Renaissance Periodization - How To ACTUALLY Build Muscle As Fast As Possible

[l0fistyle123]

@maria28 I think that’s overkill for a natural. There are a bunch of top level nattys that look phenomenal doing half the volume Mike recommends. You can’t grow if you’re not resting enough. Nothing against him, I just don’t think he has a good grasp of training as a natty

 

[bettys60]

@maria28 i think 4 times a week is a bit of an overkill for any muscle, even lateral raises

 

[sbrodhagen]

@maria28 sorta skeptical about anything greater than 3 times a week unless you say it's calves or leaving a lot in the tank

 

[itsmeheathermarie]

@sbrodhagen It's condensing a couple of different conclusions for a Youtube audience. The facts are: optimal growth occurs with 10-20 direct sets per muscle group per week, and the number of times you train a week doesn't matter so long as you equate volume. So (on average) it is equally optimal to train 3 sessions per week and hit each muscle group twice (or really even just once) so long as you trained for like 2+ hours and got the same amount of volume as if you trained 6/week.

His ranges (4-10 sets per session, 2-4 sessions per muscle group per week) add up to around 16-20 sets of direct work per muscle group per week. He's not suggesting you do 10 sets of bicep curls 4 times a week, but that you do either 10 sets twice a week, or 4-5 sets 4 times a week, because volume equated it should give the same result.

Also its worth noting all the studies which show 10-20 sets is optimal were not on advanced lifters with dialed in technique working at 0-3 RIR, so likely those studies are not concluding 10-20 hard sets a week is optimal. It's much more likely an upper bound, and many advanced lifters on here will attest that they cannot recover from 20 hard sets per muscle group per week.

 

[tinkiepanda]

@itsmeheathermarie Ive seen a study that showed better gains in doing 8-9 sets a week instead of 15 sets although the difference was about 5-8% of muscle gain

 

[onelove4life]

@tinkiepanda Was going to say this.

You don't usually need to do over 10 sets for a muscle group per week especially when you're taking most sets close to failure.

 

[alexandria281]

@sbrodhagen If you count your back as a single muscle group, you can train a different part of it almost every day. Your shoulders can take a lot of punishment too before complaining.

 

[sbrodhagen]

@alexandria281 Back is huge so I typically think of it as 3 or 4 movements you really can do for it.

Just generalities but vertical pulling for lats and teres, horizontal pulling for lower/mid traps rhomboids, shruging movements/rows for upper/mid traps.

And than you can adjust your technique to really hammer the rear delts if they're not developed enough.

Maybe spinal extension/flexion if you want to hit the erectors.

 

[jcreigns]

@sbrodhagen Some muscles like side delts can take a large beating. Higher frequency than twice a week wont do anything volume equated. But there is a limit to per session volume so more session might give you more volume.

Lets say you can handle 30 sets of side delts. But the max per session volume is 12ish. Then you could do a 3rd session with the last 6 sets pr 3 with 10 sets.

 

[dawn16]

@sbrodhagen There is a huge individual variation, it depends on muscle groups, on drugs too.

He’s talking averages, pulling data from multiple sources.

 

[alberto_candelaria]

@maria28 @ 1)2)

I got results for a couple of years with 2-3 workouts per week but they were fullbody. Plenty of volume but only very few at low RIR.

the nr1 factor is having a good program because some people are spinning their wheels with bullshit they come up with themselves

7) twice a day was good enough for me tho 3x is definitely the sweet spot

 

[ryanchamp]

@alberto_candelaria Getting results =|= optimal results.

 

[namakula]

@maria28

1. There isn't much difference between 3,4 and 6 days/week as long as volume is equated
2. There is limited evidence as to higher frequencies being significantly better when volume is equated, especially not over 2x/week
3. 10 sets of a muscle per workout is a bit of a p***take
4. Adding reps only works if its the same weight as earlier in the cycle
5. Effective fatigue management in programming means you don't need scheduled deloads
6. That's on the high side especially for being in a hypercaloric environment
7. Probably makes little difference and having intermittent fasting periods has benefits for longevity, cognition etc
8. Yup
9. Yup
10. Yup

No offence but this guy is not natural and sees great results with gear both himself and his clients that would have gotten the same if not better results had they done something much more basic. "But Renaissance Periodization is science based bro you just need to train from MEV to MRV bro"....

 

[asperd]

@maria28 Recovery is important though. I switched to 4 day upper/lower from 3 day on 1 day off PPL. When I did RDLs as my lead exercise on lower body day, I smashed my PR. Gee I wonder why. It was almost like i was pre exhausting my muscles with the previous volume before I hit RDLs. Do we really need as much volume as we think we do to grow muscle mass? Training 6 days a week might hurt your recovery unless you keep your sessions lower volume and prefer shorter sessions and more days to longer sessions and less days. Are you beating the logbook week to week with the high volume you're doing? Are you recovering with the high volume? Then keep doing it. If you hit plateaus you need to rework things.

 

[tylervan]

@asperd As I've gotten older I'm more Mike Mentzer mindset. My joints can't take 6 days a week. Even 5 and I'm pretty sore. My personal moto is less junk volume and more rest. I'm 43 and doing more weight in everything except bench (separated shoulder years ago and never quite recovered).

 

[jan1996]

@asperd Random question, but I'm starting a program that has RDLs having not done them in the past. If doing 10-12 rep RDLs, what % of similar rep range deadlift weight would you use?

 

[asperd]

@jan1996 https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/romanian-deadlift

https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/deadlift

This should give you an idea. For beginners, on average RDLs are about 70% of ones deadlift weight. For intermediates, RDLs are about 79% of their deadlift weight on average.

I tested out the math myself using my age, gender and weight.

For my gender and weight, if I did lets say 175 for 10 reps of RDLs, that's better than 52% of lifters at my gender and weight. 170 for 10 reps would be better than 49%.

Whereas for conventional deadlifts, 215 for 10 reps would put me at the 50th percentile.

So RDLs are anywhere from 79-81% for an intermediate lifter. In this case, closer to 79% than 81%.

 

[jan1996]

@asperd Thanks, that's a good way of using that site I hadn't thought of. I'll probably start at about 70% or maybe even a bit less to work on the movement first, appreciate the tip!

 

[zemuel]

@maria28 This video stars someone who is sauced…

 

[namakula]

@zemuel Exactly ... this is a natural bodybuilding subreddit. With all due respect to Mike Isratel, people on here following his work like gospel when he is juiced and primarily trains enhanced clients with minimal feedback from naturals...