How To Use Volume For Hypertrophy?

I have started to incorporate volume and hypertrophy work into my training and am trying to gain some good amount of muscle. Ive read most of Mike Israetels recomandations on volume and it all sounds great,but he recommands programming your volume from low at the beginning of the cycle to high at the end of the cycle and then deload and restard. However i thought there is an optimum amount of volume for every individual where they make the best gainz,so why cycle it and waste time on lower and higher volumes? Sorry if im missing something and being ignorant,but i just dont see much of a point. Not disagreeing with Mike,just trying to understand why.

The way I understand it;

Optimal is like a curve. The theoretical perfect amount of volume will give you the theoretical best gains.

But just a little bit less volume than the perfect amount, or just a little more will still get you 93% of those “best gains.” (totally made up number. It could be 89% or 97%, who knows?).

Even though there is a theoretical “perfect” workload to stimulate gains you still need to increase or progress to keep signalling your body to continue building muscle. You need to continue stimulating the hypertrophy.

In order to change the workload, but still stay close to the “best amount” to get the “most gains” you start just a little low and go just a little high. You stay right in the highest gain zone.

If you just did the same thing over and over, gains would stop and you would waste time.

If you started too easy, you get far from “optimal gains” for awhile, until you build up to the proper workload. So you progress, but get less gains overall . If you start out too hard, you quickly get into too much territory. Again, you make less than optimal progress.

By going from just under to just over the “perfect” amount you can progress the load while staying in the green zone.

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Wow dude thanks that was a great explanation. Literally answered all my questions. Thanks a lot.

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No problem.

Maybe if I repeat it enough times I’ll stick to it myself.

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There is school of thought that you don’t cycle. You find the volume that works for you and stick with it.

Cycling lets you introduce fluctuations that seem to help you from getting stale. It also gives you a longer period of recovery and allows you the benefits of a high stress workload but doesn’t expose you to injury risk that would happen if you constantly did it.

If you could run your car in 6th gear at 7000rpm all the time, would you do it or do you think that may have some wear issues?

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