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By
Charles Staley, B.Sc, MSS
Director, Staley Training Systems |
Author’s note: This article
was inspired by a conversation with a well-known strength guru friend
of mine. He commented that 5 pounds a week is the usual load increase
that most of us use, but if you project that out over a year, it
equates to a 260 pound increase. You guessed it— I went home
and wrote this article.
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As my colleague Will Brink likes
to say, "From Mentzer's 'one set to failure' to Poliquin's
'German volume training,' there is no program which recommends
using progressively lighter weightloads from week to week."
Brink is of course, alluding to the universal requirement
of all successful strength and mass gaining programs: progressive
overload.
One well-known pro bodybuilder
recently told me that as long as he was training to failure,
he felt assured that he was using the highest possible intensity,
and therefore, it didn't matter what weights he used. Most
people, after seeing his physique, would hesitate to argue
with such convoluted logic.
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(Incidentally, Matt Mendenhall jokingly
calls this phenomenon the law of excessive mass: i.e., "I'm
bigger than you, so I'm right!") But I would remind such people
that the individual in question possessed several attributes which
allowed him to succeed despite his poor choice of exercise protocol:
1) He chose great parents for his
avocation;
2) He was probably a dru... I mean, a recreational pharmacologist;
3) Perhaps most importantly, he possessed the ability to work extremely
hard on a consistent basis for a long period of time.
With this in mind, you should immediately
grasp the foolishness of "average" trainees (which the
vast majority of us are) attempting to use this individual's training
methods.
Training is Stress!
Let's start off with an analogy: If
you went from a sedentary desk job to working as a lumberjack, your
body would undergo some interesting adaptations as it struggled
to cope with the unfamiliar environmental stressors inherent in
that profession.
You would most certainly develop caluoses
on your hands as a result of grasping axes, saws, and other implements
for hours each day. These callouses, however, would be exactly the
same size one year after getting
your new job, three years after, six years after, ad infinitum.
Why? Because after the initial shock, the degree of stress to your
hands never changed over that period of time.
Training is no different. Most bodybuilders
make great progress for the first year or two, but then never look
any different from that point on. Many of these people understand
the importance of progression, but lack the skills necessary to
implement it properly.
The Training Load
In sports science jargon, the training
load is defined as "the sum total of all training activities
for a given unit of time." The training load has two important
components, both of which can be used to provide overload—
volume, or the amount of work done, and intensity, or the difficulty
of work done (Incidentally, as a rule of thumb, you should seek
to establish a certain level of intensity first, and then add volume,
rather than the other way around).
Before you can plan a certain level
of progression, it becomes necessary to have a way of measuring
each of these components. Volume is usually calculated as the amount
of weight lifted multiplied by the repetitions performed with that
weight. However, this traditional calculation is being called into
question by some latter day thinkers. Charles Poliquin was the first
to say that the actual time that a muscle is under tension (TUT)
must be considered as well. If this seems too anal-retentive, let
me ask you a question.
If you perform a set of 10 reps with
135 pounds, and your lifting speed (or tempo) is 6 seconds per repetition,
and your training partner used the same weight and reps, but executed
each rep at 3 seconds per repetition, did you each perform an identical
amount of work? Clearly, no. This scenario illustrates the fact
that the training load can be increased simply by gradually slowing
down your lifting tempos over successive workouts. Reducing rest
between sets also increases volume, since the workload will be performed
in a shorter period of time. So, to use another example, if you
and your partner both perform 3 sets of 10 reps with 135 pounds
using identical tempos, but you rest one minute per set while your
partner rests two minutes between sets, you achieved the greater
volume.
Intensity is the second component
of the training load, and it is normally expressed as a percentage
of your 1RM (one repetition maximum), or the greatest amount of
weight you can lift for one repetition in proper form. But here's
the catch with 1RM's: they're always changing. This means you never
quite know for sure what your 1RM is for any given lift. Which doesn't
mean you shouldn't test for 1RM's every 8 weeks or so— you
should. Doing so gives you a guideline to work with. It's just important
to realize that 1RM's are a dynamic measurement. For this reason,
I usually prescribe repetition bracketsrather
than percentage of 1RM when I write training programs for my clients.
When considering intensity, it's important
to realize that any change in your exercise technique— no matter
how slight— changes the equation altogether. For instance,
if you normally use a 3 second tempo (meaning, you complete each
repetition in exactly 3 seconds) when testing for your 1RM, and
the next time you test you're able to add 5 pounds to your 1RM but
it took you an extra second to complete the lift, it's not an accurate
indication of improvement. Establish your testing parameters, and
then stick to them so that you have a consistent protocol when testing.
If you do not, you'll have no real way of knowing whether or not
you're improving.
Incidentally many people use the phrase
"high intensity" to describe workout that are actually
high volume or high density (which refers to the work/rest ratio).
So just to be clear about our terms, remember that intensity has
nothing to do with how much pain you're in, or the fact that you
frequently experience reverse peristolisis and out-of-body experiences
after your leg training— it simply refers to how much weight
is on the bar relative to your current maximal ability. Using this
definition, we could say that performing 315 pounds for 1 rep is
more intense than 10 reps with 310 pounds, even though the latter
effort is far more difficult to perform.
The Volume/Intensity Relationship
Volume and intensity are mutually
exclusive concepts— you can't have high intensity and high
volume simultaneously. If this was possible, you'd be able to do
three sets of ten with your current 1RM! Yet both volume and intensity
are necessary to achieve results— high volume loads create
more lasting adaptations, while intense loads create faster adaptations
which are more temporary. This apparent paradox is one of the primary
reasons for periodizing (or cycling) your training.
Although you can implement the principle
of progressive overload by increasing volume or intensity, it's
important to realize that increases in volume are more sustainable
than increases in intensity. In other words, for a trainee with
10 years experience who can squat 695 for a single repetition, it's
much easier to progress by adding reps and/or sets than it is to
try to add weight to the bar during any given repetition bracket
Which Type of Progression is Best?
In his book Science of Sports Training,
Thomas Kurz identified three distinct methods which can be used
to increase the training load over time:
1) Rectilinear method: Loads
are continuously and uniformly increased. An example of rectilinear
progression is to attempt to add five pounds to the bar every time
you perform squats.
2) Stepped Method: Load are
sharply increased, then held at that level for a period of time,
before being sharply increased again. An example would be using
the same weight, say 185 pounds for five sets of five reps, for
a period of four weeks, and then increasing to 225 pounds for four
weeks for the same sets and reps, and so on. This method, when used
by advanced athletes, can result in fast, but temporary strength
increases. Not effective for beginning or intermediate lifters of
less than 4 years of continuous lifting experience.
3) Wavy method: Loads are gradually
increased for several sessions, and then decreased for one or more
sessions, and so on. A classic example of this loading scheme is
as follows:
While increases in load are slower
than the previous two methods, this technique lends itself to more
sustainable progress, and as a result more satisfaction, and fewer
injuries from training.
The Law of Sustainable
Progression
Should an athlete progress as fast
as possible? Or perhaps as fast as is comfortable? Or, should you
just choose some arbitrary unit— say 5 pounds per week? There
is a way to make some sense of this. The key is to determine the
amount of progression that you can sustain over a prolonged period
of time. Let's take the 5 pounds per week scenario, which incidentally,
is commonly used by people who make great progress initially, but
who hit a wall after a year or two. While 5 pounds a week seems
like a very gradual progression, if you take the time to extend
this level of progression over the long term, you'll find that it
equates to an increase of 260 pounds per year! In such a scenario,
the athlete would be a world class powerlifter within 2 years! Since
this happens to very few people, it is a useful analogy to prove
my point.
The previous scenario violates what
I call "The Law of Sustainable Progression." Fast increases
in training loads soothe the ego and make for fairly impressive
short term gains, but they can't be sustained. A slower progression
over a longer period of time leads to better and more lasting results
than a faster progression which can only be sustained for a short
period of time. Further, large, sudden increases in training loads
are associated with hitting an early and false plateau, which can
lead to injury, as the athlete resorts to more and more extreme
methods in an attempt to break out of this plateau.
So progress as slowly (and also as
consistently) as you can. Equipment companies are responding to
the concept of "micro-progression" by providing more variable
weight stacks which allow for smaller jumps. One company, Benoit
Built, makes specialized magnets (called Plate Mate) weighing between
1/4 and 5/8 of a pound which can be attached to plates, dumbbells,
and weight stacks. The beauty of Plate Mate (besides portability)
is that they allow you to make minute, yet sustainable progressions
from workout to workout. Putting this concept in terms you can relate
to, let's assume you're a 250 pound bencher. Using a progression
of 2.5 pounds per week, you'll be a 380 pound bencher in one year.
Even this is a very significant increase, but by using sound training
programs and recovery strategies (see sidebar entitled "The
Role of Recovery in Progression"), it can be done.
In the Final Analysis...
Bodybuilding is a subjective sport.
But because there is a very real correlation between training loads
and hypertrophy, you can assure progress by carefully designing
your training programs and then closely monitoring the results of
these programs. If your training load is gradually and consistently
increasing, you're making progress.
Methods of Employing Progressive Overload:
1) By increasing time under tension.
Start with 6 repetitions per set, utilizing a 4-0-1 tempo. Each
set should therefore take 30 seconds to perform. Each workout, increase
the tempo by one second per rep, until you reach 10 seconds per
rep. At this point, should choose to increase the weight, reduce
the tempo, and begin progressing again.
2) By increasing the weight lifted.
Using a standard set/rep scheme for each workout, add between
2.5 and 5 pounds to the bar each session. 3) By increasing the number
of reps per set. This method is useful with exercises where you
initially have a low level of strength, such as pull-ups or dips.
Using the same load each workout, start with 1-3 reps per set, and
add one rep per set each workout. Once you reach more than 12 reps
per set, you should then employ more weight and/or slower tempos.
3) By increasing the number of
sets per workout. Although it has its place, be cautious when
adding sets to your workouts. For example, going from three sets
to four is a 25 percent increase in volume for every given exercise!
4) By increasing the range of motion.
Using the same load each workout, start with a reduced ROM, and
gradually increase it from workout to workout. For example, you
can perform bench presses in a power rack, starting the movement
from the bottom-most position, which is set by the height of the
pins. On the first workout, you might only work the top 3"
of a bench press. Each workout, drop the pins one notch, until you
reach full ROM.
5) By reducing the rest intervals
between sets. This has particularly good results when attempting
to improve relative strength. Using the same load, number of reps,
and tempo each workout, simply reduce the rest intervals by 10 seconds
each workout.
6) By using "stutter"
or interrupted sets. Rather than performing a continuous set,
you can select a heavier weight, and rest briefly (5-10 seconds)
between each rep. One method I sometimes employ with my athletes
is to ask for a maximum number of reps in a specified time period—
say, 2 minutes. They can use any number of sets or reps— they
might for instance perform a set of 8, rest 20 seconds, do a set
of 7, rest 30 seconds, then 5 reps, etc., until the time period
expires. When using this method, always maintain consistent exercise
form and speed of execution.
Sometimes, two or more methods of
progression are used simultaneously. For example, from workout to
workout, you may choose to add both weight and reduce rest between
sets. This is usually employed in situations where a trained athlete
is coming back after an extended layoff, and is able to make rapid
improvements from workout to workout due to his extensive training
experience. The problem with this method however, is that when you
do make progress, you won't know which factor to attribute it to.
The Role of Recovery in Progression
Better recovery means more frequent
training sessions and therefore, faster progress. Although recovery
will take place regardless, there are two particularly effective
means you can take to accelerate recovery from training: massage
and nutritional management.
In my work with athletes, I have found
that expertly-applied massage can improve recovery times by as much
as 40 percent. In fact, I find it so effective that I require prospective
clients to receive massage therapy at least once per week. According
to my colleague Dianna Linden, an elite-level softtissue worker
located in Santa Monica, California:
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"Spasms keep muscle
fibers in a contracted state and disable their capacity
to perform within the muscle when it is under load, therefore
decreasing strength by whatever percent of that muscle stays
contracted by the spasm. This weakens the muscle and increases
its potential to tear near the edges of the spasm. By working
regularly with an athlete the therapist can provide feed
back which is a far more accurate account of how the muscles
are handling the stress levels they are exposed to."
Of course, nutrition plays
a vital role in recovery as well. Although there are many
factors to consider, adequate protein is crucial— I
consider one gram per pound of bodyweight per day a minimum
standard. Creatine monohydrate and branched chain amino
acids immediately following training.
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About The Author
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His colleagues call him an iconoclast,
a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients call him “The
Secret Weapon” for his ability to see what other coaches
miss. Charles calls himself a “geek” who struggled
in Phys Ed throughout school. Whatever you call him, Charles’
methods are ahead of their time and quickly produce serious
results. His counter-intuitive approach and self-effacing
demeanor have lead to appearances on NBC’s The TODAY
Show and The CBS Early Show.
Currently, Charles competes
in Olympic-style weightlifting on the master’s circuit,
with a 3-year goal of qualifying for the 2009 Master’s
World Championships.
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