So I figured doing sprints in that would be less than smart.
Which meant I had to use my brain for conditioning, and I don’t like that
10x25x17 lbs kb swings (GS style), no rest changing hands every 25 - so a decent-ish quad pump, heart rate stayed at resting. Great. Just what I wanted
50 light band good mornings
5x10x17 lbs goblet squats - ok, that got my heart rate up a little even these were more to prep me for squatting tomorrow
Cumulative work also bought me a hellacious erector pump.
If you’re just doing assistance type work, you can absolutely go in and do whatever (within reason). That’s because most assistance work won’t generate enough stress on its own to mess with your recovery.
It’s when you start going in and winging it with stuff like squats, bench, deadlifts and shit like that, that you’ll start treading on thin ice.
Ok, addressing this point in particular, I don’t think you would experience any significant detraining during a deload doing just 5x3x50% or in that region, with no assistance. If you perceive the weights to feel slower and heavier the following week, that is almost entirely mental.
At those loads, the deload you did arguably doesn’t count as a deload (because you also did some assistance). It’s just another training week. It is even possible that the fifth week felt worse because the deload didn’t do enough to manage fatigue that was building up.
Looking at the numbers is excellent. So your deload volume was around 70% of the previous week, as you say.
As a comparison, my volume for squat days last block went 9285, 7982, 5165 and 9015. The deload in the fifth week saw my squat day volume go to 1837. That’s 35% of my lowest volume session. That’s also going to be very, very similar to everyone else on Team Panora, as we’re all on the same program.
What I suspect may be happening is that you don’t treat all weights the same. You may be treating a light weight as light weight, and a heavy weight as a heavy weight. So during deload, with lower loads, you would lack the intent when moving them you have with heavier loads. You would then carry this lack of intent with you into your next week, and heavier loads would indeed feel much slower, because your intent was not to move them fast, but to move them the same way you move the light weights the week before.
The way around this is to move EVERYTHING as fast as you possibly can (while staying braced and in groove) on the concentric. From the empty bar, the setup, bracing and intent should be identical to a max. This way, while the heavier weights may well feel slower and will certainly beyond a point move slower, the majority of loads will move at much the same speed, at least on the first rep or two.
It’s something that seems to get missed a lot, the importance of moving everything explosively. It’s hard to switch it on for a top set when the sets leading up weren’t executed in that manner.
@simo74 the more I think about it, the more I think that the whole feeling everything slow after deloads is probably at least in a large part due to lack of focus on exolosiveness.
I can’t see why else you or anyone else would feel sluggish when rested unless something else was going on.
This also helped me, because I felt if I was lifting heavy all the time the weight felt weird and slower. Even now I moved 395 decent for 3 but felt like trash since I havnt had the volume I previously had.
You may be right @markko. I’ve been (my coach has been) keeping my weights on deload a little heavier for a number of blocks now and just seems to work for me. I haven’t done a very light low volume deload for quite a while so I can’t remember how I attacked the lifts but you may be right about me not being explosive enough.
All I know is that I’m in a sweet spot right now. I finish a deload keen to get going hard again and I’m getting stronger each block. I’m going to keeping milking this a little while longer and see where I end up.
You are an impressively strong and wise guy Mark.
I really really like the discussion going on here, from the prilepin chart to deload.
Thanks a lot, you seem to adopt what you learn and experience very well, but beyond that you also can put it down on paper.
I’ll throw in a few pieces too.
First a question about prilepin:
So if using 3x6@70% as an example
My question would be is this for one session or for every session of the week.
Say you’re training squat 3 times a week, would you then train 1x6 every session or 3x6 every session.
This was used by weightlifters practicing all lifts almost every day and as I’ve understood the rep/set scheme was used everyday, whereas many PL programs only trains one lift every week.
This leaves me a bit confused.
Deload: Simo said it and he will soon learn that he is about to enter the strong peoples community.
If you are not very strong then you can handle heavier weights and volume for deload. The stronger you are, the more fatigued you’ll be.
I have the same feeling as Simo, using only 50% is feeling too light.
I think that’s why Wendler came up with his heavy single deload: build up to a single at TM (85-90% of 1RM), and reduce assistance by 50%. This is used for someone like me, who can’t move light weight as if it is heavy, I’ll need to practice that.
Mark will answer this better than I can but I’ll throw in 2c just to add to the conversation.
I would to the 3 x 6 in my main squat session of the week. If I was then going to squat again I would chose a different rep range and %. So one session would be ‘heavy’ higher % lower reps and the second would be lower weight with fighter reps. Total reps for both sessions would be based on the guidelines in the charts.
For me if I was to spread the effective reps out over many sessions it would not be enough effect in each session to drive adaption. Also if I was to do multiple sessions a week all at the heavier end of the chart I would not recover. By using a heavy and light day I can get two sessions I can still recover from and using the table as a guide I get the reps and % to be effective.
Ok. Training the competition lifts more than once a week makes things a little different, because while the main factors of recovery and fatigue management remain, how we go about doing it is changed.
First of, Prilepin’s chart is a guide, nothing more. Secondly, despite being developed using data from weightlifters, it has proven itself to be an extremely useful guide for powerlifters. My understanding is that the recommendations for setsxreps and total reps relate to one training session. My understanding is that Prilepin’s chart is NOT used to determine overall volume over a week, or in any situation outside one training session.
So, taking your example of 3x6x70% in a scenario where we squat three times a week, this would mean one instance of squat training would involve 3x6x70%. The other two sessions could be the same. If, let us say, in this situation the squat is the only large lower body exercise you train, there would be no reason not to have one session at a higher intensity. If, however you were also training the deadlift, it would probably be more effective if neither lift was trained above 70% or so, and it would most likely also be beneficial if the two other squat sessions were below 70%.
While I agree that you are correct on the face of it, I also suspect that it is a situation where just because you can do it does not mean it is the best idea. I am of the opinion that it is best to form good habits before you need them, and in this case my position is that even people not handling particularly heavy weights will do well to deload lightly. This way, when the weights they use inevitably become much greater, they will not need to change their deloads because they are already doing them in the way they need.
My math doesn’t work here (5x4x127.5=2550kg or 5610lbs).
How does your weekly volume compare to Mark’s?
Look at two cycles. I’m wondering if your 4th week deloads actually make your programming similar to his.
I never liked the 50% deloads for the same reasons as you. When I tried 5/3/1 I always felt like crap the week after a deload. It was frustrating because I always expected to feel awesome and hit a rep PR but it never happened.
That’s what i initially thought, but the math doesn’t work. I remembered he’s squatting three times a week so I figured he was reporting weekly volume. I suppose I could go look back through his log to figure it out.
Actually the volume doesn’t include the warm up sets. It would only included the main sets for any movement programmed and doesn’t include anything I add. The volume number all comes from the spreadsheet that is shared with the coach.
For last Monday it could include the main 4 sets of squats, the main 4 sets of bench, the 3 sets of Bulgarians and the 3 sets of Db press.
Any pull ups or arm work or ab work I do is not included.
I think that makes it the same or very similar to mine. My volume includes all the work that is programmed by the coach but not warm ups.
Any fluff stuff I add is very minimal and would be the same every session so the reduction is the same.
Anyway I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse. I understand your approach and why you do it and it works really well for you. One day I hope to be strong enough to need the same.
