Confused

[Old and Grey]

Many posts have recently stated that you should strive to keep the total number of reps you perform in any given exercise equal as you decrease the number of reps per set. I have always had a problem with the logic used here. Using the rep scheme I saw someone was going to be using in a recent thread as an example and my own actual weights, perhaps someone could unconfuse me. If I use 80 pound dumbells for an incline press for 9 reps and 110 pounds for 6 reps, why should I move just 2160 pounds in my 9's (3 sets X 80 pounds X 9 reps) versus 3300 pounds (5 sets X 110 pounds X 6 reps) if I do 6 reps? Why do more work just because the reps are lower? What does keeping the number of total reps the same have to do with it? If I do just 3 sets at 110, I will be doing the same approximate amount of work 3 X 110 X6 = 1980). Doesn't it make more sense to determine the total amount of work you need to do to get the desired result and adjust the number of sets you need to keep that ideal total work load the same? Have I missed some basic principle that says you have work more as your reps decrease? That sounds like a systematic method to invite over-training into your life.

 

[quadancer]

Good question and example. The two things I see are TUT and the difference between strength and hypertrophy training, assuming that these reps are part of an ongoing scheme of progression.
I'd rather do the 110 x 6, but my goals are now more strength than anything else.

 

[Lol]

O&G, my feeling is that just as load progression is a good way to keep gains coming for all sorts of well established reasons, work progression is a good thing too. It's another form of stress that your body then has to adapt to over time. The increase doesn't need to be huge but it's probably a good idea to keep it increasing steadily over the course of a cycle. It's always possible to add a bit more work with a slightly lighter back-off set if the heavy loads are too draining.

With your experience, you will know if the ever increasing work load is getting close to what you feel you can recover well enough from to be able to handle your next workout. Over-reaching works, but it has to be managed carefully with scheduled back-off periods so as not to burn out.

It would be very easy to do a large amount of work (volume) with lighter loads at the start of a cycle, making it nigh on impossible to even maintain that level of volume over the cycle. So you might do 3 sets of 15 reps with 200lb for squats without too much difficulty, but then, when you get to sets of 5 reps, you would need to do 5.5 sets with 330 just to maintain volume. That all starts to get very time consuming and draining (although it's not impossible).

So, I think the caveat to progressing the volume/work done is that it depends on the % 1RM load used at the start of a cycle. if you start a cycle with a low intensity (say < 70%) and a high rep count you shouldn't expect to increase or even maintain volume over the course of the cycle.

What also tends to happen as the loads get heavier is that the rep speed slows, so TUT for the same number of reps increases with load - unless you consciously slow down the rep speed when the loads are lighter. That means that your total TUT might increase even if you drop the total number of reps down a bit.

I had a few chats with Dan Moore about this. His Max-stim protocol was designed to allow for increasing loads and volume over the course of a cycle. In order for this to make sense, a MS cycle starts with reasonably heavy loads.