Setting Weekly Volume

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 The Human Forklift Project intends to teach you how to build your own programs.  So where do you start?

There's a growing consensus that volume is the most important consideration when designing a program.

There have been other definitions for volume in the past, but I think the simplest effective definition of volume is total number of challenging sets per week.

You can then break down volume into total volume and volume per muscle group.

So if you had 5 sets of squats on Monday, and 5 sets of leg press on Friday, that's a total of 10 sets of quads across your week.

For our purposes, it's the same as if you did 10 sets of squats on Monday and nothing else for your quads.  (It's not quite the same, but we'll pretend that it is.)

This is how we'll build our starting point.

Workouts per Week

You probably already know how many days you can commit to lifting, but I'll say this:

If you're only lifting 1x a week, you're just dabbling.  Still a fuckton better than nothing, though.

2x a week--that's often enough to get proper results on a decent timetable.

3x a week and more, recommended.

If you aren't sure how much time you van commit, pick a low number.  You can always increase later; don't burn yourself out now.

Also remember the principle of diminishing returns.  The more you have, the less each additional one adds.  Going from 1x to 2x is huge.  Going from 3x to 4x is relatively less significant.

Sets per Workout

20 sets per workout is a good target for most people.

If you are only doing 15 sets or less per workout, you are either:

  • Brand new to lifting.
  • Doing some very high intensity sets with long rest times.
  • Crushed for time.
If you are doing more than 25 sets per workout, you are either:
  • Very highly trained.
  • Doing lots of low-fatigue stuff, like bodyweight exercises, dynamic sets, or small muscle work (curls).
  • Enjoying long workouts.

Sets Per Week

Now that you know those two numbers, you can figure out how many sets per week you intend to do.

Some novice programs start with as little as 45 sets per week.  Some of the advanced bodybuilding stuff will have you hitting 140 sets per week.

Most people will fall in the low to mid range of those two extremes.

3 days * 20 sets = 60 sets per week.  This is probably a good starting point for a lot of people.

For example, the basic Greyskull LP has only 45 sets per week.  That's plenty--they're all compound exercises, and for a new lifter represent plenty of stimulus (and fatigue).

Muscle Group Selection

The fewer sets you do per week, the more you need to focus on the essentials.

The professional bodybuilder doing 150 sets per week can (and should) absolutely dedicate 15 sets to calves.

The novice doing 45 sets per week should probably dedicate exactly 0 sets per week to calves, and stick to the essentials for all of their sets.

Essential Muscle Groups

Chest
Back
Delts
Quads
Hamstrings

Powerlifters may want to drop/reduce Delts.  This is fine--follow your goals.

Lots of women add more Glute work, and often drop Chest (or Delts).  This is fine--follow your goals.

Other Muscle Groups

Glutes
Biceps
Triceps
Abs 
Traps
Calves
Forearms

Putting It Together


Now that you have an idea of which muscle groups you want to target, and roughly how many sets per week you want to target, you can start putting it together.

You could bust out a pencil and paper, of course, or you could use this calculator I made (heavily based on Mike Isratael's volume landmarks).


Basically, just fill in the yellow boxes and then look at column G to see the projected weekly volume per muscle group.

There's a couple of other tabs included so you can see how these estimates line up with other programs.  (Not too bad, honestly.)

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