Summary
Steve Hall and Mike Sheridan break down how to structure your training split for maximum hypertrophy, covering the trade-offs between full body, upper/lower, and push/pull/legs approaches. They get into managing fatigue across a mesocycle, knowing the difference between thriving and just surviving in your training, and why "just getting it in" with junk volume is worse than taking an extra rest day.
Key Points
- Push/pull/legs allows the highest per-session volume per muscle group, making it ideal for intermediate-to-advanced lifters chasing hypertrophy.
- Full-body splits work best for beginners or those limited to 2-3 sessions per week because frequency compensates for lower per-session volume.
- Junk volume (sets performed while excessively fatigued) is worse than skipping -- it adds systemic fatigue without productive stimulus.
- Track whether you're thriving or surviving in your mesocycle by monitoring performance trends, not just showing up.
- Plan deload weeks proactively based on accumulated fatigue rather than waiting until performance crashes.
- Upper/lower splits offer a middle ground with 4 training days and reasonable volume distribution across muscle groups.
Key Moments
Why three-times-per-week full body is not the optimal split for advanced lifters
Steve argues that a three-times-per-week full body split only makes sense for novice lifters who cannot stress themselves much and recover quickly, and that advanced trainees need higher frequency to spread their required volume across the week.
"three times full body like when i think about that i think about someone who's novice who can't really stress themselves that much who can recover really quickly who doesn't need very much volume"
Frequency is a tool for distributing volume — more volume demands more training days
The hosts explain that training frequency should be viewed as a way to distribute weekly volume, and that maximizing hypertrophy requires enough training days to fit in high-quality volume without each session becoming excessively long.
"like you trained six days a week mic for a reason yeah you're trying to get the highest quality volume spread through the weekend i mean that that's effectively what the research is shown frequency to be is like the way to divvy up your volume the more you've got to do the more you want to divvy it up"
How to tell if your training volume is too high — when performance drops despite adding sets
Steve addresses a listener question about stalled progress despite adding volume, explaining that the general recommendation of 10 to 20 sets per week is just a starting point and that dropping performance after adding volume is a clear sign of under-recovery.
"so when you hear that general recommendation of 10 to 20 sets which is the gent is super broad and it doesn't mean less than 10 wouldn't work for you"
Creatine supplementation is synthetically made and suitable for vegetarian and vegan lifters
In response to a listener question about non-animal creatine sources, Steve clarifies that creatine supplements are synthetically manufactured in labs and are fully vegan, making supplementation important for those reducing animal product intake.
"I was like I'm pretty certain creatines vegan and I just chatchy-peated it and yes it's synthetically made in the lab"
