Why not do more sets?

Out of the 19 men who have won the Mr. Olympia title throughout the years, only one of them used low-volume or HIT training — and that is Dorian Yates.

And the other 18?

All used high volume.

You name them…

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Ronnie Coleman

Lee Haney

Jay Cutler

Phil Heath

All trained with 20+ sets per week (high volume).

Which means high volume is better than low volume, right?

No.

If you ask Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates, they would say that these guys only succeeded because they used steroids.

“The reason some bodybuilders have gained muscle with volume training relates to the fact that steroids act primarily as recovery-ability enhancers. Were those same bodybuilders to train for two hours a day six days a week without steroids, they would begin to lose muscle mass almost immediately.”

— Mike Mentzer

Mike and Dorian believed that high-volume training would only lead to overtraining.

So instead, they said that one all-out set is all you need, and anything beyond that is just a waste of time.

“After one all-out set taken beyond failure, the muscle has received the maximum stimulation it can handle. Anything more is just wasting energy.”

— Dorian Yates

When you hear the reasoning from Mike and Dorian, it kind of makes sense.

Moreover, Mike Mentzer used an analogy:

“If one bullet can kill a man, if one sperm can build an entire human body, then why can’t one set build muscle?”

At first, this seems logical.

But here’s the thing…

Our muscles don’t work like that.

Our muscles respond to stimulus when we work out.

By the way, a stimulus is something that causes your body to respond.

For example:

Your skin gets darker under the sun.

You get angry when you get punched in the face.

But let’s get back to the topic.

Let’s say:

1 failure set = 1 stimulus

2 failure sets = 2 stimuli

3 failure sets = 3 stimuli

When you look at how training volume works, you can see that volume is simply the multiplication of stimulus.

Or we can say it like this:

More volume = more stimulus.

And if you can recover from more stimulus, you can build more muscle.

As simple as that.

But the question remains:

Why not just do more sets if it works better?

Oh, and one more thing…

If high volume doesn’t work for natural lifters, then why do the world champions of natural bodybuilding train with high volume?

And here’s another fun fact:

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Frank Zane built impressive physiques before they ever used steroids, and they trained with high volume.

That’s it for today.

Kevin | BuildlikeArnold