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-: The difficulty of volume is quantifying it,
and then qualifying it
to something that actually matters
in terms of how much muscular work we're doing,
and therefore how much
and what type of stimulus that we're getting.
So when we look at the way volume has been qualified
over the many many years,
you've seen people qualify volume by number of reps
versus number of sets.
And there's obvious shortcomings with these
when you look at it, right?
So if you just look at somebody that did like 10 sets
of three verses three sets of 10,
anybody that trains can tell you like,
man there's no way that those things, you know
they're the same, right?
Even though they're the same like number of reps.
And then it's like,
well okay.
Well but also if it's sets
well three sets of, you know three versus three sets of 12.
Those are also going to be very different
in terms of both the stimulus,
the recovery,
the effect.
Like you don't have to be a brain surgeon to start to see
like okay.
There's gonna be extreme limitations
to limiting or reducing volume
to the simple qualities
of volume.
Just how many reps I do,
or volumes how many sets I do.
So there was a step forward,
and that is where people started using tonnage as a proxy.
And so tonnage is basically sets times reps times load.
So it balances out a little bit in terms of like
well okay if we look at here like four sets of 10
you know, at 200 pounds that's 8,000 pounds right?
And so I can do 10 sets of four,
and if I did 10 sets of 4
and I did it still at 200 pounds,
it would be 8000 pounds.
But likely if you're doing ten sets of four
you're gonna use a different weight
than you're using for four sets of 10 et cetera.
So this is not going to be without its limitations either.
So tonnage,
it's better than just sets and reps, right?
So it shows a little bit of a difference, right?
So if we look at this example here of three sets of 10
versus 10 sets of three, right?
If we now apply a more realistic weight,
because we wouldn't use the same weight for three sets of 10
as 10 sets of three.
If we look at 10 sets of three, we'll say like,
"Okay, for this particular person,
that's a weight of about 455 pounds."
And that ends up being, you know like,
13,650 pounds of tonnage
that they've moved
in this particular movement, right?
Versus they did three sets of ten.
Well maybe for ten reps, they can only do 315 pounds
and so now they're only hitting 9,450.
So, really they're doing, you know,
probably a little bit more than 25%
less tonnage than the ten sets of three.
And I would say, like, anecdotally intuitively,
that makes a little bit more sense that,
"Yeah, 10 sets of three is probably going to be more volume
than three sets of 10."
Like, it just is, because you know especially
if you're actually resting for those 10 sets of three.
So, this is better than just sets and reps
because it helps us separate the 10 sets of three versus
three sets of 10 scenario.
Because we were able to apply load
and because we're gonna be able to use different loads
for these rep ranges.
That we can start to see like,
"Okay, these are not the same.
This one is more than the other."
Okay, so, we do have an improvement from just seeing,
simply using sets and reps by switching to using tonnage.
But tonnage is with, not without its limitations.
So, one is, is you start to get to extreme rep ranges,
either doing really low sets, really low reps,
or really high.
It starts, like, it starts to get really weird
in terms of how the numbers relate to each other.
Because in reality, if everything is
kinda fairly close together,
then it's somewhat easy to compare.
But, as things start to get towards those extremes,
the numbers start to look a lot weirder
than what you would've intuitively thought
actually performing these things in the gym
and also seeing the impacts they have on recovery growth,
et cetera.
So, the other thing is, and this is a big big big one,
that we're gonna help you guys, solution for,
is it's incompatible across exercises.
So, if I'm doing tonnage, all I can do, in terms of tonnage,
is compare that same exercise to itself.
And that even goes to like a very specific machine, right?
So like, if I'm doing a leg press or squats,
the tonnage difference of you know, six sets of 12
or whatever it would be of either of those exercises.
So, let's say four sets of 12,
let's not be so ridiculous in volume.
Of either of those things, I'm gonna move a ton more load,
like tonnage, on the leg press than I am in the squat.
But, I think most people would argue that,
a set of squat is gonna be more fatiguing
than a set of leg press, likely.
Especially if we're talking systemic.
We could get into a bunch of details, but the point is,
is that tonnage only applies when that load
and everything is kept consistent.
So, if I'm looking at the volume of a workout
and I go up in rep, or set, or load, or whatever it may be.
In an exercise that mechanically,
I can just move a lot of load because of the exercise
versus another one I can't.
That's gonna make it seem like a much bigger progress,
even though it might not be much more muscular work,
than if I improve volume in an exercise
that didn't have as high on mechanical capacity.
So for instance, if I added a set of leg extensions
to a quad workout
versus adding a set of squats or a set of leg press.
Well, it's gonna be much less load, right?
And then also, it's like, well it's now one's
a free weight thing and one's going through a machine.
So how much of that actual weight stack is being applied
to me through the cams, the levers,
and all that other stuff, you know?
Cause you could be doing more or less
than what that number on the stack happens to be.
So, once we start looking at using different exercises,
or trying to compare, you know, a whole workout, et cetera.
All of a sudden, using tonnage really starts to lose,
you know, it really starts to lose its affect in this,
in terms of being a valuable to a, for assessing point.
The other thing is that it
doesn't consider distance or time.
So that means, you know like, if you've ever done a squat,
like a pause squat, where you pause at the bottom, kay?
You're adding time and you're adding time in that area
where your quads are under the most tension,
your glutes are under the most tension, et cetera, right?
That's obviously a lot more muscular work,
but you might actually move less load,
so it would look like a reduction in volume
because your tonnage would go down,
even though you may have actually increased
more muscular work because you spent more time
where that load was actually impacting your muscles
the most.
And then also distance, right?
So range of motion.
You have exercises that vary range of motion,
you could perform exercises in different range of motion,
et cetera.
So, it doesn't account for how far you're moving that load,
or how you're moving that load.
It's just, well, "Did you move that load?
Does it count as a rep?"
And if it does, all reps are created equal,
regardless of the tempo, the distance, the range of motion,
et cetera.
So, again, we kind of see this starting to fall apart
when we look at it,
especially as training variables would start to shift, kay?
It doesn't tell you the significance of the stimulus
of the work.
So tonnage, like doing more tonnage
doesn't mean that you got more stimulus per se.
This is where looking at those
approximated failure measures,
like RPE/RIR et cetera, are gonna come in.
We're gonna need to know that like, well okay, what,
can we say that at this tonnage,
"What is your perceived effort
or how close to failure is this taking you?"
So we can say like,
"Okay we did this much tonnage at this much of our RPE,"
and then we can maybe start to extrapolate some stimulus
from that.
But the other thing that we're gonna have to look at is,
"What type of stimulus?"
Like if we're looking at tonnage,
which is this measurement of how much weight
that we move through space, how many times,
without being specific to that space, or how much time.
Is that, how much of that is going to be kind of,
we'll say based on the Tendon to Tendon Model,
versus the Sarcomere Base Model.
And that is another thing that we're going to look at,
when we look at Theory of Effective Reps.
And we look at how mechanical tension changes
as we approach fatigue
and how understanding that can tell us,
well maybe taking an exercise to this level of RPE
versus sets to this.
Doing more of this other one
still may not be as much stimulus,
even though volume of work may be higher in one scenario,
while in the stimulus may be higher in another scenario.
Because there's gonna be a difference between, you know,
total muscle tension, like it's end to end
versus how much we're loading the individual sarcomeres.
And we'll kinda get into the detail,
but the summary of that, is is that, you know,
hitting an RPE of X at two different rep ranges, et cetera,
may not always equate to the same volume of stimulus
in a session.
But we're gonna kind of explain why we see what we see
in the research,
in terms of people being able to use,
say stimulate hypertrophy, like stimulus,
in a variety of rep ranges.
But, the key variable seems to be proximate to failure.
And this is gonna, kind of put that together for you,
and you'll, then you'll be able to use that principle
in terms of selecting your, you know,
your RPE or RIR targets,
your proximate to failure targets,
and understanding how that's gonna affect
volume and stimulus.
So, how're we gonna qualify volume?
Well, is it gonna be hard sets?
Is it gonna be effective reps?
Because it can't just be tonnage.
And the answer is, it's gonna be a combination of tonnage
and this.
So, we're gonna look at, okay, hard sets,
that's where the RPE scale comes in, right?
I know some of you guys probably have
a lot of questions already,
but once we get to that effective reps section,
we'll really kinda break down, "Why hard sets matter,"
and, "How do that degree of hard can now become
apart of a progression tool?"
and help me understand, okay, this tonnage, all right,
"How do I convert that into something towards stimulus?"
by using, "How hard was it to accomplish that tonnage?"
And the other thing that we're gonna do, is work in too,
and then, "How do I compare bicep curls to lat pulldowns?"
or to whatever it may be, right?
So, we gotta look at, you know, quantifying.
Well, "How hard is hard?"
How effective is an effective rep?
And what about just like the, you know,
the ratio of that compared to just the total amount
of work I'm doing.
Yeah so, we're gonna get through, right?
So, we have to look at sets, we have to look at reps.
All of this stuff.
And that's exactly what we're gonna get into,
when we talk about what are the variables
of progressive overload.
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