In the previous newsletter, I mentioned that Doug gradually reduced his training volume through his 50s. At one point, he was doing 12-plus sets per muscle.
When he first started writing for Iron Man magazine in the early 2000s, he had pulled it back to around seven, which is where he was when I interviewed him for the ebook The Ultimate Power-Density Mass Workout in 2007…
But his reps for each set were still double digits, starting with 50 reps: 50, 40, 30, 20, 10(10)(5) (that interview and his entire workout are in the Power-Density ebook).
He and I had some email exchanges in which volume was the subject. I told him that I was doing only three sets—sometimes 4….
At around that same time, hypertrophy researcher Chris Beardsley was posting his analysis of recent research, and verified the decline in stimulation after the very first set. And that stimulation was much less with each succeeding set…
In other words, sets after about three or four were doing very little for hypertrophy—unless you were on drugs, of course. Here’s a graphic Beardsley posted on his Instagram (chrisbeardsley)….
Notice how the hypertrophic stimulation begins to level off after set two and almost flat-lines after set three. After that, I sent Doug my workout that I was using that appears in Old Man Young Muscle.
He was impressed with my 35-minute workouts and how little work it took to build my muscular physique in my 60s…
My prodding along with Beardsley’s posts finally got Doug to pull back to four and eventually three sets per muscle twice a week.
Full disclosure: Without the scientific analysis from Beardsley, my reduce-your-volume rants would’ve fallen on deaf ears. Doug could be stubborn…
Training to failure was also a bone of contention. I was taking all of my sets to failure; Doug was not. Why? Doug hit me with this in an email…
Beardsley says that the last two reps before “failure” are the ones that cause the most calcium ions to be produced, and he further explained how those calcium ions actually cause “damage” (which interferes with the muscle’s ability to continue, but also with its ability to recover quickly), yet provide no additional hypertrophy benefit. He specifically said, “You never need to go to failure for hypertrophy.”
I eventually relented—I can be stubborn too. And I was shocked at my new progress when I pulled back my intensity. I explain all of that and how I applied it to my new cable-based workouts in Old Man Young Muscle 2.
As you can see, Doug’s workout ideas on intensity were converging nicely with my reduced-volume approach. There were still some differences, which I’ll discuss in upcoming newsletters. For now, I’ll end with an excerpt from Doug’s email to me after he had been using his three-sets-per-muscle workouts for a while…
The workout is over more quickly, which is psychologically good. I conserve energy, which can then be used for recovery. And I find myself treating 3 sets differently than 4 sets. I take bigger incremental jumps of weight…
For example, for pecs (slight decline dumbbell press), I used to use 25 pounds, 35, 40, and 45 (30 reps, 20, 15, and 12). Now, I use 30 pounds, 40 and 50 (30 reps, 20 and 10)….none to total failure (2 reps in reserve, approximately).
In the next training newsletter, I’ll have more from Doug’s emails, specifically on muscle fatigue and how he managed it to grow faster with less training. I’ll include a couple of progress photos he sent me with his amazing condition using the 3-to-4-set approach.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
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