Graded Workouts

Most people who have been lifting for very long understand that workouts can be adjusted to vary in difficulty and intensity. Lifters often use different amounts of weight for different workouts, and they may vary their workouts according to the number of sets per muscle group and how hard they push in relationship to the maximum number of reps they can perform. It’s one thing to vary workouts, it is another thing to do it in a systematic way.

One method that is used to vary the workouts in a systematic way is to first classify the training in relationship to the how difficult it is, and second, to classify the specific type of stress that is applied during the workout. In terms of difficulty, training can be classified as easy, moderate, or hard. In terms of the specific stress, you can ask questions such as: Were the weights light, medium, or heavy? Was the workload a low total workload, a medium total workload, or a high total workload? Finally, how hard was the workout in terms of pushing to the maximum number of reps that could performed on each set? In other works, did the lifter stop way short of failure, or stop a few reps short of failure, or push all the way to failure?

Graded Workouts Based on the Difficulty of Training

Some trainers within fitness circles classify the difficulty of workouts by referring to them as graded workouts. The term often applies to a rehab setting, but it can easily be applied to general fitness and strength training. There is no single method that must be used for classifying the difficulty of workouts. You can break your workouts into three categories with the first category being easy, the second category being moderate, and the third category being hard. On the other hand, you can classify the intensity of your workout on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being the easiest level of intensity and ten being the hardest. For the sake of this article, I will classify the difficulty of training into three categories which include: easy, moderate, or hard.

Types of Workouts Stress: Load, Total Workload, Intensity Relative to Max Reps

In addition to grading the workouts according to difficulty, you can grade each set of a workout in terms of the type of intensity. For example, you can classify the type of training stress as load based, total workload based, or intensity relative to max reps based. Load based training simply refer to the amount of weight used relative to your single rep max. Total workload refers to the amount of weight used for each rep times the total amount of reps that were used across all sets for an exercise or muscle group. Intensity relative to max reps simply refers to how many reps you actually did in comparison to the maximum amount of reps that you could possibly perform within a set.

The underlying benefit of graded workouts is that you can systematically vary them according to your recovery ability. A lifter who only does hard workouts may find that they can only train a muscle group once or twice per week. However, the same lifter may find that they can train the same muscle group six days per week with the correct application of graded workouts.

Easy Training More Often – Hard Training Less Often

The concept behind how often you can do a certain type of training is simple, the easier the training, the more often you can do it and still recover. In fact, easy training may even enhance recovery from hard training. Conversely, the harder the training, the less often you can do it. The second concept that can be used is to vary the type of stress that is applied from one workout to the next. This allows you to apply one type of training stress in one workout while resting and recovering from a different type of stress that was used in a previous workout.

The Graded Workout Option

I know that some people will think that graded workouts are worthless and that hard workouts are the only kind that work. I don’t have a problem with this type of thinking as long as it is working. If it stops working, my suggestion would be to try something else and graded workouts can serve as an option that you can try.

While you don’t have to use graded workouts in conjunction with high frequency training, I am going to apply the concept of graded workouts to high frequency training in this article. Of course you can adapt the idea of graded workouts to training a muscle group two or three times per week if that is your preference. Make it work for your own physiology and training needs.

In the weekly workout schedule that I am about to outline, the grading of the training is ranked according to four levels of difficulty with one being the easiest, and four being the hardest. The amount of workouts per week for each type of training is also included.

Level 1: Two to three easy sets with light weights for ten to fifteen reps.

Frequency: This type of training can be done five to six days per week.

Difficulty of training: This is easy training

Level 2: Moderate weights for 3 single reps consisting of one rep at 60%; one rep at 70%; and 1 rep at 80% of your single rep max.

Frequency: This type of training can be done every other day which equals three times per week.

Difficulty of training: Moderately easy training

Level 3: A moderately high intensity single set for 10 reps. Stop two reps short of your marker rep; the marker rep being the point where your rep pace starts to slow down at the end of a set.

Frequency: This can be done twice per week in workouts where you are not doing the single reps listed for #2.

Difficulty of training: This is moderately difficult training

Level 4: A hard single set for one to eight reps according to your preference for a given workout. Push the set to one rep short of failure.

Frequency: This type of training can be done once per week.

Difficulty of training: This is hard training

The 6 Day Graded Workout Schedule

Pick three to four basic exercises to cover chest, legs, back and shoulders. Do the following sets and reps listed for each exercise. Strive for 6 workouts per week.

Day 1