I have always been focused on numbers during my training. I never believed I was making progress if I was not increasing the weight on the bar, or increasing the number of reps with the same weight.
I have been considering volume-based training progression lately. Basically, where the total workload, or weight, would be measured each week or each session, and then slowly increased over time.
This seems counterintuitive to how I have been training before. An example would be if now I am squatting 275 5 sets of 5 reps. Then, if I do 5 sets of 8 reps with 260. I would think that I took a step back, but I would have actually performed more work.
Do would you program this? Is the volume 3 weeks of slight increases then a deload week? I was thinking you could just increase 1 set per main lift each week, and increase the reps on the accessory lifts.
Can anyone point to a proven program that uses this method?
I’ve been playing around with this a little bit. I’m doing two strength-oriented days and three hypertrophy days per week. If I started with 6 reps of an exercise during week one for three sets, on week two I increased that by a rep or two, then the same thing for week three. For week four, I’d drop back down to 6 reps, but then add a fourth set and increase reps for the following two weeks. After doing six weeks, I’d increase the weight and start over.
To me, it’s kind of a two-steps-forward-one-step-back thing. I gave this a run and made some good gains off it, but I was feeling pretty beat up after the six weeks and had to do a deload week as the volume was really getting up there towards the end.
I know this doesn’t directly address your question but it was a useful way to increase my volume incrementally without needing a calculator to figure out if I increased from the prior week or not.
It really depends on your goals. Obviously you’d be putting more emphasis on conditioning with 5x8 instead of 5x5. Then, you’d either be taking an emphasis off of something else (such as strength) OR you’d be tapping into your recovery abilities more (thus requiring a deload after some period).
Increasing weight or increasing reps is an easy way to measure strength progress. Obviously if you added 10lbs to the bar or added 5 reps before failing, you are stronger.
Another way to measure progress is the ability to handle more total volume.
An example: Say you squat 225x5x5 which is about 80% of your 1rm with rest intervals held constant EVERY SINGLE DAY. Eventually, fatigue will accumulate so much that you will not be able to squat 225x5x5 with that same rest interval everyday. Say you did this for 10 days straight and on the 11th day you failed on that last rep of the last set. You deload and allow complete recovery. You then go back and squat 225x5x5 everyday. This time you did it 14 days in a row. Did you improve? Yes.