My results from a low volume and frequency program (with measurements)

A

angelica009

New member
Hey everyone !

Ive been using this 4 day split for 6 months now and thought id give a quick write up on how its gone. this training goes against a lot of what is spoke about here so thought you all might find it interesting:

Chest and Biceps

Barbell Bench Press 1x6-8

Incline DB Press 1x8-10

Machine Chest Press 1x8-10

DB Fly Press 1x10-12

Pinwheel Curl 1x10-12

Incline DB Curl 1x6-8

Preacher Curl 1x8-10

Legs

Romanian Deadlift 1x6-8

Lying Leg Curl 1x10-12

Hack Squat 1x6-8

Leg Press 1x8-10

Leg Extension 1x10-12

Standing Calf Raise 1x8-10

Seated Calf Raise 1x10-12

Shoulders and Triceps

Seated Barbell Press 1x6-8

Cable Lateral Raise 1x8-10

Seated DB Press 1x8-10

DB Lateral Raise 1x10-12

Rope Pushdown 1x10-12

Leaning Overhead Extension 1x8-10

Seated DB French Press 1x10-12

Back and Abs

Barbell Row 1x6-8

Neutral Grip Pull Up 1x6-8

Wide Grip Cable Row 1x8-10

Underhand Lat Pulldown 1x8-10

Barbell Shrug 1x10-12

Kneeling Cable Crunch 1x8-10

Lying Leg Raises 1x8-10

This was run: chest and biceps / legs / rest / shoulders and triceps / back and abs / rest / rest so was truly 1x per week frequency, with max 4 sets per week for each body part. I had run this with higher volume initially but only for 1 month out of the 6 months. Literally every set (except romanian deadlifts, those were RIR 0) was taken to momentary muscular failure. Here are my before and after stats:

**10/11/2023**

Weight: 75.4kg

Shoulders/Broadness: 125cm

Chest/Torso: 108cm

Upper Arms: 37cm R, 36cm L

Forearms: 29.5cm R, 29cm L

Neck: 37cm

Thigh: 60cm R, 60cm L

Glutes: 98cm

Calves: 37cm R, 36.5cm L

Waist: 87cm

**01/04/2024**

Weight: 79.3

Shoulders/Broadness: 130cm

Chest/Torso: 110cm

Upper Arms: 39cm R, 38.5cm L

Forearms: 30cm R, 29.5cm L

Neck: 38cm

Thigh: 62cm R, 62cm L

Glutes: 100.5cm

Calves: 37.5cm R, 37cm L

Waist: 87cm

As you can see, i made amazing progress on this split. All my measurements and lifts went up by quite a bit (except forearms lol). Some confounding factors could be that i started tracking my calories and protein, but other than that i was already bulking at a similar rate, so it would only be more daily consistent nutrition. Here are some pros and cons of this training:

Pros:
  • Lowering the volume so dramatically meant every set was very effective, this may be why i had such great progress - i might have been leaving too many reps on the table before
  • Recovery was maximised, and every session l was fully fresh and ready for. I have never had less joint pain.
  • Short, focused sessions were a lot of fun
Cons:
  • If you miss a session, its a lot worse than typical training were you would hit the muscle again later that week. This time, it could be 14 days before training it again so its definitely less flexible in this way. Running 2 on, 1 off might fix this.
Overall, I've made more progress this year than l had in the whole last year of training, so ill def stick to this while its still working. Hope you found this interesting ! Always remember that it comes down to progression, and what works for you as an individual may be different from the norm. In hindsight, doing volumes around ~9 sets caused joint pain, slow progress and a feeling of weakness in my sessions. That was probably a sign l benefit from less volume, but i just didn't listen as i thought 9 sets was already too little volume. I had tried to increase 9 sets to overcome plateaus, and ended up regressing. Always pay attention to your own needs first, and be honest with how your training feels.

EDIT: sorry shoulda linked this to begin with, my initial post got removed so thought it mighta been cause I linked a video, but here is what inspired this split:

Go give FazLifts a sub, he’s a really knowledgeable guy
 
@angelica009 Love to see it! Great work.

Yeah this split was based off my very first few years of training. Around year 3 IIRC.

I grew up about an hour from where Dorian Yates original Temple Gym was in Birmingham. Around that time I started to go to the gym, the late 90s all the hardcore gyms were totally obsessed with Dorians style of HIT. Every gym was kitted out with the equipment he liked, the Pullover Machine, the Single Arm Hammer row, a good Hack Squat and all the rest. All the older guys would take trips to train with Dorian on the weekend in Birmingham. I learned from them. This was a very standard split we used back then.
 
@buna Cheers dude ! I actually edited my post to link ur video, it’s how I stumbled across this training. I find the history of it really interesting and I bet that was a pretty cool time to be lifting as well. Keep killing it with the vids 💪
 
@angelica009
If you miss a session, its a lot worse than typical training were you would hit the muscle again later that week. This time, it could be 14 days before training it again so its definitely less flexible in this way. Running 2 on, 1 off might fix this.
Click to expand...

If there only way any way to salvage this.
 
@angelica009 First, I always believe that what works, works. Pretty simple.

I also think everyone should try something they are interested in.

I am not a fan of 1 set to failure programs in general. I do like the fact that you are doing multiple exercises per muscle group.

I was a huge fan (a HIT Jedi) and had fast results initially, then spent years trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I realized what I thought was causal was actually the result of deloading.

A few questions:

Did you warm up and only count the one set?

How linear was your progress?

You used Jan 24 for your last progress measurement. Why didn't you use a more recent result?

Some observations:

Your weight went up about 4 Kilos. Your waist stayed the same which is good.

Your arms and legs both gained about 2 cm, a little bit less than an inch.

Your Chest also gained 2 cm, while your shoulders gained 5 cm.

How old are you if you don't mind me asking?

Did you add side raises when you weren't doing them before (following the "press for mass" logic)?

You mentioned consistent nutrition, which can be a minor, or a huge factor.

You also mentioned you made more progress this year than you did the previous year; your progress in 6 mos was good, but it would make your progress the previous year unusually slow for someone starting out.

When you did higher volume (9 sets), how long did it take you to burn out? My context is, doing the higher volume then cycling with your current lower volume routine.

At the end of the day, you are doing around 4-5 sets a BP, 1x a week, though divided by

I could be completely wrong, and you just may be suited exactly for what you are doing. Some people seem to love it. I'm just curious given what I know, how long I've been doing this, my own, and others experience.

Consistency is THE number one factor for success. Congratulations on 1 year, and your results!
 
@kukla Honestly couldn’t agree more with a lot of what you said - I don’t think I’ve found ‘the way’, just a way that’s working for me at this point. As for ur questions/observations:

I would do warm up sets before the top set, typically 3 to begin with and then 1-2 after that for the same body part. I followed the same warm up structure I did on my previous routines.

My measurement was actually 1st of April, not 4th of January (not American ahah)

I’m early 20s

Interestingly not, actually I was always doing cable lateral raises and db lateral raises with one press, just 3 sets each and split between two workouts a week.

Honestly I think nutrition could definitely be a confounding factor - I didn’t start bulking or anything (was already in one) but tracking it so that I was hitting targets daily may have made a big difference.

About the progress - I would agree that it’s odd I was making faster progress nesrly 2 years into lifting than 1 year.

As for my previous routine, I was a serial program hopper my first year or so of lifting. After I actually settled into the upper lower program, which was about 9 sets weekly for chest shoulders quads etc, 12 for back and 6 for biceps, triceps, calves, abs. I would say before then I was always around the 9-12 sets.

Honestly it really could be that cycling between them works really well - I’m no way opposed to doing high volume / frequency training if it got me better results. My current plan is to raise the sets on these exercises if I plateau, and increase frequency if the number of sets increase above 8 per session. Definitely gonna avoid the dogmatism that typically comes with HIT style training.

Thanks heaps for ur write up! Appreciate the questions, got me thinking about my own training !
 
@angelica009 The main thing is you were consistent and successful. I'm always and have always been looking for the "whys" in a complicated endeavor that really is more art than science.

Your shoulder results are GREAT as are your arm results.

Something I noticed when I was doing HIT. My arms especially had decent results. In my head I realized I was doing more with them (because of overlap). A few people I talked into it had the same observation.

Your version of HIT (similar to Yates and less similar but still similar to early Mentzer) seems to work for many people.

Mentzer did 4-6 sets (work sets) per BP when he first started doing HIT, on a 4 day split. Usually 2 exercises. His brother Ray tended to do 2 sets vs 1.

Yates did 1 or 2 work sets, 2-4 exercises per bp with less frequency than EARLY Mentzer.

Programs like DC, I consider the "one set" 3 sets as you are training to failure after a short rest using fatigue to avoid "junk volume". On straight sets normally 2 though lately adding high rep sets afterward (1 set, 2 rest pauses plus one high rep set or 2 straight sets plus 1 high rep or 1 normal plus 1 high rep).

Mark Dugdale's earlier training at least (injury took him away from HIT)

There were other HIT type trainees in the 70s/80s (of course Viator, but John Cardillo, Dr. Lynn Pirie, Pete Grymkowski (big asterisk there), Boyer Coe briefly,

Point-your training style is right there with the people that were SUCCESSFUL with HIT type training.

Again, congratulations on your success. It is smart not to marry yourself to any one program or philosophy. I think sometimes people do this to convince themselves, but end up fighting lost causes when the tide turns. "CICO" and "can't train parts of a muscle" stand out in particular to me, but there are plenty of them.
 
@angelica009 Nice progress man. I love this type of training.

I’m currently on a torso limbs split 4x a week low volume and it’s been good but the sessions are getting a bit longer for my liking. How long do these sessions usually take you? I’ve been going backwards and forwards with changing to this or a similar type of 4 day split.
 
@romo Cheers ! And yeah honestly been my favourite way to train so far - my sessions are typically 45 minutes but get up to 55 for leg days, haven’t had any over an hour. I tossed up doing torso limbs 3x a week for a bit, but honestly liked this split too much ahah
 
@angelica009 Ah that’s good. Yeah it’s a good split but it can take a lot out of you trying to do chest, back and shoulders in one day and legs and arms in another. I may give this a go soon after seeing your post.
 
@romo Iv been considering torso lim. Split as 4 days a week is my max and upper lower is boring me now how do you find it?
 
@pif15 It’s a better version of upper lower I say. Moving arms onto leg days does help hit them better you just got to be careful how you do it cause you can be pretty fatigued after training legs so doing arms straight after could be an issue, I occasionally run it as a leg movement then an arm movement as I find that helps.

After a while of doing it tho it can become boring but for me at the moment I’ve been finding it difficult with doing heavy presses, rows and pulldowns in the same day as each other and it also does get time consuming.

That’s why I’m kinda toying with the idea of trying this type of bro split 4 days a week as it’s also the max I can do and it looks like it would be more enjoyable and less fatiguing then cramming everything into those days.
 
@angelica009 Very interesting results. A few questions: What's your general level/years of experience?
Were you on a bulk, cut, or maintenance during this phase?
Starting weight and end weight, bf%?
Any modification to reps such as slow eccentric, paused, slow concentric, or just reps as normal?
 
@beotos Hey ! Good questions - I’ve been lifting for 2 years and a few months now, so was nearly at that 2 year mark when I changed to this program. I have my starting and ending body weight on the measurements posted, so was a pretty lean bulk during this time. I started at around 17% (honestly hard to tell in that %15-20 range), and I’m sitting at around 20% I’d say now? It’s hard to tell if I put on much fat body comp wise, as my waist didn’t even increase. I performed reps as normal, but would say in general they were probably a little slower/controlled than previously just because I had an extra level of focus in my sessions which increased set quality. Wasn’t something i particularly focused on tho
 
@angelica009 Very nice. Thank you for the answers. I've been considering a program like this. Been doing about 12-15 sets per muscle group a week for a few months now and currently taking a deload where I do 1-2 sets at same weight and reps and I feel better. It just feels like a better, more productive workout over all. I could just be feeling the effects of recovering from some fatigue, but a program like this sounds interesting.
 
@beotos Honestly it’s worth a shot, at the very least running a program like this helps you understand how to push sets. As with all things, if you do it just monitor how ur lifts are progressing and adjust from there. I don’t think there’s any magic programs, just progression and consistency
 
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