You don’t need a lot of volume if you make training hard enough and you don’t need a lot of volume for strength except in special situations. Both of the routines I mentioned yesterday that led me to my all time best in those lifts only contained five to eight sets total and most of those were single reps and only one or two were “heavy” or max weight or effort. The rest was warm up/technical practice.
Even most heavy competitive lifters rarely exceed more than one or two sets for low reps with over 90% of maximum weight. Even the West Side style of training which is known for pretty big volume can be done fast. In fact the percentage/ speed sets they get much of that volume from is supposed to be done at a very fast pace with very short rest periods. Their 8×3 with 60% workout shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to do.
Most lifters across almost all the strength disciplines especially reaching back in time and toward the drug free trainers rarely do a big number of truly heavy sets. Bodybuilding is an exception because it is often seeking a different type of muscle growth and Olympic lifting in the modern incarnation is also because of the skill building requirements. I could cite you numerous examples such as Ed Coan, Doug Furnas, Mark Challeit, Tommy Kono, Hugh Cassidy, Marty Gallagher and many more.
The “meat” of your workouts are those one or two heavy/hard sets per exercise (for strength) everything else is warm up/practice and (this is something I’ll talk about more in the future), you can make a strong case that in most circumstances you won’t get any more strength gains by doing more than that.
God bless,
Bud Jeffries
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Short Workouts Tip #2
You don’t need a lot of volume if you make training hard enough and you don’t need a lot of volume for strength except in special situations. Both of the routines I mentioned yesterday that led me to my all time best in those lifts only contained five to eight sets total and most of those were single reps and only one or two were “heavy” or max weight or effort. The rest was warm up/technical practice.
Even most heavy competitive lifters rarely exceed more than one or two sets for low reps with over 90% of maximum weight. Even the West Side style of training which is known for pretty big volume can be done fast. In fact the percentage/ speed sets they get much of that volume from is supposed to be done at a very fast pace with very short rest periods. Their 8×3 with 60% workout shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to do.
Most lifters across almost all the strength disciplines especially reaching back in time and toward the drug free trainers rarely do a big number of truly heavy sets. Bodybuilding is an exception because it is often seeking a different type of muscle growth and Olympic lifting in the modern incarnation is also because of the skill building requirements. I could cite you numerous examples such as Ed Coan, Doug Furnas, Mark Challeit, Tommy Kono, Hugh Cassidy, Marty Gallagher and many more.
The “meat” of your workouts are those one or two heavy/hard sets per exercise (for strength) everything else is warm up/practice and (this is something I’ll talk about more in the future), you can make a strong case that in most circumstances you won’t get any more strength gains by doing more than that.
God bless,
Bud Jeffries