Stronger with Time

How many sets does a muscle need to grow, and how much does each extra set add?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I speak with Dr Jake Remmert about volume, frequency and effort, and what the research means for how you program for muscle growth.

Jake is an exercise physiology professor at Illinois State University and a strength and physique coach.

He did his PhD in Dr Mike Zourdos's Muscle Physiology Laboratory at Florida Atlantic University, is one of the primary authors of the recent meta regression on per session training volume, and co-authored the dose response analysis on weekly volume, frequency and proximity to failure with Josh Pelland and Zac Robinson.

Throughout, Jake makes the case that the big rocks (effort, recoverable volume and consistency over time) matter more than the fine details.

Modern Hypertrophy, my four-week live course on programming for muscle growth, starts 9 November: https://go.tonyboutagy.com/modern-hypertrophy-course

In this episode:

• The eras of hypertrophy thinking, and why the language has moved from certainty to nuance

• Per session volume, and the diminishing returns of each extra set

• Why doubling your sets doesn't double your muscle growth

• How many sets per session are productive for most people, and the minimum effective dose

• Exercise variety and regional growth

• What short, controlled studies can and cannot tell us

• Whether training a muscle more often builds more muscle once weekly volume is matched

• The point of undetectable outcome superiority, and the millimetre differences behind the debates

• How close to failure you need to train, and whether that changes between heavy compound sets and isolation work

• Overload techniques such as drop sets and supersets, and what they do and do not add

• Periodisation for hypertrophy, and training for the area under the curve

  
  

Timestamps:

00:00 The eras of hypertrophy thinking

04:23 Per session volume, and why Jake looked at it

06:34 The diminishing returns of each set

10:47 Finding the productive range

12:17 How many sets to double your first set

15:19 Regional growth and exercise variety

17:47 What a ten-week study can and cannot tell you

25:06 Re-analysing the open data with Mark McKean

29:05 The minimum effective dose

31:25 The point of undetectable outcome superiority

37:26 The frequency debate

47:30 Proximity to failure

52:33 Overload techniques

58:05 Periodisation for hypertrophy

1:01:50 Rapid fire: overrated or underrated

1:04:25 Where to find Jake's work

Dr Jake Remmert:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jake.remmert.phd/

Website: https://jakeremmert.com/

Dr Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Modern Hypertrophy (starts 9 November): https://go.tonyboutagy.com/modern-hypertrophy-course

Website: https://tonyboutagy.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as individualised exercise advice.

Professor Roger Enoka is one of the world’s leading authorities on the neuromuscular system and has spent more than four decades studying how the nervous system produces movement, strength and fatigue. He is the author of Neuromechanics of Human Movement, now in its sixth edition.

In this episode of Stronger With Time, we discuss why Type II muscle fibres are not simply high-threshold motor units, why light and heavy loads taken to failure can produce similar muscle growth despite differences in motor unit activity, and what can limit your ability to continue a set as you approach failure.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What a motor unit is, and why muscle fibre type and recruitment threshold are not the same thing

• How motor unit recruitment and rate coding change as force demands increase

• Light versus heavy loads to failure, and the relationship between motor unit activity and muscle growth

• Fatigue, fatigability and why the distinction matters when we talk about training to failure

• How mechanical tension is generated and what we can measure in human muscle

• Free weights versus machines, and how balance and stability change the demands on the nervous system

• Lengthening contractions and the neural demands of controlling a load

• Neuromechanical matching and regional hypertrophy

• Motor neuron loss, rate coding and the role of resistance training as we age

• Sex differences in fatigability and what they may mean for exercise prescription

• Resistance training, balance and the role of impact exercise as we age

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

00:52 What is a motor unit?

03:20 Recruitment thresholds and the size principle

04:11 Muscle fibre type versus motor unit type

05:50 Fatigue, fatigability and failure

14:13 Light versus heavy loads and muscle growth

17:55 Mechanical tension and what we can measure in humans

25:40 What happens from brain to muscle across a set

29:01 Free weights versus machines

30:58 Lengthening contractions

34:34 Neuromechanical matching and regional growth

38:15 Ageing and the nervous system

42:19 Sex differences

46:52 Resistance training, balance and impact exercise

49:00 Where to find Roger’s work

Resources

Professor Roger Enoka

University of Colorado Boulder: https://www.colorado.edu/iphy/people/faculty/roger-m-enoka

Neuromechanics of Human Movement, 6th Edition: https://us.humankinetics.com/products/neuromechanics-of-human-movement-6th-edition

The Science of Movement on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/science-of-movement

Dr Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Website: https://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore Tony’s courses: https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as individualised exercise advice.

How much of what we do in the gym today is genuinely new, and how much has been around for decades?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I speak with Dr Conor Heffernan about where many of the training ideas we now take for granted came from, how they changed over time, and what their history can teach us about how we train today.

Conor is a historian and sociologist of sport at Ulster University whose work focuses on the history of strength training and physical culture. He is the author of The History of Physical Culture and When Fitness Went Global, and writes at Physical Culture Study.

In this episode:

• How physical culture evolved into modern bodybuilding and gym culture

• Eugen Sandow, the first modern physique star, and why he sold light dumbbells while training heavy himself

• Where the squat, three sets of ten and body-part splits came from

• What lifters already understood about progressive overload by the 1930s

• The steroid era, and what changed in training once anabolic steroids arrived

• Where single-set and high-intensity training came from

• The history of women in strength, from calisthenics and “toning” to progressive strength training

• What Conor takes from more than a century of strength-training history into how he thinks about training today

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

00:57 Physical culture and the origins of modern gym culture

06:28 Where three sets of ten and body-part splits came from

13:08 What lifters already knew by the 1930s

16:50 Eugen Sandow and early fitness marketing

21:39 What a 1930s lifter would recognise today

31:33 Silver Era training and the pre-steroid physique

39:18 When anabolic steroids entered strength sports

43:01 How steroids changed training

49:18 Single-set and high-intensity training

52:49 The history of women in strength

59:53 Where “toning” and light weights for women came from

01:06:15 What Conor takes from strength-training history

01:11:23 Where to learn more

Dr Conor Heffernan

Ulster University: https://www.ulster.ac.uk/staff/c-heffernan

Physical Culture Study: https://physicalculturestudy.com/

Physical Culture Study Substack: https://physicalculture.substack.com/

Books

The History of Physical Culture: https://cgscholar.com/publishers/books/the-history-of-physical-culture

When Fitness Went Global: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/when-fitness-went-global-9781350500785/

Dr Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Website: https://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore Tony’s courses: https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as individualised exercise advice.

VO2 max matters, but what else determines endurance, and how should you train for it?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I sit down with Professor Andy Jones to explore where zone two and intervals fit, what elite endurance athletes can teach us, and what this means for training, performance and healthy ageing.

Andy is Professor of Applied Physiology at the University of Exeter and one of the world's leading endurance physiologists. He served as a scientific editor on Nike's Breaking2 project, worked with marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe for more than a decade, and has helped shape research on critical power, dietary nitrate and physiological resilience.

In this episode:

• What VO2 max can and cannot tell you about endurance

• Where zone two fits within aerobic training

• Whether you should avoid the middle ground between easy work and hard intervals

• How Andy approaches intervals for improving VO2 max

• How to combine aerobic training with three weekly strength sessions

• Whether men and women need different endurance training

• What Breaking2 and Paula Radcliffe reveal about endurance beyond VO2 max

• What Andy's research shows about nitrate, beetroot and carbohydrate fuelling

  
  

Resources:

Professor Andy Jones

University of Exeter academic profile: https://experts.exeter.ac.uk/1327-andy-jones

University of Exeter Sports Physiology & Exercise Testing: https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/spet/meet-the-team/

Dr Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Website: https://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore Tony's courses: https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

Follow Stronger With Time for more evidence-informed conversations on training, health and performance.

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not a training prescription or medical advice.

Two people can have similar muscle mass and very different levels of strength. What accounts for the difference?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, Tony speaks with Professor Paul Comfort, one of the world’s leading strength and conditioning researchers, about what influences strength beyond muscle size, and what that means for training.

Paul is Professor of Strength and Conditioning at the University of Salford in the UK, where he leads the Master of Strength and Conditioning program. He also holds an adjunct professorship at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. His research focuses on strength training, force production and the assessment of physical performance.

In this episode, they discuss:

• How strength is assessed, and whether a true one-repetition maximum is as fatiguing as people think

• Whether bar speed matters as much as intent

• When slow, controlled reps help, and when they may not

• How psychology and neural inhibition can affect strength expression

• What stability and unilateral work can reveal about a weak link

• Why lowering a weight is different from lifting it

• What happens when training frequency changes but weekly volume stays the same, and whether microdosing works

• Whether strength, hypertrophy and power should be trained together or emphasised at different times

• How strength training priorities change with age

Professor Paul Comfort

• University of Salford https://www.salford.ac.uk/our-staff/paul-comfort

• ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul-Comfort

• Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xukgqDQAAAAJ&hl=en

• ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1131-8626

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/paulcomfort1975/

• X https://x.com/PaulComfort1975

• Website https://tonyboutagy.com/

• Courses https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

• Weak Links in Movement https://tonyboutagy.com/weak-links-movement-full-course

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

Follow Stronger With Time for more evidence-informed conversations on training, health and performance.

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as individualised exercise advice.

Most of the attention in training goes to the workout itself. But what happens after the workout that determines the result you get from it?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, Tony speaks with Professor John Hawley, one of the most influential figures in exercise metabolism, about what four decades of research can teach us about how we train, fuel and recover.

John is a Distinguished Professor at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, where he directs the Centre for Human Metabolism and Performance. His research spans how exercise and diet regulate fat and carbohydrate metabolism in skeletal muscle, the molecular basis of training adaptation, circadian biology and nutrient timing, and how exercise improves insulin action.

John helped run some of the pioneering interval-training studies in Cape Town in the 1990s and has spent the decades since studying the mechanisms behind how training works.

In this episode:

• What happens inside the muscle after the workout ends

• How short, hard intervals compare with longer intervals for improving VO₂max and performance

• What high-intensity training does differently from steady-state exercise

• How often to go hard, and where lower-intensity training fits

• Why carbohydrate availability matters when the work gets hard

• When training with low carbohydrate availability may have a place

• What the carbohydrate mouth rinse reveals about the brain’s role in performance

• Concurrent training, the interference effect and when it matters

• How exercise changes insulin sensitivity and glucose disposal

• What John’s research on time-restricted eating is finding

• Whether sex meaningfully changes the metabolic response to exercise

• Where the search for an exercise mimetic stands

• How John thinks about consistency, recovery and making exercise a priority

This conversation is for anyone who wants to train with more intent and understand what is driving the results.

Resources

Professor John Hawley

ACU profile: https://www.acu.edu.au/research-and-enterprise/our-research-institutes/mary-mackillop-institute-for-health-research/our-people/professor-john-hawley

Research and publications: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22John+Hawley%22+exercise+metabolism

On PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Hawley+JA+exercise+metabolism

Book: Peak Performance: Training and Nutritional Strategies for Sport, by John Hawley and Louise Burke https://books.google.com/books/about/Peak_Performance.html?id=3P5qQgAACAAJ

Dr Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Website: https://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore Tony’s courses: https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

Subscribe to Stronger With Time for more evidence-informed conversations on training, health and performance.

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not intended as individualised exercise or nutrition advice.

How many sets should you do? How often should you train a muscle? How close to failure should you go?

Before answering any of those questions, I want to know what the program is trying to achieve and what the person can recover from.

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I'm resharing a conversation I had with Ariel and Matt from Raise the Bar about the way I think about exercise programming after more than 30 years of coaching and studying exercise science.

We start with how I moved from endurance sport into strength and conditioning, why I have remained a student of the field, and what decades of coaching have taught me about translating research into practice.

From there, we get into the programming questions that matter in the gym, including several areas where I have changed my mind.

We discuss:

• Why the goal and the person’s ability to recover come before sets and reps

• Why the first sets of an exercise appear to give the most benefit, what my new meta-analysis changed about how quickly returns diminish, and what that means for how much you do

• Why strength and hypertrophy are related, but not the same adaptation

• Why mechanical tension is central to muscle growth

• What soreness, muscle damage and metabolic stress do, and do not, tell us about hypertrophy

• Rep ranges, proximity to failure and muscle fibre recruitment

• Exercise selection and why some muscles benefit from biomechanically different movements

• Training frequency versus doing more volume in one session

• Why I often favour total-body training two or three times per week

• How I approach strength training for women who want to get stronger without maximising muscle size

• How long to keep a program and why changing exercises too quickly can matter

• Progressive overload, periodisation and where the evidence is still developing

• Where research can guide programming and where coaching judgement still matters

• Why I'd question any program that needs a deload, and what a drop in performance is actually telling you

This conversation is for coaches, trainers and serious lifters who want to make better programming decisions without reducing exercise science to a set of universal rules.

I am building a short course on the science of hypertrophy: I'm building a short course on the science of hypertrophy.

Over the past year I've reviewed the hypertrophy research in full and spoken with many of the researchers behind it on this podcast, and that work has changed a few things about how I program for muscle.

The short course covers exactly those changes. Join the interest list to be the first to hear when it opens:

https://go.tonyboutagy.com/register-you-interest-page

If you want the complete foundation on program design, that is Advanced Program Mastery. After all of this work, very little in it has needed to change:

https://tonyboutagy.com/advanced-program-mastery-course-page

When you raise your arm, which muscles produce the movement, and which keep the shoulder stable enough for it to happen?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I speak with Professor Donald Neumann, PT, PhD, FAPTA, about how muscles produce, control and stabilise movement as part of a coordinated system, using the shoulder as the primary example.

Don is Professor Emeritus of Physical Therapy at Marquette University and the author of Neumann’s Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System.

We discuss:

• What it means for a muscle to be functioning well

• Why few muscles perform a meaningful action independently

• How muscular force couples produce and control movement

• Why the shoulder’s mobility places greater demands on muscular control

• How the deltoid and rotator cuff share the work of raising the arm

• How the serratus anterior and trapezius contribute to scapular movement

• What the commonly cited two-to-one scapulohumeral rhythm describes

• When scapular dyskinesis may warrant closer attention

• Why external-rotation strength depends partly on the muscles anchoring the scapula

• Whether the lower trapezius and serratus anterior should be trained separately or within larger movements

• How anatomical variation influences the way we assess the shoulder and hip

• What Don’s current research may reveal about the actions of individual scapular muscles

This conversation is for coaches, trainers, physiotherapists and serious lifters who want a clearer understanding of what produces, controls and stabilises shoulder movement, and what this means for assessment and training.

See how these principles apply to movement assessment and program design in Weak Links & Movement:

https://tonyboutagy.com/weak-links-movement-full-course

Professor Donald Neumann

Marquette University profile:https://www.marquette.edu/physical-therapy/directory/donald-neumann.php

Neumann’s Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System, Fourth Edition:https://shop.elsevier.com/books/neumann-s-kinesiology-of-the-musculoskeletal-system/neumann/978-0-323-71859-2

Review of the serratus anterior:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30737019/

Review of the trapezius:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30797676/

Professor Neumann’s publications on PubMed:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Neumann+DA%5BAuthor%5D

Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Website:https://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore the courses:https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stronger-with-time/id1815428150

Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5Yydg6y3dA8OiA8hyHcJON

How close to failure do you need to train to build muscle?

And how accurately can you judge how many repetitions you still have in reserve?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I speak with Dr Martin Refalo about how accurately lifters can judge repetitions in reserve, how close to failure a set needs to be, and when training to failure may be useful.

Martin is Co-Owner and Education Manager at JPS Health & Fitness. He holds a PhD in Exercise Science, has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications and has more than a decade of practical coaching experience. Proximity to failure and its relationship with hypertrophy, fatigue and discomfort have been central areas of his research.

We discuss:

• Why lifters can misjudge how close they are to failure

• How to develop a more accurate sense of repetitions in reserve

• How close to failure Martin generally recommends training

• When recording a set may help calibrate effort

• How fatigue across a session can affect performance

• When training to failure may be more appropriate in lower-volume programmes

• Whether load and repetition range affect muscle growth

• Why higher-repetition sets can be more difficult to judge

• What the evidence suggests about sex differences in fatigue, recovery and hypertrophy

• Whether women require fundamentally different resistance-training programmes

• How Martin designs studies around practical training questions

This conversation is for coaches and serious lifters who want to prescribe effort with greater accuracy and understand how proximity-to-failure research applies in the gym.

Timestamps:

00:05 Introduction to Dr. Martin Rafalo and His Expertise

01:03 Exploring Resistance Training and Training to Failure

01:31 Practical Applications of Exercise Science

01:56 Introduction and guest introduction

02:30 Why study training to failure? The research focus

05:10 Context-dependent nature of training intensity

08:39 The strike zone: 2 reps shy of failure

09:45 Is it worth pushing to true failure? Practical tips

12:02 Perception of effort and actual proximity to failure

13:46 Muscle tension, fatigue, and hypertrophy mechanisms

18:04 Monitoring progress and fatigue through performance

20:40 Fatigue impact across sessions and exercises

25:17 Research findings on proximity to failure and growth

27:31 Programming considerations: volume, load, and recovery

30:54 Training to failure in beginners vs. advanced

33:42 Sex differences in fatigue and recovery

36:25 Applying science to coaching practice

47:04 Designing research studies in exercise science

51:05 Within-subject vs. group studies on failure

54:08 Gender responses to resistance training

58:22 Hormonal influences and muscle growth in females

01:01:27 Bridging science and coaching practice

01:05:10 Program design for different athlete goals

01:08:10 Program duration and auto-regulation

01:10:26 Where to find more about Martin Refalo

Dr Martin Refalo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrfitness__/

JPS profile: https://www.jpshealthandfitness.com.au/team/martin-refalo/

JPS Education: https://www.instagram.com/jps_education/

JPS Health & Fitness: https://www.jpshealthandfitness.com.au/

JPS YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi6aTw95QXJHjv8ucdxnL7Q

Tony Boutagy / Stronger With Time

Website: https://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore Tony’s courses: https://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

Subscribe to Stronger With Time for more evidence-informed conversations on training, health and performance.

This episode is for general educational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualised training advice.

There is a lot of conflicting advice about how women should train and fuel through midlife.

Should they prioritise high-intensity work over Zone 2? Train around the menstrual cycle? Cut back on carbohydrates?

In this episode of Stronger With Time, I speak with Rachel Neylan, Olympic cyclist, world championship silver medallist, physiotherapist and high-performance coaching psychologist.

We discuss under-fuelling and carbohydrate fear, bone health after years of cycling, and whether Zone 2 is really overrated for women. Rachel explains why the aerobic base that supported her professional career also helped her absorb harder training and recover from it.

We also talk about training around the menstrual cycle without rigid rules, rebuilding after serious injury, the difference between motivation and identity, and creating systems around training, nutrition, sleep, recovery and community.

This conversation is for women who want to stay strong, fit and capable through midlife, and for the coaches and health professionals who work with them.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:40 Rapid-fire cycling questions

06:30 Leaving physiotherapy for professional cycling

09:45 Matching your physiology to the right sport

14:15 Why children need variety before specialisation

17:00 Movement variety for healthy ageing

19:25 What endurance sport teaches you about doing hard things

21:40 Motivation versus identity

24:35 Training after retiring from professional sport

26:15 Bone density and the hidden cost of cycling

29:25 Recovering from a major crash

33:15 Resilience and training around injury

37:30 Under-fuelling and fear of carbohydrate

42:45 Fuelling around a one-hour training session

44:55 Why every workout should not be hard

47:15 Is Zone 2 overrated for women?

52:00 Why an aerobic base supports high-intensity training

55:05 Female physiology and training differences

57:50 Menstrual-cycle tracking without rigid rules

01:01:25 Building a personal performance ecosystem

01:04:00 Rachel’s current work in performance coaching

01:06:20 Closing thoughts

Resources

Rachel Neylan’s websitehttps://www.rachelneylan.com/

Rachel Neylan’s Australian Olympic profilehttps://www.olympics.com.au/olympians/rachel-neylan/

Tony’s websitehttps://tonyboutagy.com/

Explore Tony’s courseshttps://tonyboutagy.com/explore-the-courses-page

Follow Tony on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/tonyboutagy/

Subscribe to Stronger With Time for more evidence-informed conversations on training, health and performance.

This episode is for general educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice.