Intensity or Volume

[Nathan Stewart 2]

Hello, first post ever. In regards to recovery, what has a larger impact, intensity or volume? For example if I was doing tons of MMA training or some other non negotiable stressor and the NLP and recovery was suffering, what would be better for RECOVERY maintaining the same weight, not adding 5 lbs to the lift or adding the 5 lbs but dropping one ir two sets? Also what would be best for recovery AND progress? Thanks in advance!

[CommanderFun]

First three questions need to be answered first. If you've got good answers to them, consult the grey book. The chapter on intermediates explains that hard practicing athletes often will have to utilize intermediate programming while practicing their sport hard, even though they could still technically progress as novices if the sport practice were absent.

[Nathan Stewart 2]

Thank you for the response, I think it’s a good peice of advice but maybe answering the question you think I should be asking, not the question I actually asked. I could be wrong and I frequently am, but I believe the first three questions, which I have read multiple times by now, refer to my specific recovery as a whole, the question I asked though is about which has a greater affect on recovery in general. Specifically intensity or volume. I’m not trying to get unstuck I’m trying to understand how these two training variables affect recovery in genaral.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Define the terms intensity and volume.

[Nathan Stewart 2]

Here by intensity I am meaning weight on the bar, and by volume I mean total reps in an exercise, so 15 in a normal NLP 5 by 3 squat workout. As opposed to tonage which would be average weight on the bar times total reps.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Average weight on the bar? The average of what?

[Nathan Stewart 2]

If you were changing the weight during the workout, as it’s described in the gray book, but for this question I’m mainly focusing on the main stimulus applied during the work set, so I just mean the weight on the bar.

[Nathan Stewart 2]

So I realize now that I forgot that intensity is normally expressed as a percentage of one rep max, my bad, but it’s fine for the pourpse off my question, weight on the bar or percent of one rep max, both represent the stimulus of each work set rep.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I have no idea what you're asking at this point.

[Nathan Stewart 2]

What has a greater impact on recovery, reducing the weight on the bar, or reducing the volume of work done? Just to make things simple let’s take an example, if I was doing a 5 by 3 squat at 250lbs and the next workout I’m suppossed to do another 5 by 3 at 255. What would increase recovery more, doing 250lbs 5 by 3 again, or doing 255lbs but doing a 5 by 2 or 5 by 1?