What else is there?
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Thanks for the Tag!
Couple things.
Are you eating to gain muscle and strength? iE, not constantly in a deficit like most young fellas?
And why are changing what you have been doing if it’s working?
As Simo suggest, I do like 4 week blocks training, put on repeat until they won’t work essentially. For a late novice like yourself, they would work fine. But, as has been suggested above also, probably too complicated for your level, as is perhaps what you have put together also.
I commend you for wanting to have a go at that though. This is how we learn.
But yeah, at your level of development, keeping things simple is all you still need. Honestly with the right work ethic, and prioritizing your recovery, you could double those squat numbers with a linear progression, double or otherwise.
And you only need 6 exercises Total to do this IMO.
Squat.
Bench.
Deadlift.
Press.
Rows.
Chinups or pullups.
Nothing else required. Use whatever method of progression you like, but stay consistent and things will happen.
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Idk, some kind of reason for which stimulus and when
Everything works for a while.
If the differences between blocks is really just changing training emphasis whilst keeping other qualities in or just changing rep schemes to allow for further progression, that’s fine. Crucially, both of these strategies could be defined more simply as “variation,” especially the latter.
If a training plan allows for continued progression year-on-year without needing a change up, I think that’s a good example that periodisation isn’t essential
Again, issues arise when
- Training plans are too rigid
- Training plans focus on developing just one training quality, at the expense of all the others
The only scenario where point 2 doesn’t stand is at toward the end of a peaking program for competitive lifters. In that scenario, the principle of specificity applies
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pretty much
As @TrainForPain alluded to, it really can be that simple
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If you and @TrainForPain could humor me for a second; pretend I was gods perfect idiot.
As gods perfect idiot I would read something like that, and then start a program where I did would work up to max intensity for one set of one variation of all my core lifts at the start of a recovery window, then just do random plyo and low volume work until I was recovered enough to do it all over again.
I feel like that can’t be optimal, can it?
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Not either of those guys but going to chime in anyway.
In theory what you have described will work and it not that dissimilar to the old Heavy Duty stuff from Mike Mentzer (or Arthur Jones of you want to go way back). Do one hard all out set and then recover. Whether you recover from sitting on the couch eating pizza or just doing some light weight pump work for a few days the principle is the same. Max effort then recover then go again. I think in reality the difficulty comes in being able to actually perform at ‘max intensity’ for every core left all the time. There are also some other things to consider, like what actually is max intensity, what weight, what rep range etc.
I also really don’t like the word ‘optimal’. I really don’t think there is an optimal way of building muscle. There are theoretical or maybe we could say proven techniques that work. But they don’t all work the same for every person at the same rate due to too many external factors. So rather than look for optimal look for principles that work and training methods that has the highest potential for you to remain disciplined and consistent. then just do it for a really long time.
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I was going to open with this too!
That seems fine, basically a full body program, but I don’t know why you’d add the random plyos and volume.
At the end of the day, all the variables we manipulate are about getting you enough work at a high-enough intensity within your recovery ability, which is pretty much what you asked. You can do more work, and lower intensity, or less work and more intensity, or play with the frequencies to adjust the recovery window, or push some areas and back of others, or all kinds of stuff… but it’s always about some amount of intense enough work within your ability to recover. That’s why so many different approaches work.
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Ok, I guess a reasonable follow up would be, without structure, how do I, an idiot, know that I’m recovered enough?
I think if you’re getting better, you’re recovering. There’s quite a few relatively easy indicators, though:
- Are you improving (weight/ reps)? Not necessarily every session, but overall trend.
- Are you at least not regressing?
- Are you hungry?
- Do you hate the idea of even walking into a gym?
- How bad do your joints hurt?
- Are you able to sleep at night?
- Do you get pumps in the gym?
Certainly not all-encompassing, but these pop up for me. You can also do things like check your heart rate, etc, but I find the above pretty foolproof for me.
Does that make sense, or still kind of “soft” metrics?
I’m not saying totally wing everything all the time; I like your idea of starting from something you’ve done and just tweaking over time. I think that’s the best way. We can get way into the weeds on “how,” but at the end of the day it really is as simple as doing some work.
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I fully support @simo74 and @TrainForPain in the above
The reason that mightn’t work forever is due to diminishing returns. The way around diminishing returns?
Variation, or, when dressed up in a bow tie and boutonnière, periodisation
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So with that logic, let’s say I was a human who needed a schedule; if I was just running 5/3/1 would I benefit from cycling between sumo/hex/conventional for the DL days every cycle or is just regularly cycling through a small number of variations insufficient?
The latter is the better of the two options, but the best option would be training something until it stops working, and then introduce a small amount of variation
You can’t forget there’s still a skill component of lifting weights that acts as a moderator of your strength & size gains.
If you switch lifts too rapidly, you won’t effectively develop the skill of any one lift. If you are unable to develop enough skill in your lifts, you won’t be able to train with a high enough intensity (absolute load or proximity to failure) to stimulate adaptation