Increment size

[Arhnold]

During my cycle, I train either 3 times a week, or sometimes 4 (i.e. monday, wed, fri, sun) - in that way, I do a lot of workouts during the 8 weeks that my cycle lasts (about 25). To be able to increase my weights over the period without starting to low, I have to repeat some weights - for example, I alternate squats and deadlifts.
My question is: what would be best: doing 1 squat with a certain weight, the next workout with deadlift with a certain weight, workout 3 squat again with the same weight as w.o. 1 and then w.o. 4 the same weight as w.o. 2 - and for workout 5 and I add 10 pounds to the weights I used in 1&2, or would it be better to add 5 pounds in w.o. 3&4 and again 5 pounds in 5&6
To summarize: what's better: many smal increments or few larger increments (the range of my weights would remain the same)??

 

[jvroig]

Most probably won't matter much at all. For big lifts like squats and deadlifts, feel free to repeat weights so as not to make the increments too small

 

[robefc]

I agree it won't make much difference but personally I would prefer to up the weight every workout, it just feels like you're always making progress that way, I absolutely hate lifting the same weight as in a previous work out session, completely destroys my motivation!

 

[Totentanz]

I've come to prefer using larger increments and increasing the weight less frequently. I don't think it will make that significant of a difference...

 

[SDMuscle]

I think it's important to increase your weights every workout, and you can only do this if you start out each cycle with extremely light weights, relative to your strength, or use smaller increments. Obviously your increments are somewhat limited by the size of the weights in your gym. In mine, the smallest plate we have are 2.5lbs so that is the smallest increment you can use on plate-loaded machines. Five pounds the smallest on barbell exercises. What's nice is we have dumbells in 2.5lb increments up to about 50lbs. However on many "selectorized" machines, those with a stack of weights, the smallest increment is ten pounds, making it tough to use some of them with the HST program. For example, if you are using 50 pounds on the butterfly machine, you would have to do 60 on your next workout. That is a 20% jump, too large an increment imo. Tip: For smaller increments, you can pin a 2.5 or 5lb plate to the stack, or set a 5lb dumbell on top of the stack. If this doesn't work, I alternate exercises, like butterflies and dumbbell flyes, so I can use smaller increments.

The last cycle, I felt like the first workouts of each macro-cycle were much too light, so on my next cycle, I am planning on very small increments, about 3%-5%, every workout. I used a spreadsheet to generate approximate weights working backwards from my 5 rep max to the weight for my first 15 rep workout (see below), then rounded off the numbers to make them appropriate for the real world, and for my 10 and 5 rep maxs. Using smaller increments also made "zig-zagging" unnecessary, but I did find that I will probably have to repeat some weights on a second workout. For these, I will probably add a rep or two. If I find my strength has increased as I near the end of each macro cycle, I figure I can depart from the plan slightly and use a larger increment. I'll let you know how this goes.

5rm=x (last 5 rep workout) a=x*.97 b=a*.97 c=b*.97 ... q=p*.97 (first 15 rep workout)

 

[Totentanz]

I disagree about incrementing. The reason we use progressive load is so you can avoid RBE (repeated bout effect). However, one specific weight will still be effective for longer than just one workout. Depending on how long you SD, you could probably only increment once a week and the weights would still be effective.
I think that using really small increments is more difficult to manage and in my experience doesn't seem to spark quite as much growth as larger increments. So... since you know RBE won't hit you for at least a week, if not longer, why not wait a workout or two to increment and simply use larger increments which are usually easier to manage?

 

[Jester]

Ok, incrementation is important.

But more importantly is gaining an understanding that muscle building is chronic process, and that whatever progression you choose it is the chronic progression over an extended time period that is important.

You can zig-zag for 2 months or you can use linear progression and I doubt that your results will be greatly unchange, SO LONG AS your overall progression is the same.

This also applies to incrementation in my opinion. Small increments or large will be dictated by your frequency - if I'm working out 6 times a week I'll be incrementing each exercise at least 3 times (with w/o A and B), or if I'm going 3x a week (with A and B) I may only increment thrice over 2 weeks.

See what works best, but if you get the food intake managed, there shouldn't be a huge difference. 5% is the incrementation to aim for, but I believe Bryan/Blade mentioned somewhere (intro, faq?) that you muscles are likely to detect an increase of 2.5kgs or more, which is less than 5% for anything > 50kgs.

Chronic application and progression is key . . .