Male, 40, 250 pounds (120kg) lifting seriously for 10 months. 💪

According to Jeff Nippard, 10 or more sets per week per muscle group is optimal for hypertrophy. Problem is, however, fatigue is multidimensional—local/peripheral (muscle metabolites, calcium handling, connective tissue), central/systemic (CNS, immune, endocrine), axial (spine/hips), and psychological. To add insult to injury, a certain type of prescription medication I take masks fatigue and boosts mesolimbic neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine) further exacerbating the problem.

As a result, I struggle to do more than 10 working sets per day, even when I split my daily volume into a morning session and afternoon session with 3-5 minute rests between sets. If I do more than this, I begin to fall behind in my personal life. (apparently "executive function" is one of the first victims of collateral damage for training too hard)

I take ice baths regularly in 6C water. I pride myself on mental toughness so it's not simply a matter of being lazy or cowardice. I'm also totally fine with doing 10 working sets per day because I've made more progress than I ever thought possible and if 10 working sets per day is my limit, I'm fine with that. I'm not complaining, just asking out of curiosity in case others here have gone through this and figured out a solution to this mildly annoying problem.

TL;DR: Is "lowering the systemic cost per set" the only viable solution for a lackluster systemic fatigue ceiling? (i.e. incorporating more "greasing the groove" style training that utilizes a high percentage of 1RM coupled with low RPE and high RIR)

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[–] 3 points 1 day ago

From experience, it is quite difficult to add significant volume in a deficit. The more extreme, the harder it is, especially as you get leaner and leaner. I could do 20 sets per week starting out at 220 lbs, but as I got closer to 15% and, I had to drop back to just 8-10 hard sets per week per muscle.

It sounds like you're doing solid though. I think it's worth just focusing on sustainability during the cut to get to your lean-ness goal, then really hammer down when you switch to maintenance or a clean bulk. I think you'll be surprised how much more you'll be able to handle with you're not in a deficit.

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