The act of pushing yourself to your limits to see results with your physique is an oft-repeated mantra that makes a lot of sense. After all, building muscle requires training fibers until they tear and strengthen again, but sometimes a phase of making workouts shorter, or even cutting them in half, can yield surprising results, as illustrated by evidence-backed fitness coach Jeff Nippard.
“What would happen if you only did half your training?” asked the smart Canadian in a recent YouTube videoadding that he has always been “a high volume guy.” To conduct his experiment, Nippard reduced his usual three to four sets per exercise to just one or two and stayed on this course for a hundred days. “The point is, by following this plan, on paper I was training at a volume level that most experts would say is too low to maximize muscle growth,” Nippard said.
As for how his sets per muscle group went, Nippard said he averaged six and a half sets per week, while Research often shows that there is more volumeEven breaking the barrier of ten sets per muscle group leads to more gains. One report only in 2024 even came to the conclusion that even as many as 43 sets per muscle, per week, would lead to gains. However, those results were later criticized because proper muscle measurements had not been 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 flaw in many of the large-scale studies, as most of these experiments trained the biceps and triceps, or quads, but did not take into account the real-world scenario of weekly full-body workout splits.
Less time sometimes equals more profit
How did Jeff Nippard fare after reducing the volume, and why should you try it? In one recent Instagram post summarizing his experiencesNippard said he was “pleasantly surprised” at his muscle maintenance, despite doing half the work. Initially, the coach felt like he wasn’t doing enough in the gym, as his two-hour sessions were now done in less than an hour. But after fifty days his recovery was ‘better than ever’. Nippard also found that he enjoyed 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 body. The results of the natural bodybuilder will be surprising to many:
- The power increased and even set new PRs in the last week
- Fat reduced by 5.5 pounds
- Lean mass only 1.8 pounds
While Nippard was in a calorie deficit during the experiment, a factor that would affect his overall weight loss, the coach actually built half a pound of additional lean mass in the last 70 days of the experiment, meaning that Nippard was within the margin of error for maintaining or building muscle despite the lower volume.
Given the data, why might shorter volume training lead to excessive strength gains? “It’s so crazy how much better you can hold on when you only have two sets to do,” Nippard reflected. “Instead of dreading long workouts, I actually can’t wait to train every day,” he explained. In fact, the results were so profound that the coach updated his previous advice and said that low-volume training works well in the cutting phase. This is partly due to the higher levels of recovery experienced even when in a caloric deficit.
For bulking, Nippard said keeping the volume low would also work, but in the same sessions you could choose one muscle to load for 30 sets per week, and rotate the muscle getting the intense training “every few months.” In fact, our scientific friend is so excited about this idea that he hopes to conduct this as a new experiment.
“Research shows that one of the most common reasons people skip the gym is lack of time,” Nippard said. So if you’re typically an athlete who trains a lot but want to renew your love for training, low-volume bouts of training are unlikely to cause muscle loss and may even fit better into your schedule. Even that eye-popping review from 2024 Touting high-volume workouts concluded that “increases 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 will thank you.
Watch the full video below:
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