volume vs. intensity on a cycle. your opinion???

[ascendant]

i gotta tell you guys, i don't care what people say about "it's volume, not intensity that determines overtraining". whoever came up with that must've had the pain tolerance of a little b*tch or thought "volume" meant 20+ sets for one bodypart.

over the years, i experimented with all kinds of routines, methods, etc. one thing i've learned, at least for me personally, is that while on a cycle, the cycle helps to regenerate my muscle tissue, but does very little to nothing for my CNS. on that note, in the past when i've tried to increase my intensity during cycles, it's always ended up the same way. i'd overtrain. the most effective approach for me when going on cycles has always been to slightly increase my volume (more sets for each bodypart).

now, this is coming from someone who would push it to failure on almost every single set i'd do, after my warm-up of course, so maybe with some of you it would be different. but i've learned personally that if you're pushing yourself to your absolute limits on every single set, even without large amounts of volume, you will overtrain and burnout your CNS.

the best results i've experienced while on cycles is when i've increased my sets by anywhere from 2-4 sets per bodypart and kept the intensity about the same. i push most sets just 1 rep short of failure or stop immediately as i start to fail and only push through failure (or at least try to) on the last set of each exercise i do.

i'd like to hear other peoples opinions on this and see if maybe this whole "volume vs. intensity" thing might not be all that it was hyped up to be.

[sorel_C]

i train by feel to be truthfull, at one point i got wrapped up in the whole volume vs. intenstiy,,, h.i.t vs high volume,,,, but ive found hit as hard as possible untill you cant get another good rep out,, no cheating,, my body starts crashing around the 5 to 6 weeks line and thats when i back off both,, intenstiy and volume for a very short while till my body tells me its time to hit it up again

[Jfew44]

No doubt you can train harder while on cycle. By harder I mean more sets. I'm not experienced at all with training on cycle, but I got great results by just increasing the amount of sets and keeping my intensity at the same level. I'll go all the way to failure maybe once every 5 sets or so. My muscles refuse to grow if I push them to failure every set.

I think its all about how your body reacts. Everyone's different but thats what works for me.

[physicslifter]

I experience the same thing, muscles recover before my CNS does when on cycle. What are some ways to speed up CNS recovery? Does HGH have any effect on this?

[Mazzive_T]

this may be a bit off topic but i believe its a case of both for everyone. Find out what works best for you, volume or intensity. For me its volume, and on my compound movements il lob a set of 6 in at the end for intensity and to try work my strength up.

Look at the elite bodybuilders though.

Ronnie trained each bodypart twice a week, so its obv volume for him, whereas dorian yates only ever did 3 exercises at most for each bodypart, but apparently you could literally feel the intensity whilst he was training!

So try both, or maybe mix them up at certain times, and feel what works best for you.

Good Luck. T.

[green22]

intensity when Im feeling good, volume when Im having a so so day.

[akaz13]

This is my 1st cycle, but I read that gear does not prevent overtraining... Specifically burning the CNS out.

And I have foundout that it doesn't!

I recover quick mucle wise, but last week, I was wasted and decided to take couple of days off after DL day.

I find myself bing able to add sets and being strong as hell adding pounds, but I still hit a wall of CNS burn out, though..

[ascendant]

well it seems the more popular choice for most people would be similar in increasing volume over intensity on a cycle. figured as much, but wanted to make sure. thanks for all the feedback guys, great info.

[matt50]

more volume seems to work for me

[mkrulic]

how can you train intensity w/o training volume? if your doing sets back to back and w/ timed breaks but you dont do a lot of sets you'd be done training in about 15 min.

[bmit]

I prefer intensity over volume. But i had to learn for myself too that steroids make muscle recovery disproportionally greater than CNS recovery. i.e. it can be easy to burn out your CNS on steroids bc your muscle recover so quickly and are always ready to go (even when your CNS isn't)

[FireGuy]

I prefer going higher intensity but this is only training each muscle group once per week.

[VASCULAR VINCE]

Taken from the Slingshot thread under construction by Ronnie Rowland ; "It's rarely about muscle recovery, it's about tendon, joint and CNS recovery. Meaning the joints, tendons and CNS of steroid users can't withstand more than a natural trainer regardless of how many steroids they take to enhance protein synthesis. Just because someone using steroids will experience faster muscle recovery does not mean they can get by with more volume and make maximal gains. The muscle tissue of natural bodybuilders also recovers at a fast rate but they still need to wait for CNS and joint recovery to take place prior to training again. Anabolic steroids are known for increasing the rate at which a muscle recovers by accelerating protein synthesis and up-regulating neuro-muscular pathways. This combination makes "steroid users" stronger and bigger at a quicker rate than natural trainers. The extra strength allows those who are on steroids to generate more intensity and push heavier work loads. The additional stress breaks down more muscle tissue, increases joint deterioration, and puts a tremendous strain on the central nervous system."

[Linuxian]

I just started doing a routine 2 weeks ago based on lower volume and much higher intensity. I thought the guy that suggested this to me was crazy when he first suggested it but I was just not getting the results I wanted with the workout I was doing.

From what I have experienced personally, I think it works something like this. Normally, after doing x sets of 12 for a single exercise the muscles are just tired, not necessarily damaged. As I move on to the next exercise, I end up fighting fatigue more than the limits of my musculature. By reducing the number of sets per exercise, I'm not as tired and I'm able to attack each body part with more weight and more intensity than ever. I'm back to focusing on tearing down muscle rather than fighting fatigue.

So far, I must say, that I'm in WAY more pain than normal the next day. It's kind of soon to tell if there are quantitative improvements in terms of size or strength but I sure feel like the numbers are starting to move again for the 1st time in awhile.

[bmit]

I prefer lower volume with a higher intensity and frequency approach. Each bodypart about 2x week with lower sets but all to failure

[Ronnie Rowland]

You want both volume and intensity but you must learn to listen to your own body! On days you feel good, do as many intense sets as you can handle. On days you feel tired, perform fewer sets while keeping the intensity high. I call this a de-load and it keeps you from over-training during a blasting phase.

[Linuxian]

It's been another 10 days since I started the low volume / high intensity routine and I have been blasting through all my previous plateaus. A friend at the office has started using this technique as well and he's reporting similar success.

I think Ronnie (^previous post^) summed it up best, listen to your body and see what works best for you. For me, having a ****morphic body type, high reps/sets just tire me out too fast. So, for me, this routine is working great.