In my previous post, I talked about how the difference between high intensity training (HIT) and high volume training (HVT) is — interms of volume itself — not very much. I’m not going to argue that HVT is vastly superior or magical compared to HIT, but I will offer several reasons I think HVT is the way to go for the 40+ dude trying to get in shape.
Lower Risk of Injury. You can injure yourself lifting any amount of weight if you’re not paying attention to form; but all things being equal, you’re less likely to do so using lighter loads than trying to add weight to the bar every week.
Linear Progression is Overrated. HIT relies mostly on LP (adding weight to the bar over time). But there are other, better ways to do progressive overload: decrease tempo, decrease rest periods, add reps, add sets. If you’ve never tried an 8×8 with a 30-second rest period, trust me, you’ll feel it.
Easier to Track. I don’t know about you, but I got tired of carrying a notebook or phone around to log sets/reps a long time ago. One weight for straight sets is easy to remember. Like your meals, your workouts shouldn’t have to be math homework.
So, what does my current HVT routine look like? First, it doesn’t really matter what your split is. If it’s full-body 3x/week, it can be one exercise per body part for 5×5. If it’s a “bro” split, it can be two exercises and/or 8×8 or higher. You can determine that based on the length and frequency of your workouts.
For any particular exercise, I’ll start with 10 sets of 10 reps with a weight that brings me close to failure on the last set. Each workout I’ll try to add a rep to the last set, then the last two sets, and so on. When I can do an 11th full set, I up the weight and go back to 10×10. You can start with 8×8 and add weight when you get to 10×10 — whatever — don’t overcomplicate it. The progression is simple: add a rep, add a set, then add weight, repeat.
Again, I’m not arguing HVT is magic compared to HIT. The most important thing is consistency over time.
Up next, why there’s no such thing as over-training.
Until then, thanks for reading,
Dan
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