You remind me of Arthur Jones saying in effect that everything has a price and everything has a value. He then went on to say that if hours a day in a gym is what it took for a good physique it wasn't worth it.
The overwhelming amount of successful bodybuilders have used volume. Most of the bodybuilders Jones used to push his machines were volume trainers. Maybe the most famous was Sergio. The deception was the weeks he spent in Florida was the reason for his success. No, he trained with volume prior to going to Florida and with volume after. Many can testify to that fact that have been in the gym with him.
Viator the poster child for Nautilus got into his best ever condition using volume and plenty of it for the 1982 Olympia. I was in communication with a guy that was in the gym many a time with Viator. He said he was counting 15 sets a body part and more. Even Mentzer commented that Viator was using more sets after leaving employment with Nautilus.
Mentzer was using up to four sets a body part but counted one or two work sets according to my source who was in the gym with him. Joe Means the guy used in El Darden's book is often used as a Nautilus success story. He said in an interview that he used volume using super sets, tri set and giant sets prior to show in an interview with Bill Reynolds. Another guy I was in communication with. Yes, he used Nautilus machines along with barbells, dumbbells and typical pulleys.
Does low sets work? Of course it does. Maybe the biggest example is Dorian Yates who trained 45 minutes to an hour four times a week to win the Olympia.
Bill Pearl said that if you trained to failure all the time eventually training would be so hellish that it would lead to missed training days. He said in effect that training consistency is an important part of success. Another famous bodybuilder named Padilla said he tried heavy duty but again said in effect he started to dread training. He also said he didn't see any significant gains. Padilla said he was using heavy weights and not taking it easy.
All of this leads to another point. Should we be taking training advice from bodybuilding drug users? Can they illustrate their bodybuilding knowledge and work ethic without the drug assist or will they look like crap? To answer your direct question have I ever used volume? I did when I was about 19. I got really lean but lost strength because I wasn't using heavy weights. I couldn't because it's relatively muscular endurance training.
I think it was Dorian that pointed out that it wasn't one set to failure per bodypart but rather one set to failure per exercise with each body part requiring different movements (Bench, Incline, flies, cable).
When I train, right when I reach positive failure, a point where I cannot do another complete rep, I say to myself, "OK, now it begins." One principle that I got from Authur Jones and made the most sense was this: "As long as you are working
within your functional ability; doing things that are already easy, exercise will do little or nothing by way of increasing size, strength, and functional ability." If I can do 8 reps on a particular movement with a particular weight and just keep doing that over and over again, never trying for ninth rep, then it will do nothing to stimulate an adaptive response.
Now, for someone like me, approaching 60 years old, with the same diet, I have no allusions about gaining any more meaningful muscle mass. But I do it because I think there are other benefits to always trying to push yourself. Physical conditioning as well as developing physical and mental toughness. Bill Pearl is right when he says it would be hellish to stay consistent. Consistency has been my strongest point. Trudging off to the gym consistently for 47 years. But there is no way I could have maintained that consistency training, whether intensely or just going through the motions, if I had to go to the gym six days a week. I could do it if it was my profession if that's what I did for a living, but going to school, working for a living, family obligations it would get old quick. Even when I was in high school with np real demands other than school on my time I would often get burnt out going to the gym.
Remember one of Jones' basic principles was that training should be intense, short, and
infrequent. Most of my life I trained three days a week by now have cut it down to twice a week.
