Ramp One Day & Percentage of Max on a Different Day?

Training
1

Coach, I have seen you sometimes use something like this:

Ramp to 3RM on a performance day

Then on a separate day, perform 8 sets of 3 reps up 70% of your 3RM from the previous day.

What is this called and can you please share some general guidelines in how to program this?

Also, how long rest periods should you take on the lighter day if your goal is strength?

Thank you very much.

2

I use this in two situations:

  1. Peaking for a competition (The main reason/time I use it)

The week before a competition, the goal is to be as fresh as possible without losing movement efficiency and feeling for the weight/movement.

You could rest completely, but you risk being flat and maybe losing some coordination in your lifts (especially if we are talking about the olympic lifts).

If you keep on with your regular program you might not be as fresh as you could for the competition.

It also doesn’t make sense the week before a competition to do assistance exercises: you are not going to fix weakesses 5-7 days before a competition.

So what I like to do before a competition is to drop all assistance work and only do the competition lifts. I also like to use all 2 or 3 (depending on your sport) in each workout to get used to doing all three movements on the same day (which is what you do in competition).

This gives you 3-4 workouts where you can practice your movements and go into the competition super confident.

I like to do it like this (for a Saturday competition):

Sunday: Work up to your planned openers on your competition lifts
Monday: 4-5 sets of 3 reps at 70% of what you used Monday
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: 4-5 sets of 1 rep at 90% of what you used Monday (but only squat and bench, not deadlift)
Thursday: OFF
Friday: Do a warm-up for the squat and bench… no heavier than 60% of your opener for a few sets of 1, just to keep moving
Saturday: compete

  1. When using a modified Bulgarian-style program or a Daily Undulating Periodization approach. In which you essentially only perform your main lifts and maybe one isolation exercise, but do them 4-5 times a week.

Here is an example:

Clockin' A Grip
3

Thank you so much for the thorough description. Can you use it for fat loss as well? I remember doing it one time in your men’s physique transformation program. This was quite a while ago.

4

If you are in a fat loss phase and that your secondary goal is to increase strength (which is much more likely than gaining muscle while in a fat loss phase), yes.

That’s a lot like a lot of high level olympic lifters train, including when they are dieting down to make weight for a competition.

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5

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