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)
