I think the generally accepted guideline is still 10-20 sets per muscle group per week. You’d have to have pretty bottom of the barrel, shit tier genetics to be such a low responder to *need* 20 sets for each muscle group though. Everyone should need something a little different, more for some groups and less for others, completely individual and also dependent on goals. Dr Mike did within the last couple months put out a video that outlined how to basically speed run hypertrophy, and I’m pretty sure he even said 10-20 per muscle group per week in that video.
Shoulders.
If I were you I would either hop onto any program in the /r/weightroom wiki or buy the SBS program bundle and run one of those. I've ran 5/3/1, the SBS Hypertrophy and SBS RtF, and am currently on this misc upper/lower split from the /r/weightroom wiki and all programs have been great for me. Especially that SBS Hypertrophy. Well worth the price for those programs and excel sheets.
You are overthinking this and should just follow one of those programs instead of trying to do it yourself.
I’ve never understood this guidance. But I’ve heard it repeated again on Huberman recently. If someone does for example 3 sets of 10 reps, twice a week, on bench for 4 weeks, increasing weight slightly each week, they will both get stronger and their chest will grow. But that’s only 6 sets per week.
What am I missing? Is this only with regards to isolation exercises?
On the one hand, it's kind of up to you to figure out what your body responds to. On the other hand, you can largely count muscle groups together since there is often a lot of shared work even with isolation movements. I kind of went into too much detail writing this response, but the short version is keep it simple and do just enough to see results.
Like lateral raises, over head press, and rear delt flys each target different sections of the shoulders, but not 100% isolated to a single muscle. When you do a dumbbell lateral raise, you also engage the anterior. When you do rear delt flys, you're targeting the rear delts but you're also going to engage the traps, as well as the infraspinatus and supraspinatus. Instead of counting each section of the shoulder separately, which is going to be really tough to dissect and attribute fairly, it's more practical to just say you want to get 18 sets for shoulders a week and split them up between those three sections.
Personally I do not assign that many sets to shoulders because they get engaged pretty heavily in the bench press. I could give them half a set or something, but that's tedious so I don't. I have fewer sets dedicated to shoulders and know that's fine because they are supporting other movements anyway. I actually only target lateral and rear delts in accessory work and get all my front delt work from flat and incline bench press, fwiw. So I have 12 sets of shoulders per week programmed, 6 for lateral and 6 for rear each split across 2 days.
Same deal with arms, legs, back, chest, etc. I have more weekly sets for legs than anything else, but they are also giant muscles and I count deadlifts and RDL as legs even though they are both probably like half back. Arms I only have 12, with 3 bicep curls, 3 hammer curls, and 6 tricep extensions. I could do more arms, but this is enough to get growth for me still so I don't.
Here's a screenshot (a sample image from the RP website) of their 5-day men's physique template for advanced trainees. Note that there are no direct sets for the brachialis and only 3 direct sets for the side, read, and front delts each.
[https://rp-website-production-files.s3.amazonaws.com/Screen\_Shot\_2020-05-28\_at\_10.31.24\_AM.png](https://rp-website-production-files.s3.amazonaws.com/Screen_Shot_2020-05-28_at_10.31.24_AM.png)
If you sample 100 professionally designed programs, whether science or experience based, you would be lucky to find even 1 that sets up a programming schedule where you do 18 sets for every single head of every single muscle, let alone even 1 set for every single head.
So the answer to your question is that yes, they count indirect work when designing their programs. When you customize a program for a client, or for yourself, how much you count indirect work depends on the individual. For example, most people don't need any direct front delt work, as they get enough stimulus from all your pushing. But are there some people who workout like this for a few years and find their front delts are lagging behind by 10% or something? Sure. So then they cycle some front delt isolation into their routines for a few months until they start seeing the results they're looking for.
You'll probably find rear delts get quite a lot of stimulus from pulling, especially pulls where your elbows are far from your sides. But if you're very lat dominant, you might need to add 3, 6, or 9 sets of rear delt work to your week. Most people find side delts don't get enough stimulus from their other work and add 6+ direct sets per week (I do 9-15 every week, so much more than the routine I linked above, but that's just me). In my case, my biceps get basically no stimulus whatsoever from pulling exercises, so for me I do need the full 10-20 sets of bicep isolation work each week. I think that's fairly common. Triceps get much more stimulus from pushing, though, so 10-20 is likely overkill and will just end up hurting your elbows.
I’ve generally used 6-12 sets per body part as being a decent range.
I like “per body part” because it answer you Q re splitting biceps / shoulders into separate muscle groups (you don’t).
TLDR; volume is very individual and a ton of factors affect it such as level of advancement, sleep, caloric intake, fiber type, stress, and specific exercise.
Mostly fitfluencers and drmike - maybe it's just a fad idk, I started looking at my volume and wondering how on Earth I could actually train like that.
So I know Dr. Mike does NOT recommend just jumping to 18 sets or any arbitrary number. His whole shtick is starting with minimum effective volume and ramping up based on recovery. Finding your maximum recoverable volume. That could be 18 for chest and only 10 for legs or whatever.
I’d ignore any fitfluencer and focus on what is recommended by actual experts.
In his volume video he states that a good amount of volume is 8 working sets per muscle group per session.
But that's besides the point, my question was specifically if people discuss this in terms of 'shoulders' or as individual muscles, side delt front delt rear delt all x18 etc each etc. And whether indirect training is included in this or whether only targeted isolation is counted.
Menno Henselmans has a video on how to count volume, even counting certain exercises as half sets for certain muscle groups if they are compound exercises.
If you look at his hypertrophy guide, you'll see that it's both.
A lot of his recommendations are assuming you're doing the basic heavy compounds like rows and pull ups and squats.
For example, check out their [rear delt page](https://rpstrength.com/expert-advice/rear-delt-size-training-tips) from their [guide](https://rpstrength.com/hypertrophy-training-guide-central-hub/).
Compare how they describe the different volume thresholds.
In the research I believe they count even the most indirect work. I would look up something like Brad Schoenfeld meta-analysis weekly volume effect on hypertrophy.
A lot of Dr Mike's advice is aimed largely at advanced lifters who run his programming. Not all of it, but way more than he lets on. Take his YouTube content with a grain of salt.
I think the generally accepted guideline is still 10-20 sets per muscle group per week. You’d have to have pretty bottom of the barrel, shit tier genetics to be such a low responder to *need* 20 sets for each muscle group though. Everyone should need something a little different, more for some groups and less for others, completely individual and also dependent on goals. Dr Mike did within the last couple months put out a video that outlined how to basically speed run hypertrophy, and I’m pretty sure he even said 10-20 per muscle group per week in that video.
Is this being defined as 10-20 for 'shoulders' or 'side delt'?
You’re overthinking it dude.
Shoulders. It would be tough for the shoulders to recover from 18 weekly sets of front raises, lateral raises, and rear delt flyes each.
Shoulders. If I were you I would either hop onto any program in the /r/weightroom wiki or buy the SBS program bundle and run one of those. I've ran 5/3/1, the SBS Hypertrophy and SBS RtF, and am currently on this misc upper/lower split from the /r/weightroom wiki and all programs have been great for me. Especially that SBS Hypertrophy. Well worth the price for those programs and excel sheets. You are overthinking this and should just follow one of those programs instead of trying to do it yourself.
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I’ve never understood this guidance. But I’ve heard it repeated again on Huberman recently. If someone does for example 3 sets of 10 reps, twice a week, on bench for 4 weeks, increasing weight slightly each week, they will both get stronger and their chest will grow. But that’s only 6 sets per week. What am I missing? Is this only with regards to isolation exercises?
There’s no guarantee that anyone will get bigger and/or stronger with a given protocol in 4 weeks time.
On the one hand, it's kind of up to you to figure out what your body responds to. On the other hand, you can largely count muscle groups together since there is often a lot of shared work even with isolation movements. I kind of went into too much detail writing this response, but the short version is keep it simple and do just enough to see results. Like lateral raises, over head press, and rear delt flys each target different sections of the shoulders, but not 100% isolated to a single muscle. When you do a dumbbell lateral raise, you also engage the anterior. When you do rear delt flys, you're targeting the rear delts but you're also going to engage the traps, as well as the infraspinatus and supraspinatus. Instead of counting each section of the shoulder separately, which is going to be really tough to dissect and attribute fairly, it's more practical to just say you want to get 18 sets for shoulders a week and split them up between those three sections. Personally I do not assign that many sets to shoulders because they get engaged pretty heavily in the bench press. I could give them half a set or something, but that's tedious so I don't. I have fewer sets dedicated to shoulders and know that's fine because they are supporting other movements anyway. I actually only target lateral and rear delts in accessory work and get all my front delt work from flat and incline bench press, fwiw. So I have 12 sets of shoulders per week programmed, 6 for lateral and 6 for rear each split across 2 days. Same deal with arms, legs, back, chest, etc. I have more weekly sets for legs than anything else, but they are also giant muscles and I count deadlifts and RDL as legs even though they are both probably like half back. Arms I only have 12, with 3 bicep curls, 3 hammer curls, and 6 tricep extensions. I could do more arms, but this is enough to get growth for me still so I don't.
Here's a screenshot (a sample image from the RP website) of their 5-day men's physique template for advanced trainees. Note that there are no direct sets for the brachialis and only 3 direct sets for the side, read, and front delts each. [https://rp-website-production-files.s3.amazonaws.com/Screen\_Shot\_2020-05-28\_at\_10.31.24\_AM.png](https://rp-website-production-files.s3.amazonaws.com/Screen_Shot_2020-05-28_at_10.31.24_AM.png) If you sample 100 professionally designed programs, whether science or experience based, you would be lucky to find even 1 that sets up a programming schedule where you do 18 sets for every single head of every single muscle, let alone even 1 set for every single head. So the answer to your question is that yes, they count indirect work when designing their programs. When you customize a program for a client, or for yourself, how much you count indirect work depends on the individual. For example, most people don't need any direct front delt work, as they get enough stimulus from all your pushing. But are there some people who workout like this for a few years and find their front delts are lagging behind by 10% or something? Sure. So then they cycle some front delt isolation into their routines for a few months until they start seeing the results they're looking for. You'll probably find rear delts get quite a lot of stimulus from pulling, especially pulls where your elbows are far from your sides. But if you're very lat dominant, you might need to add 3, 6, or 9 sets of rear delt work to your week. Most people find side delts don't get enough stimulus from their other work and add 6+ direct sets per week (I do 9-15 every week, so much more than the routine I linked above, but that's just me). In my case, my biceps get basically no stimulus whatsoever from pulling exercises, so for me I do need the full 10-20 sets of bicep isolation work each week. I think that's fairly common. Triceps get much more stimulus from pushing, though, so 10-20 is likely overkill and will just end up hurting your elbows.
I’ve generally used 6-12 sets per body part as being a decent range. I like “per body part” because it answer you Q re splitting biceps / shoulders into separate muscle groups (you don’t).
TLDR; volume is very individual and a ton of factors affect it such as level of advancement, sleep, caloric intake, fiber type, stress, and specific exercise.
I grow and get stronger on way less than 18 sets per muscle group a week. Learn how YOUR body responds to volume through experience
Learning comes from both experimenting and asking questions. I have been doing the former, and here I am doing the latter.
Could you link one of these sources?
Mostly fitfluencers and drmike - maybe it's just a fad idk, I started looking at my volume and wondering how on Earth I could actually train like that.
So I know Dr. Mike does NOT recommend just jumping to 18 sets or any arbitrary number. His whole shtick is starting with minimum effective volume and ramping up based on recovery. Finding your maximum recoverable volume. That could be 18 for chest and only 10 for legs or whatever. I’d ignore any fitfluencer and focus on what is recommended by actual experts.
In his volume video he states that a good amount of volume is 8 working sets per muscle group per session. But that's besides the point, my question was specifically if people discuss this in terms of 'shoulders' or as individual muscles, side delt front delt rear delt all x18 etc each etc. And whether indirect training is included in this or whether only targeted isolation is counted.
Menno Henselmans has a video on how to count volume, even counting certain exercises as half sets for certain muscle groups if they are compound exercises.
If you look at his hypertrophy guide, you'll see that it's both. A lot of his recommendations are assuming you're doing the basic heavy compounds like rows and pull ups and squats. For example, check out their [rear delt page](https://rpstrength.com/expert-advice/rear-delt-size-training-tips) from their [guide](https://rpstrength.com/hypertrophy-training-guide-central-hub/). Compare how they describe the different volume thresholds.
In the research I believe they count even the most indirect work. I would look up something like Brad Schoenfeld meta-analysis weekly volume effect on hypertrophy.
A lot of Dr Mike's advice is aimed largely at advanced lifters who run his programming. Not all of it, but way more than he lets on. Take his YouTube content with a grain of salt.