Picking Your Training Volume

You might be making a programme or looking at several ones to choose from. A component of any training protocol is the number of exercises, reps and sets per week, these come together to make up the training volume.

So the first thing I would like to note is that all things being equal two people could have the same volume, but one may train three times a week and the other five. So one way of manipulating volume is how you spread it across your week.

Right so now we understand what volume is and how we can spread it across the week, how much do we need? Everyone is individual but you can generalise volume with good confidence that it works for most people. A way I like to explain this is with the use of a cup, different people have different size cups and these cups get filled with volume. The longer you have been training properly the larger your cup will be, meaning the more space you have to fill your cup with volume. For example a complete beginner to training will have a shot glass and a small and can only handle a small amount of volume, but an individual who’s trained as a competitive power lifter for the past three years will have a pint glass. Why? Well overtime you develop fitness, your neuromuscular system becomes much more efficient and this combination means you can handle more volume.

However, a component to consider is other things that can start filling your glass. For example, a person who is playing sport three times a week with a stressful job will have filled up their glass substantially, leaving less space for additional training. Whereas someone working an easy office job with no additional outside exercise will leave their cup untouched.

So the volume you can handle is down to the size of your cup (training age) and how much its already been filled (sports, manual/stressful jobs etc. ). This component of a training programme is very important and many overlook it. If you do too much you will push your body past its capabilities, eventually you’ll stall become ‘overtrained’ and may regress. Yet if you use insufficient volume you will not provide sufficient stimulus to progress, and again you’ll stall.

The amount of volume you need is therefore very individual and an important programming tool to get right.

Practical Guidelines

• Volume can be worked out by multiplying weight used by total reps done per week.
• Volume can be spread across your week in different ways e.g. 3 sessions with 20 sets per session or 6 sessions with 10 sets per session.
• The more advanced you are in training terms the more volume you can handle.
• The more stress free and less physically demanding your life outside training is the more volume you can take.
• Each persons ideal volume is therefore very individual, too much and you will ‘overtrain’ and regress, too little and you will not progress.

My recommendation is to be realistic about your training goals, do not try and squeeze in as much exercise as possible. A good thing to ask yourself would be ‘can I keep this up for the long term?’, if not then I suggest you decrease the amount you are doing. Remember you can always increase how much you do, so I would say start with less than you think you can handle and then build from there.