I have been using a back off week every 4th week where I reducde volume by 40%.
How necessary is this when you are roating your rep ranges? Since I train heavy one week (3-6) and lighter the next (10-12), is the back off week still necessary or do I get enough recuperation from roating the reps?
I will experiment with both, interested in others experience.
[quote]CRisenhoover wrote:
I have been using a back off week every 4th week where I reducde volume by 40%.
How necessary is this when you are roating your rep ranges? Since I train heavy one week (3-6) and lighter the next (10-12), is the back off week still necessary or do I get enough recuperation from roating the reps?
I will experiment with both, interested in others experience.[/quote]
I have never trained like this and fail to see the amazing development of those who routinely have “light weeks” or “back off weeks”. Train smart, heavy, hard, and fast. Get the fuck out of the gym and go eat something. This has worked for me for years. Could you possibly waste your time any more than by throwing in whole weeks where you stimulate the muscle less? This sounds like laziness rolled into a routine that allows people to think they are actually accomplishing something. If you are injured, I could see it. If you were overtraining, I could see it. But to throw in a light week routinely simply because…?
I don’t care if the rep range is 3,8,12 or 20. My friends Attitude and Intensity are always there at the gym. I can go about 6 weeks heavy then I have to back off. Otherwise I simply get sluggish and my workouts start to suck.
[quote]Atreides wrote:
I don’t care if the rep range is 3,8,12 or 20. My friends Attitude and Intensity are always there at the gym. I can go about 6 weeks heavy then I have to back off. Otherwise I simply get sluggish and my workouts start to suck.[/quote]
I agree, I have found through the years that six weeks of really hard training should always be followed by one week off, or easy, whichever you prefer. I personally like to take it completely off.
On the other hand if you don’t train all that hard you can go year round without taking much time off.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
But to throw in a light week routinely simply because…?
[/quote]
Reviewing my logs for the past few years, I noticed that I often got hurt or sick after 4-6 weeks of training. Back in october, I read Vince Gironda’s “Train 21, Rest 7” article where he was suggesting 21 days of heavy training followed by a week of rest or very light work. (And later on “Back Off and Grow” here on T-Nation.)
I’ve been doing that ever since and it hasn’t really hampered my progress, since instead of taking 5-10 days off every 4-6 weeks because of a cold or waiting for some minor sprain to heal, I take planned weeks off. The first few weeks off, I felt almost “guilty” of not working out, but I stuck with it. I had only 1 cold all winter and almost none of those annoying little pains in my back and neck.
So it’s not as much about getting “amazing gains” from it, as not getting hurt or sick as much. I had planned on doing the 3 weeks/1 week thing for 6 months and then evaluating. I might try with 4/1 or 3/1/4/1 after and see if I can get more work done.
I would never back off to train easier, but I do think you build up little amounts of damage that can become injuries in certain spots and may need a little extra time off.
When everything is going great with my workouts, I will generally start with a base program, fully refreshed and hit all my sets hard. I will then try to add sets progressively over the next two weeks and attempt to make each set as high intensity. Then I will go back down, or even do one set less for 2 weeks and add in high intensity methods.
Example workout:
Minicycle 1
Bench press: 4 x 3 @ 315
DB bench press: 100s for 12, 10, 8
Minicycle 2
Bench press: 5 x 3 @ 315
DB bench press: 100s for 12,10,8,7
Minicycle 3
Bench press: 6 x 3 @ 315
DB bench press: 100s for 12,10,8,7,7
Minicycle 4
Bench press: 3 x 3 @ 325
DB bench: 100s for 15, 13 with partner assistance and extended negative on last rep
Minicycle 5
Bench press: 335 x 3, 2
DB bench: 100s for 16, 14 same
Not saying its perfect, but it has worked in the past.
I can’t just “take time off”…so instead I just do more GPP/conditioning work… Maybe won’t do any maximal lifts or something.
-Xen
I took a week off recently. So today was the first time I did standing calf raises in 2 weeks. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I went from doing 4x6 with 150lbs(before week off), and today I worked up to 6 reps with 205lbs(each time I added weight, it was not enough). The effort level was the same today as it was before.
Been lifting for a few months now, but a 35% increase in weight from one workout to the next - WTF??!!
My other lifts have gone up well, but more reasonably, like 10-15lbs.
bottom line - rest weeks are good, following at least 3 hard weeks.
Hey, CR!
I clicked this thread thinking there was going to be a pic of “The Back OF the Week!!!”
LOL!
(Sleep deprivation, I think!)
Mufasa