The two-week workout schedule listed below is based on working each muscle group three times per week for a total of six workouts over the course of two weeks. The schedule consists of alternating a heavier workout with a lighter workout. The heavier workout remains constant throughout the two week cycle in regard to sets, reps, and weight. In contrast, a loading plan takes place when proceeding through the lighter workouts as the weights start at 55% of your single rep max for the first lighter workout, and increase to 60% for the second lighter workout, followed by 65% for the third. Each muscle group should be trained according to the sets, reps, and percentages listed for the two-week training cycle listed below:
Week 1
Workout 1: Do 2 to 4 sets of 6 reps with 75% to 80% of your single rep max
Workout 2: Do 6 sets of 8 reps with 55% of your single rep max.
Workout 3: Do 2 to 4 sets of 6 reps with 75% to 80% of your single rep max
Week 2
Workout 4: Do 5 sets of 8 reps with 60% of your single rep max
Workout 5: Do 2 to 4 sets of 6 reps with 75% to 80% of your single rep max
Workout 6: Do 4 sets of 8 reps with 65% of your single rep max.
Keep repeating this two-week cycle until the weights feel easier to lift. Then add five to ten pounds to your lifts and repeat the process.
Bottom-Up Loading
The lighter workouts within the workout schedule are based on a training strategy that I refer to as bottom-up loading. Bottom-up refers to the lighter sets as opposed to the top sets, which are the heavier sets. Weight is added to the lighter sets from workout to workout, or from week to week. The lighter sets are also easier sets that grow more difficult as you add weight from workout to workout.
Acclimation
The heavier workouts within the schedule are based on a training strategy that I refer to as acclimation. When acclimating to the heavier sets, no loading takes place, neither do the number of reps or sets increase. The idea behind acclimation is to repeat workouts with the same weight and reps until the weight becomes noticeably easier to lift, then you add five to ten pounds.
When To Add Weight
Only add weight if you have gained strength. For example, if you start with 100 pounds, and increase to 110 pounds, it shouldn’t be any more difficult to lift 110 pounds than when you started with 100 pounds. You could also say it like this: if you can leave two reps in reserve when lifting 100 pounds for ten reps, then you should be able to leave two reps in reserve when you increase to 110 pounds for ten reps. If you start out with two reps in reserve when doing ten reps with 100 pounds, and you have no reps in reserve when you increase to 110 pounds for ten reps, then you need to go back and acclimate to 100 pounds before increasing the weight to 110 pounds.
Bottom-up loading in combination with acclimation principle is designed more for advanced lifters than beginning lifters. Beginning lifters are lifters who can regularly load weight to their heaviest sets without decreasing the number of reps. This means they don’t need to acclimate to the weight. Advanced lifters who have been lifting for a long time will not progress as fast and need to use a different strategy, such as bottom-up loading when performing easier sets, and acclimating to the weight when performing the hardest sets.
The following is a discussion that addresses the reasoning as to why you would add weight to the lighter sets on a regular basis, without adding weight to heavier-harder sets until they grow easier over time.
Survival Mode
There are two basic mechanisms within your body that cause it to want to get stronger. The first is that strength gains are simply a built-in survival mechanism that is designed to help you survive in life. If life consists of events that require you to exert force, or lift objects, or fight to defend yourself, but you have no strength to carry out the tasks needed for survival, you will not survive. Fortunately, most humans can gain enough strength to perform tasks that are necessary for survival. Some people believe this built-in survival mechanism comes as the result of evolution, however, I believe that it is simply a gift from a generous God who knew we would benefit from the ability to gain strength, so he generously gave us this ability.
Many people can gain a lot of strength by putting their muscles into survival mode with resistance training. The problem is that survival mode is only the first mechanism that your body turns to for gaining strength. but there comes a point at which your body becomes more concerned with stress management. When stress management becomes the chief focus of your body, further strength gains will only occur if your training strategy matches the stress management strategy that your body considers ideal for gaining strength.
The Stress Management Response
We see then that the second reason that we gain strength is because it is a built-in stress management response. The ability to get stronger means that physically taxing work will become less taxing as your strength improves. As you get stronger, you can do the same work with less effort, less stress, and greater ease. This belief serves as the basis for the training strategies that are used for precision point training such as bottom up loading and acclimation.
The belief that strength is a built-in stress management response that is designed to minimize lifting stresses can be further clarified with the following two statements:
1. Your body gains strength to reduce the amount of effort it takes to lift a weight that is difficult to lift. This should be considered when lifting heavy weights or doing sets that consist of a substantial amount of intensity.
2. When gradually adding weight to poundages that are moderately difficult to lift, your body gains strength to keep the gradual increases in weight from becoming more difficult to lift. This should be considered when performing sets consisting of a moderate amount of intensity.
I believe both statements are true, but when the focus is on the first statement, it leads to me to form the following view point:
I do not subscribe to training methods that are designed to immediately increase the poundage of a difficult lifting stress at the first sign of a strength gain. When an increase in strength is always paired with an immediate increase in the amount of weight you are lifting, your body will fail to perform difficult lifts with greater ease, even though it has become stronger. This is a violation of the goal that your body is trying to achieve when it gains strength, because your body’s goal is to gain strength in order to make it easier to lift a given weight.
A Non-Productive Training Pattern
If a pattern emerges in which strength gains are always paired with an immediate increase in lifting stress, then your body will develop an expectation that getting stronger will automatically lead to an increase in stress. Since an automatic increase in stress is the opposite of what your body is trying to achieve when it gains strength, it will stop gaining strength in order to stop the continuation of further increases in stress. Your body’s goal for gaining strength is to trigger a decrease in the amount of effort and stress it takes to lift a given weight. You must let your body accomplish this purpose, or there will come a point when it will see no purpose for gaining strength. This will occur after the survival mode stops leading to strength gains.
Strength Training Thresholds
If you are looking for a reasonable way to gain strength that allows your body to accomplish its goal of making it easier for you to lift the same weight, then use training thresholds. Training thresholds are based upon transition points in which lifting a little more suddenly becomes a lot more difficult. A threshold, or a sudden increase in difficulty, will be reached about two thirds of the way through a set when pushing to failure with a weight that is 70% to 80% of your single rep max.
Monitor The Effort of Each Rep
It takes deliberate practice to develop the awareness needed to identify the point at which you have reached a training threshold. If you develop a deliberate awareness of the effort it takes to lift each rep of a set when performing ten reps to failure, you will be able to rate the difficulty of each rep, and you will be able to identify the point at which a threshold takes place. Let’s take a look at an example of this by looking at the level of effort required for each rep of a set when performing ten reps to failure.
The first three to four reps within a set of ten reps to failure will probably feel nearly the same in terms of effort. After this, each successive rep will start to grow a little harder as you progress to your fifth, sixth, and seventh reps. After completing the seventh rep, you will probably experience a sudden increase in the level of effort it takes to keep repeating reps. The point at which you experience a sudden increase in effort is what I refer to as a training threshold. In this case, the threshold will usually show up in the form of a decrease in rep speed, or the need to pause longer between reps. For most lifters, the decrease in rep speed will be most noticeable when reaching the last two to three reps of a set of ten reps to failure.
There is no law that requires you to push your sets to failure. Instead, when doing your hardest sets, I suggest that you push to the limit of your ability to maintain a steady even rep pace. This will normally occur at the seventh or eighth rep when using a weight that corresponds to your ten rep max. Some lifters may benefit more from pushing one rep past this point by doing eight or nine reps.
The Limit Rep
If you perform as many even paced reps as possible, but you stop before your rep speed starts to slow down, you are pushing to your limit rep, which is the limit of reps you can perform using a steady even rep pace.
The Marker Rep
If you push one rep past your limit rep by stopping on the first rep in which rep speed starts to slow down, you are stopping on your marker rep. The marker rep marks the initial rep within the set where rep speed starts to slow down, or you are forced to pause longer between reps.
Strong Reps and Weak Reps
Whether you stop at your limit rep, or your marker rep, you are stopping very close to a training threshold in which a sudden increase in effort is required. The steady even paced reps that occur before you reach the rep speed threshold are called strong reps. Any slower, weaker reps that occur after you push beyond your ability to maintain a steady even rep pace are called weak reps.
Converting Reps
Pushing to the threshold of your ability to maintain a steady even rep pace is sufficient to stimulate a strength gain. Your personal goal should be to train in agreement with your body’s goal, which is to keep using the same weight and reps until the training stress grows easier and less stressful. To be more specific, your goal is to convert hard reps into easier reps. This occurs to the greatest degree at a training threshold because it’s the only place where a hard rep can be converted into a significantly easier rep. The hardest rep is going to be the last rep of a set. If you push to your marker rep, your goal is to gain enough strength to convert the marker rep into a limit rep, which will be a faster, easier, stronger rep. If you are stopping your sets at your limit rep, your goal is to convert the limit rep into a pre limit rep, which is a rep that occurs before you reach your limit rep. In other words, you will be able to do more reps before your reps start to slow down.
Eventually Add Weight
After you have done three or more consecutive workouts in which you have converted your last rep into an easier rep, you can add five to ten pounds to the poundage you have been using. This is probably going to take six to twelve weeks for advanced lifters who have been lifting for more than two years. It may only take one to three weeks for beginning lifters to convert the last rep into an easier rep, and four to five weeks for an intermediate to convert the last rep into an easier rep.
Loading for Your Easier Sets
If you want to add weight, reps, or sets to your workouts on a weekly basis, I believe you should do this within the context of easier sets in which you are stopping before you reach the rep speed threshold. If you are familiar with the Westside system, this is exactly what they do with their dynamic speed workouts. They do not train anywhere near to failure when doing their speed sets, instead, they only do three reps per set with weights that they can lift for up to 20 reps within a set. They do about ten of these sets. These workouts are carried out within the context of a three-week loading wave in which 50% of their single rep max is used for the first week, 55% of their max is used for the second week, and 60% of their max is used for the third week, although band tension is added to these percentages. If a lifter goes through this loading wave and their strength goes up, they increase the weight to maintain their workout poundages at 50%, 55%, and 60%.
The key concept here is that workouts are designed to become progressively heavier on a weekly basis when doing lighter-easier sets. In contrast, you keep using the same weight and reps when doing your heaviest sets that are being pushed to your rep speed threshold. Only after the heaviest sets get significantly easier do you add weight.
The bottom line is that you want your easiest sets to get progressively harder in order to gain strength. At the same time, you want your hardest sets to get progressively easier as you gain strength. Eventually, you add weight to your hardest sets, but not until you have converted hard reps into easier reps. This is the whole idea behind the two-week schedule that is listed at the start of the article. You let the heavy sets get easier over time, and you consistently add weight to the lighter sets over time.
If your training progress has come to a halt, and you are having a difficult time gaining strength, consider bottom-up loading in conjunction with top set acclimation while using training thresholds. It may take some time to get the feel of this type of training, but when you do, it will pay off with added strength. Best of training to you.