Here are, once again, a few thoughts on progression. After all, it is the foundation of any advancement and development, and most of the time we fail precisely at following, monitoring and adjusting our progress.
1. To track progression, choose 2 – 3 different rep ranges (per exercise, muscle, movement or body part).
For example:
Squat: Workout I 5 – 7; Workout II – 8 – 10; Workout III 10 – 12, and then start over.
Back: Workout I 6 – 8 reps; Workout II 10 – 12 reps, and then start over.
Legs: Workout I front squat 4 – 6; Workout II back squat with the bar on your shoulders 8 – 10; Workout III “Hack” machine 10 – 12, and then start over.
2. Choose the working volume you will use for each rep range.
3. Choose your exercises. Ideally, apply different rep ranges to different exercises. This keeps your nervous system “fresh” for longer.
4. Within the chosen volume, keep progressing through the schemes while staying in your rep range. Increase the weight at the current working volume once you manage to complete the upper limit (number) of the rep range.
5. Reduce the volume when the required rep count in the scheme no longer works out. You can try for a few workouts to hit the desired schemes with the same weight, but if it still doesn’t work out after two workouts, reduce the working volume.
6. For muscle building, I recommend working volumes of 60 (50) – 24 (20) total reps per exercise.
7. When reducing the volume, try to stay within the chosen rep range.
For example, if we choose a working volume of 24 reps and a rep range of 4 – 6 reps for biceps curls, we progress from workout to workout as follows:
40 kg – 6 x 4
40 kg – 5 x 5
40 kg – 4 x 6
45 kg – 6 x 4
45 kg – 5 x 5
45 kg – 4 x 6
If one of the schemes doesn’t work out, we stay in the same rep range but reduce the volume. If:
45 kg – 6 x 4
45 kg – 5, 5, 5, 5, 3
…it should have been 5 x 5, but if the last set doesn’t work out, then at the next workout we no longer try 4 x 6 with 45 kg, but 3 x 6. Since 5 x 5 with 45 kg no longer worked out, but we want to keep working in the same rep range, from now on we reduce the total working volume per exercise to 20, at which point the following schemes apply:
5 x 4/4 x 5/3 x 6
So, going by the biceps curl example, with 45 kg we now do 3 x 6 instead of 4 x 6, because we got stuck and moved on the fly to a smaller working volume. How low can you let the volume go when progressing this way??? As I wrote above, if the goal is hypertrophy, it is no longer optimal to drop below that 20. After that, you should change the exercise, the rep range, or both combined.
The more advanced the lifter, the more you need to combine different schemes and “play” with them. Simply adding weight from workout to workout only works for beginners or when you start training again after a break!!!
Author: Janar Rückenberg
Come and train! ArtGym
