ALRIGTH, ALRIGHT, MY BRUDDAH!
Put on your glasses 'cause we're about to NERD-TF-OUT, SON!
Have you ever wondered if you should lift more when you're in a CUT so you can preserve your muscle mass? And if that's the case, maybe the reverse is true, you can lift less when you're in a BULK?
Just so we can put the laymen up to speed— a CUT is when you're eating a caloric deficit, you're eating fewer calories than your body requires to perform all its functions in a day, forcing it to consume its own fat as an energy source and allowing you to potentially look SHREDCITY, or at least a bit less fucking FA-FA-FATSO— a BULK is when you intentionally eat at a caloric surplus, you're eating more calories than your body requires so that the protein you consumed can be available for your muscles to grow, speeding up hypertrophy BIG TIME, but also, IF you're not that stress, turning you into a bit of a Wagyu, ya'feel me? Marbling them muscles with some delicious slabs of laarrrd. HAHAHA
VOLUME is the amount of work you're putting in, and is in direct correlation with muscle hypertrophy— usually measured by the following equation:
Weights x Reps x Sets = Volume.
Studies show *brace yourself 'cause this is SHOCKING NEWS* MORE VOLUME A.K.A MORE WORK = MORE MUSCLES!
GOOD LAWRD, WHO COULD'VE IMAGINED SUCH A COUNTERINTUITIVE FACT! HAHAHA
I know, I know, it's earth-shattering stuff— Who would've guessed that laziness isn't the secret to bulging biceps? Cue the collective gasps and slow claps for this revolutionary discovery! 🙄
BUT, unfortunately for us, we can't just work indefinitely non-stop until we get so DENSE that we acquire our very own gravitational pull and start to bend light and consume everything around us— we have a pretty decisive limit to how much work we can do— it's how much we can RECOVER from each workout.
That's why within the muscle-nerd community, the Renaissance Periodization volume landmarks are so popular— I've covered them more broadly in this article— but let's just recap pretty quickly here, and I promise, by the end of this long rant I'll actually talk about cutting and bulking HAHAHA.
MINIMUM VOLUME (MV): Is the amount of sets in a week required to keep your size and performance at the level that you're currently.
MINIMUM EFFECTIVE VOLUME (MEV): Is the amount of sets in a week required to slowly gain a little bit of size.
MAXIMUM ADAPTIVE VOLUME (MAV): Is the amount of sets in a week required to OPTIMALLY GAIN SIZE guaranteeing progress without generating too much fatigue that can potentially compromise your recovery
MAXIMUM RECOVERABLE VOLUME (MRV): Is the MAXIMUM amount of sets that you can possibly recover from in a week, you'll build muscle at the fastest possible rates, but really redline your ability to recover, and potentially injure yourself in the process.
Depending on the weights and rep ranges used in your workout, different systems within the body will be challenged more or less— heavier low-rep work, will take a bigger toll on your Central Nervous System, hence requiring more rest OVERALL to allow for proper recovery— lighter high-rep work, will take a toll metabolically in the muscles worked LOCALLY, allowing you to leverage the volume landmarks to stimulate different muscle groups.
Here's a chart I've made with base guidelines for MV, MEV, MAV, and MRV for each muscle group— remember this is a suggestion, not a rule set in stone, adjust these numbers based on your individual levels of recovery and performance.
If you hit some crazy heavy 95% of your 1RM workout on Monday, your nervous system will be torched and it'll potentially negatively affect your workout on Tuesday assuming you're a psycho and are hitting another max-effort workout back to back, even though the muscles involved are not necessarily the same— that's why if your workouts are more focused on the strength side of the equation, you can completely ignore those volume landmarks 'cause they'll be PREPOSTEROUSLY high.
But when you're doing more metabolic work, let's say working with at least 8 reps and above which falls at ~80% of your 1RM and below, you can 100% torch your legs on Monday, and then Torch your back and bis on Tuesday— NO PROBLEM, simply 'cause muscles are ridiculously adaptive and recover way faster than other biological structures within the body like the nervous system.
Muscle recovery is intrinsically tied to our DIET— in particular, HOW MUCH WE EAT directly affects not only how much work we can put in, but how effective each set will be, BIG TIME!
Let's say a lifter has these specific work capacity.
MV: 30 sets a week.
MEV: 50 sets a week.
MAV: 100 sets a week.
MRV: 150 sets a week.
Notice, we're lumping all volume together, 'cause I'm sure some of you DELINQUENTS looked at MRV for each muscle group in the aforementioned chart and were already planning on hitting 268 sets a week MRVing every single muscle group HAHAHA.
No, you can't have all muscles in MRV, you have an overall recovery capacity, and THAT'S what your diet is changing.
The same guy aforementioned, if he was on a Cut, would have a work capacity that looks a bit like this:
MV: 50 sets a week.
MEV: 70 sets a week.
MAV: 110 sets a week.
MRV: 120 sets a week.
Meaning, to maintain his physique, it'll require more work than if he was on maintenance or a surplus, and he can't possibly recover as fast as he would if he was eating enough, hence his MAXIMUM RECOVERABLE VOLUME is way lower.
Now, a majestic beef-caked KYRIAKOS GRIZZLY padawan eating at a decent caloric surplus, bulking GOMAD style like a savage, would have a work capacity that looks like this:
MV: 20 sets a week.
MEV: 30 sets a week.
MAV: 80 sets a week.
MRV: 200 sets a week.
Meaning, not only he can do a lot less work and make substantial gainz, if he chooses to go BALLZ TO THE WALL and train like an utter maniac, he has enough nutrients flowing through his veins to allow him to recover from that.
Alrighty, bruhs, this shit is already freaking gigantic as it is, I feel that I wasn't as concise as I should but hopefully there are some good pieces of info along this article that'll surely help you in your quest towards J-J-J-JACKEDNESS!
Also, I was inspired to write this article 'cause I just received a message from a reader that spent 5 years trying to build a nice physique but was stuck at 18%BF pencil neck status 'cause he was constantly trying to eat at a deficit, and after spending ~1 year bulking and lifting like a maniac, this year when he finally decided to cut, he melted down to 12% and is looking JACKED AF.
DON'T BE AFRAID OF SOME BULKING, MY BRUDDAH— it might be just what you need to make some SERIOUS GAINZ!
BANG THAT IRON— AND STAY ON THE IRON PATH!
Big KISS
THE POTATO MAN
Nice one, Mr. P! So nerding out on the numbers and the outlying volume ranges (MV vs MRV) compared to baseline figures (ie "specific work capacity," or SWC for short)...when you cut, you need to do way more volume than SWC to maintain (MV), yet when bulking you actually do less volume than SWC to maintain. And at the other end of the spectrum (MRV), you do less volume when cutting than SWC, yet significantly more volume than SWC when bulking. Interesting! Thanks for the food for thought.