Most everyone these days in the weight lifting gyms plan a strategy of high volume body part splits. The beginning of the week starts the high volume weekly parade starting with the chest, back, legs and then arm days. For some people they exercise all the same body parts, but on different days. Studies are now proving that low volume exercises are the best workouts to build muscle.
The high volume way of training has passed down through the years without revisiting whether this form of training is a good rational approach to building muscle. Also in the 60's the appearance of anabolic steroids really got the folks in the gym fired up and gung-ho to increase the volume of their workouts. The prevalent thinking is that you must increase your volume, and if you don't, you will not see any beneficial muscle growth.
People that take this type of approach will swear that you need the higher volume in order to get higher levels of growth hormone secretion. They don't realize that this hormone growth secretion can happen anytime you do any type of physical activity, even from the heat when you take a shower. And we all know we don't gain muscle growth in the shower. The bottom line is the growth hormones produced during the typical workout are not enough to make the slightest difference whatsoever.
If you are not blessed with great genetics in the muscle growth gene area then you are making a mistake by training with high volume lifting exercises. This type of training will drain your amino acid pool and glycogen stores, and this will dramatically increases the time it takes your body to recover. For example, if you do 8 - 12 sets of chest exercises, to really get your body the proper recovery time you should rest for a week. This cuts down on the actual muscle stimulus from your 8- 12 sets for chest to once a week; remember any additional workouts that week are fueled from a depleted amino acid and glycogen pool. Now just think if you cut down the volume, you would benefit more from training the same body part more than once a week because of the extra recover time.
The best workouts to build muscle are those that utilize exercises with lower reps and with heavier weights. You should aim to decrease the total sets per workout keeping them low, and the total sets per exercise should be even lower. I can understand how difficult it is to change from the high volume way of thinking, but you have to get away from thinking that you have to hit every muscle from every angle to induce muscle growth. This is simply not the case; I challenge you to observe your workout gym closely with an open mind. I would be willing to bet there is someone you never see doing hours of weight lifting and cardio who is in tremendous shape. I myself have seen people over the years that I never saw on the treadmill, or bike, or elliptical machine for extended times and they are very muscular with athletic bodies.
This a radical change from the traditional exercise philosophy and there will be proponents of higher volume workouts that will defend their stance. But remember it has always been difficult to change the prevalent ways of thinking. That's fine, let them continue to do what they choose; personally I have way more important things to do than spend all of my waking hours in the gym. If I can get the best workouts to build muscle in a fraction of the time I will choose that option every time.
Lee H Dinkins is a health and fitness advocate with a passion for the continuous learning and sharing of healthy lifestyle advice and information, You can check out his latest website at Muscle Gaining Help, where he provides unbiased fitness information including Gaining Muscle Fast, and other fitness tips and help
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