Volume Vs Intensity- More Exercises Aren’t Better

You can train long, or you can train hard. Doing both is how you burn out quickly. Lately I have only had 4 exercises per session for my strength work. It baffles me how some people have 8-10 exercises in their strength program alone. Not including mobility work, I typically don’t program over 6 exercises in the strength portion of a program because it is very difficult to exert adequate intensity into all the exercises to ensure adaptation.

 An exception is a low volume approach. This allows you to have more variation and more exercises within the workout. So instead of doing 5x5 with 2 or 3 exercises, you might do 1-2 x 6 with 6-8 exercises

 Benefits of low volume and high variety

1) Keeps things fun. Great for those who get bored with the same exercises

2) Allows you to train different angles and strength curves of the same muscle. For example, instead of just bench press for the chest in a workout, you may do a cable crossover and bar dips for equal volume

3) potentially better for hypertrophy

 Benefits of high volume, low variety

1) more practice with the same exercise. This works well for skill/ strength training. Want a handstand push up? Do more handstand push ups.

2) Continued from #1- more beneficial for strength. Strength is a skill and specificity is king. Less exercise variety will allow for more resources to be allocated to development of the main strength exercises. Any accessory exercises should be minimal and carefully selected to bring up weak points in the main lifts. Excessive accessories will just generate too much fatigue over the weeks and will take away from the main strength exercises.

3) allows you to add back variety with other training disciplines such as mobility work and practice toward other skills (handstands, Jiu jitsu, surfing, etc)

 My goals are more geared toward strength so the variety is low. My first two exercises will have anywhere from 5-8 sets of 1-4 reps depending on the cycle. My accessory exercises will typically be anywhere from 2-4 sets with slightly higher reps. By the time I get to the accessory exercises I am pretty wiped anyways.

 With such a high amount of sets, the intensity will be high but not maximal. Remember, intensity and volume are inversely correlated, Maximal efforts are short lived. Think 1x1 @95-100%, 2 x 2 @90%, etc. This is a great stimulus around a peak week, but not a great structure to be done often; maybe 1-3 times a year to have that rep range phased in. For example, a more effective way to train strength year around would be 5 x 3 @80%. This allows us to have enough reps in reserve to allow each set to be high enough effort without going to failure or allowing form breakdown. Keeping 1-3 reps in reserve is a cheat code for strength gains in your main exercises. It allows us to train more frequently. Maxing out at 90-100% may take 1-2 full weeks to recover from.

 So if you have plateaued in strength ask yourself these questions…

1) Do you have too many exercises in your plan?

2) are you going to failure too often?

3) Maybe you need to get more jacked? Maybe try a higher variety-based approach where you drop the volume per exercise, and add a bit more exercises.

Need help with periodizing your strength training alongside other goals? Reach out for my 1-1 online coaching.