I had someone ask me a meaningful question at the gym last night. Surprise it does happen occasionally. Here is the question he asked me. Should I be focusing more on intensity or volume with my workouts? Which will help me build the most muscle? Kind of two questions I know but they go hand in hand. I think it was a productive discussion and by the end we had 5 other people listening in, so I figured it is probably a good idea to inform anyone else who cares and give you some food for thought.

First a little background on the guy who asked me the question. He is in the gym basically 5-6 days/wk. He knows what he is doing and has built a pretty good base. He is about 30yrs old 5’9” probably around 200lbs and low teens bodyfat. He is actually an ex-marine. Solid dude and strong AF and just looking to take it to the next level with training since he was feeling kind of stuck. This was the gist of the conversation with a little extra thrown in since I have had some time to digest it all.

Intensity

When talking about intensity I am talking about the amount of weight lifted. The closer you are to your 1RM the more intense it is. Blood and Guts training AKA Dorian Yates type of stuff. That dude is about as mesomorphic as you can get and extremely advanced. He can achieve an incredible muscular contraction with every single rep just due to how his body and nervous system have adapted from his time in the gym. I read in one of my books somewhere that the average pro bodybuilder has been shown to be able to contract up to 60% of his muscle fibers during each rep/contraction. I have heard some as even high as 70%. Us mere mortals average around 25-30% of our muscle fibers/rep. So less than half of what the pros are able to use. So now burn this into your brain. These advanced lifters/pros are obviously going to be able to fatigue their body faster and get a greater training response from less overall volume They can use 2x more muscle fibers for each rep FFS!! Now the corollary for us gym rats, especially a newb in the gym, is that we need to do more volume to get the same effect since we aren’t contracting nearly as many muscle fibers each rep. This leads us into the concept of volume.

Volume

So, for us mere mortals, increased volume and frequency are the only real ways to effectively build muscle, assuming you are not an advanced lifter. Here is where I think a lot of people in the gym go off the rails and become stagnant in their training. Most people think working a body part once a week is enough. Let me break it to you, for most it is not. What is going to work is to do a little less volume per workout but do it more often. Instead of doing 30 sets in one day for a body part, it is going to be much more beneficial to do say 17 sets for that body part but do it 2x/wk. One big, massive workout every 7 days/body part is not optimal.
Now, a so-called advanced bodybuilder/pro can get away with doing a body part once a week, because he is wrecking that muscle so much due to the maximum amount of fibers/tissue damage done with each contraction (i.e., intensity). This still doesn’t mean that may be optimal to train that body part 1x/wk. Let’s go back to Blood and Guts. He could probably get away with training his legs 1x/wk since he is doing so much damage to the muscles that he probably needs 5/6 days to recover. Us average joes just aren’t doing as much work as him, even if we follow his exact same workout. He is still utilizing twice as many fibers. We may perceive it as the same amount of effort, but the actual amount of work being done by the muscles in our legs isn’t nearly the same, not even close. So, all this Mentzer and Yates training where they are hardly doing any sets works for them because they are utilizing so many more muscle fibers with each set compared to us. Hence, I don’t recommend that style training to non-elite bodybuilders, which you should now understand why.

Cliff Notes

Obviously, there is a limit in terms of the volume you can do. It is unproductive to spend 3hrs/d in the gym. You shouldn't need more than an hour maybe hour and half tops to get in a productive workout. If it is taking you longer than that then you are doing too much and cortisol will start taking over and sabotaging gains or you are texting on your phone too damn much. A newb in the gym starting out is going to start with a lower frequency, lower volume training program. As you become more seasoned in the gym you increase the volume and frequency, but only up to a certain point. If you can train more often and still recover, then the more often you do it, the more muscle you will put on. So, it really comes down to trying to train as often as you possibly can while giving the body just enough time to recover that body part. Familiarize yourself with the principle of overcompensation. To much time goes by for a body part before working out again and you miss the supercompensation window. Only you know your body so learn how you recover and how you can push it.

The role of steroids

So, how do steroids play into all of this. Pretty simple. Steroids allow you to recover faster so you can train more often, and train harder. They are recovery compounds for the most part. It’s not actually necessarily from the fact that steroids build muscle. You can pin copious amounts of steroids on their own until they start leaking out your ears and not gain an ounce of muscle. Try it and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. Pin as much as you want and lay on the couch all day and don’t train. You won’t build any muscle. Yeah, you will gain some weight because of water and glucose retention, but no muscle. Steroids allow you to train harder and more often which increases the efficiency of your nervous system and thus in turn recruiting more muscle fibers and accelerated growth. You can now hit each body part 2 maybe even 3x/wk with the same intensity each session instead of only once. That is what causes the lean tissue growth in a nutshell.