Volume too high?

[Colette]

62 yof, 5'4, 115 lb. 5 mg var, 3 ius gh. 20ish% bf. Hard gainer. Diet on target. Decades of lifting experience. Goals are always to look and feel amazing for my age with minimal risk to my health.
Question: I've gradually increased my training volume and now I think it's too high but I've adapted: currently, P,P, L rest, upper, lower, rest. 18-24 sets per body part per week. Little or no Doms, pumps are ok. 10-15 rep range, last set to failure. Prs are frozen. Gotta reconsider my protocol. Would appreciate feedback/ advice from other experienced lifters or people with formal education in an applicable field. Thanks in advance.

 

[psauce]

Do you have a plan for progression and how are you measuring PRs? Adding weight to the lift while keeping the same set/rep scheme, adding reps to the failure set, etc. Some people are great at going by feel, but if you're stuck, you might need to figure it out by the numbers.

 

[JDLift]

You're 62.
S I X T Y
T W O
Be happy you're even mobile without ambulatory aids and have enough muscle mass to even perform workouts.

If you look as good as or better than this https://competeipl.com/wp-content/u...s-Masters-Bodybuilding-Pro-e1651515022474.jpg

then you are just fine.

 

[Colette]

I do go by feel but alsoI measure my PRs by generally adding reps till my best set exceeds 12 reps to failure then I add weight. So, a combination of " ferl" and numbers. I'm going to gradually drop my volume to see if that helps.

 

[EpicFlash]

48 sets a week on those shoulders?.. (loosely interpreted half push and half pull) volume is too high for sure.
I am older also. Started backing off volume and adding an extra rest day every 2ish weeks( so giving myself 48 hours off) also making sure to diet on training days and commit to eating surplus on rest days.
Seems to have helped some of my plateaus. I am mostly a hypertrophy training guy but also believe that using some lowish volume with heavy weights every once in a while is good for the body. Just pushed past a number I hadn’t seen in many years this morning on bench.

 

[Colette]

You're 62.
S I X T Y
T W O
Be happy you're even mobile without ambulatory aids and have enough muscle mass to even perform workouts.

If you look as good as or better than this https://competeipl.com/wp-content/u...s-Masters-Bodybuilding-Pro-e1651515022474.jpg

then you are just fine.

Yes 62. But i identify as 42. So I'm " transitioning".
I should be happy just to be mobile????
Is that going to be your attitude at 62? Why not just give up now?

 

[Colette]

....volume is too high for sure.
I am older too....extra rest day ...
Seems to have helped some of my plateaus.... believe that using some lowish volume with heavy weights every once in a while.... Just pushed past a number I hadn’t seen in many years this morning on bench.

 

[Colette]

Thank you....
Helpful advice.
and congrats on new PR.

 

[psauce]

I do go by feel but alsoI measure my PRs by generally adding reps till my best set exceeds 12 reps to failure then I add weight. So, a combination of " ferl" and numbers. I'm going to gradually drop my volume to see if that helps.

I think that's probably a good approach. A different stimulus is about the only way to get a result sometimes, so fewer sets and reps at higher weight may do the trick.

One thing to consider is a conjugate-like approach. Instead of having all of your lifts for a given motion or body part in the same set and rep range, have a few of them at the higher volume you're doing, and a couple of them at a much lower volume, higher intensity. That way, you've got hypertrophy-focused lifts going at the same time as strength-focused lifts. This gives you another avenue for setting a PR, which means some aspect of your performance is increasing all the time. If the hypertrophy is stalling, maybe the strength goes up. That can, in theory, help the hypertrophy continue to climb because lifting the same weight is now easier. By working on a few different dimensions at once, it makes it easier for experienced lifters to keep SOMETHING improving all the time.

You don't have to go full Westside with the complexity, but the basic idea is very effective. If I explained it like shit, here's Jim Wendler giving a good breakdown. If you work on speed, strength, hypertrophy, and overall conditioning at the same time, you shouldn't ever completely stall, and all the progress bleeds over.

 

[Colette]

Thank you. That's well explained and super helpful. I think I was overly focused on hypertrophy, but gotta add strength sets. Speed and agility are already part of my program, but strength was getting neglected. As you can see in my original post, I'm not built for power ( blame my scrawny parents) but i know thats all the more reason to do them, even though i suck at it. I also appreciate your view that I don't need to accept stalling. Very encouraging.