On the road of understanding how to progress, this is the first stop you need to make if your goal is muscle gain, or even just strength gains.

In training, volume is the main indicator of progress, that’s why it’s essential to understand this concept to apply it and manipulate it through time.

I want you to see volume as the equivalent of calories in a diet: the amount will determine the advancement towards your goal, its importance for the adaptations we seek is King in our hierarchy.

Definitions

First, let’s define briefly some important terms:

Load: This is the weight on the bar, or the resistance that we present our muscles in a defined exercise.

Repetitions (reps): The execution of a movement for a given exercise, e.g. lowering the bar to the chest and lifting it again in the bench press is a repetition.

Sets: The group of consecutive reps executed during a particular exercise, they are usually separated by a brief rest period.

Frequency: This is how you distribute your volume in a training week, and it’s mainly influenced by the amount of work you can do while recovering appropriately.

How to calculate it

Theoretically your volume is a function of the Weight you lift, the Sets, and Reps you execute. Abbreviated simply: W x S x R.

So, if you lift 100lbs for 5 reps across 5 sets, your volume for that exercise is 2500lbs (100 x 5 x 5). There we have our work weight, amount of reps and sets for the day.

Now, let’s say the last example is for squats, and your program has you doing them 3 times a week, that’s our frequency and it’s fundamentally related to our total volume.

When we talk about total volume in this case, we are referring to the volume done during the week or microcycle, in this case at a frequency of 3 days.

Logically, your legs will have worked 3 times that week, and on each session done a volume of 2500lbs in squats, which gives us a total volume of 7500lbs.

Now we can see how training frequency affects total volume directly, so it’s important to consider it since it’s a significant element to generate the amount of work that we need in the particular muscles, and in its own way impacts fatigue management.

The relationship between volume and results

Now that we know that volume is what determines training progress, and along with it promotes adaptations, we have to establish limits in both extremes: very little volume and nothing appreciable happens; too much volume and we start to have issues with recovery.

Assuming that effective reps are being taking care of, we need a quantity that gives enough stimuli to drive measurable adaptations.

In the muscle hypertrophy department, we can be as conservative (if you’re starting) as 40 reps a session, all the way to 70 (once you have advanced in your training), to a maximum of 80 to 210 reps a week (credit for this range goes to Dr. Eric Helms).

As you can see, the weekly range is pretty big (80-210 reps), and this accommodates a wide array of individuals, depending on their level of experience and particular needs.

Caveat: In some circumstances we can (and should) go over or under these ranges. These are not set-in-stone guidelines that can’t be violated, they are general rules that apply to most individuals, and most certainly for beginner trainees.

The majority of these reps ideally should be in the 6-12 range for every set, which makes sure it’s done with enough intensity. The frequency of training is what’s going to determine, in the span of a week, the total volume for that muscle.

To illustrate a week where the chest is trained 2 times with a bench press:

Day	Load	Sets	Reps	Volume
1	185	3	10	5550
2	195	3	8	4680
Total Volume				10,230

First, let’s note that total volume here, for the bench press, is 10,230lbs in that week. To increase it, we only need to change one of our factors, in my example I’ll choose to add another set on each day for the next week:

Day	Load	Sets	Reps	Volume
1	185	4	10	7400
2	195	4	8	6240
Total Volume				13,640

See how 2 more sets a week changed considerably the total volume to 13,640lbs. Adding more weight, keeping the same sets and reps, would’ve the volume as well; and of course performing more reps with the same weight and number of sets would increase the total volume.

Lastly, when these factors can’t be manipulated and managed efficiently (i.e. it becomes too fatiguing to do more reps, sets, and increase the weight on the bar in a single session), it’s time to play with training frequency, adding an extra day to distribute the total load.

By default, the frequency in a week or microcycle includes at least 2 days where you train the same muscles, since there is usually plenty of time to recover between them.

Exercises and muscle overlap

Every exercise has its own volume, however, there are exercises that work the same muscle group, so when programming your training you need to take into consideration which exercises stimulate directly the same muscles.

This way you will find that, for example, that the incline press, even if it focuses a bit more on the clavicular portion, is working the chest in general as well, so you should include it in your total volume for chest.

What does that mean? Well, if you do 3 x 10 on the bench press, and then 3 x 12 on the incline press, you have performed 66 reps that day for your chest. Do it twice a week and you would’ve done 132reps of chest work that week.

Progressing

To gauge your progression at least one of these factors must go up, effectively generating the desired advancement. With time, they will all need to be adjusted in one way or another.

The most common thing is to add more weight to the bar and maintain the same sets and reps. Eventually, when adding more weight to the bar becomes harder, you will play with sets and reps to accommodate more volume in different models of periodization.

Frequency is a huge factor for your total volume as we’ve seen before, remember that this is more than anything a way of distributing your training sessions in the most convenient, efficient, and feasible way throughout the week.

All this must be intelligently programmed to get the best benefit of your capacity to handle work volume, balancing rest/recovery.

This is why you periodize training, doing the appropriate volume every micro/meso/macrocycle, with deload and rest periods. The idea is to increase our volume through time and do more work, concomitantly increasing the overload.

But remember that too much overload is not necessarily better, we are talking about progress in the span of weeks and months, even years, gradual and not hastily. Programming your progress will always be based on this concept.

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Thanks for reading, questions are always welcomed in the comments.

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