Do You Even Lift... Smart? The Science Behind ‘Junk Volume

Do you even lift, bro? The sentence that fitness influencers promoted to “annoy” other lifters. The question was originally from a meme that’s over 10 years old. But, if you really meant to ask someone that, the reason might be the junk volume that so many lifters are doing.

Key Takeaways

• More sets don’t mean more gains - junk volume is real, and it’s silently killing your recovery and progress.
• Smart lifting > more lifting - it’s all about quality reps, keeping the right form, and not chasing soreness or a longer workout.
• Effective training starts with awareness - if your workout time starts increasing and gets over an hour, it’s time to ask yourself, Are you training smart?

Are You Wasting Half Your Workout Without Knowing It?

Junk Volume is a term every gym member who is serious about their fitness should know. It’s a sneaky behavior that people start getting for no particular reason. It happens when you pile on unnecessary sets, poorly chosen exercises, or reps done with weak intensity.

Are you doing 6 chest exercises in one go? Most of them are hitting the same muscle. You might feel productive, but your body’s just getting tired, not stronger.

The truth is that in most cases, you are just chasing a good pump that does nothing for real progress.

Think You Are Training Smart? These 5 Signs Say Otherwise

Time for a routine check-up. If any of these sound familiar, your routine might be full of junk volume:

1. You are doing more than 3 exercises that hit the same muscle the same way.
2. Your workouts stretch past 90 minutes with slow results.
3. Your last few sets feel like you're just going through the motions.
4. You add more because you are not “sore enough”.
5. You are lifting light just to finish the set quota.

Effective Reps Theory

Chris Beardsley introduced this theory, which suggests that only the last 4 to 5 reps near failure in a set contribute meaningfully to hypertrophy.

Example: if you are doing 15 reps, but you stop after 8 easy reps, those 8 are junk.

This One Ratio Could be the Key to Bigger Gains

The holy grail of smart training could be the stimulus-to-fatigue ratio. It’s quite simple to understand: Is the effort you are putting in worth what it’s costing your body?

Besides going strong with your 5th or 6th biceps set, ask yourself what your elbow and nervous system are going through.

Think of the gym like budgeting. Every extra “junk’ set you do is like getting a credit. In the long run, you end up paying with fatigue, soreness, or a stalled PR.