Q: I’m in agreement with your volume analysis. At age 60, I require fewer sets than the latest study indicates. I’ve been using your Old Man, Young Muscle workout, and it’s adding muscle to my physique quickly. Thank you. My question is, if I have a very sluggish muscle group, should I do more sets to bring it up?
A: Before I answer, let me summarize the meta-analysis you referenced. Robinson, et al. (2023) determined that 12 ALL-OUT sets a week per muscle is a good top end for hypertrophy for most trainees…
You can go higher—around 20—if you stop your sets at least three reps short of failure…
In Old Man, Young Muscle, you train each muscle with around four all-out sets per workout for each muscle—only eight sets per week, not 12.
And you do fewer if there is overlap, such as for triceps, which receive work during chest presses. Three direct sets for tri’s will build plenty of size—if you emphasize the ideal exercise…
Remember, this is a geezer prescription—for older bodybuilders. If you’re younger, you may want to do more—up to the six all-out sets per workout twice a week for each muscle as the study suggests.
And, yes, even if you’re older, an extra set or two for lagging muscles is acceptable—and often required…
It’s a given that you probably have trouble feeling the lagging muscle working, even during the ideal exercise that puts the majority of the fibers in the optimal line of force for maximum activation…
That’s because of low neuromuscular efficiency—weak nerve force due to genetics—how you’re built—or perhaps an injury. For me, it’s been medial-delt heads…
My shoulder structure is not wide, so I want to build out the middle heads to create more width; however, my delts appear to need more than four sets listed in the OMYM workout for me to get at all of the fibers…
So I’ll often add two sets of behind-the-back one-arm cable laterals to the four sets listed. That puts my delt total at 12 per week, which is in line with the researchers findings; however…
Keep in mind that the medial-delt heads are small muscles, so they don’t require a lot of my limited recovery ability. In other words, the extra sets aren’t as draining as adding two sets of quad or back work.
What do you do if a large muscle-group is lagging? I’ll cover that tomorrow.
Your Efficient Mass-Building Handbook: For complete mass workouts that include Speed Sets, the ideal exercise for each muscle, and the best stretch and contracted add-on moves, get your copy of Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
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