Hey Coach Thibaudeau, I had two quick questions. (1.)Would it be beneficial or work to do higher rep sets on the upper body movements if I want more size, like doing 5 reps on the zone 1 days, 4 reps on the zone 2 days and keeping the 3 rep sets on zone 3 days or could I switch all the days to 5 rep sets instead of 3? (2.) could I skip the neural charge and take a rest day and break up the lats and biceps work throughout the workouts during the week adding in some at the end of the workouts? Thanks for your time!
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Yes, but with the higher reps (5) you should probably lower the number of sets slightly
Yes, absolutely
Hmmm… here’s the thing.
YES studies point to equated weekly volume leading to similar gains (in that case, they typically look at 1 vs 2 or 3 weekly sessions with the same total weekly volume). But there is still a training stress threshold to reach at each session to trigger growth.
It’s not like on Sunday you body looks at the volume it did for a muscle and boom make growth happens.
Each sessions stimulates growth on its own.
If you have one large session for a muscle you get a larger (relatively speaking) amount of growth after that one workout.
If you have several small sessions for a muscle, after each session you get a smaller amount of growth, but if you add up the growth from all these sessions it can add-up to the same amount as that one large session did.
BUT there is a minimal dose of exercise-induced stimulus that you must reach in any given session to trigger the growth processes.
If you fail to reach that threshold, that session does not stimulate any growth.
Even if you have a lot of these small sessions throughout the week it still amounts to no growth because it’s a case of 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0
My point is that, yes, it is fine to spread the biceps/back volume into smaller pieces and put them at the end of the other workouts. BUT if the pieces are too small, it just won’t work.
I’ll use an extreme example, if you do 1 set of biceps and 1 set of back 5 times a week, it is likely not going to be very effective, in fact it will likely not lead to any growth: the daily stimulus for those muscle simply not being high enough.
IMHO you’d need at least 3 work sets for a muscle (unless you are a beginner) to give a strong enough growth signal to make it work.
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So would something like adding 3 to 4 sets of 6-10 reps of two bicep exercises on the same day at the end of workout be be waste of time like adding it to the end of a lower day: (Zone 2 Lower Day) SGHP 6x3 Muscle Snatch 6x3 SGDL 6x3 BB Curl 3-4x6-10 Rope Hammer Curl 3-4x6-10. Then maybe on another lower day doing two lat exercises at the end multiple work sets.
So if I did higher reps stick with 5 not 4 on one day and 3 on another?
Or should I just find a different system to run instead of trying to change this one so much, maybe like your step loading or high volume Program or is this one with some modifications good for size as well? I read hp mass the original but don’t have a sled to run that one.I love low reps and many sets but my focus is size right now,
You can buy a sled like the below…Amazon has quite a few. I just bring mine to the gym as needed.