Hypertrophy and volume questions.

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Barbell Medicine,

  1. I​​​ will be finished pl2/peaking in the next two weeks and I’m planning on moving on to hypertrophy 2 to complete once or twice, and then shifting back to powerlifting. I am wondering if the hypertrophy 2’s volume is too excessive for me considering that I have been consistently training with barbells for 1.5 years. My squat is 295lbsx5, bench is 230x5, deadlift is 345 x5, and press is 135 x6. I’m 22 years old, 6 feet tall, 185 lbs, with a 31.5 inch waist. I have had great success with the BBM templates with recently the powerlifting template.

  2. What is your opinion of Mike Israetel’s training philosophy? In particular what do you think about his claim that certain muscles/muscle groups have a minimum/maxim effective volumes, maximum recovery volumes, and maximum adaptive volumes. Are these claims relatively sound? He seems to think that chest musculature training benefits from being trained 3 times a week at the most, although I know this may be volume dependent. He also seems to think that the deltoid can benefit from direct training up to 6 times a week given the context. What are your thoughts on this and could you please explain the benefit of the seemingly high pressing and leg training friquency in hypertrophy 2? Israetel also stated that the maximum recoverable volume for the quads is around 20 sets. Given that hypertrophy 2 prescribed up to 26 sets per week that heavily rely on the quads(including sumo deadlifts and all other squat/leg accessories) what are your thoughts on his statement and why is this level of volume relatively optimal? Thank you for your time and knowledge.

2

Z,

Thanks for the post :slight_smile:

  1. I probably would do hypertrophy I.

  2. We agree with Mike on many things regarding training. I think the MED/MRV stuff is useful for discussing programming. I don’t think think I’d feel comfortable making exact recommendations on how often a body part should be trained given the heterogeneity of responses by individuals. To be clear, all of the numbers you listed here are made up, which is fine…but should not be taken as fact. I think the volume and frequency of hypertrophy 2 is appropriate for the intended demographic.

-Jordan

3

Dr Fiegenbaum,

Thanks for the response and clarification in regards to Israetel’s approach. Could you please explain why you’d reccomend hypertrophy 1 over 2? In a previous thread you reccomended I go ahead and run hypertrophy 2 considering that I was running pl2 and the volume would be more appropriate. I purchased hypertrophy 2 and the volume seemed like a lot given my training history but I’m still not sure.

​​​​​

4

You could do that as well. It’s very difficult to give someone an iron-clad recommendation when new material continues to be presented. That said, I don’t have any problems with you doing hypertrophy 2.

5

Thanks doc!