Modulate Your Volume

I really enjoyed your article: Diminishing Sets for Size, Strength and Muscularity. At 38 years old, simplifying my workout is the way to go.

I workout on Sundays only. As far as my heart health is concerned, I don’t believe in boring cardio, but I believe in what strength training does to the heart. I basically do chins and dips supersets only.

At 5’9”, 190 lbs I can give you a good clean 12 chin-ups and about 16 dips.

A few questions:

Since I workout once a week only and want to maintain and slowly gain what should my rep range start with? Is doing 50 reps total a week enough? 100 reps? More?

A lot of “gurus” advocate up to 100 reps a week for both chins and dips. I’m not a bodybuilder or powerlifter. That seems a lot to me.


Thanks,
Dany


My Answer: You didn't clarify as to what you want to gain. Is it more muscle, more fat loss or more reps in your performance of pull-ups and dips? Since you're not a bodybuilder or powerlifter, then I'm assuming you want to up your reps.

The bottom line is you should vary your target rep totals. Alternate between 50 reps and 100 reps. One week, do 50 reps total. Next week do 100 reps total. Then back to 50 the next week. This way you modulate your volume from week to week, which is better for gains in the long run.

Outdoor Workouts

I was working out at Lake Merced, because it was actually sunny today in the Bay Area. The past few days have been wet and cold, so I thought I'd take advantage of the sun when I can. The great thing about Lake Merced is that it has several exercise stations spread out along the trail surrounding the lake. You can do pull-ups at the hanging rings station, then walk, bike or run to the next station and perform push-ups, head to the next station and perform dips on the parallel bars, and so on and so forth. Golden Gate Park has a similar trail, but it's somewhat hidden.

If you're lucky enough to live near a park or scenic trail that has such exercise stations, then I suggest you give the workout trail a try. Going from station to station is sort of a combination of circuit training and staggered sets training. Your cardio is interspersed between sets of body weight exercises.

Here's a workout that I did today:

Pull-ups (3 sets of as many reps as possible), then walk to balance beams

Pistols, aka one-legged squats (3 sets of as many reps as possible), then walk to parallel bars

Dips (3 sets of many reps as possible), then walk back to previous station and reverse the order of exercises


Ideally your walk or bike ride between stations should not be any longer than a few minutes. If you run between stations, then the run should be no longer than a minute to a minute and a half. If your trail has the exercises station set so far apart that the cardio portion of the workout would be longer than the strength training portion, then I suggest you break up the distances with push-ups or pistols.

So here's how it would look using pistols:

Pull-ups (3 sets of as many reps as possible), then walk for a minute

Pistols, aka one-legged squats
- do one set for each leg, then walk for a minute towards the next station
- do one set for each leg, then walk for a minute towards the next station
- do one set for each leg, then walk and arrive at the next station

Dips on parallel bars (3 sets of many reps as possible), then walk back to previous station and reverse the order of exercises

BCAA's and Glutamine for Cardio

Hey James,

Need a second opinion on this: currently on my cardio days I do 20 minutes of barbell/dumbbell complex training and then 20 minutes of moderate intensity cardio (walking, elliptical, etc). Aim is conditioning and of course fat loss =)

I've been advised that on my cardio days I only need to take BCAA's and glutamine during my session as there is no need for it pre and post [supplementation], because I'm not really going through complete muscle breakdown during these sessions.

Taking into account what my cardio session consists of, is this correct or should I be taking at least BCAA's pre and post also?


Thanks mate,
Basil


My Answer: I think you can go either way. The issue is cost. Taking all those pills can be quite expensive. So if you want to take a single dose of BCAA's and glutamine for cardio, then that's perfectly fine. I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference if you added the pre and post workout dosages for your cardio and conditioning workouts.

But if you have the money, then knock yourself out.

Muscle Density

Hi James,

Are "muscle density" routines/training a scam? Isn't diet & cardio going to get you to a place where your muscle looks "hard and full, with paper-skin"? Or, is there actually some substance to the info out there?

Thank you for your time.

-Shane


My Answer: Well I don't know what sort of training routines you're looking at, but different types of training can get your muscles more "dense." What do we mean by muscle density?

Muscle density refers to how thick and hard the muscles look and feel. This is different from "training density," where you do more work per unit of time. Muscle density is developed through sarcomere hypertrophy. In other words, the muscle fibers grow by thickening in diameter. This is different from sarcoplasmic hypertrophy where your muscles grow from increased fluid retention.

How do you develop sarcomere hypertrophy? Heavy weight and low reps. Anywhere from 3-8 reps, with a target rep range of 4-6 reps being ideal.

So cardio is not the way to go if you want muscular density. If anything, you will lose muscular density, because cardio is based on low weight (or more accurately, low force production) and ultra high reps, the exact opposite training method.

But if you want paper thin skin, then diet plays a crucial role. A cyclical ketogenic diet as mentioned in Training for the Busy Bodybuilder is the way to go.