Why I Do Low Volume Workouts

When it comes to weight training in the gym there are two main modes of thinking:

1. Lots of exercises, lots of sets, lots of reps

Aka high volume workouts.

This is your classic approach where you’re doing 5–7 exercises for 3–5 sets each, and doing 6–20 reps per set.

It’s time tested and proven for building muscle and burning a bunch of calories so you’re getting a lot out of it from a fitness perspective.

Workout programs like the bro split, upper lower splits, and even the push/pull/legs split typically take this approach and it works well for so many people.

There are only 2 downsides to this approach despite the benefits:

It takes a lot of time and can be hard to recover from.

Enter the second mode of thinking:

2. Key exercises, fewer days, fewer sets, high intensity

The late, great Mike Mentzer took this low volume approach to the extreme and even had some programs where you only hit the weights every 4th day, which would be 7–8 workouts per month.

On the high volume programs, it’s ideal to stop your set a few reps short of failure.

But on this approach?