Training volume is how much you workout.

Training intensity is how hard your workout.

The relationship between Volume <> Intensity

As intensity increases, the amount of volume you can perform goes down. As intensity decreases, the amount of volume you can perform goes up.

Think about your max bench press. Your intensity is absolutely maxed out, so you can only perform 1 rep.

But if you took a couple of plates off the barbell, you could probably do a lot more reps. Taking weight off would decrease the intensity required for you to perform the lift, so you could do more reps, i.e. more volume.

This is how the relationship between volume and intensity works.

So last week we covered what your ideal training volume should look like if you want to build muscle, today we’re gonna cover ideal training intensity to build muscle.

Why your Training Intensity matters

There are 3 main adaptations people typically lift weights for:

  1. Strength

  2. Hypertrophy (building muscle)

  3. Muscular Endurance

And each of these has their own associated rep range.

1. A low repetition scheme with heavy loads (from 1 to 5 repetitions per set with 80% to 100% of 1-repetition maximum (1RM)) optimizes strength increases.

2. A moderate repetition scheme with moderate loads (from 5 to 12 repetitions per set with 60% to 80% of 1RM) optimizes hypertrophic gains.

3. A high repetition scheme with light loads (15+ repetitions per set with loads below 60% of 1RM) optimizes local muscular endurance improvements.

This is due to the relationship between volume and intensity that we discussed before.

  • Strength training is all about short bursts of extremely intense lifts (the right side of the graph we saw earlier)

  • Hypertrophy is about finding the sweet spot where volume and intensity meet (the middle of the graph)

  • Muscular endurance is about high volume/low intensity and well, endurance (the left side of the graph we saw earlier)

So to build muscle, we want to be in the 5-12 rep range, doing 60-80% of our 1 rep max.

You have to Struggle to Grow

Now you can obviously take a day to find your 1 rep max and then do the math, but if you’re impatient like me - this feels like wasting a training day.

What I do and what I recommend, is that you load on a weight that’s challenging for you but doable.

Say you’ve got 4 sets of 8 on leg extensions.

Find a weight that’s challenging but doable for you for 8 reps for your first set. Then for the next set, add some more weight. Do this until you’re struggling to complete that 8th rep. Simple as that.

Ideal world - you find a weight you can do for 8 reps, but that last rep should be a battle - it should not be easy.

Because despite the graph we looked at before, your workouts should still be extremely intense. They just need to be extremely intense at the volume we’re working in - the 5-12 rep range.

In fact, you should be walking the line of failure during those last few reps of every set that you perform - but ESPECIALLY the last set of each exercise.

Those last few reps is where most of the growth comes from - this is when the muscle is truly fatigued but fighting for more. You can feel it - your muscles are hurting and screaming at you to stop, but you keep pushing and fighting against it.

You’re sending your body a clear message that it needs to grow when you push this hard. And when you do that, your body has no choice but to listen.

This is why machines are so valuable when it comes to building muscle. They make it super easy to isolate certain muscles and push yourself to the edge of failure without risking much injury.

But regardless of how you’re training, if you want to build muscle - much like in life…

You have to struggle to grow.

ps: thanks for reading today y’all. After receiving a whole bunch of unsubscribes and some feedback from a few of you, I’ve decided to put a hold on the daily workout emails for now. Have a great week!

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