Training Volume and Work Capacity

 

Training volume and work capacity is a cute couple. They go hand in hand pretty much all the time. It’s a pretty toxic relationship to be honest. Work capacity is very controlling of volume, and they are very codependent of each other.

If they climb up a mountain, and volume goes up too fast, work capacity can’t keep up and it will start slipping down. On the other hand, if work capacity goes up faster, eventually it will slow down and stale, unless volume catches up.

Now, if you are not familiar with these concepts, that little analogy probably made no sense at all. So, lets look into what training volume and work capacity are.

 

Training volume is the actual amount of work you do within a certain amount of time. Training volume can be measured from a single session, from multiple sessions (usually one training week), or even from longer time periods, but the most practical measures come from single session volumes and weekly volumes.

In strength training, volume is commonly measured in working sets, the actual hard sets you do. Lets say you do 5 sets of 5 reps with 100 kg in squats on Monday and 3 sets of 10 reps with 87,5 kg on Thursday, that would mean 8 total working sets for squats in a week.

Another way to measure training volume for lifting is to count working sets multiplied by the reps executed multiplied by the load. Sets x Reps x Weights. Otherwise known as volume load. Therefore, training volume from the previous example for the squats would be: 5 x 5 x 100 (kg) + 3 x 10 x 87,5 (kg) = 5 125 kg of total weight lifted during the week.

Its quite clear that the first way to measure volume is much more practical than the second one.

Training volume can also be measured with the amount of time it takes. Lets say you train 1,5 hours a day for 5 days per week. That would total 7,5 hours of weekly training. A practical method for tracking training volume especially for endurance activities. But more on training volume for endurance training some other time.

 

Fitness - Fatigue model

Work capacity is the ability to perform work within any time period and recover from within a reasonable time. Sounds familiar? It’s pretty much like training volume, but the major difference is the recovery aspect. Work capacity is a very individual concept. Some people tolerate more total work, some people less. It also depends on the type of work you are doing. Some people are more capable of doing some type of work more but cannot keep up when the modality changes.

Work capacity changes with fatigue and your readiness to workout. Shown as 'performance' in the Fitness - Fatigue model above. Work capacity is at its highest when you are fully recovered, and at its lowest immediately after a training session. Therefore, if training volume is very high all the time your work capacity starts to decrease if you cannot recover properly in time for the next training session. On the other end, if training volume is very low work capacity cannot increase. In order to increase your work capacity, you need to do increasingly more and more training volume. Body adapts to a certain amount of stimulus within 2-4 weeks. If you don’t change the stimulus in any way, no more adaptations are needed. Therefore, no adaptations happen.

 Volume and work capacity

As established, your work capacity does dictate the training volume to a degree. You simply cannot train at a volume that is too high for your recovery ability. On the contrary, training with too low volume does not contribute to a much progress in a long run.

Training volume is a major driver of hypertrophy. If you don’t slowly increase your training volume overtime, you cannot build more tissue, after a certain point. What if you don’t care about muscle mass, you only want to be stronger. Well, there comes a point when just doing “strength work” doesn’t give you what you need. The amount of muscle mass is a big indicator of how much you can produce force. So, you need to get bigger muscles. Therefore, you need hypertrophy training. So you need to increase your training volume. At least for a little while.

The smartest approach would be to increase training volume slowly overtime. You start with an amount of work you can recover from, and once your body adapts to that amount, you increase the volume. This way you avoid burning out too fast and you can train a long time progressively.

 

The Rule of two

When it comes to strength training, starting with lower volume makes sense. Excessively high training volumes cause you to burn out much faster than lower ones, and when you are starting a new block of training, after a certain point the extra volume only contributes to soreness, which doesn’t mean more adaptations. It’s only more damage to recover from.

Next time you start a new training cycle, I suggest you try this approach:

Start with two sets per exercise, perform two exercises for a movement pattern or body part in a single session, and do this two times per week.

The rule of two. The training volume is quite low, only 8 total working sets each week. Probably something you can handle quite comfortably. After the initial week or two, add only one set, each week! So, on the second or third week you would to 9 total sets, the following week you would do 10 total sets. And so on.

 

Undulate

Once you hit very high training volumes, that you can barely recover from, you take a deload. A period of lower training volume, where you allow your body to recover more.

As the training volume slowly builds up, so does your work capacity until you hit a cap, when you simply can’t recover anymore. After the peak, there needs to be a slope, a deload.

I'll talk more about good deloading strategies some other time. But for now, you should at least know that decreasing total volume by half (sets and reps) gets you a long way.

After the deload, you can start with slightly higher volume, or start with the same number of sets and do a more rapid increase, adding two sets in the first couple weeks.

 

Example approach to squat training volume

Week	Session 1 (Movement; Sets x Reps)	Session 2 (Movement; Sets x Reps)
Week 1	Back squat; 2 x 8-10 Hack squat; 2 x 10-15	RFE Split squat; 2 x 8-10 ea Leg press; 2 x 10-15
Week 2	Back squat; 3 x 8-10 Hack squat; 2 x 10-15	RFE Split squat; 2 x 8-10 ea Leg press; 2 x 10-15
Week 3	Back squat; 3 x 8-10 Hack squat; 2 x 10-15	RFE Split squat; 3 x 8-10 ea Leg press; 2 x 10-15
Week 4	Back squat; 3 x 8-10 Hack squat; 3 x 10-15	RFE Split squat; 3 x 8-10 ea Leg press; 2 x 10-15
Week 5	Back squat; 3 x 8-10 Hack squat; 3 x 10-15	RFE Split squat; 3 x 8-10 ea Leg press; 3 x 10-15
Week 6	Back squat; 4 x 8-10 Hack squat; 3 x 10-15	RFE Split squat; 3 x 8-10 ea Leg press; 3 x 10-15
Week 7 (Deload)	Back squat; 2 x 5 (same load) Hack squat; 2 x 8 (same load)	RFE Split squat; 2 x 5 ea (same load) Leg press; 2 x 8 (same load)

 

This is a quite slow method of increasing volume and might not be suitable for everybody. If you are an athlete with limited time to do training in the off-season, you may need a different approach. Or, if you are more experienced lifter and you know you can tolerate high training volume. However, most gym-goers aren’t.

Whatever the case, don’t rush your training process. Results take time, and while high volume strength training does lead to good results faster, it might be best done occasionally, since impaired recovery can lead to all kinds of issues.

My ‘CookieCutter’ training platform is perfectly suited for intermediate to advanced lifters and it incorporates these same ideas into a very effective training program. ‘CookieCutter’ also allows you to take more control over your training progress with exercise selection and performance evaluations. Anyone in need of good strength and hypertrophy program needs to check it out! More about ‘CookieCutter’ here.

Thanks! 

Mitja

If you like my articles make sure to follow me on instagram, where I post more tips about training. 

Also check out my website ML Strength Performance.

References:

 

Schoenfeld, Brad PhD, CSCS, CSPS, FNSCA¹; Grgic, Jozo MSc² Evidence-Based Guidelines for Resistance Training Volume to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy, Strength and Conditioning Journal: August 2018 - Volume 40 - Issue 4 - p 107-112 

Ye, Xin & Loenneke, J & Fahs, Chris & Rossow, L & Thiebaud, Robert & Kim, Daeyeol & Bemben, Michael & Abe, T. (2013). Relationship between lifting performance and skeletal muscle mass in elite powerlifters. The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness. 53. 409-414.

Kreher JB, Schwartz JB. Overtraining syndrome: a practical guide. Sports Health. 2012 Mar;4(2):128-38