There are several points you are making and I'll address a couple. Maybe I'll add more later when I've had my coffee LOL.
I didn't assert that the one "working set" is the only one that causes adaptation. What I said was that if you think that that one set is the only relevant one it changes everything, which I know from my own lifting. I've lifted pretty "HIT" since I started more than 35 years ago. Everything about my early sets is about preserving every ounce of strength or even increasing it through neural factors, by sort of priming the nervous system. I'll give an example from my own lifting. If I was going to deadlift 700+ for reps I'd do not much more than 10 reps total for warmups. It could be 10 sets of 1 on progressive loads, just to get a feel for the weights and getting the proper groove in. Damn close to zero fatigue and any fatigue would would be cancelled out by the neural priming. And then if the top set turned out extremely hard with slow grinding reps it often made it impossible to recover in 1 week to progress again - a workout consisting of about a dozen reps total, 10 of which hardly caused any fatigue at all.
Now I'll be lazy and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong but I somehow remember Mentzer and Yates felt Jones' volume or frequency was too high actually?
Regarding volume vs "intensity" or load progression, I feel if a lifter increases his squat from 315 x 10 to 405 x 20 for a single working set he does every two weeks, over time, he will have more hypertrophy than someone doing more and more volume on sets with "reps in reserve" with 315 over time.
I've used this example before. Chris doing a set of hacks at 6:00. Is this how every pro lifts all the time? It is not in my opinion. How often does a pro actually fail a rep on a squatting movement? The mind balks. Without Dorian there he would not have done that. That's what I mean by thinking the one set causes the adaptation, the approach becomes very different, not that volume causes zero adaptation. It does.
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Have you yourself done a lot of "to the death" sets (LOL) on say squats with considerable loads? Like I think Dorian said, with this type of training it was not uncommon to come home and crash and fall asleep before even getting nutrition in. Or even before a shower LOL.
Van, this still doesn’t answer the central point.
You’re now softening the claim from “Dorian did HIT” to “Dorian’s top set was psychologically the most important.” That is not the same argument.
Nobody said ramping sets have to be taken to failure to count as training stress. That’s a strawman. The point is that Dorian’s training involved more than one meaningful exposure to load. Heavy progressive warm ups, multiple exercises, and repeated top sets across a workout all contribute to total workload, skill practice, joint/tendon preparation, neural efficiency, and fatigue management. Calling them “warm ups” doesn’t make them disappear.
Your deadlift example actually proves the distinction. Ten singles with light progressive loads before a 700 lb deadlift might not create much fatigue, but that is not the same as bodybuilding ramp sets before presses, rows, hacks, leg presses, pulldowns, curls, laterals, etc. Dorian was not just doing ten token singles and one magic rep. He was accumulating hard work across several exercises.
Also, saying “Mentzer and Yates thought Jones used too much volume/frequency” doesn’t prove Dorian was pure HIT. It proves HIT itself kept being modified because the original Jones version was not universally practical. Mentzer modified Jones. Dorian modified Mentzer. That is exactly why calling Dorian’s routine “classic HIT” is misleading.
Your squat example is another false comparison. Of course someone who takes their squat from 315 x 10 to 405 x 20 will grow more than someone forever doing easy 315 sets with reps in reserve. But nobody is defending pointless junk volume with no progression. Volume training still requires progressive overload. The real comparison would be:
1 hard set progressing over time
versus
multiple hard sets progressing over time.
And historically, bodybuilding has overwhelmingly shown that multiple productive sets work extremely well.
You’re also mixing strength expression with hypertrophy stimulus. A single all out set may be great for testing yourself, but hypertrophy is not only about proving strength on one heroic set. It is about accumulating enough effective tension and workload over time to force adaptation while still recovering.
The Chris Cormier example doesn’t prove one set is superior either. It proves Dorian could motivate someone to push harder. Great. But intensity of effort and training volume are not enemies. A lifter can train hard and still use multiple sets. Arnold, Haney, Coleman, Cutler, Pearl, Nubret and countless others did exactly that.
And the “to the death” squat question is another dodge. Nobody needs to collapse after every workout to build muscle. In fact, if every session destroys you so badly that recovery becomes the limiting factor, that is not superior training. That is just poor fatigue management.
The real issue remains unchanged. Dorian’s system was not Arthur Jones style HIT. It was a modified, practical, drug era, elite bodybuilder hybrid using heavy ramping, multiple exercises, low to moderate volume, extreme effort, and careful recovery. It is not proof that classic one set HIT is the best way to train.
So the HIT crowd can’t have it both ways. Either Dorian was a hybrid case who adapted the method heavily, or you admit HIT is so loosely defined that almost any hard bodybuilding routine can be called HIT.
