Low volume workouts and the effectivity of ‘RIR-based’ training

H

heartnsoul19

New member
Hi everyone,

For a bit of context, I’m not new to training: Currently 21y/o 1.83m 88kg with a couple years of proper lifting under my belt, I’m not a huge guy by any means but I’d say I look like I lift.

I’ve often fallen into the trap most intermediates fall which is extreme program hopping, right now I’m on a new split (4 times per week fullbody) which I’m enjoying and I will be running until I finish my cut in ~2 months since my strength is keeping up while I’m slowly losing weight. However, in recent years I haven’t gained a significant amount of muscle during my bulk phases imo, I know that’s to be expected as you get more advanced but I think the amount I gained is a lot less than I could’ve gotten. I bench 315 and squat almost 4 plates but if you see me you’d never say I could.

Now one of my problems with programming is that there’s a lot of focus on RIR/RPE and adhering to it, especially if you look at people like Israetel and Jeff Nippard. I 100% believe these guys know what they are talking about and that their training methods work wonders IF you’re good at estimating RIR. However, I feel like I absolutely suck at it. I sometimes notice I can bang out way more reps if I don’t think about RPE than what should be possible. This leads me to believe that a lot of work I do in the gym is often ineffective, which leads me to something I’ve been seeing more and more online: HIT a la Dorian Yates and Mike Mentzer. Their philosophy of 1-2 warm up sets and 1-2 sets of banging as much reps to and beyond failure seems way more intuitive. I know it requires more mental focus than ‘normal’ training but I’m aching to give it a shot.

Have you had any experience with this kind of training? And if so, what kind of programming did/do you follow? I’d like to change things up after I finish my cut.

Thanks in advance!
 
@heartnsoul19 I’ve tried both Mike isratels way and HIT and can say that HIT has worked significantly better for me. My lifts kept progressing to a degree I’ve never seen before with RIR. I Only do 3-5 sets a week for pretty much most of my body parts.
 
@mycroft1325 Me too, so many people get... offended at the idea of high intensity low volume as if it's a direct insult to the quality of their workouts. But it's making me grow so well that my friends think I'm on the juice, and it's more mentally invigorating
 
@kaity Lifting methods and schools of thought can be very dogmatic sometimes. People often preach a way of working out like it's the single best program for everyone and get offended when you say otherwise, even though there are a lot of different ways to train that work for different people.
 
@j0ky You’re not alone, bro. Look at GVS, regarded by many as the MVP of the last few years of natty bodybuilding. He’s absolutely fucking massive.

He trains the same way. Failure on every set of a workout some days, always pushing something to failure every day. It’s clearly working for him.

I’ve started training like that recently and have made the best gains I’ve ever had. I thought I was pushing 2-3 RIR before, but this is just working better for me.

Honestly… I love Dr Mike. He’s very funny and gives out a lot of good advice, but I’m starting to go sour on him a little bit these days. I don’t rate his RIR stance, I don’t rate his periodisation stance (but he must push it as that’s his niche - sells his app), I don’t rate him shilling the fuck out of these diabetes weight loss drugs.
 
@dod2017 GVS is... Different. He trains with the intensity of a HIT guy but trains nearly every day with usually multiple sets per exercise. He's a freaky dude. I'd never be able to recover from that
 
@leena2016 He’s a workhorse for sure, and 4 sets to failure would kill most mortals, lol. I’ve been doing 2-3 sets and it’s been going well for me.
 
@dod2017 GVS has said that in his bulking phase he was training with upwards of 30 sets per muscle group per week. He is insane but it clearly works for him because the dude is 200lbs at single digit body fat.
 
@koalacottoncandy Agree, but I'm talking about his proximity to failure. He does do a crazy amount of sets, but he doesn't recommend that for clients. He usually trains 3-4 sets per exercise, but recommends 2-3. He can push 4 sets to failure on every exercise, us normies almost certainly cannot, lol.
 
@dod2017 There's actually been a very recent meta-analysis on training to failure which has changed alot of people's views on it. I'm excited to see jeff nippards take on it in particular as he has been very vocal in the past about his belief of 2-0 RIR sets being equivalent in stimulus, which this meta-analysis seems to directly contradict. However I'm not sure mike israetel's views will have changed much as he has always promoted training to failure, he just saves it for the end of a mesocycle.
 
@koalacottoncandy Ffs mesocycles are bullshit for hypertrophy! No research has shown periodisation to be beneficial for bodybuilders.

Mike also had that drama a couple years ago where he was saying it was 0-1 RIR when he was miles away from failure. GVS has a whole video on it (and that man knows failure).

I do not trust Mikes opinions on this topic at all.
 
@heartnsoul19 Usually the best way is something between high volume rir/rpe and HIT. I like GVS, Alex Leonidas and Basement Bodybuilding approach of doing as many reps as possible with good technique on every set and maybe partials on smaller isolations. Moderate to low volumes and relatively high intensity (6-12 sets per bodypart 0-2 rir). I recommend you do your own program and do small adjustments to it over time. Other peoples programs might leave you feeling something is missing. The key is to basically let your training go on autopilot. Only change something if you really must.
 
@heartnsoul19 This is what I do for slow single-set to failure training. I wrote this up so I could quickly explain the routine to friends interested in training this way:
  • Row
  • Squat
  • Semi-sup chinups
  • Press
  • Assisted Dip
  • Bench
  • Curl
  • Shrug
  • SLDL
  • Wrist extension
  • Wrist curl
  • Neck curl
  • Neck extensions
  • Crunch
WARM-UP: Not needed. The first slow rep or so of each of these exercises will be all the warm-up you need.

ORDER: Perform the workout in the order listed above. Try not to deviate from the order.

FREQUENCY: You will do the exact same workout every other day (one day of rest in between).

WEIGHT: Pick a weight that will allow you to maintain about 40 to 120 seconds of time under tension before you reach failure. If you remark that this weight is very low, kill your ego, as weight does not matter. The only things that matter are time under tension and training to failure.

REPS: Don't count your reps, they don't matter. Time is now going to be your primary indicator of progressive overload.

SETS: You only need one set of an exercise for optimal growth if truly performed to muscular failure. However, until you truly believe you can push yourself to failure, do a second set as an "insurance policy".

HOW TO PERFORM EACH EXERCISE:
- SLOWLY under constant tension. 4 seconds positive, 4 seconds negative. Hold the weight 1-2 seconds when you're transitioning from positive to negative. Do not "lock out" on exercises like shoulder press, leg press, and others as it breaks tension.
- Focus your mind on contracting your muscles, NOT on "getting the weight up" or "moving the machine/equipment".
- Stop ONLY when you reach COMPLETE AND TOTAL muscular failure. Failure is defined as three to five seconds of an attempt to move the equipment during a positive contraction where you absolutely cannot make the weight budge at all, even if someone had a gun to your head.
- When you reach failure, lower the weight slowly to a safe position and re-rack.

REST: Only as long as you need to catch your breath and move onto the next exercise.

REFERENCE VIDEO: Here is Jay Vincent performing this sort of workout:
 
@dolphinsdream Very interesting, thanks! Seeing how everyone responds and gives advice I think I've been overestimating my effort especially on isolations, which might explain my strength on compounds but lagging physique.
 
@heartnsoul19 The juice isn't really worth the squeeze going "beyond failure" as Yates and Mentzer preach. It can really fuck you up unless you have adamantium joints—remember that taking time off or working around an injury is way worse for gains than lifting suboptimally. That said, I think there are two good options:
  1. Switching to a routine where you do moderate volume followed by one rest-pause after the last working set of each exercise (e.g. knock out 8 reps on squats, then take 3 breaths and do AMRAP). I found this much better on my joints while ensuring I'm getting close to failure.
  2. Train yourself to recognize what failure feels like—one way to do this is by doing some sort of white-knuckle rest-pause training: either cluster sets into rest-pause like GVT/8x8 or giant sets (e.g. supersquats—10RM then match it for a total of 20; or 50 rep giant sets)
 
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