The "nerd stuff" you refer to is the content that has literally motivated me to go to college for Exercise Science and I absolutely LIVE for videos like this... Makes me excited for the future ahead, so thank you!
All of this stuff is completely valid, and you can nitpick and nitpick to murk up the validity of having a perfect amount of volume or that certain volumes are considered low or high. In reality it just comes down to your personal volume requirements, and the exercises that you like. As long as the exercise selection is somewhat consistent, and you track your own volume in the same way every time, you will be able to fine your own effective volume landmarks for yourself. Of course there can be general recommendations made, but it just comes down to what you personally do and track consistently that determine how much volume you actually need. Perfect example would be someone who does 80% hip hinge movements like RDL's for hamstrings being compared to someone who does 80% knee flexion movements like leg curls. The RDL person will likely have a maximum recoverable volume of about 8-10 sets per week while the leg curl person's MRV could be as high as 18-25 sets per week just because of the difference in how much fatigue/muscle damage those two exercises incur. So to sum it up all you have to really keep track of is your proximity to failure, total number of hard sets, and make sure that you are making progress and it doesn't matter if you personally grow from 6 sets of hamstrings per week or 20 sets of hamstrings per week. Obviously you can look at outliers like people who do 30 sets of squats per week and say there's no way in hell you can actually tell someone that you are taking all those sets close to failure, and that a number of those sets are not wasted sets. So there are guidelines for what is right, and what is wrong, but as soon as you understand those principles you can start to understand the nuances and differences that are unavoidable when comparing individuals. really great video explaining why cheating is less stimulative of hypertrophy than full ROM focused reps, and various other things people do that destroy the stimulus/fatigue ratio of every conceivable exercise. So as a caveat to what I was saying above, and the purpose of this video, you should try to optimize the amount of stimulus you get per rep. You should optimize every rep, and standardize every rep, so that they can be reliably tracked over time. This also avoids many other pitfalls like people having to do 10 sets of leg press or something before they feel their quads working. You're probably just bastardizing the leg press! This video is most likely meant for beginners, but I too have seen people who look like they are advanced that do not understand these concepts. They just "do" the exercise and expect it to work. A great way to get people over the hump of misreading how close they are training to failure, is to actually have them take a set to failure. Oh I did 300 on leg press for 8 reps at an RPE 8. Ok write that down. Next time you come in, you do 300 on leg press for 15 at an RPE 10. Well that RPE 8 really wasn't RPE 8 now was it? So now next time they will be more accurate in their estimate of true failure. I wrote this on very little sleep, and in my first two paragraphs I didn't understand the exact scope of the video, and I am completely on board with everything you have said after 30 minutes of sitting here listening to you talk. Really good video. You have actually drawn my attention to profiles of an exercise more. I instinctively knew before what a "bad" profile looked and felt like, but now you have brought it to the forefront of my mind which I haven't had any other content creators do before. So thanks for that.
Great info, I really hope people start to finally realise what training is really about and stopped being so overly obsessed with "how many sets" etc, as always whenever someone annoys me on that topic I will just send them to this video lmao
I think I watch this video on your app for like 3X and yet I’m here watching it again. One of the best videos on your site and RU-vid. I will for sure share this to my meathead friends
Makes a whole lot of sense to me! I think this is why (you basically said the same thing) that people get results using 2 seemingly different training paradigms. The effective reps essentially equal out in the end. The way I have settled on training over the years that seems to yield the best results for me is to have 3-4 "warm up" sets and then my final set of an exercise I do a drop set balls-to-the-wall with at least 2 weight drops. I try to hype myself up a lot for the dropset and I'm sure it looks ridiculous I keep expecting to see myself on one of those videos where they record people doing weird stuff. I really like this approach because I feel like it allows me to train closer to my 1 rep max while still getting in a decent amount of volume. I also like that I can focus on both moving heavy weights A to B and really perfect form as the weight gets lighter. I often do some pause reps on the lightest weight where I just hold the weight in the most challenging position of the exercise. It absolutely destroys whatever body part I am working on. I feel like if I pick the right exercises and train like that I only need 1-2 exercises for small/simple muscle groups (e.g biceps, triceps, and even chest) and 3-4 exercises for large and more complex muscle groups (e.g. back or shoulders). It works well for doing a bodypart once per week. I have been trying to workout like that doing each bodypart two times a week and I think its too much intensity for doing a bodypart twice a week especially shoulders.
This reminds me of once training with someone I lived with at uni. Their comment after the session was how do you look like you do? I feel like we have hardly done anything.
Your explanations are great, comprehensive and really broken down so anyone can visualize the importance of what it is you're saying. ...and you're funny. Thanks, love your videos
This is one of the best videos i’ve ever seen about training! people need to see this! i see people all the time doing tons of reps that are basically useless. Thank you Joe!
Counting volume is great but it is true that there are lots of holes in this method (even doing it myself). I have always wondered how can volume be equated in some excersises like a perfect profile matching bench press vs a regular one, half ROM leg extension vs a deep ass hack squat or leg press, boring alternating dumbbel curl vs incline cable curl, rdls vs leg curl... Also it is worth to note that i believe there is a lot of truth to the "effective reps" theory (one set of RiR 1 vs three of RiR 3-4 to set an example), so in the end I always tend to think that progressive overload in a program you like is the real key.
When I did slightly below parallel squats with varying RPEs at fixed reps it would be a 4x10 or 5x10 followed by 3 sets of leg press. Now that I squat like 6 inches below parallel or something and control the eccentric + hit terminal ROM on the leg press I do 2-3 sets of squats and 1-3 sets of leg press max. That means 9 sets a week is basically maximum adaptive volume for quads. Way better than doing 7-8 daily sets that are all miserable.
Man I still see people doing 30 sets of shit all over the place for 3 hours at the gym. 0 effective reps were done and never any progress but they're still convinced that obscene volume for volume's sake is the way to go.
Obviously, you feel like certain exercises have a better profile like a cable/machine lateral raise versus a dumbbell lateral raise. You should make a video of the "most efficient/effective muscle building exercises" if you haven't already. I'd never thought about lateral raises like that but now that you bring it up it does make a lot of sense. I have always heavily favored dumbbell lateral raises because the seem to work and cables are always taken (although dumbbells are now too).
A popular German pro bodybuilder recommends overloading lateral dumbbell raises with very heavy weight to the point that you can only do the lower half of the abduction and to stay within that for the entire set of say 15-20 reps. At times the range of motion is even decreasing further as the set goes on. His rationale is that the top half of the movement typically has too much trap involvement which he intends to prevent with this technique. Would you say that this is reasonable?
This video just refreshed my brain on reps and form as my brain was filled with too much crap frm all the other videos on utube🤦♂️ got urself a new sub bud!🤝
So couldn't you argue that it balances itself out. With lateral raises you'd probably would also be able to perform more reps than with a machine with the same "weight". And because volume is often described as reps x sets I think it will have an impact on the total amount of Volume. Hope I was able to describe the thought process I'm having. You're making amazing content. Keep up the good work 👍
You can still get big delts with laterals of course, just more a matter of efficiency. But there’s not much way around the fact that it’s not challenging the muscle length where delts can produce the most force. And intramuscular force production is king. So it will never really be the same, just different.
Thanks for this video. Indeed, very important , even vital. This should be mandatory viewing for all trainers. As a former trainer, I always started beginners or intermediates with one rep, very little weight. When they could do one rep correctly, they could progress to more reps and weight. Of course, I got the “my buddy says I should be doing sets of 10-12.” And I’d have to obliterate that mindset asap. Some people just need to start with just cardio if they don’t have the cardio-respiratory capacity to do basic exercise. Point: you’re talking about important foundational things which should be universal but are all to rare. Thanks again.
This video is very useful information, especially for beginners or people who haven't got much of an idea when it comes to muscle building. I personally see a lot of people( note I say people not beginners) doing what you have demonstrated on the second line. People who have been going to the gym for a long time having bad form performing some if not all of the dot points you have described. I my self am guilty of some of these. Great video......"Not all reps are created equal" there should be a shirt with that slogan 🙂
I’m not sure if I missed it but please can you make a video about rest protocols? How often to rest and sleep etc. Thank you for the great information.
Thanks for all you do. I think another point to this is the longevity it will allow you to have in the gym. Understanding and practicing this will take so much unneeded wear and tear off your joints and ligaments.
Great information here! Thank you!! I am a bit confused about why this diagram seems to show the concentric and eccentric happening concurrently... shouldn't it be that the concentric part is about 25% of the circle and then the remaining 75% is the eccentric, and then the rep ends at the same place where it started...? 🤔
Brad Schoenfeld just published a study on quad development from leg extensions showing that a partial rom (the beginning to middle) being superior for hypertrophy....One study doesn't necessarily mean much however, I do think too many people get too caught up on always using full range of motion with zero body sway ("perfect form"). In some cases they'd be better off not always using "perfect form" as long as it's the shortened range that is getting compromised weather from skipping that portion or by using momentum. What's better Joe, a full range of motion row with lighter weight or a heavier row where you only go from the bottom (fully stretched ) to about 2/3 of the way up? Which row would pretentious trainers snicker at and think "What a douche! Put your ego aside, lighten the weight and use 'perfect' form"? Disclaimer....***I don't think most people should use momentum or partial ranges of motion for the first year or two of lifting because of increased risk of injury and because the fully contracted portion of the lift is important for honing the mind muscle link. Squeezing at the top is very valuable especially for newbies who don't have a honed mind muscle link and for experienced lifters during warmup ***
I've been experimenting with isometrics to recruit maximum muscle fibers in a target muscle, then immediately doing a set of an exercise to target the same muscle, with the hope that I have more of the muscle "in the game" for that set. I am trying to do the purest, controlled sets possible. Is there any research that supports this kind of approach?
