, it may not, we just don't know, we need more data. If someone is interested, the study in question is "Effects of Graded Whey Supplementation During Extreme-Volume Resistance Training" by Cody T. Haun et al.
There is so much more than just adding sets to Mikes and RPs style of training. In fact as time has gone on I have found Mike to get more conservative in his advice about adding sets and actually lately advising more about when not to add sets or to even lower the amount of sets. Also the part Eric said about training and set quality at the end Mike is a huge proponent of the high training quality and most of his advice he gives on tends to be about training quality over anything else
@asd fgh I think the main difference (from my understanding) is that Eric suggests to increase set volume reactively -- for example, if progression has stalled either in reps or intensity, *now* consider adding more sets. Israetel's approach is more proactive with set increases. You start with high RIR and low set volume at the start of a mesocycle, and then decrease RIRs and increase sets throughout (although a recentish video he did on the JTS channel it shows a more auto-regulated approach to increasing sets), finally ending with a deload. The article on the 3DMJ website has some of the same points Eric made in this video and criticizes the proactive set increase approach as well. But, it's a good point that Mike's content is targeted towards an advanced audience, where it's safe to assume that they'd need to do more and so modifying set volume seems like an obvious conclusion anyway. That said, I wish Eric and Omar talked more about the potential functional overreaching benefits, but yeah, I'd love to see Mike on this podcast.
FYI Mike has a response up on the RP site now - renaissanceperiodization.com/expert-advice/in-defense-of-set-increases-within-the-hypertrophy-mesocycle
I’m yet to see anyone argue against increasing volume to do some degree over a Meso as informatively as Mike Israetels argues for it. The amount of high quality, well explained info that guy gives out on RU-vid is ridiculous.
I'm so glad that more and more smart people from science background talk about and explain this HUGE progressive overload misconception. It was always "you have to lift more to grow". But it's more like "you have to lift hard enough to stimulate muscle and grow and than you can lift more because you are bigger and to keep growing you have to andjust your load, volume to keep high enough stimulus for muscle growing" etc. It's so simple and intuitive but it's not so "one sentence catchy simple" like "lift more to keep growing". Another extremely informative and some ice, cliche breaking podcast. You are the best guys!
I listen on Spotify, but wanted to drop in and leave a like and a comment. I was slightly disappointed when I finished my undergrad in Kin because, although I learned a lot, I felt like there was a lack in practical information. Your content has helped fill that void and I’m thankful for it. I love the podcast, you guys are hilarious and give solid information. Keep it up 👍
There’s so many of the ‘issues’ with volume increases raised here that Dr Mike Israetel has explanations or protocols for eg form, fatigue, intensity. His hypertrophy series on RU-vid has answers for pretty much everything raised here.
I definitely experienced the problem Eric outlined with increasing sets within a mesocycle by 100% or more, following the guidelines spelled out on Israetel's Renaissance Periodization website. Going from 2 or 3 sets to 5 or 6 sets per exercise per session (resulting in increasing from 8 to 20 sets or so per week per body part), within the span of 6-8 weeks, was extremely taxing and I did not see appreciable growth in the latter half of those mesocycles. I blamed myself for not sleeping enough or whatever, but hearing that it may be a systemic issue makes a lot of sense. I'm much more drawn these days to John Meadow's approach of working up to one really hard set per exercise and going to or past failure 1-2 times per session, letting progressive overload sort of take care of itself. Looks like science is finally catching up to Meadows!
Michael Effertz theres been a lot of nee research and podcasts with both mike and eric saying its not worth it go to failure or ever go past failure. There’s a good one on the 3dmj channel
@@gregorcee4473 With respect, that doesn't jive well with my experience. I agree that going past failure probably isn't worth it if you're trying to train a muscle 2-3 times in a week, insomuch as you will not recover from the first workout in time for the second, and again for the third. However, we're not limited to rapid frequency programming like that. I tried "lifting light and often" for a long time and got nowhere with it.
Great episode! I listened to this at work and am now curious to see if *somehow* you could get Menno’s views on this. If I’m not misrepresenting his view, there is an optimum number of sets per session per muscle when trained close/to failure. This makes sense, but you could also *potentially* increase your volume to a high degree through an increase in frequency
Loved the chat about volume landmarks and adding sets for hypertrophy. Eric made some really good points. This cleared a lot of things up for me personally - thank you!
Absolutely brilliant, and great timing in the Last couple of weeks I have just released that I have been doing to much. I felt like crap,joints hurting and just concerned with moving heavy weights all the time even isolation movements🙈. Thankfully I have changed the way I train only slightly but I feel way better and actually sleeping better. Thanks guys a great episode.
4 года назад
Great episode guys. Love listening you two. Great advice always. I wish more begginners to watch you guys.
Fantastic episode. I particularly liked the closing statements. I'm gonna work on my grip strength to be able to hold on to the ladder as long as possible.
The point about chasing agency at 58:00 mins is the most edifying comment I’ve heard since I started this lifting journey. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing and I’ve been looking for a conceptualization of it. I feel like I’m doing everything right, yet the progress is just so marginal. Now I’m driving myself crazy trying to just do and optimize more and more, to the point where it’s probably just backfiring on me. Or at least is superfluously detracting from other areas of my life.
Very interesting approach... Very much in line with how I've going about my training pre-pandemic. Glad to see it validated by such an authority as Dr. Helms.
Dang, I really wanted to dive hard into the erectile dysfunction stuff. I've gotten all stiff in anticipation, alas the hypertrophy talk is going to have to do.
Had friends to whom I was making programs and since they were not making gains I increased their volume. Then I saw how they performed those sets and I realised I just added them more crappy work to do instead of fixing the core issue which was intentionality and execution.
20" - 24" If it is about progressing sets, even at the expense of reps per set, then would you not have to also increase the load, otherwise these increased number of sets would each be too easy? Would this be most effective when the sets are very hard to start with (so the shorter sets are still in that effective range of difficulty)? Thanks, always great info in these talks.
So listening to this and previous episodes about hyper trophies and others - wouldn't the "greasing the groove" method championed by Pavel Tsatsouline way back when work for hypertrophy as well if volume would be enough? And by "well" I mean it'd be time efficient for a lot of office working schmoes? E.g. my office has gymnastics rings set up in one of the hallways. If I pass that hallway and do one set of pull ups to about RPE 8-9 and this will happen circa 6-10 times during the workday, would this be a functional addition on my path to becoming swole? (Also developing killer ability to do non-kipping pull-ups)
I have been running almost everything from mev to mrv for 2 years now and its not working so definitely going to try to dial back some volume and get more quality work in and better recovery.
@@respeezy yeah. I did the same for like a year or some months. Didnt work either. Im going back to less volume but actually focusing on getting stronger over time. How did the approach work? I respect Mike a lot but now i see there is a lot of things i see wrong with his approach to volume and progressing
I really like the substance of your content it’s intelligent and only concerned with the subject matter. I mentioned what you just mentioned at the start on one if my exam questions. Unless people go about measuring what they see over time I’d say most generally train sarcoplasmic hypertrophy unless specifically training myofibrillar. This is without considering supplements to maintain gains.
This is precisely what I'm talking about all the time. Strength and hypertrophy are not the same. Will you get stronger on "hypertrophy" program... yes, will you get bigger on a "strength" program... also yes.. and I also definitively don't agree that if you don't grow just need to increase sets. Mike Israetel volume landmarks are all based pretty much on a notion that if you don't progress that you have to do more. Pretty much, which just isn't true.
The whole adding sets to infinity within a meso needs to stop. Who can sustain that? Any one here doing that? Why we can’t we stick with the KISS principle. Progressing? Cool, keep doing what you’re doing. No progress? -> add load, reps, and keep the extra set as the last thing to add. Always a pleasure listening to Eric. ✌️
Maybe I missed it, but what RPE are you training at if you prefer intensity with moderate volume over lots of volume? And are you varying RPE through a meso? Without that info, I don’t think we have enough to put a bow on it.
Banterweight champions of the world When Omar goes all "were talking Martin Luther magnar Carter proclamation first principal" rant, there is a much punctuation as calves in this.
hey i have a question about AMRAP sets as a tool for linear progression. lets say i do 3x 6 @75 but the last set is AMRAP. And for the AMRAP i aim for a rep goal (e.g. 10 reps). When i hit the number i add 2,5kg for next week and do the same again. And i add only weight to the bar if i hit my targeted reps in the AMRAP sets. if i miss my reps on the AMRAP set i will repeat next week with the same weight and try it again. untill i can progress again. what do you guys think about it. is does it make sense to do linear progression like this?
