How do you know when to increase training volume vs. intensity?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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I have been strength training consistently for several months and have made decent progress. Lately my lifts have stalled and I am unsure whether I should add more sets (volume) or increase the weight (intensity) How do you decide which approach to take and what signs tell you it is time to change your programming? I will love to hear what has worked for others.

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Hi there!

This is a good question, and, fortunately, the answer’s simpler than the volume-versus-intensity framing makes it sound. At a few months in, most people almost certainly don’t need to overhaul anything yet (if the program was sound to start).

First, make sure it’s a real stall. A couple of sessions where the weight didn’t move, or one off week, isn’t a plateau, that’s just the normal bumpiness of training. A true stall is a few (>2 in this case) weeks of no progress with everything else (food, sleep, consistent technique, etc.) reasonably in order. If you’re not there yet, keep doing what you’re doing.

In the same vein, trying to add too much weight too quickly can present as an artificial “stall”, where the actual gain in strength is less than the weight added to the bar. The average time course for a demonstrable increase in strength is ~ 4 weeks when directly tested, with newer trainees being a bit shorter when they first start, though not daily. People who try to add weight each time they lift (multiple times per week) often “stall” because that interval is inconsistent with human adaptation rates. Even weekly progress is hard to do much of the time.

So, I’d want to know about the environment (food, sleep), the technique, and the strategy for progression.

After that, I’d want to know what program you’re on to see if it checks most of the boxes a good program should. A few things come to mind for a good training program:

  • Is there a good amount of movement variety? Doing too much of the same exercise often increases risk of overuse injury and reduces skill development.
  • Is there a good amount of rep range variety? Doing only a single rep range fails to develop all aspects of muscular performance, e.g. maximum strength, strength stamina, strength endurance, etc.
  • Is there autoregulation? Getting stronger means muscular force production has increased in a coordinated manner. Adding weight to the bar should not make the effort feel harder if you’re actually stronger.
  • Is there conditioning work? Lifting only is insufficient for health and performance.
  • Is it adaptable to you as far as scheduling, movement selection, and total training load. Personal preferences and training responsiveness are key factors in programming.

The cleanest fix for “how do I decide,” though, is to stop deciding session to session and run a program that handles it for you. That’s most of what a structured beginner program buys you: it makes the volume and intensity calls so you can just train. Ours is built for exactly this stage if you’d rather take the guesswork off your plate.

Further reading

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Thanks a lot I got much advice I really appreciate your informative response

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Happy to help. Keep us posted with how things are going, and if we can help in any way.