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Originally Posted by big Yes.
I've read that one before, along with most other articles Chad puts out. I like Chad's writings. He advocates that much volume but NOT to failure. In fact, if you're doing 8 sets of 3 with only 80% of your 1RM, you're a long, long way from failure. I tend to lean the other way for most beginner/intermediate trainees and encourage far less volume, but with more of an emphasis on how to work progressive resistance, as this is the key IMO. The only things really missing from the article is deloading phases (which ARE needed when doing that amount of volume) and progressive resistance.
The idea behind a volume routine like that, is that you'd load up and bring yourself to the point of overtraining (even overtrain slightly), and when you deload is when your strength would actually increase - with the rebound effect from overtraining (i.e. what bodybuilders traditionally see when they take a week off, and then typically mistake that week off for lesser frequency being the answer).
I wholeheartedly disagree with his statement that anything under this magical "24" number will fail to give hypertrophy though. Most of the guys doing WSB, are only doing 1-3 work sets with 1-3 reps. And they sure seem to get plenty of hypertrophy. Not to mention all the guys getting big off low volume routines. There are lots of ways to get big/strong.
But yeah, nice article. |
You have to also take into account that he is probably marketing this at natural trainers and most if not all the guys that I have seen/read about on WSB are gear users...
As for the volume thing you can turn it around and drop the sets down to the region of 2 or even 3 but up the reps slightly to make the numbers up.
IMHO I think only training to the 80% mark on any given set is the most productive way to go for a vast majority of people..not only will this encourage continual growth but also keep enthusiasm high as i do feel so many people come to a point after pounding out the intensity for awhile hit plateaus too quickly then more than often see this as an indication that they need to increase drug use(the old adage).
As for the detraining this should be in everybodies training..personnely I dont like to train for more than 21-28 days without a 5-7 days rest then start again..
You can still have progressive resistance with his ideas as all you have to do is stick to the same reps/set scheme note all weights lifted and recovery etc from it and increase weights slightly each week..
I also dont think you should use his idea to load up on volume and overtrain I think it should be used to stop you from over training in that is you do keep the reps low but the sets high and dont reach your targets sets then the following workout all you do is jiggle the numbers drop the sets right down but up the reps to keep within the guidelines just as chef would say "resetting"when you fail to meet rtequired numbers that way you should never overtrain...