Volume Change Needed

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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I believe life & age has caught up to me.The volume that use to work seems to beating me into submission these days. I was on an u/l but changed to a split awhile back. 10-16 sets use to be a good sweet spot for an intro and 16-25 for a high volume phase. These days I feel like someone beat me with a bat which isn’t good when you have kids you want to play with. I do regular deloads but still feel wrecked at the end of the week.

I think it’s time to switch to an u/l and drop the volume focusing more on general size/health.

I’m curious what some of you more experienced guys are doing for volume per body part a week. Anyone else experienced this? I use to know exactly how to train myself now it’s like I’m in someone else’s body.

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I do 10-12 sets for large body parts except for hamstrings I do about 6 direct sets of either RDL or SLDL a week. 6-8 sets a week for smaller body parts like biceps.

I think people tend to do too much volume.

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Age?

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Has recovery changed (sleep, diet, life stress)? Or workload like are you lifting much more weight than when these volume numbers were working for you?

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37 yrs old

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Thanks. I guess I might stay around that range and work on intensity for awhile.

I feel like my nutrition is good. Stress is pretty high and I get around 5-6 hrs on average sleep…but man I feel like a wreck come saturday

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I def need more sleep but best I can do is around 5-6. Not a whole lot has changed except for my age. I do have a good amount of stress going on

The weight stays pretty steady. I don’t really work up to a specific number. I work up to say a 9 rpe then go from there.

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What does your split look like?

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That is way to high of an RPE given the volume you were doing. I average an RPE of 7-8.

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Maybe try your best to up your recovery then even if you do lower volume. Diets another factor too.

When I meant weight I meant like absolute weight. Usually the longer people lift the stronger they get and the more fatigue they generate from training hard like a given number of Sets was good when you lifted 2 plates for reps but might be different by the time you are repping 3 or 4

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Ok … Just a FYI I am 47 and speaking from experience. At your age now and progression forward managing frequency, intensity and volume are going to become very important.

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I agree with lucas. It sounds like you did a lot of work in the past. Probably too much for where you are now. And taking it up too an RPE of 9 every workout is too intense to keep up for long.

Try bringing the sets way down, maybe 9-12 for big stuff and 6-9 for smaller parts. During the first week, work around 6 or 7 RPE. Second week, do the same number of sets, but work a little harder, RPE 7 or 8. Third week, go as hard as your used to, RPE 8 or 9.

For the 4th week, you can add an exercise or do more sets, and move up to like 12-15 sets per body part. Wave the intensity back down to 6 or 7. Then gradually increase the RPE of those sets over the next 2 weeks, repeating the cycle.

The first week will seem like too little, too easy. But it will give you a “mini break” or deload to recover from what you’ve been doing to yourself. It will also allow you to start “small” and gradually work up to an effective work load that still let’s you recover.

It can be boring and tedious to work through the process in such a structured way, but it’s the fastest way you can figure out your body and do the right work load in the future.

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Typical yates.

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I’ve been doing something similar with exception of the rpe. I usually stay around 8-9. Reading the replies I most def need to bring it down several notches.

Just to give you an idea the link below is basically what I do. I use his newer exercise sequence and the higher volume phase is only 4 weeks per bp.

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