Diminishing returns

Entire books have been written on this subject alone. Trying to include everything that lies within this realm in one single blog post would be impossible. So obviously this will never be a perfect post, but given the amount of rambling on social media and with all the questions i get on the topic, i thought i would give it a shot.

So… here we go.

A long time ago, all the way back to the 1950’s, the Russians did a lot of research and theorization on training and training variables. They spent a hell of a lot of resources on figuring out how to get strong as fuck. Part of that was developing more or less all the steroids that get used today… not much has happened since.

However, that literature was not really available to anyone else but Russian nerds. Until the 90's where  Verkhoshansky & Siff’s changed that with Supertraining. They made much of the terms and models we have today, available to the english speaking. Maybe the book is not the most well written piece of literature or the best science communicator by modern standards, but it was now available to the masses and conceptualizing the three parameters we still work with: Frequency, Volume and Intensity.

Since then, a lot of training literature has spawned in English, to describe the dimensions and overlaps of these three parameters in strength training. From a fitness community perspective, Brad Schoenfeld and Greg Knuckols have been pioneers in my humble opinion. I was lucky enough to attend one of Schoenfeld’s live presentations in Copenhagen many years ago. He managed to make illustrations and references that made all this knowledge much more implementable for the average gymgoer.

Now we’ve figured out smart ways of calculating volume as collective work sets within a certain intensity zone and bounded timeline. We’ve figured out ways to assess intensity in regards to perceived effort on different scales… we’ve figured out average recovery frequencies for specific muscle groups… but basically we’re still working with the same three parameters: Frequency, Volume and Intensity. 

The “volume – intensity – frequency” triangle, popularized by Brad Schoenfeld

Whenever you are sitting and planning your training, these are the three primary parameters you have to work with. Then there are a multitude of other smaller or lesser dimensions you have to include — how the distribution of the loading is, movement patterns, joint health, etc. — but those three remain as the foundation.

You need a certain intensity in your working sets to make them count. You need a certain volume for it to make a difference. And you need to do it frequently enough to compound and not deteriorate.

Right now, research is crowning volume to be king. If you have even the slightest exposure to social media, you have been bombarded with shorts, TikToks, posts and what have you, all trying to persuade you that only volume matters now. Oh but has the pendulum swung to the extreme this time around.

And I am quite sure that volume is king… to some extent and with some caveats. Just like frequency might be queen and intensity is jack.

Firstly the caveats, almost all the good studies are done on young people attending college, with minimal experience and the studies are done at max in a 6-month period, mostly just 8 weeks… that is not a lot of fucking time compared to decades of heavy lifting. In competitive strength sports, 6 months is just a well-planned macro cycle. Nothing more. But that just happens to be the period of time where the average participant can join, because that usually fits a semester...

Is it true that lifting progressively more heavy shit over a shorter period of time makes people grow? Hell yes. That is what we call progressive overload. Same goes for frequency and intensity.

The parameters are for obvious reasons, all impacted by what is called “diminishing returns” or logarithmic growth. Basically, for each new input, the output decreases.

Logarithmic growth or diminishing returns compared to other growth models. Gains in size and strength are logarithmic growth

Given that you fulfill the minimum requirements to stimulate growth, intensity and frequency are most confined, while volume has a lower threshold. You simply have to lift something heavy enough and put in enough effort for it to have a positive impact on muscle growth. You simply have to do it frequently enough or else those gains will be lost. But for volume, it seems that the threshold is a meezly 1 set per week.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that when we sit down and write our training plan — and most importantly, the progression of it — volume is extremely important and perhaps we should spend more time working with volume as progression.

But what it does not tell us is that this is not a die-hard long-term viable strategy. When you have lifted long and hard enough, you know that beyond the diminishing returns, volume has a peak where it just cannot go any further. You cannot keep adding working sets indefinitely, and what do you do then? We can increase frequency but just like volume, frequency has a peak — at some point we simply cannot train more often because recovery capabilities aren’t adequate. You simply cannot rip your quads apart Friday morning and then again Friday evening. That leaves us with one parameter: Intensity.

Intensity, as in how we perceive effort, has a limitation where you simply cannot move the weight anymore. But the way you often manage intensity — with load — has no upper limitation in the long run. You can keep adding more weight your entire career.

It is really nice that we’ve come back to talking about the three primary parameters — Volume, Frequency and Intensity. It is nice that we begin to see obvious trends from the meta-studies, where volume seems to be king, atleast in short term studies. But for the love of god, don’t forget everything we’ve known since the 1950’s. Use volume as a means of progression within a limited timeline, use frequency to drive that progression if needed, but for the love of god… remember that it does not last forever. At some point you need to reset and add more weight to the bar. Again and again.