High Volume vs Low Volume for Hypertrophy

[Steven_Cross]

What are your thoughts on the debate between high volume training (20+ sets per muscle group weekly) versus low volume, high intensity training (Mentzer / Yates style)? Which gave you better muscle growth?

[DarioVigor]

Low volume with absolute maximum intensity changed everything for me. 1 or 2 working sets to true absolute failure keeps my joints fresh and my strength scaling upward rapidly.

[Marcos078]

I feel like low volume works great for a few weeks, but eventually you need total volume to drive more muscle cross-sectional growth. I stay around 12-15 sets per week.

[Luke_Havick]

Most people doing high volume are just doing junk volume. If you can do 25 sets for chest in a single workout, you simply are not training anywhere near hard enough on the first 5.

[JakeAnderson]

Science seems to lean toward 10 to 20 sets per week per muscle group as the sweet spot for natural lifters. Anything over 8 sets in a single session starts hitting diminishing returns.

[RepNick3]

I prefer a hybrid approach. Heavy compound movements with low volume and high intensity, followed by high volume isolation pump work to finish the session.

[Steven_Cross]

That hybrid approach sounds interesting. How many sets total do you end up hitting per session with that structure?

[RepNick3]

Usually around 9 to 12 total working sets per workout. For example, 3 heavy sets of bench, then 3 sets of incline DB, then 3 sets of high rep cable flies to absolute failure.

[SteelSpartan]

The problem with low volume is that your execution has to be flawlessly brutal. If you miss the mark on intensity on your single working set, you essentially wasted the day.

[GymAlpha23]

Agreed. Most lifters do not actually know what true 0 RIR (reps in reserve) feels like, so they need more volume to make up for the lack of actual stimulus.