Ultimately this will not change my training so I suppose it’s Time Wasted on Useless Details. BUT I find it interesting!
I’ve heard you mention and heard from other seemingly reputable sources that Hypertrophy, while still a complicated topic, seems to be dependent partially on total weekly volume as well as proximity to failure in any given set. If this is the case, and we are using RPE as a proxy for RIR, is there an RPE that you would be confident in saying is sufficient for driving hypertrophy. For example is anything at or above RPE 6 driving hypertrophy?
If the above statements are true, looking at week two of the beginner template for example there would be 12 total upper body push sets at or above RPE 6 for the week. Is this an accurate way to assess programming for hypertrophy or am I missing the mark?
Like I said, I love the programming and will continue to follow it as written but I like understanding the why behind it!
I think the relationship between proximity to failure is less clear than total weekly volume. I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying RPE 6 is the cut-off anymore than I’d say that RPE 4 is non-contributory. I know this is unclear, but I just don’t think there’s a hard line here.
That is a way to calculate volume. More important than the accuracy here however, is the precision. Provided you’re calculating it the same way each time…you can make comparisons across programming from a volume standpoint.