I must be misremembering then, it was something that came up when we talked about titles for your log (or so I thought) but cannot find any proof to substantiate my claim. Rather, this,
and this,
seem to have prompted this,
And in turn,
Good for end of training cycle but not so much anything else. If itās going to be a hard double or triple youāre talking 90-95% of a 1RM. That shit isnāt something to just be ādoingā if youāre legit trying to plan an intelligent training cycle. So that might literally be the last workout of a long training cycle that included a build up to those intensities.
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So back when you used to compete in PL you never went for rep PRs and stuff like that or what? How about heavy singles, like 90%+? Iām just curious, you have a lot of ideas that make a lot of sense and there are different ways to do things.
Only on pressing. For squats and deadlifts, not ever.
So for pressing Iād do a lot of volume like 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps but at around 80% or sometimes 85% for triples at 4-6 sets. Then Iād do 1 back off set for reps. But sometimes not even that.
I never did heavy singles at 90% until near the end of the training cycle and ONLY before a meet. Otherwise thereās literally no reason to do it. Most especially for gen pop or rec lifters. And whatās bad is, those are the clowns that are maxing out the most.
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Interesting. I fucked around a lot with my deadlift and it seems like one hard top set and maybe a down set is the way to go for me. I cut down on volume and raised the intensity and started seeing regular PRs. For bench a couple hard sets plus assistance work seems to do the job. But on squat I seem to do well with a hard top set and CAT work for volume.
As far as heavy singles go, I can only keep that up for like 4-6 weeks before things go backwards. I see people like Nuckols saying to do that during hypertrophy phases and just shake my head.
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90+% sounds terrible. PLs I see using heavy singles in their training use them submaximally.
1x85-88% followed by 2-5 sets of volume work.
Mike T and people who follow his style of training typically do singles around 90-95%, most of the year in many cases. Iām not advocating for that, but some people can make progress like that. I donāt mess with heavy singles on squat or deadlift unless Iām peaking for a meet, itās easy to burn out. Bench is another story since itās not nearly as fatiguing, but even then I wouldnāt do singles all the time.
I had no idea theyāre going so high. I knew they do singles, but not up to 95%. Mikes RTS training seems to be very efficient, but way too demanding for most people. Very high frequency/intensity and pretty high volume.
Kind of a US version of sheiko.
Thatās worked great for me too. Something like a 4RM, 3RM, 2RM in a 3 week wave. Drop 10-20% off the top set and do one more.
Iāve been coached by mike Tuscherer and his training absolutely smoked me within a month and a half of doing it. Made great gains for the first 3ish weeks then got destroyed.
I then hired another coach who had similar training methods but said heās more āconservativeā and the same CNS deep frying happened.
Sheiko is somewhat doable if I do it twice a week. The OG 29,30,31,32 span over 6 months is boring but thereās zero āadrenal fatigueā for me and plenty of time for recovery from the marathon sessions. Sheiko on gear is absolutely fantastic since every rep counts when youāre on, as per another coach whose name I forgot (will edit when I recall it)
Holy shit guys, that style of training is really for outliers. I like Mike T and heās a smart guy but heās an outlier. His programming and training methods arenāt going to work for most people IMO.
Strength talk is so fān boring to me anyway. LOL
I totally agree. I was part of one of his āProject Momentumā experiments a few years ago and I had to drop out after 2 1/2 weeks because I was basically dead. It was high volume, high intensity, and high frequency, in his write up of the study it was less than half of people who started it that actually finished.
His approach to training back in the RTS Manual and up to a few years ago was more manageable.
Now, as for volume being the key to strength gains, letās see what a typical squat session for the #1 female powerlifter looks like:
A large part of the problem is no deloads and if you have a shitty day then you still train hard with a little less weight (autoregulation) but in reality that means less gains from that session since you canāt activate all motor units and such, plus even more fatigue after.
Sheās a top tier, though. Obviously, I know just about fuck all, I have no numbers, and I donāt have size, so itās not that her results contradict any experience I have but Iād like to follow up with this question, is the way sheās training now also how she got to be where sheās at? And, if thatās her training volume then what is her training frequency?
Her coach (who is also her husband) is into very low volume training, you will pretty much never see any of his lifters do more than about 3 work sets and maybe a bit of assistance work. And she trains each lift once a week. Itās very similar to how Andrey Malanichev trains.
He coached CC Ingram for her last 2 meets using the same sort of methods and she set PRs (and ATWRs) in all lifts. Before working with him she was training 6 days a week with lots of volume and feeling burnt out.
My opinion is that without drugs you are likely to lose muscle mass if you barely do any volume, low volume can still work but more than one set and do some assistance work too.
I might have to try this. Would love gym session to be that short and still get good gains. The problem is the fear of change. I know how to train Sheiko, I know it works. I donāt know that I can suddenly try to approximate that kind of low volume training without fucking it up
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Iām making gains on deadlift with one hard set per week, maybe a down set, and every 3rd week I just do a few singles with around 80%. I fucked up my back in the spring and had to take it easy for a bit, now Iām ahead of my old PRs. As for DL-specific assistance work, I have been doing a couple sets of GMs after squatting, some chin ups, and barbell rows. Iām also on zero drugs.
Bench and squat is where I need gains tbh, though maybe thereās a clue there because i definitely train deadlift with lower volume, and Iāve put 25kg on my deadlift this year. Only 2.5 on my bench though lol
Bench just seems like a pain in the ass to make progress on for 99% of people. When I first got into PL I made fast gains for a bit but now It took me like 3 years to put 40lbs on my bench.
There are quite a few lifters out there who train with very low volume, like Kevin Oak does one work set and some assistance work once a week. If you arenāt making progress with higher volume then itās worth a try.
Iād take it. Iāve put on maybe 15lb in the last 2 years. Over 100 on deadlift over the same time.
This is where Iām at, canāt do worse than 0 progress