The act of pushing yourself to the limit in order to see results with your physique is an often repeated mantra that makes a lot of sense, after all, building muscle requires exercising the fibers until they tear and build back stronger, but sometimes a phase where workouts are made shorter, or even cut in half, can reap surprising results, as illustrated by the evidence-backed fitness coach, Jeff Nippard.
“What would happen if you only did half your workout?” asked the canny Canadian in a recent YouTube video, adding that he’s always been “a high-volume guy.” To conduct his experiment, Nippard reduced his usual three to four sets per exercise down to just one or two and stayed the course for one hundred days. “The thing is, on paper, by following this plan, I was training at a level of volume that most experts would say is too low to maximize muscle growth,” noted Nippard.
In terms of how his sets panned out per muscle group, Nippard said that he was averaging 6-and-ahalf sets per week, while studies often show that more volume, even breaking the ten sets per muscle group barrier, lead to more gains. One report as recently as 2024 even concluded that even as many as 43 sets per muscle, per week, would lead to gains. Those results were later criticized however, since proper muscle measurements were not taken. Were these super-high-volume gains really due to lean muscle growth or simply the swelling that resulted from muscle fatigue? Nippard also found another fault with many of the high-volume studies, because most of these experiments blasted biceps and triceps, or quads, but didn’t take into account the real-world scenario of weekly full body workout splits.
Less Time Sometimes Equals More Gains
How did Jeff Nippard fair after reducing volume, and why should you try it? In a recent Instagram post summarizing his experience, Nippard said he was “pleasantly surprised” with his muscle maintenance despite doing half the work. Initially, the coach felt like he wasn’t doing enough in the gym, because his two-hour sessions were now completed in less than an hour. But after 50 days, his recovery was “better than ever.” Nippard also found that he was enjoying his training more than ever. But after 100 days it was time to take some measurements and find out what this new protocol had done to his physique. The natural bodybuilder’s results will be surprising to many:
- Strength went up, setting new PR’s even in the final week
- Fat reduced by 5.5 pounds
- Lean mass down only 1.8 pounds
While Nippard was on a calorie deficit during the experiment, a factor that would influence his total weight loss, the coach actually accrued half a pound of extra lean mass in the last 70 days of the experiment, meaning that despite the lower volume, Nippard was within the margin of error for maintaining or building muscle.
So given the data, why might shorter volume training lead to too lofty gains in strength? “It’s so insane how much better you lock in, when you only have two sets to do,” reflected Nippard. “Instead of dreading long workouts, I actually can’t wait to train each day,” he explained. In fact, the results were so profound that the coach updated his previous advice to say that low volume training works well in the cutting phase. This is in part due to the greater recovery levels experienced, even while in a calorific deficit.
For bulking, Nippard said that keeping the volume low would also work, but in the same sessions, you could choose one muscle to tax for 30 sets per week, and rotate which muscle is getting the high-volume training “every few months.” In fact, our scientific friend is so enthused about this idea that he hopes to run this as a new experiment.
“Research shows that one of the most common reasons that people skip the gym is lack of time,” noted Nippard. So, if you are usually a high-volume athlete but want to renew your love of working out, periods of low volume training are unlikely to cause muscle loss and may even fit better into your schedule. Even that eye-popping 2024 review touting high volume training concluded that “gains in muscle size and strength increase as volume increases” but at a certain volume, this leads to “diminishing returns.” So, mix things up and your muscles may thank you.
Watch the full video below:
