I think this looks good, but I would personally probably sub out Leg Press for Hack squat. In my experience, you can go deeper into knee flexion, which is better for quad Hypertrophy(and you also don’t have to spend all day loading plates onto it like the leg press). Also you may want to replace one of your Tricep exercises with a cable Pushdown to better stimulate the long head of the triceps(or simply add it). Sumo deads also won’t hit the hamstrings very well since it primarily biases the glutes and quads, so you may be better served doing an extra set of stiff legged deadlift, especially since you likely won’t go all the way to failure on this movement. Paul would also tell you to add in the “good girl” Machine to work your Adductors.
I agree, Paul Carter is a great resource. This seems to align well with his volume recommendations, and although it’s only two training days, you’re still covering the full body. Paul seems to not mind once a week frequency, so it at least follows from that perspective.
Any number of days per week can work. The one caveat with a lower frequency approach is that you might lose focus, drive or cause central fatigue that would hurt the second half of the workout if you are trying to do too much stuff in one session.
Now, with an effort-based/low-volume approach there less of a risk than with a volume based approach. But if you are taking all work sets to task failure, it might drain you as much as volume work would and negatively impact the end of the workout.
One way to reduce the negative impact of this is to change the order the muscles are trained from session to session so that each muscles are being trained while fresh at some point.
I feel it’s important to ask: how many failure based training programs have you run previously? If you were given one single set per muscle per day, could you juice that set hard enough to get growth out of it?
This takes some significant experience to achieve.
If you aren’t pushing to failure every set, i dont think you will be getting enough effective reps with an approach like this.
And, to be fair, even if all those sets are pushed to true task failure, the volume might still in the “barely enough to grow” zone. Volume for an effort-based plan tends to be around 3-9 work sets per muscle per week. 3 will certainly give some muscle growth, but in very few individuals will it be sufficient to stimulate maximum growth.
And even if you are good at reaching true task failure, doing it on a large number of exercises in a session might be hard to accomplish.
I am training for 15 years. Won several bench and deadlift cups. As I switched to bodybuilding with TRT I did Leangains, DC & the programs from JP.
Intensity isn’t a prob for me.
My goal is not getting “maximum” growth. I want consistent gains. I will train the next 30+ years anyway. So it will just take me a little longer with lower volume.
The thing is, I would possibly do more in one session, but I will be so drained that my day ends with the training.
According to Chris B. 25 effective reps are the maximum per session. Doing 5 Sets twice per week to failure or 6-8 hard sets would be impossible for me.
Stuart McRoberts programs were good to, but it was not enough volume to get results, even slow ones (in my eyes).
Sounds like you’ll be a good fit for a 2/wk plan if training to failure to me.
I would not follow the any “absolute” advice pieces from really anyone. Particularly when regarding volume as this varies greatly from trainee to trainee - and thats not even touching training frequency or individual recovery factors.
Jordan Peters has a great video on altering training program to suit recoverability; it sounds you’re already familiar with his training style so I assume it isn’t needed to be linked. At any rate, i like JPs thoughts on training for recovery and that’s what i would always recommend.