Good post, i like reading you and Ritchīs (Oldtimer) posts. basically what i do too. If i drop a couple of reps on the last set i donīt mind as long as i donīt go under 5/6 reps.
Thank you Donny
Great posts by everyone but I got a lot out of your post. I think the biggest obstacle when I use volume is that I have that HIT mentality of going to the ragged edge. What I mean by this to use running as an example if you're going to run five miles you don't run the first half mile at your absolute hardest effort or you won't be able to run five miles. When I do volume I find after awhile I'm working so hard I can't complete the workout because one I never developed the muscular endurance and second I'm using too much weight.
I have learned two important lessons from HIT:
Importance of progressive overload
Benefit of lower overall volume
When it comes to lowering overall volume I can either decrease the number of sets, or decrease the number of exercises. I have found that the latter is much more effective.
I also learned that using the same weight for all of the work sets of an exercise helped me understand volume better. But I couldn't do something like 4x8 or 3x10. I would get overzealous and pick a weight that would barely let me get the required number of reps on the first set and the following sets I would try to kill myself trying to match the first one. That's when I started using rep ranges. For hypertrophy I like 4x6-8 and 3x9-12. There is a noticeable difference in the weights that I can handle between the two even though the total number of reps are similar. This forces me to pick a weight that is light enough to fall into the rep range and I increase the weight when I can complete all of the reps (4x8 or 3x12). Also the rep ranges are narrow enough where I cannot go to failure on more than one set ( I try to leave 1-3 reps in the tank but every once in a while I tend to push it) and still be able to stay in the rep range.
I am similar to you with wanting to push it too far every workout. It took me a while to come up with a set of rules to help regulate my effort. I can probably write a small book on my experiments with volume and all of the trial and error I went through.