How can you approach your workouts in a progressive manner? The most popular way is simply to increase the weight of your lifts, which is called progressive overload, or simply, “loading.” You will find that some lifters deliberately increase other training variables as well. Some lifters gradually increase the number of sets they perform across a given month of training. For example, a lifter may start out with 8 sets at the start of the month and increase one or two sets each week until they reach 12 sets at the end of the month. These lifters are progressively increasing their training volume.
Ramping
A term that is sometimes used to address a progressive increase in a specified training variable is the term, “ramping.”
You can ramp up on your training load.
You can ramp up on your training volume.
You can ramp up on your training intensity.
You can ramp up on your training frequency.
In this article, I will focus on ramping up on training volume through a progressive increase in the number of sets performed from workout to workout, or week to week.
A One-Week Ramp
Those who prefer to keep their ramps short can ramp up their training volume over the course of a week. The following is an example of a volume ramp consisting of three workouts for each muscle group. It is based on an increase in training volume from workout to workout.
Workout 1
4 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
Workout 2
6 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
Workout 3
8 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
A Two-Week Ramp
You can easily stretch the ramp listed above into six workouts per muscle group over the course of two weeks. It would be a more gradual ramp than the previous example as you would only add one set to each successive workout, except for workouts 3 and 4 which will be the same workout. This plan is shown as follows:
Workout 1
4 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
Workout 2
5 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
Workout 3
6 Sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max.
Workout 4
6 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
Workout 5
7 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
Workout 6
8 sets x 8 reps for each muscle group. Use 65% of your single rep max
A One Month Ramp With Higher Volume
For those who respond well to a higher volume of training, you can increase from 8 sets per muscle group to 12 sets per muscle group by increasing the number of sets every week instead of every workout. An example of this is presented below:
Week 1
8 sets x 10 reps for each muscle group
Work each muscle group the number of times per week that fits your recovery ability
Week 2
10 sets x 10 reps for each muscle group
Work each muscle group the number of times per week that fits your recovery ability
Week 3
11 sets x 10 reps for each muscle group
Work each muscle group the number of times per week that fits your recovery ability
Week 4
12 sets x 10 reps for each muscle group
Work each muscle group the number of times per week that fits your recovery ability
You can keep the weight the same throughout a ramp, or you can increase the weight in tandem with the increases in volume. If you increase both weight and volume, you will need to make it a mild increase in weight or you will probably end up over training.
Start Below Your Capacity, Finish Above Your Capacity
When ramping up on volume, I suggest that you have a good idea of how many sets you can perform at full strength. For example, if you know that you can perform six sets per muscle group at full strength when doing sets of 8 reps with 65%, but you start to weaken when you reach your seventh set, your capacity for training at full strength is six sets.
If you design your ramp correctly, you will begin a couple sets below your ability to remain at full strength at the start of the ramp. This means that if your capacity for training at full strength is six sets, you would start your ramp a little below six sets by only doing four sets. The workouts at the start of the ramp should be fairly easy, however, the workouts get harder as you proceed through the ramp. By the time you reach the end of the ramp, you will be doing eight sets, which will exceed your capacity to remain at full strength for six sets and cause you to finish in a weakened state for the last couple of sets. The idea is to finish the ramp a little past your capacity to remain at full strength. Notice I said a little beyond your capacity, not excessively beyond your capacity.
Avoiding Adaptive Resistance
After completing a ramp, you start over with a new ramp. The start of a new ramp is low in volume in order to allow you to recover from the higher volume that occurred at the end of the previous ramp. The increase and decrease in training volume from ramp to ramp is designed to alternate from low stress at the start of the ramp to high stress at the end of the ramp. This type of training variability will help you to avoid adaptive resistance which can occur when you constantly train the same way.
Pyramid Your Poundages when doing a lot of Sets
For those who like higher volume training of eight or more sets per muscle group, I suggest pyramiding your poundages while doing the same amount of reps for each set. In other words, start out with light weight on your first set of an exercise and pyramid up in weight by increasing the poundages from set to set until you have completed three to five sets. This is the only way to do a lot of sets without overtraining. If you watch professional bodybuilders such as Jay Cutler or John Meadows do their high volume workouts, they pyramid up in weight from set to set while keeping the reps the same each set in order to do a lot of sets without overtraining.
In the next article, I will again discuss the subject of ramping, but I will discuss it within the context of ramping up on training frequency. Best of training to you.