How quickly do you tire out when repeating sets? Everyone who works out with weights will reach the point where they begin to weaken if they repeat enough sets. Most lifters do not have the ability to perform very many sets at full strength when pushing to failure on each set. However, a well-trained lifter who pushes half way to two-thirds of the way to failure should have the ability to perform at least five sets before he begins to weaken; and when he does start to weaken, it should be a mild decrease in strength, not a big drop in strength.
Improve Your Ability to Repeat Sets Before Growing Fatigued
It is not uncommon for powerlifters to focus on improving their ability to remain strong for more sets. The sustained ability to remain strong for several sets is often developed by using moderate weights and moderate intensity for several sets. This practice usually precedes the use of heavier weights later in a training cycle.
Workload Capacity
The ability to remain at full strength for several sets is what many lifters are referring to when they use the term, workload capacity. A second ingredient to workload capacity is the ability to recover from workouts in which a substantial amount of sets are performed. If workload capacity is an important part of the strength building process, how do you improve it?
2 Workouts For Improving Workload Capacity
When the goal is to improve your strength based workload capacity, I advise two different workouts in which moderate weights are used. Each workout should be performed once per week in separate workouts. These workouts are explained in greater detail below:
Workout #1: Do 5 reps per set with 65% until you Reach Your Marker Rep Set
Workout 1 should be performed once per week with 65% of your single rep max. The strategy for workout 1 is to perform sets of 5 reps with a minute rest between sets. When you start out with your first set, you should be able to do 5 even paced reps without any problem. Give yourself a minute rest between sets until you reach a marker rep set.
Defining The Marker Rep Set
A marker rep set is a set in which you cannot sustain a steady even rep pace for all five reps. This happens when you repeat enough sets to the point where fatigue forces you to decrease your rep speed when you reach your fifth and final rep of a set. When you reach this point, stop repeating sets. Your goal is to keep repeating workout 1 using the same amount of weight for the same number of sets and reps until you convert the marker rep set into a strong set. A strong set is a set in which you can maintain a steady even rep pace for all five reps. In order to further illustrate how this works, we will look at the following example:
Imagine that this is the first time you are repeating sets of 5 reps with a minute of rest between sets for bench presses. When doing this, you are using 65% of your single rep max, which we will imagine is 185 pounds. When you do your first set, you find that it feels very easy to perform five reps, but by the eighth set, you notice that your rep speed starts to slow down on your fifth rep. This is where you stop repeating sets. When doing workout number 1 in the future, you will continue to do eight sets of five reps with 185 pounds until your workload capacity improves. You will know that your workload capacity has improved when you reach the point where you can do all eight sets of five reps without slowing down when you reach the last rep of your last set.
Increase The Number of Sets When Workload Capacity Improves
When your workload capacity improves, the next step is to increase the number of sets to nine sets with the goal of improving until you can perform all nine sets without decreasing your rep speed at the end of your ninth set. The best-case scenario would be to reach the point where you can do ten strong sets without decreasing the rep speed of any reps. In doing so, you have improved your workload capacity by two sets.
Workout #2: Do 5 reps per set with 75% until you reach your Marker Rep Set
Workout 2 should also be performed once per week, and the process is very similar to workout 1, except that you will be using 75% of your single rep max for five reps per set. In addition, you will rest two minutes between sets for workout 2 instead of one minute between sets as you did for workout 1.
We will imagine that you do workout 2 and your marker rep set occurs when you hit your fifth set. Once again, this means that you were able to maintain a steady even rep pace for every rep when doing the first four sets, but your rep speed slowed down on your fifth rep when you reached the fifth set. This is where you should stop repeating sets. Keep doing five sets of five reps each time you do workout 2 until you can do all five reps using a steady even rep pace for your fifth set. When you succeed at this, add a sixth set. If you reach the point where you can do six sets of five reps using a steady even rep pace, add a seventh set.
Goal: Expand Your Workload Capacity by 2 Sets
Any time you expand your workload capacity by two sets, you have a few options. The first option is simply to keep on adding sets as you develop the capacity to do so. The second option is to add five to ten pounds and repeat the same process. The third option is to switch over to a whole new type of training in which you are focused on lifting heavier weights that are 80% or more of your single rep max.
Many lifters find that when they put in the prerequisite work of improving their workload capacity, their body is better prepared to handle heavier lifting than if they had never focused on improving their workload capacity.
The bottom line is that if you have only been doing one or two hard sets per exercise, or you have only been focused on heavy lifting for low reps, you may benefit from a focus on improving your workload capacity. Once you have made this improvement, you can switch back to a smaller number of sets and/or heavier lifting. Hopefully, the improvement in workload capacity will help you respond better when you switch back to lower volume lifting, and/or heavier lifting.
In order to improve your workload capacity, you need to put in three to six weeks of training that is specifically designed to help you improve in this area. After that, you can switch to heavier weights and fewer sets. Of course, you should switch back to more of an emphasis on workload capacity any time you your workload capacity is eroding away and undermining the rest of your training.
When discussing training methods, I believe it is important for me to say that if your lifting is already going well, and you are currently getting stronger, keep doing what you have been doing. On the other hand, if you are stuck and can’t seem to gain strength, improving your workload capacity is one option to consider. You can do this by incorporating the type of workouts discussed in this article into your training. May God bless you with the best of training.
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