Programming Volume in Strength Training

Programming Series Part 1: Volume Manipulation and Progression

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this video, PRs Performance delves into the intricacies of programming volume in strength training, the first part of a two-part series. The focus is on manipulating volume within training blocks in a strategic manner, distinguishing between different metrics such as total sets, repetitions, and tonnage. Highlighting an athlete-centric approach, it emphasizes understanding individual adaptation models and the role of accessories in volume management. The video also explores D loads and how avoiding over-manipulation of variables can lead to better understanding of progress.

Highlights

PRs Performance highlights the need to simplify volume management by focusing on total sets, which reduces variable confusion. 🎯
The video outlines a systematic approach to volume manipulation, which lowers the risk of variable overload affecting training outcomes. 🏋️
Key strategies include using accessory work to handle higher repetition ranges, keeping main lifts focused on skill development. 📈
D load weeks are emphasized as a planned mechanism for fatigue management, helping athletes maintain peak performance levels. 📅
Examples highlight how manipulating accessories before main lifts can gradually increase volume tolerance, aiding long-term adaptation. 🔄
An athlete-specific approach ensures that each training program is tailored to the individual's adaptation model and recovery needs. 🤝

Key Takeaways

Volume manipulation can involve different metrics: total sets, repetitions, and tonnage, with total sets often simplifying the process. 💪
Strategic volume planning should consider individual adaptation models to optimize training blocks. 📊
D loads are a vital part of volume management, providing a needed break to dissipate fatigue and refresh mentally and physically. 🛌
Focusing on quality over quantity, especially with competition movements, ensures better skill development. 🏋️
Accessory movements play a significant role in adjusting volume and aid in physiological changes and muscle building. 🏗️
Consistency in volume management helps understand athlete progress and avoids confusion amidst multiple variable changes. 🧠

Overview

In the world of strength training, volume manipulation is critical for progress, and PRs Performance sheds light on structuring this within training blocks. The video emphasizes the simplicity of focusing on total sets, offering stability and minimizing confusion that might come from over-manipulating different variables such as reps or tonnage.

Programming volume effectively means understanding individual athlete adaptation models, which influence how volume and intensity should be adjusted across blocks. This personalized approach ensures that programming aligns with specific needs and capacities, optimizing results while fostering skill development and strength.

The video also draws attention to the importance of D load weeks, a period strategically placed to reduce volume and intensity for recovery and mental refocus. This calculated reduction aids athletes in maintaining consistent performance levels while building toward long-term goals. Overarching this theme is the value of accessories in managing volume and enhancing overall development.

Chapters

00:00 - 10:00: Introduction to Volume Manipulation In this chapter, the focus is on the introduction to volume manipulation in programming for lifting. The author suggests that prior viewers should refer to an earlier video discussing the interplay of volume and intensity across different skill levels: novice, intermediate, and advanced lifters. This chapter marks the beginning of a two-part series transitioning from general theoretical principles to their practical application. The primary goal here is to explore how the author structures volume manipulation and sets volume standards in training routines.
10:00 - 20:00: Structures of Volume within Training Blocks The chapter discusses the concept of 'Structures of Volume within Training Blocks.' It emphasizes the importance of strategically manipulating training block variables such as volume and intensity. The focus is on understanding how these manipulations contribute to producing optimal results and the significance of a coach's role in evaluating which variables are effectively driving adaptations and progression. The narrative warns against over-manipulation, which can introduce too many variables, complicating the analysis of what specifically contributes to athlete improvements.
20:00 - 30:00: Volume and Intensity Strategies The chapter titled "Volume and Intensity Strategies" discusses a distinctive approach to structuring volume in training. The focus is on organizing volume through total sets, providing a nuanced perspective where volume can encompass three potential meanings: total volume as actual tonnage (calculated by sets times reps times weight), and two other unspecified interpretations that emphasize the importance of understanding these metrics in workout planning.
30:00 - 40:00: The Role of D Loads The chapter titled 'The Role of D Loads' discusses the concept of volume in training, emphasizing the importance of considering total sets as a measure of volume rather than just repetitions. It argues that calculating volume through total sets simplifies training and reduces variability caused by constantly changing set-rep patterns. However, it also acknowledges that not all coaches adhere to this standard, with some preferring different approaches. This chapter suggests a standardized approach to training blocks to ensure consistency.
40:00 - 50:00: Progressing Volume Over Time The chapter discusses the concept of progressing volume over time, specifically in the context of athletic training. The author explains that relying solely on sets to measure an athlete's volume across various lifts and accessory movements is insufficient. Instead, they emphasize the importance of developing a comprehensive system. This system is based on a combination of experiential practice, extensive research, guidance from other coaches, and personal exploration. The aim is to create a tailored structure and system that optimally adapts and enhances athletic performance.
50:00 - 60:00: Example Athlete Program The chapter discusses the structure of an athlete's training program, focusing on the use of total sets to determine volume. It highlights the importance of adapting programs to fit individual athletes to achieve optimal results. Particularly for squats and deadlifts, the program emphasizes staying within six repetitions per set. This approach is based on using these competitive movements to achieve dual objectives (one of which is mentioned), underlying the tactical reasons for this training philosophy.
60:00 - 70:00: Conclusion and Summary The chapter discusses the balance between volume and skill practice in strength training. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining proper form and technique even as the number of repetitions increases. The author points out that often, when more than six repetitions are performed, the focus on individual technique declines. Instead, they suggest treating each repetition as a 'single,' advocating for a mindset of performing 'six singles' rather than a continuous set of six, to improve skill and form retention.

Programming Series Part 1: Volume Manipulation and Progression Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 what we're gonna really dive into today is how I approach programming volume if you haven't watched my video already on kind of the relationship of volume and intensity with a novice intermediate and advanced lifters I definitely give that a watch but this is gonna be part one of a two-part series of taking kind of my thoughts there of just more general theory and principle and now seeing the application of it and within this video we're gonna really dive into kind of how I structure volume manipulation and setting standards of volume within the
00:30 - 01:00 training block block the block and comparing that to what others may be doing and then the second part of this series will be really diving into the intensity side of it we both of these are variables that we manipulate and we have to be strategic and how we manipulate those to be able to not only produce the best results but be able to understand as myself as a coach what's producing the results like if I if I'm manipulating too much it becomes too many variables that could possibly producing the adaptations in progression
01:00 - 01:30 we see so that really kind of leads into the probably most important point of how I may differ from others and one of the biggest things of how I kind of structs your volume is I structure volume the majority of it in the aspect of total sets volume can mean really even use that phrase it can mean three things it could be total volume in the sense of actual tonnage which is sets times reps sets times were EPS times weight it could mean volume in the sense of
01:30 - 02:00 repetitions I mean several II think of higher volume as higher repetitions or you can think of it as in total sets and in general I find that total sets works pretty well when you're kind of calculating volume it kind of simplifies it as well as the biggest reason is it helps to reduce variables of a constantly changing set rep pattern is be more standard in the total sets we have throughout a training block within that not every great coach is following that same standard they're not always
02:00 - 02:30 using just sets as their ability to count what volume some athlete is doing on all three lifts and through accessory movements but we have to understand that this is my system and how I typically go about things that's been through just experiential practice it's been through a lot of research has been being by coached by other coaches by researching other coaches and in doing all my due diligence to kind of put together my own theories and thoughts into providing what I find is the right structure and system that I can to adapt and
02:30 - 03:00 manipulate to individual athletes to produce results so some of the reasons why I think it works for me and why I just count total sets and that's how I really structure volume and look at volume within week to week and block to block is one of the biggest reasons is especially on the squat and deadlift I don't typically go above sets of six repetitions sets of six repetitions the reasoning for that is I just find that if I'm using the competition movements I am using them to do two things one we're
03:00 - 03:30 trying to develop strength and two we're trying to develop skill practice obviously volume can play into that with how many total sets or how many reps were doing but I just I just find too often that factor number two which is form and technique and skill practice starts to decay when I'm having people do over six repetitions they start treating each rep like they instead of treating each rep like a single which is what I want we mean that we needed in sense do six singles not a set of six in in the sense of how we're processing it
03:30 - 04:00 with bracing and setup and and cueing we're not if I give sets of eight it in chips just being the the cueing and the thought process and the form starts to deteriorate a little bit in my pain so I typically don't program above that bench is a different topic and I I do program probably sets of eight sometimes nine but usually seven to eight it's kind of my max on bench as well I'd rather get more of our volume and higher repetition work from Accessory movements I mean volume does a multitude
04:00 - 04:30 of things and I cover that more in my past video of volume versus intensity but one of the big reasons we're doing higher volumes is for physiological changes in the add muscle mass or whatever it may be you don't find the top bodybuilders in the world just squatting benching and dead lifting they do a lot of accessory movements and bodybuilding movements and if I'm going to really prioritize that I'm gonna get through accessory with some more of my higher repetition movements that like 8 to 12 rep range it is gonna come from accessories whether they're more
04:30 - 05:00 compound accessories like a leg press or a belt squat or dumbbell bench press or more isolation boots I want to push higher repetitions on those movements and for the competition movements I want to keep it more than a rep range where I can make sure that mentally a lifter can focus on individual repetitions and not get in the standard of just rep after rep after rep and just kind of busting them out real fast rather than really taking each rep as a chance to work on the skill of a 1 rep max and treating each one like a single another reason total sets as the equation of volume
05:00 - 05:30 within my system works is because I implement regularly-scheduled D loads that is not as a common practice as it used to be and I'm gonna get more into kind of how I structure them and why I structure them a little later but since I do structure them we have a planned time where there's going to be reduced volume and intensity so that's already built into the program and they're giving a lot of arguments for what that does in the sense of resent cetacean the training for fatigue management honestly just for a mental break from training so
05:30 - 06:00 people can have regular scheduled mental break so they can just kind of have this time - I don't say relaxed but not have this anxiety of constantly going heavy but since I do D loads that kind of takes care of some type of volume fluctuation which is within each block because that's planned where the other weeks we're gonna keep things more standard of just for the most part of sets being the same on a weekly basis with obvious possibilities of changes within that but I'm not really gonna get in that much today that's more of an advanced idea of okay here's special
06:00 - 06:30 special situations and where we're gonna manipulate it I'm gonna more just kind of touch on the the the general way I do it which is total sets the other way a lot of people do it now is wave loading and I actually have a couple people that I do wave loading with and with them we're gonna have a little bit more set fluctuation week-to-week because we don't have a daddy load plant we don't have this planned time to then dissipate fatigue recent citize of training so within that wave loading process usually week one is gonna be where we're kind of
06:30 - 07:00 having this fluctuation in total sets to have some type of slight drop in volume and a build-up from there so we can kind of take a look at this here to first give you an idea kind of a general idea of kind of how I would program something and then give an idea if I was to waive load what that's going to look like so here we have the D load example this is a five-week training block I just have squat here we have our squat our first squat day our primary squat day and our tertiary day we have a top single we have top sets of two by three and then
07:00 - 07:30 back off for three by four and then on the secondary day we have a cop set of five and then three by five you can see here pretty much those sets are maintaining the same throughout until we get to our D load week we have some type of volume drop and intensity drop so there is a there's less reps there is less sets and that's just kind of how there's gonna be a fluctuation in that intensity and volume on that plan below we versus a wave loading approach if I was to take that same person into a wave
07:30 - 08:00 load we wouldn't have that fifth week we would just have weeks one through four but that first week just has a very slight volume drop it's obviously probably gonna start a little bit lighter as well not so much lighter than as a d load week but it's gonna start it's gonna be the lightest week of this four-week block so we had a drop set or a set dropped here we have two by three on week two and we have one by three on week one and then the same thing on the second thirty day three by five on week two and then two by five on week one so that's where we're gonna kind of get our
08:00 - 08:30 fluctuation there and I just put an example here of a possible common model of somehow how some people do it with in regards to adding a wave loading approach but also doing some fluctuation within their sets and reps even on weeks is the kind of consent speak volume on a certain week and you can have to see here you might have three by four on the first week four by five on the second week 5 by 4 on the third week which and since you're adding a set but the total volume sets times reps times weight is gonna be about the same since the rest
08:30 - 09:00 drop but then to have another slight jump in volume you're adding that rep back on week four and then really kind of same thing here we have 2 by 6 3 by 6 4 by 5 4 by 5 just that just the slight continued jump in the sets we have a slight decrease in the repetitions because the assumption is most likely there's going to be some kind of linear look progression with loading which again we're not going to get as much into the loading today because that's gonna be where we get more into in part two is okay we have this set structure for
09:00 - 09:30 volume how are we then going to manipulate intensity within it because generally what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have more manipulation of intensity week to week and block to block less manipulation of volume so why do I do this why do I find that it works best to just keep sets standard throughout each week and for the most part block to block depending on the block the reason being is to reduce variables within training the more things we are
09:30 - 10:00 manipulating as I already mentioned the more we're gonna struggle to find out what was actually working and why during a certain session or during a certain training block or or whatever I mean why was this athlete performing at its best some of you may be familiar with emergency emergency merging strategies kind of protocol and system that might to share an RTS runs that's truly the basis literally they run the same exact protocol every single week same intensity same volume they've manipulate
10:00 - 10:30 really nothing and sometimes they might have just only have two workouts that they do twice a week and so even within the week it's it's it's repeating the same stimulus but with the exact same protocol just the assumption that as we progress we're gonna be able to load adapt and so something at 1/8 RPE of week one we're gonna be able to do more weight throw eight RPE a week four I like to have a little bit more of freedom to have a bit more manipulation than that but that's where I said is if
10:30 - 11:00 I'm constantly manipulating volume and intensity that's gonna be a lot to manipulate so I take more the protocol manipulate intensity and keeping this volume to the most part week to week and block to block fairly similar so that we can have some type of consistency on kind of what to expect week to week with fatigue and with total workload I kind of touched on before that some people like to do more manipulation of volume and sets and reps week to week and a lot of kind of argument and thought processes there is truly match
11:00 - 11:30 total workloads that's times reps times weight and thinking in the sense that 2x6 is the same as six by two because if you take that and then times by the weight it's gonna be for the most part fairly similar it might be more standard to look at like two by six and six by two probably is a bit of the reach but a fairly common practice might be four by six to six by three because once you take into the account of the weight on the bar which is going to be greater on
11:30 - 12:00 six by three that calculation is gonna get to a fairly similar total workload when it comes to sets times reps times weight again I don't think there's anything wrong with that it just goes back to the fact that it has to be within a system how a coach is being able to track data and manipulate things to to spur progress a lot of those systems is more linear and more consistent on kind of how they're doing intensity jumps or they're doing similar are pease each week whereas you'll see
12:00 - 12:30 in another video that I'm gonna do more fluctuation of intensity we're gonna keep that volume pretty standard each time the other reason if we're going back to the two by six to two but six by two example even though that's the same 12 total repetitions and then just from my own personal experience six by two and two by six is not the same thing it might equate to the same thing on paper but doing six sets of two is going to be much more demanding than doing two sets of six so it's hard to say like exactly
12:30 - 13:00 what would equate to six by two would three by six equate to six by two that's a lot of just a guesswork and framework there is no right and wrong there and instead of kind of having that guesswork that's again where I'm going back to let's just keep sets the same let's use that to calculate total workload and then manipulate things around it coming back around to talk about kind of the emerging strategies approach even though I don't use an emerging strategies approach
13:00 - 13:30 I very much took a lot from the exam exact person that Mike took from which is Bonner Chuck I forget his first name now but Bonner chuck was a very very famous a limbic coach specifically for throwers and he had a very interesting system literally you have like one workout and you just keep running it over and over and over and over until you peak until you have peak performance they count the number of exposures and then you move on to a new block you literally just kind
13:30 - 14:00 of repeat the same thing over and over and while I'm not we're not doing that necessarily in powerlifting cuz there's got to be a little bit more fluctuation for the most part and a weekly basis on workouts and intensities and how many sets you're doing maybe on each day I am still taking the thought process of there is a degree of exposure where an athlete typically hits peak performance and then starts to kind of taper off of that and that's kind of how I determine training block length and win 2d load and so what we can kind of take a look at here I'm gonna first show Bhandar
14:00 - 14:30 Chuck's three general models of athlete adaptation and now I'm gonna explain why I really only look at one of those and then how I bring that back around to planning D loads so we're just gonna look just this is just a general basis but we have here three examples of the squat and a at leats projected or estimated 1rm on each week on a five week process example one and athlete model one under bottom chat Bhandar
14:30 - 15:00 Chuck is that there's this slow increase before then seeing a decline before then seeing a probably sharper increase to this peak so we see no matter which model we're looking at we're starting at and since a projected art 1rm of four hundred and we're building up to a one RM of four twenty how they get there through these exposures changes though this athlete slowly increases they decrease and then they increase again athlete model two is that they have kind
15:00 - 15:30 of a decrease right off the bat they have the same estimated one hour and a week one but they decrease right from that and then they start gaining back up and then the last athlete model is more of just a linear progression each week we see a consistent progression each week from their baseline of 400 up to 420 on week five for the most part actually and say for the most part pretty much completely I am always just looking at this model here while I have
15:30 - 16:00 seen evidence of this model within powerlifting and my approach it's way too hard to find consistency of planning for this model I don't I tried this before as I had some athletes that I kind of saw it particularly on model one which is this increase a decrease and then another increase I saw a couple people like coach kind of in that pattern but I thought whenever I tried to program for that it didn't mess up that process because week three was then in a sense easier because I planned for that and then we wouldn't see the same
16:00 - 16:30 progression on weeks four through five so even though and second there's just too many lifestyle factors like we would have to see multiple multiple block after block after block of seeing the same athlete adaptation model here to have any ability to say that this is how an athlete responds because it's hot because most times we're gonna see fluctuations on week two we're gonna see fluctuations in week four not because of the athletes genetic makeup of how
16:30 - 17:00 they're gonna adapt but more so just light happens every single one of us light happens I mean very few people who are watching this video are someone who can train for their entire life and that's all they do they they live the Train life happens so we're gonna see these fluctuations which then changes that model and so I I have a really hard time myself trying to ever plan for these two I always just assume that in some manner we're gonna see this linear increase and we I pretty much see that standard we're gonna see some type of increase from
17:00 - 17:30 week one to a certain week before then tapering off and what that's usually going to look like is let's say I have an athlete if I have a new athlete usually we're gonna do more open into training and let's say on the first block we see this increase but then on week five we see just Jeanette generally that week five they don't decrease and strength they more just Plateau like there's not there's not a progression here and really what would happen is if we went another week what I probably see
17:30 - 18:00 is then a decrease even with just the first block with an athlete I'm not gonna say that set in stone we're at we're in just a couple more time maybe the next block they do increase but then the week after they go back down we're gonna test this over and over to kind of see what the point is that they peak and then kind of plateau and generally what they're gonna say when I talk to you and asking about this is they kind of come back with let's say they are an athlete who Peaks week four they're gonna typically come back week five they're gonna kind of peak there
18:00 - 18:30 and typically by the end of that week they're gonna be like dude I really really need a D load like I feel beat up and that's gonna if that we continue that's where the regression goes from because they're they're past the point of where they're adapting to the stimulus and now they're regressing from it so what I'm looking for is this point of where they plateau so if they're consistently plateauing on week five I'm gonna have them deal ode after week four because I know what week five the stimulus is kind of maximized on this
18:30 - 19:00 progress we're not gonna get much from it they they're kind of gonna they're just gonna repeat the same exact stimulus they already had so that's when we're gonna deal oat we're gonna drop down and be able to then cycle back into the next blocks that's that's typically how I'm going to approach when an athlete needs to deal owed and that goes back to why again that I keep these sets pretty structured and similar each week because I'm constantly manipulating that that's gonna change that time to peak because we're changing the exposure on a
19:00 - 19:30 weekly basis to where we don't know at what exposure per say they're gonna truly kind of hit this this this peak performance and need to taper back off of that and restart you'll see a lot of coaches just typically do four week blocks and and that works well typically in the wave loading approach for most people but it also works well with just the fact that you're writing one month the training and it works well with your cyclic that I mean we write one week we write in a weekly basis from you write in a monthly basis because it just works well with our schedules and then too honestly this is an issue that I'm not a
19:30 - 20:00 fan of is that for weeks works really well with charging clients on a monthly basis per block that should not be why you're writing a program we should be writing a program to optimize and I'm if I'm gonna write six weeks that's gonna carry over into the next month so but that's generally how I'm going to decide when I need to Delos I'm gonna see over a multiple block time when this general time the peak is for an athlete when they kind of hit this point where they are no longer going to see progress
20:00 - 20:30 from the turn of trained Walker and we're gonna deal owed from there and then reset with some type of new training block and new stimulus so since we're on the topic of delos I'll get to kind of give a general idea of kind of how I manipulate this this goes back into like I'm keeping sets and volume the same for the most part week to week I mean the only volume fluctuation is gonna be come from increasing weights from the progression of intensity but come time to deal owed here's just the general framework of how I D load most athletes this is this there's gonna be a lot of fluctuation here based off the
20:30 - 21:00 each person and I'll kind of give an idea of kind of how I decide that but for the most part we're in the drip from the week prior so like let's say week four is when that athlete peaked and every fifth week we D load we're gonna do about fifty five to sixty two point five percent of the total workload or a little and I even thinking I'm kind of thinking sets here but I'm actually truly using this to then calculate workload based off the total sets and reps I'm actually assessed times set times reps times weight I'm actually
21:00 - 21:30 looking at that and manipulating things with the repetitions and with the set to get generally in this this general framework here at fifty five to sixty two point five percent for bench that's about seventy eighty percent and for deadlift that's about forty to fifty five percent and then accessory work that's about seventy five percent so if you're doing four sets usually I drop it down to three then intensity again there's a range squat probably about eighty seven point five to ninety percent of the prior weeks weight bench pressed about ninety to ninety-five
21:30 - 22:00 percent and then deadlift about 85 to 87 point five percent you can see here there's an obvious difference between squat bench and deadlift and that's because there are three different lifts and that's just generally how I kind of see that they fatigue deadlift usually needs a little bit more of a deal load bench their squats kind of in between and then some people barely need the D load their bench press if ever if there's if there's a lift that sometimes I don't even really D load it would be bench press because some people just D train too much by dropping off any intensity or volume from that and then accessory work there's a bit more of a
22:00 - 22:30 range there because it's gonna depend on what kind of access it is if it's a heavy compound movement maybe we're gonna deal owed by about 90 percent of the weight week prior that's more of an isolation movement or a rowing movement maybe we're only dropping three percent which may be like programming a seven or PE instead of an eight RP so this is just a general framework for deal owed and kind of how I would go about that but like I said that works that is very important within my system because if I'm not going to adjust volume on a weekly basis when it comes to total set D loads are very
22:30 - 23:00 important to be kind of where we can kind of dissipate the Teague and manage that a little bit on a very specified week to then be able to react the mate to come back the next week and be ready to go one thing before kind of moving on from D loads there is a range here and that range is very dependent on each person and it kind of my general way I kind of look at this especially if I have a new athlete is I'm gonna ask them to really be mindful on coming off of a deal owed back in the week one how they feel on each lift they shouldn't be Pete per se they're
23:00 - 23:30 not supposed to come back and hit one hour Em's that's a big misconception as you d load you come back and you're way crazy strong it's not it's more of almost kind of stealing a freshness it's kind of how I describe it if you don't deal owed enough typically someone's gonna just come back and they're still kind of achy and they just kind of feel beat up still that's not usually the issue I have though I usually will probably almost over deal owed someone at first that I would probably err on the conservative side and then what they're gonna come back and say either
23:30 - 24:00 one they feel really fresh which means we probably deal Oded a the correct amount or they're gonna say they're kind of lagging a bit they're not achy they're not they're not like beat up but they just kind of feel like you'd like they came back and like they they don't feel as explosive that typically means they probably were d loaded a bit too much and that's where I'm gonna start manipulating these things within the program is we're gonna start adjusting volume the volume D load or the intensity D load to kind of make sure that we get a happy medium with all three lifts where they're coming back
24:00 - 24:30 and feeling fresh and ready to go week one on that next block alright so we've covered how I approach volume in the sense that I typically look at total sets as the volume that we're prescribing and I keep that fairly consistent block to block and we kind of dived in more of kind of why I do that within my system I I am what I'm kind of looking for by doing that so the next is the kind of look how we actually program that within training so we may have most likely multiple squat days multiple bench days
24:30 - 25:00 in multiple deadlift days so how do we kind of have an idea of kind of how much we should do on each day if we're not kind of fluctuating volume on a daily basis so this is a very generic kind of model of what I would consider within kind of how I structure things the maximum sets I would do per day on squat and the minimum sets per day I say maximum because this kind of goes back to why maybe old-school bodybuilding
25:00 - 25:30 where you just trash your legs one day isn't the most optimal approach and the reason why is at a certain point there's a diminishing effect of the previous sets when we look at intensity intensity is more of kind of the stimulus that's what's that's what's providing the stimulus for adaptation volume is the extent of that stimulus but eventually there's a there's a large diminishing effect and then second if we keep doing set after set after set we are fatiguing and eventually using less weight if we can instead break that up and spread
25:30 - 26:00 that out out over a day or two over a couple days most likely we're going to be able to use a higher average load because we're able to come back fresh so this is just a genetic general idea of kind of the maximum and minimum of when I'm looking at most of my athletes of how much I'm programming per day probably at maximum I'm programming around success on squats seven reps on devils benchpress and five to six on deadlift accessory movements no this isn't total accessories but for a specific accessory probably up to four sets minimum sets per day is two to
26:00 - 26:30 three for squat bench press three to four deadlift two to three and then accessories one to two so there is no right and wrong here but to give kind of a little bit of context I would say I can't think of anyone I have coached that we are not at least squatting twice a week and bench pressing twice a week I would say on average most people squat twice a week bench press three days a week and deadlift twice a week deadlift is the one lift though that I
26:30 - 27:00 definitely have some people who only I only program it for one day but that's mainly because of how that kind of interacts with squat and fatigue back and forth so this is with the assumption that we're probably squatting benching and dead lifting three days a week or twice a week so take that into consideration when looking at this that would not be just training once a week that would be the assumption that you're probably doing each of these lists and minimum of twice a week so within this why I even hat like I said kind of why I
27:00 - 27:30 have a maximum per day of why I wouldn't really go above that I think that'd be better to add another day of squatting bench pressing your dead lifting if we're truly needing more than that we have a minimum per day then because I think one issue this kind of happened a couple years back his frequency was a super hot thing to do it was let's just ramp up the frequency and you would see programs that you would squat four days a week of just two times and my argument there is like I've had people that maybe
27:30 - 28:00 I tried to I I use an example in another videos I had one of my athletes bench four days a week and we spread the volume out a little bit more and what I really found is like almost became pointless because the manage fatigue so he can actually recover with four days and be back and ready by the next day which is either than the next day he's benching again or one day later we were doing a lot of kind of junk volume verses when we we backed it down to three days again and then really just ramped up intensity and really pushed those three days we saw a lot better
28:00 - 28:30 progress so I would say there's a minimum set per day because if you're not doing enough you're probably not actually pushing hard enough on a specific day to be able to truly worn an adaptation and for sure wouldn't warrant adding more days of frequency if you can't if you aren't even pushing to an extent where you're really maximizing your potential on one day and so what I kind of mean by that is I kind of laid out a general framework of how you would progress a person on how I would
28:30 - 29:00 progress and sense volume for a person this is obviously starting from a very low baseline and going to a very high baseline so most likely a person isn't going from step one all the way to step ten it's more likely they're going from like three two step seven there's they have a starting baseline and they're working up to it to their maximum kind of recoverable area and within this we have a primary day a secondary day in tertiary day I'm looking at the main goal is to maximize our primary day like
29:00 - 29:30 that's where we're going to induce the most stress and most fatigue and at first a lot of what we're doing on the secondary day is to recover from this primary day so we're gonna continue to ramp up this primary day before then inducing more stress on the secondary day before then adding in a tertiary day so this is again this is a general framework so right here we have three total sets on each day six total sets a week if I'm gonna progress from that and
29:30 - 30:00 add a set we're gonna add it to that primary day and even just an example I'm using top sets and back offsets so I added it here to a top set because I wanted to make this primary day more intensive after that again I add another one to that primary day so now we have five total sets in that primary day and three on that secondary day again it's not that the secondaries day is gonna be super easy but it's gonna be lower volume when it comes to total sets that we can really come back around and feel fresh and time our ability not only within a training blocks that were
30:00 - 30:30 strongest let's say on week four but we're also typically strongest on squat on this primary day each week we don't want fluctuations going back and forth which is another reason why I keep sets the same throughout a training block so that we can kind of time this like I really want to work on timing this primary day to truly be the strongest day of the week and if we're constantly manipulating sets and volume on a weekly basis it's probably most likely going to throw that off and it's gonna start messing with fatigue management to where we can't really understand when the
30:30 - 31:00 lifters gonna be peaked in a weekly basis or on a black basis but within that I don't want a tip eclis I'm not just going to continue to push this primary day until it's maximized I want to keep some type of relation similar between these so we're five sets the three sets now we're gonna stick at five sets we're going to add one more set and go to four sets here and then from there this week actually shouldn't be there we go to week so skip
31:00 - 31:30 week five that ended up being just a copy-paste the same thing week six though now we are going to kind of maximize the sense of my general standard of six set today on that second of that primary day so we have six total sets then we have four on that secondary day then we're gonna add another one in that secondary day and not only are gonna add to it but if someone's probably handling this much total workload they'd probably in hand a little bit more on their top set so we're gonna have two top sets so we're now at six and five but at that point I could add another one here I can add a sixth set here but instead of adding a
31:30 - 32:00 sixth set here that's kind of my okay we have two days where we've maximized the amount we're probably gonna do in that day instead of just instead of actually maximizing this day let's then finally add that third squat day so now you can see total set wise we only added one two little set because we had to take a day one away from here we took one away from the secondary day and then we added three total to this tertiary day and the tertiary day at least in the planning of this if I was actually programmed this out this would be a very light technique
32:00 - 32:30 base day or kind of power day in the sense of DUP model so this is gonna be a very low intensity day on a squat day physicals benchpress could be very different in the sense of kind of how I'm doing that but looking at squat it's going to be very low intensity day there just to be able to work on skill practice and some type of specific technique aspect and almost kind of sense recover from as a recovery day as well so we're now at 12 total sets but we distribute that over over the matter
32:30 - 33:00 of three days and then we'll start building that back up so now we're at six sets here four and then three and then six five and three so it's just it's just the slow progression of okay where are we gonna add this workload to our main goal is to maximize our primary day induce the most stress use the rest to be able to still induce stress but be able to recover to come back around to this prime and then be very mindful is kind of how we're adding the sets and volume over time and like I said if I had someone
33:00 - 33:30 who started with this as their baseline my guess is they're probably never getting to this as a baseline most people tend it this is that they start here they're maybe gonna get to that like that's six to seven range eventually if that's truly where at one point that was where they max them out like that was the most they could do and recover from our goal is to continually build that up but they probably aren't going to push past here that's gonna be a point where okay are we really getting more by doing going to steps eight nine
33:30 - 34:00 and ten or better to take this volume and now make it harder by doing more top sets we're probably gonna get more out of that than just adding more and more and more volume because eventually volume is going to diminish its effects and we need to really just drive strength and get stronger but that's that's when we really talked about intensity as the using that as a stimulus and a variable we're looking at volume we're trying to keep that more of a baseline throughout just kind of
34:00 - 34:30 looking at total sets kind of how we're progressing that through a train a lifters training career so taking that information and just kind of a general guideline of kind of how I look at the the maximum number of sets I probably program in a day in the minimum and now taking that and looking at kind of approach of how we're going to increase that over time if we're trying to increase volume how are we if how are we going to do that like I said mainly I'm keeping sets the same within week to week and block to block but overall that's a short-term
34:30 - 35:00 approach and a long-term approach we're looking to slowly increase our ability to tolerate more volume so that we can add more of a stimulus or the extent of a stimulus from training so how am I going to kind of go about that and there's really kind of two ways I go about that probably the primary well primary way is if we're further away from a meet is I am going to use accessory work to be able to manipulate total workload to then transfer that workload to the competition movements so maybe I'm doing more leg pressing than I
35:00 - 35:30 had in the past and that's gonna build up my tolerance for beyond the hammer more because just in general I don't have some research study that states this just experiencial three sets of a leg press is not as taxing as three sets of heavy squats you're typically able to recover from that more and one of the big reasons is not involving your upper body it's more isolating to a specific to your quads and your lower body so a lot of times what I'll do is be able to drive that accessory volume up to then transfer it to mainland volume and then
35:30 - 36:00 when we transfer it to mainland volume at first do that with some type of self limiting variation that we then finally progress into a top variation so it's this it's a slow process not this immediate oh we're gonna add one set or oh we're gonna add two sets if it's this process over time to allow a athlete to slowly adapt because this is a marathon not a sprint we don't need to all of a sudden be doing five more sets of squat out of nowhere and while that yes may give us some significant progress like
36:00 - 36:30 in a short term we're impeding our ability to take these tools of volume increases over time and we're trying to putting that all in one spot versus spanning out over time and trying to eke out as much progress from each incremental increase as we can so kind of taking a look at this let's just take this as the baseline we've got a five-week training block v week D load on the primary where's gonna look at one squat day to just pretend like the other
36:30 - 37:00 day is just standard and isn't changing it all we've got a primary squat day we've got two by four top sets and then three by five which let's say lower accessories of three sets well let's say as a belt squat to this example so we're belt squatting we're comp squatting here and then we're doing a belt squat so let's say we're further away from the meet we're probably at this point prioritizing more offseason stuff we're trying to improve technique we're trying
37:00 - 37:30 to increase our workload we're pushing volume by not only for a stimulus for strength but a stimulus for muscle growth and a stimulus to increase our work capacity so what we're doing here is while typically on this primary squat day we did five total sets I took away one of those top sets now we're doing four total sets so not only is the volume decrease but the total stress is decreased to make sure that when we add in what's going to be this lower accessory work that we're able to do so so we already before had three sets of
37:30 - 38:00 twelve and ignore the twelve just three sets of accessory work and we still have that here we still have that three sets what we did here is we added two more sets so we took away one set of our competition lifts and we added two sets of lower accessory there is not some magical translation of how much accessory work actually to say accessory to how much accessory work equates to one set of a competition movement there
38:00 - 38:30 is nothing we can do because it's not the same I can't say that X amount of leg press equates to X amount of squat sets just in general though just a general guideline is I look at typically one set of squats equaling 2 sets of accessories another prop I could also look at it as two sets of squats equals three sets of accessories so about a fifty to a 60 percent increase their difference when it comes to what I feel like I could possibly handle with squat
38:30 - 39:00 sets versus accessory sets so we're looking at here our total sets and in sense total workload has increased over this if we're looking at the totality of our training program obviously our competition squatting is decrease but our accessory volume increase and we're gonna do this I mean that's gonna that's we're probably gonna be able to handle this no problem because adding more accessory working is probably something we're gonna be able recover from but it's just getting us tolerable to more total work and what we'll do is we'll do that for a block or two and then we'll come back around and maybe even drive it
39:00 - 39:30 a little bit more we could even add I kind of use the say drive here drive accessory work to really drive it up so here we have three sets of twelve now so we're adding even another one so maybe this was blocked one so already a little bit more workload maybe this is blocked too definitely more workload so this is well this was acquainting so if I consents to take away one set I add
39:30 - 40:00 you hear that's in the sense kind of equating to what I think fatigue would be so even though it's more sets it's probably the same level of fatigue in just in just the thought process of it this is more this is this is definitely more than we were doing not only total set wise but three by twelve is gonna be more fatiguing than taking away just one set of squats let's just say this was belt squat and then reverse lunges just using it as an example we'll then run through this assuming we can tolerate it and we get through it and we were able
40:00 - 40:30 to to see progress from that what we then come back around is we then go back to our baseline of three six twelve but we now added another seven so before it was two by three now it's to set two top sets and three back off sets now it's the two top sets and four back off sets back to our baseline of accessory work so we've now increased our total workload and our total sets to six on this primary day where before it was at five and I put here at first we're most
40:30 - 41:00 likely I'm most likely to have this be a variation maybe it's a temple squat maybe it's a Pascua maybe it's a safety bar squat someone's gonna self limit the load so that we're not also driving intensity up in this block where we're trying to manipulate volume because I want to be careful to manipulate certain things at certain points and if I'm coming off of this driving accessory style block and bringing it back around to add an additional set to what I typically could handle on squat I want to limit intensity at first but maybe I still want relative intensity be
41:00 - 41:30 decently high so that's why we do some self limiting variation to be able to reduce the loading on the bar but be able to still drive RPS and relative intensity high and then since what we do from there because we take that and we progress it to then not a variation and that's kind of you can see there this is just the general framework no set in stone this is exactly how you do it but this is in sense a volume increase over four blocks we first change things to
41:30 - 42:00 make volume equated for accessories to take away that one set we then drove the accessories over the next block we then translate of that accessory work over - the competition movement while doing a variation - then progress finally - the exact same structure we had with sets and doing the competition squat as we had on this first block so you can see that was a long progression it wasn't just this let's just add one more set out of nowhere it was it was very much planned out process and while this isn't
42:00 - 42:30 exactly how I always do it this is just a general idea of kind of how you're going to increase volume over time while not manipulating variables by a large amount for the most part we're keeping variables pretty now we I might be adjusting sets and reps here I just I just copy and paste it for for the ease of just understanding this but we very well probably adjusting reps not set very well adjusting reps throughout these different blocks not just running the same exact block over and over and over I'm more looking the fact that we
42:30 - 43:00 we have sets and we're manipulating the sets over a five-block period to eventually increase the amount of total workload we're doing to be able to make this now our new baseline of this is how many sets we now handle now the one time you you are gonna see a lot more fluctuation no matter who your coach is when it comes to sets is during some type of taper period when you're working into a meet that's not something I'm gonna cover in detail here because this is more of thinking of like in a general
43:00 - 43:30 like typical training block what we're doing week to week and what we're doing month or block the block or over a long period of time of training not so much the taper if that's something you want to look more into Shawn yeah just actually just did a really really good detailed video on that I recommend checking that out and kind of adding this adding that video to this and sense to kind of have a full breakdown of kind of how you're gonna manipulate sets over a period of time so you can take this to understand this is how within my general structure training I'm manipulating sets
43:30 - 44:00 as a means of volume and then as I get to a meet how I'm gonna be able to start manipulating that to then taper off of volume into a meet to maximize the performance alright so taking all of this information and kind of then formulating it into an example of one of my athletes this is how I take a look at Abby's program I just want to kind of give a general breakdown of how its laid out and you can kind of see how I'm counting things to then have a baseline of how we're using that as her structure moving forward block the block for the most
44:00 - 44:30 part this stays relatively similar other than we had other than when we have planned times of progression to start increasing main competition movement volume as a way to produce progress so you can see with Abby here we'll actually go all the way down first she does ten total sets of squats in this twenty total sets of benchpress six deadlift sets six quad accessory sets
44:30 - 45:00 currently right now doing zero back in hamstring accessories and I should note eight she teaches classes from home right now during this situation so she's having to do the workout some more on her own than she normally would in the class setting so we took away some of her kind of accessory work because of that because she's getting that from doing push-ups and some other stuff during her her her class setting so I had to kind of account for that within her normal training is decreasing that a little bit to account for it so zero
45:00 - 45:30 hamstring back accessories eight pressing accessories twelve pulling accessories three upper back isolations and then three tricep isolation sets one thing to note if someone wanted to disagree with this I completely understand I've debated this back and forth myself I actually don't count a top single as a set I always add that additional to the sets that we already have planned while that single is fatiguing it is so low volume and so low
45:30 - 46:00 workload that I typically look at that as more adding intensity and not adding more volume because that's so minimal in such a low percentage of Abby's total workload of the week that I actually don't consider that part of it i more factor that into the aspect of intensity which I touch on in the next video I'm going to cover button since the pounding total set if I had if I just deleted this I am not changing the amount of toes left she does she still does on average instead of took of 20 on
46:00 - 46:30 total throughout the week and you can see us distributed differently it's distributed on her primary day as seven sets and what kinda looks a little weird he or she does fatigue drop if she had hit with 195 a7 RPE on any of those sets she would have dropped down and it would have been had let's say she did that on a third set she hit a 7 RP she would have done four back offs but she was able to get all seven sets as she typically does she has seven sets on her primary day six sets on her tertiary day and then seven sets on her secondary day
46:30 - 47:00 so like I said like I said on benchpress typically I'm looking as six seven sets as the maximum amount was set I'm gonna do on a day and you can see exactly that I'm kind of how we are implementing that it's very much possible that in the future at some point that Abby's gonna have to add a fourth bench day because not only have we maximize the amount of probably total sets she's doing a day notice she's doing straight sets like unless we're just doing really really
47:00 - 47:30 heavy every single time I would say this was playing a little lighter like a seven RPE we don't have much more room to even drive intensity because she is doing all hard sets on these days but going back to kind of how I structure things notice sets of two sets of four sets of six I'm not gonna argue that seven sets of two is the same thing as since that success is six they are different but they aren't super far off now if I plan sets
47:30 - 48:00 of ten here and she had six sets of ten there is no way I can consider one set of ten to be the same as one set of two that is too far off but that's why I've already mentioned I typically don't do these large rep ranges on the competition list like you can see here squats she has two sets there she has sets of two to four here she has sets of four to six years it actually is a pretty decent change but also notice she only has four sets on this secondary day where she has six sets on this primary day so that's slightly adjusted for
48:00 - 48:30 knowing that on this day we're gonna be doing higher repetitions so she does less sets on that day planned now if I was all of a sudden to do sets of two in reps of two and three on this day I might have to change that but we typically don't we're typically doing some higher on this day than we are on this primary day for the most part throughout the year if we don't that's where these special situations arise but since we do saying that and since she's doing six sets of three here and then since here if you're averaging it out like four
48:30 - 49:00 sets of five that's pretty similar in the sense of stress when it comes to the total sets to the reps which is why I'm probably not gonna change even if we go to the next block now the next block she goes to three and five oops next block we change repetitions and it's at three and five that's not that much of a deviation but if instead we were at seven and seven that's a big change like that's not the same to do three by three and five here than it is to do seven and seven so
49:00 - 49:30 maybe I'm gonna have to adjust sets for that but I don't because that's not typically how I go block the block I try and keep blocks pretty similar block the block with just slow changes to repetition or two repetitions so that these sets can remain pretty much the same and we're gonna stat see much fluctuation when it comes to fatigue because we're staying within the same general rep ranges and we're not making big fluctuations block the block when it actually comes to this this volume
49:30 - 50:00 calculation of sets times reps times weight as you can see where that kind of higher repetition work does come from as I mentioned before was from this accessory book we have incline dumbbell bench forceps of eight plus an AMRAP where she was able to do twelve repetitions we have reverse lunges seven each side that very I mean like I said I could fluctuate it if I was programming reverse lunges it can fluctuate anywhere between probably six to twelve reps this block is pushing intensity a bit more and we're trying to really kind of test some variations out with her strength so
50:00 - 50:30 this is a bit lower volume block when it comes to repetitions so we programmed it seven but still that's higher than any other squat repetition and that's very much planned and then bell squat three sets of ten that's where we're getting our higher repetitions for her because we're gonna be able to control sets and reps a bit better block the block if we're able to use as accessor work to be more in that eight to 12 rep range and that her squat work is more in line of that two to six rep range we're able to keep that more consist and have a better idea of where progression is coming from and how to
50:30 - 51:00 manage her fatigue on a weekly and block-to-block basis to be able to find repeatable results and the last thing I'll touch on here is even though I typically am looking at sets is how I really equate volume when I'm looking at writing up block the block and week to week I'm still tracking this total workload number and there's a couple of reasons for that one as I mentioned I'm looking at that when I am programming the deal of where we're gonna we're gonna be DLO ting from this final total workload in some manner and some of
51:00 - 51:30 those just general range of percentages second let's say I've been working with a B for awhile we have some training blocks that we come back to so like when it gets closer to competition time we have a general structure that we run with sets and reps and exercise selection and all those things so I have a general idea of the workload she did prior and we can while this if we're changing sets and repetitions block the block we can't always use this as like a
51:30 - 52:00 way to say okay that means the block is similar because next block if we're changing and lowering reps just like I did here so if I go four and six it just changed her squat volume versus if I did three and five like I can't compare that it's different it's it's even though the volume here changed the volume with the sets are the same and it's hard to compare that but if I do this same exact block next year at some point because I want to rerun a similar structure I know that she did about eleven thousand pounds of volume on this week and if I
52:00 - 52:30 had done something where I've tried to increase her volume over the last year and and tried to do some type of plan increase as we've discussed I can use this as well as a general gauge if this was her total workload now if we're coming back around and she's doing more workload the next time around she's doing five sets now I'm saying it's about a thousand pound weekly volume increase from that it's just another way to track it I'm not saying like I'm sitting here like this is something I'm
52:30 - 53:00 over fretting about as I think that's some that can some people might do is they over fret about this exact number where this can get a bit too complicated which is why I go back to just calculating sets but that's just kind of a general idea of kind of how I might use this total workload number to calculate things for the D load and looking back over time to kind of see what we've done in past blocks and what we're now doing now all right so that was the general framework for kind of how I go about my approach to programming volume if you are wanting some magical way of how you manipulate volley in every single week
53:00 - 53:30 to produce these magical gains that's not what I do and honestly I don't think that really is there I think some coaches do use that as more of an ability to manipulate things within a week two weeks process to be able to spur strength games but I don't think there's any magic to it just like there's there isn't any magic to me using intensity more as the way of me adjusting the stimulus on a week to week basis it's just all a manner of kind of how we program and both are gonna lead to results in some manner because it's in some way we're progressively
53:30 - 54:00 overloading the stimulus to create adaptations within my system it works for how I want to do things because I wanted to keep that volume more consistent week to week to be able to limit variables and it works within my system because of how I implement D loads which is gonna have a planned volume decrease and also how I don't typically plan higher rep sets particularly on squat and deadlift if I was planning out higher rep sets and the sets of like 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 my approach
54:00 - 54:30 would change because those sets would not be the same as a set of two that's too much of a fluctuation there to assume a set equals one set of the other so it all just goes back to each person this is just kind of my general framework because I find that this is that allow us to be able to find what works to be able to see when we see increases or decreases in performance why that is and be able to structure things long-term so that we can slowly increase volume and increase the overload effect from that with stimulus and be able to maximize an athlete's
54:30 - 55:00 progress over time so if you like this video if you made it all this way through I don't know how long is ended up being but it was a lot of information I threw out there so hopefully I tried to make sure I put together some some visuals so that was a little bit easier to kind of stay with but if you liked it make sure to share it I I put out this information so people can learn so the more people you share it with more information the more people just pass along to make sure to subscribe so you get any updates of any
55:00 - 55:30 future videos I post and then comment any questions you have and be happy to answer them