8.12 The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid by Eric Helms

CHAPTER 8: Fundamental Laws for Training and Periodization 8.12 The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid by Eric Helms

Eric Helms, a well-respected figure in the strength training community, has developed a comprehensive approach to strength training known as the “Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid” (Helms et al., 2019). This pyramid is designed to simplify the vast amount of information available on strength training, conditioning, powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, and athletic performance, providing a clear structure that can be easily understood and applied for both beginners and experienced athletes.

The pyramid consists of six levels, each building on the one below it. By mastering each level, trainers can create an effective and well-rounded strength training program that addresses all aspects of training, from the most foundational to the most advanced.

As Helms states, “It is likely that ~80% of the progress will be made by focusing on these bottom three or four levels…” Our work with clients in over 20 years has proved this many times.

Periodization

One crucial strategy is to consider and uphold to produce exceptional results with your clients, which is periodization. Unfortunately, many personal trainers are gradually drifting away from it because it is often presented as too complex to implement with most of our clientele – the general population.

As with everything in life, having a plan and at least mapping out the next steps you have to take to get closer to the end goal can be viewed from two main perspectives:

Having an outlined map is better than not having one at all and being lost in space.
The end goal seems easier to reach if broken down into smaller steps.

We want to emphasize another essential view of periodization. Since most literature about periodization is based on scientific studies performed on elite-level athletes or specific sport performance, you will hardly find any valuable information for the general client that is within the primary scope of practice for personal trainers. Therefore, you need to simplify many of the periodization techniques you will find well-explained to make them more useful for your “everyday” client.

To achieve specific results, try to view periodization as an intentional manipulation of training variables (FITT principle with an added important variable – volume) over time. It allows for a better-organized training program that enables more effective follow-ups and the flexibility to adjust to your client’s acute state.

Although the layers of Helms’s pyramid cannot be distinctly separated, as the training variables are interdependent, periodization in this context will encompass changes in the variables over time. This means that periodization is placed outside the pyramid, as it involves manipulations of all the provided levels (Helms et al, 2019).

Level 1: Adherence

Achieving meaningful results in strength training requires consistency and commitment over time. The effectiveness of your training plan is only relevant if your client can adhere to it. Therefore, focus on creating the best training plan within the spectrum of what your client can maintain consistently.

Level 2: Volume, Intensity, Frequency

The foundation of any training program lies in volume, intensity, and frequency. These three interrelated variables influence one another. Their optimal combination depends on your client’s training age, goals, preferences, schedule, and stage in their training journey.

Level 3: Progression

To keep improving in Strength and building muscle size, you need to increase the training stimulus progressively (GPO). For novice or early-stage intermediate lifters, setting up a goal-specific training plan with appropriate volume, intensity, and frequency will yield gains with little additional effort. However, planning progression becomes vital for continued progress as your clients advance.

Level 4: Exercise Selection

Exercise selection’s importance varies based on context. It is critical for athletes or those seeking a strength increase, as their sports performance depends on specific movements. For hypertrophy, various exercises can stimulate growth, though some may be more effective due to individual biomechanics. Exercise selection should also address weak points and suit personal biomechanics. Exercise selection generally depends on whether you’re training for hypertrophy or Strength.

Level 5: Rest Periods

Rest intervals between sets are important for resistance training, particularly for hypertrophy. However, recent research challenges traditional beliefs regarding short rest intervals promoting greater muscle hypertrophy. Luckily, a substantial amount of new research is shedding more light on how to use the rest periods between sets.

Level 6: Lifting Tempo

The final level discusses lifting tempo or speed of execution. Controlling tempo has gained attention due to its perceived importance in hypertrophy training, mainly because of the “time under tension” concept. We’ll cover some evidence surrounding tempo’s significance in hypertrophy training and offer recommendations.

8.12.1 Adherence

Our team’s collective 100 years of training experience have taught us valuable lessons we want to share with you. For example, one of the lessons we learned by working with many high-performing clients, be it in business or sports, is that there is no such thing as optimal. In personal training, we must understand that only what you can do brings results rather than what you should be doing.

There is no such thing as optimal

In this perspective, the optimal is often an ideological imagination based on overwhelming literature, but without considering the basic principle of individuality.

To achieve the highest level of adherence, you should search for long-term consistency rather than for something considered or labeled as optimal. This approach will bring about higher levels of adherence with any client. You’ll be good to go if you follow some basic rules and incorporate the three important conditions for improving client adherence to training.

The first important condition is that your training program has to be realistic. Trying to explain to your client, which has only started with resistance training, you want them to lift over 440 lbs (200 kg) will seem quite unrealistic to them. From the psychological perspective, the client will not be motivated to train for it since it might very well be outside his expectations or goals.

The second consideration is enjoyment. As it is a general rule in Life that we are constantly doing things we enjoy, the same is valid for training. As you conduct your initial consultation, listen closely to what your client says about training and their perception of enjoyable exercises, and take notes. These notes will come in handy when programming the training sessions. We see too often that personal trainers are trying to impose training modalities on their clients that they enjoy.

Ask what might seem enjoyable to your client and try to find a way of incorporating it into your programming. Doing so will increase the likelihood of adherence to the proposed training regime. And stay flexible while trying to reach your training program’s planned metrics (target volume, sets, sessions per week, and other metrics). Finally, be aware that our clients have different priorities and strength training will probably not be the first line.

Life will happen, and they might miss a session, or more than one, because of family holidays or small illnesses that are a part of our daily living (catching a cold, for example). Adjust accordingly, and move on with your adjusted plan. Understand that Life will continue even if a session is missed. While planning for your sessions with clients, acknowledging regular obligations influencing their schedule is greatly beneficial. Designing a schedule your clients can adhere to will get them to stick to it while enjoying the process.

8.12.2 Volume, Intensity, Frequency

The fundamental elements forming the training program are volume, intensity, and frequency. These three variables are interrelated and inseparable from each other, as each affects the others in different contexts:

Training at a very high intensity of effort, near failure, takes longer for muscle damage to subside (exercise-induced muscle damage is the normal, easily repaired disruption to the fiber resulting from high tension or high volumes; in excess, it interferes with performance and adaptation) and for performance to recover, potentially impacting the frequency of your training.

Similarly, lifting heavy (high intensity of load) makes each repetition more stressful, requires longer rest periods, and can extend the duration of a session, limiting the volume you can (and should) perform.
As a final example, completing 16 sets of the same movement in a single day would require you to either decrease volume (do fewer reps per set) or intensity (reduce the load) due to cumulative fatigue as sets progress, to a greater extent than if you were to do 8 sets on two different days in the week.

Since these three variables are interdependent, they are all in the same pyramid level. The optimal combination of each will vary depending on your client’s training age, goals, preferences, and schedule.

Volume

In terms of strength training, there will be numerous terms mentioned regarding volume:

Set volume: number of sets performed in a single session

Repetition volume: number of all repetitions in a single session (it can describe only reps performed inside of working sets or including warm-up sets)

Total volume: the total amount of weight lifted in a single session, and most often referred to as “training volume”.

Regardless of the volume used, all counting methods have strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, good advice is to monitor all of them and thus have a good reference point for future programming.

The reason why we talk about volume should be obvious; because it has a great influence on muscular and neural adaptation.

Let’s dive into a real-life example to understand better how volume is connected to the specific adaptation. More so, what would be the target volume, or even more specifically, the target rep range and the number of sets for a specific training outcome. The rep range you must know will ultimately dictate the percentage of the maximal load we’ll use for a given exercise. This is termed as the percentage of the 1RM (1 repetition maximum). We’ll explain more about the 1 RM later in the textbook.

Let’s say we’re training with Ralph today and have planned for a bench press where he would perform 3 sets of 25 reps with a 100 lb load. Ralph is relatively strong, and the 100 lb load would equate to 50% of his 1 RM. In the next training session with Ralph we would plan for a bench press where he would perform 3 sets of 10 reps with a 140 lb load (70% of his 1 RM).

Volume calculation:

3x25x100 lb = 7500 lb

3x10x140 lb = 4200 lb

In the first training session, Ralph moved 78% more weight while performing the bench press compared to his second training session.

Does this difference in those two sessions mean a much different outcome?

Can we expect more Hypertrophy from the higher volume, more Strength, or experience a higher level of muscle fatigue? It’s not that easy, and the answer is no.

The data shows that sets with 8-12 repetitions produce as many hypertrophic changes as 25-35 repetition sets. Even more, sets with only 2-4 repetitions yield a greater increase in strength than 8-12 repetitions despite producing much less volume.

This makes it hard to compare results simply based on the total volume of weight lifted. Therefore, quantifying training volume by the number of sets performed in a given range of repetitions (intensity), considering load and effort, seems more appropriate.

Let’s define strength a bit more precisely before moving on. Muscular strength is the sum of various factors: muscle mass, muscle attachments, other morphological factors, neurological adaptations, and even how well we can execute the given exercise. This indicates that strength is, to a degree, skill-specific. According to the basic principle of specific adaptation to imposed demands (SAID), you will improve in a specific movement at a specific rep range that you perform more often. It indicates that strength development depends not only on the amount of work but also on how much we practice.

Hypertrophy, on the other hand, is much more dependent on the total workload and is less specific to intensity ranges or the movement performed. Therefore you can build muscles with various exercises with various repetition ranges and loads.

Compared to older textbooks, where typically the rep ranges for hypertrophy training were proposed to be between 8 and 15 repetitions per set, newer research shows that the range of repetitions for achieving equal hypertrophic adaptation is much wider – ~6-20 reps.

The main takeaway message regarding Hypertrophy is that it gets down to the stimulus of a large number of muscle fibers. Looking back to the information on muscle physiology and fiber recruitment in response to effort, you will notice that all muscle fiber types can be stimulated in two ways:

1) The resistance must be big enough to exert force predictably above 80% of your 1 RM for all fiber types to be recruited, or

2) The contractions must be performed long enough for the slow twitch fiber types to be exhausted. Therefore the fast twitch fiber types get recruited for continuous contractions.

For less than 6 reps performed, the duration of continuous muscle contractions is not sufficient to produce the same outcome, thus resulting in less Hypertrophy.

At the same time, with increasing the number of sets, both Strenght and Hypertrophy increase, but there is a sweet spot to it. Another point worth mentioning is the adaptation for strength resulting in an improved 1 RM performance between training in the 3-5 and 1-3 rep ranges. Data indicates that training with 3-5 reps per set (80-85% 1RM) would produce a slightly greater increase in strength than training with 1-3 reps per set (90-95% 1RM) when the number of sets is equated. The higher volume would make up for fewer neuromuscular adaptations in that case.

Therefore counting sets and the rep range (representing intensity) are advised to use as volume tracking.

You have to know that volume should be progressively increased in training time to yield adaptation, as the basic principle of Gradual Progressive Overload suggests. There is a dose-response relationship between volume and strength and Hypertrophy. It means that by adding more sets, we can expect more progress. This has set limitations, and you can not endlessly increase volume while expecting progress.

Planned deloads in volume, therefore, are advised to manage stress overload and fatigue. Note that fluctuations in training performance are normal, and training in a fatigued state is not always contraindicated. With a periodized approach to training and planned deloads, occasional fatigue states will probably not end in diminishing results. We strongly suggest monitoring progress and logging training sessions with your clients. With a solid training log, you will easily identify prolonged fatigue states and adjust your deload timing to avoid possible overtraining.

Let’s break it down into volume recommendations before moving on to intensity.

Volume Recommendations:

Many trainees often feel the need to do more when it’s only sometimes necessary. The “more is always better” mentality is prevalent in bodybuilding, but doing too much can be counterproductive.

Two key studies help illustrate this point:

Gonzalez-Badillo et al. (2005) studied male weightlifters and found that those performing a moderate volume of 2481 repetitions over 10 weeks progressed the most in strength, compared to 1923 repetitions in the low volume and 3030 repetitions in the high volume group.
Heaselgrave et al. (2018) found that trained males performing 18 sets per week of specific exercises had the greatest increases in biceps muscle thickness compared to lower (9 sets) or higher (27 sets) volume groups.

Too much volume negatively impacts Hypertrophy and strength. Therefore, it’s essential to find a balance in training volume. Remember that exercises will overlap, and factors like volume, frequency, and intensity are interconnected.

The Fitness-Fatigue Model, described in Helms’s book, indicates that optimal volume decreases when you’re fatigued or have low recuperative abilities. In addition, factors like diet, life stress, travel, and illness can affect optimal volume. However, you can find the right volume by starting within the recommended range and adjusting based on your client’s response.

The summary of recommendations is based on two meta-analyses (2017) that suggest 5-12+ and 10+ rep sets are optimal for increasing strength and Hypertrophy, respectively. Research indicates that sometimes going past ~20 sets can be too much, although some studies show higher volumes can be beneficial under certain conditions.

Consider the following recommendation:

10-20 sets per muscle group or movement per week

Account for overlap in heavy warm-up sets and adjust volume based on your unique circumstances.

Intensity explained

Intensity is a crucial and often misinterpreted aspect of exercise. While some define intensity by their feelings of soreness or the perceived difficulty of a workout, it is more accurately described by the ‘intensity of load‘ or ‘intensity of effort.’ These terms refer to the amount of weight lifted (usually expressed as a ‘rep max’ [RM] or a percentage of a one-rep max [1RM]) and how close to the maximum effort that load is (often measured by a rating of perceived exertion [RPE] score), respectively. The goal is to be aware of different ways to describe training intensity, how it fits into the bigger picture of training, and how it relates to specific training goals, such as strength or Hypertrophy.

Specificity in training

The Principle of Specificity (also known as the SAID principle – Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands) is vital when deciding on intensity levels for either strength or hypertrophy training. Essentially, to achieve a specific outcome, one must train for that outcome.

Measuring intensity

Various methods can measure the intensity of effort and load:

1.Percentage of 1RM: A common way to measure intensity is by using the percentage of one-rep max (1RM). This can be estimated through an AMRAP set (as many reps as possible) or based on an actual 1RM test. Then, loads are prescribed based on a percentage. However, this system has limitations, as it does not work well for all exercises and can vary greatly between individuals. Nonetheless, it can still be a useful guideline.

2.Rep Max (RM): RM is the maximum weight that can be lifted for a specific number of reps. This method is more useful for bodybuilders, providing a more consistent measure of intensity across individuals.

3.RPE (Based on Repetitions Remaining): Using an RPE scale based on repetitions in reserve (RIR) is a popular measure of intensity. This scale, developed by powerlifting coach Mike Tuchscherer, measures how close to failure one is at the end of a set. Experienced lifters can accurately estimate RIR, while less experienced lifters may need additional guidance or practice.

4.Failure Training: To failure is not a true measure of intensity, but it is a common approach. Failure can refer to either technical failure (form breakdown) or muscular failure (inability to move the weight). It is generally safer to train for failure with isolation exercises rather than compound lifts due to the increased risk of injury.

Training to failure can increase muscle activation and ensure muscle fibers are fully worked. However, it can also reduce the total volume of an exercise and increase recovery time. Studies show that training to failure does not provide significant advantages regarding strength gains. Still, it can be used intelligently for specific purposes, such as during 1RM testing, AMRAP sets, or while performing isolation exercises. The key is to use failure training with a purpose and within the context of one’s overall training progression.

Here are some guidelines on how to use failure training intelligently:

Isolation Exercises: It is generally safer to train to failure with isolation exercises (e.g., bicep curls, leg extensions) than with compound lifts (e.g., squats, deadlifts). This allows for additional muscle stimulation without significantly impacting overall recovery.
Last Set of an Exercise: When training a muscle group with multiple exercises, consider taking the last set of the final exercise to failure. This provides extra stimulation without compromising recovery for the entire workout.
Understand Their Limits: Know your client’s body and be aware of their limits when training to failure. Overtraining can lead to injury, burnout, or stalled progress. Be mindful of how failure training fits the client’s overall training plan, and adjust accordingly.
Deload or Taper Weeks: During planned recovery weeks, it is best to avoid training to failure. This allows the body to recover and prepare for the next training block.
Monitor Progress: Track the workouts and note when you take your client to failure. This will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your training program and make adjustments as needed.

Optimizing Strength Through Intensity Considerations

Three primary factors contribute to optimizing strength:

Muscle Mass and Structural Adaptations: Greater muscle mass and larger cross-sectional area enable more muscle fibers to contract, leading to the ability to move heavier loads. Structural changes within the muscle, connective tissue, and other elements also affect strength.
Neuromuscular Adaptations: The neurological system recruits and activates our muscles, allowing us to express strength. Contractions become more forceful and efficient by adapting to heavier loads, optimizing our existing muscle mass.
Motor Patterns and Skill: Strength is both a physical quality and a skill requiring familiarity with specific movements to improve performance. Specificity involves velocity, load, joint angles, and recruitment patterns to move external loads.

Developing these three qualities requires specific training methods. However, Hypertrophy (muscle growth) can be achieved with moderate and heavy loading, as shown in a study by Schoenfeld. Though both groups experienced equal muscle growth, the group training with 3RM grew stronger, supporting the principle of specificity.

To excel in lifting heavy loads, you must practice lifting heavy loads. Hypertrophy is a byproduct of training with adequate volume and effort rather than a specific adaptation like muscular endurance, speed, or strength.

Extreme Specificity and Its Implications

Some strength athletes may wonder if they should train by performing a one-rep max (1RM) every time they visit the gym. The Bulgarian weightlifting method, which involves daily 1RM attempts followed by volume work, has proven effective in some cases. However, it may not be optimal for everyone.

The advantages of this approach include consistency in max effort attempts, increased mental toughness, better recovery from high-intensity lifting, and, theoretically, improved 1RM strength. On the other hand, high-intensity approaches require lower session volumes and increased recovery time. Moreover, they may result in overtraining, joint pain, and injury. Maintaining proper form at maximal loads is also challenging, which could hinder the development of ideal motor patterns.

A study by Gonzalez-Badillo showed that a more moderate approach might yield superior strength gains. Extremely specific, high-frequency, and high-load approaches can be effective but may not always be the best option. They could be suitable for overreaching blocks or intensification phases in competition preparation but not for extended periods.

Optimizing strength requires a balanced approach considering muscle mass, neuromuscular adaptations, and motor patterns. While Hypertrophy can be achieved through various loading intensities, specificity is critical in improving strength.

Intensity Factors for Muscle Growth

When focusing on muscle growth, the total weight lifted isn’t as crucial as it is for strength. However, the ‘intensity of effort‘ is essential, and it’s important to gradually increase the weights used across different rep ranges during training.

Understanding Light Weights

A broader range of weights can be effective for muscle growth than strength, but the weight still matters. The principle of progressive overload applies, meaning we need to lift weights that provide an overload.

Considering that we constantly experience a load due to gravity, it’s clear that tension must be increased for muscle growth to continue. Therefore, two intensity aspects are important for muscle growth: ‘intensity of effort’ (how close you are to failure) and, to a lesser degree, ‘intensity of load’ (how heavy or light the weights are).

Challenges with Low and High-Intensity Training

A 2017 meta-analysis showed that both high (>60% 1RM) and low (<60% 1RM) weights can lead to similar muscle growth if the volume is alike and effort is high. However, there’s a lower limit to how low the weight intensity can be before it gets suboptimal. Lasevicius and colleagues demonstrated that 20% of 1RM produced less muscle growth than the 40-80% 1RM range.

Very low-weight, high-rep sets (40+ rep sets) might cause too much overall fatigue before providing enough local muscular stimulus or resemble endurance training more than resistance training, making them less effective for muscle growth. Therefore, training in the ~15-35RM range can result in comparable progress to training in the more traditional 6-15RM range. However, there are practical concerns with high-repetition training.

A study by Schoenfeld found that a group doing 3×25-35RM achieved similar muscle growth compared to a group doing 3×8-12RM, but participants in the high-rep group experienced significant discomfort and vomiting during training. High-rep compound movements can be problematic due to overall fatigue. Still, isolation exercises don’t generate the same level of fatigue. Low-weight, high-rep training can be helpful for those with joint pain. It may be more effective for training slow-fatiguing muscle fibers, although more research is needed.

On the other hand, focusing solely on heavy training is not recommended either.

Schoenfeld’s study comparing 3RM to 10RM loads found equal muscle growth but greater strength in the 3RM group. However, the 10RM group completed their training much faster, felt capable of doing more volume, and experienced less joint pain and fewer injuries than the 3RM group.

Thus, using only heavy or light weights exclusively for muscle growth can present practical challenges. High-rep, light-weight training can lead to significant fatigue and longer recovery times. In contrast, heavy-weight training can increase the strain on joints and soft tissues, limiting the total volume you can handle.

Intensity Recommendations

Intensity depends on your goal. One should lift heavy for strength and ensure sets are adequately challenging for size. Remember progressive overload.

For Muscle Growth

If muscle growth is the goal, weights should be heavy enough (above ~30% 1RM), and sets should be challenging (5+ RPE). While the 6-12 rep range is often cited as ideal for muscle growth, it’s simply a convenient range to accumulate volume. Both lower intensity (12-30 rep range) and higher intensity (1-5 rep range) work can benefit muscle growth, but they should not be the sole focus.

Practical intensity recommendations for muscle growth include performing ⅔ - ¾ of your volume in the 6-12 rep range at a 5-10 RPE, with the remaining ¼ ⅓ in the lower-rep, higher-intensity (1-6 reps at a 5-10 RPE) and higher-rep, lower-intensity ranges (12-20 reps at a 5-10 RPE).

For Strength

If strength is the goal, more of your volume should be performed with heavier loads. However, that doesn’t mean all your volume should be as heavy as possible. You need enough volume to grow muscles, so training shouldn’t only consist of singles, doubles, or triples.

Remember Schoenfeld’s study comparing 3RMs with 10RMs, where the 3RM group took four times longer to complete their workouts, experienced more joint pain, had more dropouts, and verbalized more mental burnout. Also, the group that increased their strength the most in Gonzalez-Badillo’s study had a moderate proportion of their volume from 90% 1RM+ loads. Contrary, the group that did the highest proportion of their work at 90%+ did worse.

Very high load training at a high volume has mental fatigue and joint pain costs. It is an inefficient, unnecessarily taxing way to accumulate practice. Mixing in some light and moderate loads is advantageous for time efficiency, joint stress, and recovery.

Practical intensity recommendations for strength include performing ⅔ - ¾ of your volume in the 1-6 rep range at a 5-10 RPE, and the other ¼ - ⅓ in the higher-rep, moderate-intensity ranges (6-15 reps at a 5-10 RPE).

The above intensity recommendations are average values for those training for either strength or muscle growth. In the next level of The Pyramid, we will discuss how these recommendations vary throughout a periodized plan.

Frequency

Frequency organizes the volume and intensity of training, determining how to distribute training stress throughout the week. While higher frequency training can be advantageous, optimizing training stress is essential. Adjusting frequency improves the balance between stress and recovery, preventing individual sessions from becoming excessively demanding.

When considering frequency, evaluating learning, recovery, and organization is vital. When comparing training to studying, there is a limit to how much information one can absorb in a single session. Similarly, cramming all training into a single day can decrease movement quality and stimulus efficiency, impacting strength development or Hypertrophy.

On the other hand, performing only one set per day may not allow for sufficient correction of mistakes or reinforcement of perfect form. Furthermore, heavy strength training can be physically demanding, and distributing volume throughout the week can aid recovery and growth.

Studies have shown that splitting volume into more sessions can result in superior neuromuscular adaptations, hormonal markers for recovery, strength improvement, and gains in lean body mass.

Meta-analytic data support this notion, with studies demonstrating that higher frequencies improve strength and Hypertrophy, regardless of volume.

Frequency Recommendations: The Importance of Organization

When designing a program, remember that there’s no one-size-fits-all frequency. Instead, you must find an approach that suits your client’s training volume and personal schedule. Factors like available training time and preferred training days will influence how you organize their volume. Training 3-6 sessions per week is typically appropriate for Hypertrophy or strength-related goals (twice a week can work well for time-pressed novices). This determines how often you train each muscle group or movement.

Use the following as help:

Identify the weekly volume needed to progress towards their goal, including exercises, sets, rest periods, and warm-ups. Estimate the time it would take to complete it all. Consider what frequency would enable you to divide their training into manageable sessions while maintaining high-quality focus, movement, and intention.
Test their proposed schedule. If you find that any day has too much volume for optimal performance, consider redistributing the volume across their current sessions or adding another session to their training week.
Similarly, if you find that they can complete a day’s training quickly with minimal fatigue, consider reallocating volume to this day to reduce fatigue in other sessions.

As they progress and become stronger and more advanced, you will need to increase the volume to stimulate further adaptation. Generally, the number of training days will increase as they advance to accommodate these volume increases.

The frequency recommendations provided here serve as average values for those training for strength or Hypertrophy. However, certain strength athletes may need to use a higher frequency on specific lifts with a lower volume per session to achieve specific outcomes.

Consider Overlap

In common powerlifting routines, deadlifts or squats are often trained heavy once per week and light once per week, with the bench press trained more frequently. This is due to the overlap of muscles involved in the hip hinge and squat movements. When focusing on strength, consider how the fatigue from one movement might affect another.

Remember that the body doesn’t categorize movements by muscle groups for hypertrophy-focused training. Instead, think about the biomechanical actions of a given muscle and how it moves a joint. This will help you understand which muscle groups are primarily and secondarily trained in each type of movement.

A Note on the Middle Deltoid

In bodybuilding, middle deltoid development is crucial for creating a wider, tapered appearance. While lateral raises are often emphasized for this purpose, it’s important to recognize that the middle delt is involved in many compound lifts. Therefore, isolation exercises for the middle delt should be used only when they are a clear weak point for an advanced trainee.

The question for strength-focused lifters is whether it’s ever appropriate to focus solely on a few big lifts, such as the “big 3”. The answer is yes, but this requires managing volume, intensity, and frequency to minimize potential fatigue.

The “big 3” are the Squat, Deadlift and Bench Press, and considered the competitive lifts in Powerlifting.

Avoid Black and White Thinking

Don’t interpret volume, intensity, and frequency guidelines as absolutes. For instance, performing 9 sets won’t mean zero growth, and 21 sets won’t guarantee overtraining and regression. Keep in mind that you can create effective high-intensity, high-volume, or high-frequency programs by adjusting other variables. You may find an “optimal” approach outside these general guidelines that best suits your client’s unique needs.

Adjusting to the client’s Needs and Progress

As they continue their training journey, adapting your program to their individual needs and progress is essential. This may involve changing their frequency, intensity, or volume to optimize their results. Remember that everyone is different, and what works best for one person may not be the best fit for another.

Monitoring Your Progress

To ensure you’re on the right track, regularly assess their progress. Track your client’s performance during workouts, including the weights lifted, the number of reps and sets, and the rest periods. Additionally, ask for their feedback, and note how they feel during and after each session. Ask them to pay attention to their energy levels, recovery time, and signs of fatigue or overtraining.

Adapting Your Program

Based on their progress and feedback, adjust their program as needed. This could mean increasing or decreasing volume, changing exercise selection, or modifying training frequency. Be open to experimenting and fine-tuning your approach to find what works best for the client.

Consider changing your program’s variables if you notice a plateau in their progress. This might involve increasing volume, adjusting intensity, or incorporating new exercises to provide a new stimulus for growth and adaptation.
Be mindful of fatigue and overtraining. If they consistently feel exhausted, experience a drop in performance, or struggle to recover between sessions, it may be time to reassess their training schedule, volume, and intensity. Ensure you’re allowing for adequate rest and recovery.
Don’t be afraid to ask colleagues or mentors. Consult a colleague or a mentor to help refine your program and make appropriate adjustments. They can provide valuable insights and recommendations based on their expertise and experience.

Stay Flexible and Learn from Experience

Remember that your client’s training journey is unique to them. As you progress and learn more about the human body, you’ll become better equipped to adapt and optimize your training program for your clients. Stay flexible, be willing to make changes, and learn from your experiences.

8.12.3 Progression

Individual differences significantly impact the rate at which we gain size and strength. One universal truth is that everyone has a genetic limit, and progress will inevitably slow down as we approach that limit. The closer we are to our limit, the more intentional our training needs to be to facilitate further progress.

When considering training age, it is more helpful to classify ourselves and our clients based on the time it takes to improve (strength) rather than using an arbitrary strength standard or the duration of our lifting experience. Arbitrary strength standards can be misleading since some individuals naturally possess greater baseline strength. However, their progress will still align with their experience.

Similarly, relying solely on training experience to categorize training age is not ideal. Many trainees stagnate at the late novice or intermediate stage without knowing how to progress further. Consequently, some lifters with over ten years of gym experience may still function as intermediates relative to their genetic limits.

Those further from their genetic limit will find it easier to gain strength. This means that individuals who have not gained significant strength during their gym tenure may still experience rapid growth and strength gains with appropriate training adjustments.

Increase Volume Over Training Time

The key to progressing from novice to intermediate to advanced is providing overload. In the early stages, simply adding weight to the bar and maintaining the same reps and sets will result in progress. However, this strategy may eventually cease working, necessitating a new method to induce overload. When you can no longer add weight to the bar for your client, increasing volume is often the solution (but not always, and not as a first option).

Here’s a fact, the bigger and stronger you or your clients become, the slower the progress. Unfortunately, the same amount of volume will yield diminishing returns as they gain more training experience. When progress stalls, a volume increase may be required. However, as discussed earlier, excessive volume can negatively impact recovery. The challenge lies in determining the appropriate volume based on the individual needs and training age.

Progress is not equal Progressive Overload

Strength gains can be an enticing focus, especially if your goal is strength. However, your client’s loads should increase over time, even if their goal is hypertrophy. This is not to imply that increasing load directly causes hypertrophy. Instead, muscle growth results from cumulative tension stimulus over time, and larger muscles are inherently stronger. Therefore, muscle growth should eventually lead to increased strength.

Avoid becoming overly fixated on strength, believing that adding weight to the bar is the sole factor that matters or causes hypertrophy. In reality, increased strength indicates that you provide an adequate overload for hypertrophy. To grow muscles, you must not only apply tension stimulus (performing at an adequate RPE) but also ensure you have provided enough tension (volume; the number of sets).

If you notice strength gains in most programmed exercises, it is a positive sign that sufficient overload is provided.

As your clients advance in their lifting journey, it’s crucial to recognize the difference between progress and progressive overload. Progressive overload focuses on the consistent increase in training stimulus, while progress represents the actual improvements in strength, size, and performance. Monitoring both aspects and adapting your training plan accordingly to results is essential to ensure ongoing success.

How Fast Can We Expect Strength Gains?

In “Practical Programming for Strength Training,” the authors propose that novices can improve their performance from workout to workout, intermediates from week to week, and advanced trainees from month to month. While this classification is not definitive, it is a useful guideline to understand how progress slows as we continue to develop. For instance, elite natural bodybuilders may only add 1 lb of lean body mass each competitive year. In comparison, top-level powerlifters might add 15-30 lbs to their three-lift total from one season to the next. Olympic lifters at the highest level may only count 18-24 lbs to their two-lift total within a four-year Olympic cycle.

Our approach to progression should vary depending on the lifter’s experience level. But before diving into overload strategies, let’s discuss fatigue management through deloads.

Deloads, Unloads, and more

The previous section shows that gradually increasing training intensity and volume is essential for strength and muscle mass gains. However, this cannot continue indefinitely, as residual fatigue will eventually hinder performance and affect fitness. That’s why athletes and coaches across disciplines incorporate periods of reduced overload, rest weeks, or other fatigue mitigation strategies, often called deloads.

Deloads are periods (typically a week) with reduced training volume compared to moderate or hard weeks and possibly lower intensity. They are informed by research on training tapers and help optimize progress for several reasons:

Deloads reduce fatigue, allowing improved performance. As the Fitness-Fatigue Model suggests, accumulated fatigue can prevent us from lifting heavier weights or performing more reps, which are necessary for further training adaptations.
Deloads may reduce the risk of injury. Training affects the entire body, including bones and connective tissues. Accumulated fatigue increases the risk of pain and injury, which deloads help prevent by allowing the body’s connective tissues to recover.
Deloads provide mental recovery after demanding training blocks.

Introductory Cycles

Intro cycles are similar to deloads but are placed at the beginning rather than the end of a block to acclimate your client to a new level of fatigue. Jumping straight into significantly higher volume and intensity can cause excessive muscle damage and soreness. An intro week, where they perform 75% of the planned volume at a slightly lower RPE, can help ease this transition.

Deloads are helpful after a volume block transitions into an intensity block. At the same time, an intro week can be beneficial when moving from an intensity block to a volume block. The main difference is their purpose and structure based on what’s coming versus what has already been done.

For example:

Volume Block > Deload > Intensity Block

Intensity Block > Intro Week > Volume Block

By strategically implementing deloads and intro weeks, you can better manage fatigue, reduce the risk of injury, and optimize your client’s progress throughout their training journey.

Incorporating Deloads

It’s essential to understand that deloads should not be seen as separate from regular training but should be integrated into a periodized plan. Low-stress training periods should be incorporated into all training plans, with the approach differing based on training age.

For novices, managing fatigue can be a simple approach. When progression involves simple, linear increases in load, a deload can be as straightforward as reducing the load by 10% the next time the exercise is performed.

Adopting a traditional taper approach—reducing volume while maintaining intensity—becomes more suitable as one becomes more trained.

Deloads for Novices: As novices increase the intensity from session to session, progress will eventually stall. If they cannot complete the target sets, reps, and load for two consecutive sessions, reduce the intensity by 10% while maintaining the same reps and sets. The 10% lighter load will feel more manageable and allow for recovery. Then, in the next session, return to the pre-deload load and resume progression.

Deloads Beyond the Novice Stage: For non-novice lifters, a more systematic approach to training is needed to achieve progress. Training weeks with varying stress levels will require integrating deloads into periodization to manage stress while progressing. Deloads can serve as low-stress training weeks in a plan with high, medium, and low-stress microcycles.

A good rule of thumb for a deload week is to reduce the normal training volume by roughly half while maintaining similar intensity. You can achieve this by dropping a set or two from each exercise and decreasing the rep range or target by two repetitions.

Understanding how to integrate deloads into training progression requires knowledge of setting up training progressions. Incorporating these concepts, let’s examine sample progressions for novice, intermediate, and advanced trainees.

Progressing as a Novice Trainee: Novice trainees can improve their lifting stats quickly due to substantial room for progress. Start with a simple program focusing on compound exercises to train the whole body efficiently. For barbell exercises, begin with a weight that allows for proper form, then add 2,5 kg (ca. 5 lb) each training session. Consider adding 5 kg (ca. 10 lb) each time for heavy compound exercises like squats and deadlifts.

When progress slows down, and it’s impossible to make 2,5 kg (ca. 5 lb) increases every session, use microplates 0,5 kg (1 lb) to continue increasing the weight, or increase the weight every other session if microplates are unavailable.

The following points should be considered during progression:

Load is increased linearly using the same rep range, known as single progression or linear progression.
When the target repetitions cannot be completed, maintain the load for the next session and attempt the repetition targets again.
If you fail to achieve target reps or load in two consecutive workouts, reduce the load by 10%. In the next workout, return to the weight you couldn’t complete the target repetitions and try again.

In the case that your client’s progress stalls on multiple movements despite implementing deloads and the client does not return to progress, it can be an indication for changing the progression pattern to an intermediate trainee.

Progressing as an Intermediate Trainee: Intermediate trainees, who have likely been lifting intelligently for 6 months to 2 years, can no longer progress consistently on a session-to-session basis. For compound movements, they should adopt “linear periodization,” where intensity increases as volume decreases. This approach involves a 4-week cycle with the potential for a deload on the 4th week. As a result, load, reps, and volume will fluctuate, but the load should increase over time. This linear periodization can be applied to various rep ranges and results in ‘wave loading,’ where the same pattern repeatedly occurs with load increases over time.

Isolation exercises require a different approach, as expecting significant load increases is unrealistic. For these exercises, use the “double progression” method, which focuses on adding reps before increasing the load. The first variable is repetitions, and the second variable (load) only increases once the first has progressed. Choose a target rep range, such as 3×12-15, and work towards the goal of 3×15, increasing reps each week. After achieving the target, increase the load and work back towards the goal.

In some cases, widening the rep range may be necessary to accommodate load progression, especially when the absolute load on an isolation movement is low. This progression pattern can also be applied to movements that require larger jumps in weight, such as dumbbell compound exercises for smaller individuals.

By using linear periodization for compound movements and double progression for isolation exercises, intermediate trainees can continue progressing and adapting to their training. Keep in mind that the ability to add reps with the same load is an increase in strength and an indicator of progress.

Progressing as an Advanced Trainee: Advanced trainees have gained 80-90% of their genetic potential in strength and/or hypertrophy and are seeking the remaining 10-20%. They have trained intelligently for more than two years and progress at a slower rate. An advanced lifter’s level is determined by their personal genetic potential, not their performance compared to others.

As an advanced lifter, progress is hard-fought and slow and may not be apparent weekly or month-to-month. Therefore, plan your training and measure progress periodically. There are several methods to track progress:

Compare 1-rep max (1RM) performances.
Perform as many reps as possible (AMRAP) with a given weight, also known as completing a repetition maximum (RM). Estimate 1RM from an AMRAP/RM and compare it to previous tests.
Compare performances when programming load via RPE to see if strength trends upwards during a block. For example, program a single rep at a 7 RPE before doing the rest of the working sets.

To estimate 1RM from AMRAPs and RPE-based performances, use ~5RM or heavier for accuracy. You can calculate an estimated 1RM from that performance. However, don’t use higher-rep performances to estimate 1RM; it will be inaccurate and lead to inappropriate load prescription. Instead, suppose loads are progressing in higher-rep performances. In that case, it indicates progressive overload is occurring, which is useful for bodybuilders or strength athletes in volume blocks.

8.12.4 Exercise selection

The significance of exercise selection differs according to one’s goals. For strength athletes, it is vital as their performance is directly linked to specific movements. The focus should be on balancing training between competition and assistance lifts. For hypertrophy, a variety of exercises can stimulate growth. Still, individual biomechanics play a role in selecting the most effective exercises. Physique-sport competitors must consider their body’s lever lengths and modify exercises to address weak points.

Training a particular movement improves skill, muscle group development, and strength expression in that movement. Therefore, specificity is essential for strength gains in specific movements. Movement specificity applies to both exercise type and intensity. For example, developing skills and the ability to lift heavy loads in competition lifts are crucial for powerlifting.

Unfamiliar movements are less effective in inducing hypertrophy. Studies show that initial strength gains in new, complex exercises are primarily due to neuromuscular adaptations. Once movement skill is developed, progressive overload can be applied more efficiently for hypertrophy. Becoming an expert in chosen movements is important for muscle growth, making constant exercise rotation counterproductive.

However, a degree of variety is essential for both strength and hypertrophy. For strength athletes, 50-75% of the training volume should come from the specific movements they aim to improve. A study comparing resistance training with different exercise selections found that a group performing a variety of exercises made more strength gains than a group focusing only on one exercise. This suggests that accessory work with other movements can ensure balanced growth and address potential weak links in muscle groups.

The study also found that hypertrophy levels were the same for both groups. Still, more uniform growth occurred in the group performing multiple exercises. While specific movements cannot “shape” muscles or target specific regions, muscles are often categorized, and different compartments are activated based on joint position and angle (like the Pectoralis Major and its clavicular and sternal proportion). Choosing 1-2 compounds and 1-3 isolation movements for each muscle group is recommended to maximize hypertrophy. Compound movements should remain static throughout the training phases. In contrast, isolation movements can be rotated more frequently due to their low complexity.

In summary, exercise selection plays a significant role in achieving strength and hypertrophy goals. Focusing on specific movements and balancing training between competition and assistance lifts is essential for strength athletes. Hypertrophy can be achieved through various exercises, but individual biomechanics should be considered to maximize effectiveness.

The Efficiency of Autoregulated Exercise Selection

A 2017 study compared trained lifters using a fixed set of exercises and loading zones to those who autoregulated their exercise selection for each session. The autoregulated group made greater upper-body strength gains and increased lean mass, suggesting that allowing trained lifters to choose their exercises leads to better results for hypertrophy. A reasonable approach for hypertrophy-focused individuals is to maintain the primary compound lifts throughout multiple mesocycles or a full macrocycle, while isolation movements can be rotated on a workout-to-workout or mesocycle-to-mesocycle basis. Strength athletes can apply this principle to all non-main lift movements.

Compound exercises enable training multiple muscles simultaneously, making them more efficient for both strength and hypertrophy. However, exclusive reliance on compound exercises may lead to uneven muscle growth. To achieve balanced development, include accessory and isolation exercises alongside main compound lifts.

When strength training, prioritize compound exercises that align with your goals, like the big three for powerlifters (Squat, Deadlift, and Bench Press). Accessory work should support the main lifts, addressing individual needs and weaknesses. For hypertrophy, beginners can focus on main compound lifts, while more advanced lifters should incorporate accessory work to address imbalances and ensure overall development.

“Weak points” can refer to strength deficiencies or a lack of muscle development. Isolation or assistance exercises can help address these issues. Structural weak points are often genetic and require targeted efforts to achieve a balanced physique. Sometimes, weak points arise from exercise performance issues, requiring modifications or variations to achieve uniform growth.

Proper form is crucial for balanced muscle development. Novices can benefit from expert instruction, ensuring effective muscle activation in compound exercises. The key takeaway is understanding the importance of exercise selection, specificity, variety, and individual biomechanics in achieving strength and hypertrophy goals. A balanced training program with a combination of compound, accessory, and isolation exercises can optimize results for both strength and hypertrophy-focused individuals.

Strength and exercise selection

A lifter may encounter a “weak link” in their performance. For instance, they might be able to lift more weight with straps than with chalk alone, indicating that grip strength is limiting their deadlift. Some argue that simply increasing the frequency or volume of deadlifts would improve grip strength. However, if deadlifts alone were the solution, the issue likely wouldn’t have arisen. While more deadlifts could improve grip strength, it might not be proportional to the potential strength of other muscle groups or the most time-efficient approach.

For a powerlifter, as an example, facing this challenge, a more direct way to strengthen their deadlift could involve targeted grip strength training. For example, they could perform partial deadlifts from the rack at a nearly locked-out position with a high percentage of their 1RM and hold the loaded barbell for a certain duration. Over time, they could gradually increase the load and duration until the grip strength deficiency is resolved. This is just one example of why a powerlifter might need to emphasize non-competition lifts.

Consider a powerlifter who, due to their limb and torso length, must perform squats with significant forward lean to keep the bar over their center of gravity. Like the previously mentioned bodybuilder, this powerlifter might not achieve optimal quad development from squats. If their lower body training primarily consists of low-bar squats and deadlifts, they may develop a strong posterior chain but relatively weak quads. In this case, incorporating front squats or leg presses to target quadriceps development could be beneficial. However, the powerlifter must continue to perform back squats frequently and with emphasis, as it is a competition lift requiring skill development. Adjusting the volume to avoid injury and emphasizing accessory training can allow the quads to contribute more effectively to the squat.

There are numerous other situations where a strength athlete might need to emphasize non-competition lifts. For example, if the high frequency and volume of bench presses cause elbow and shoulder pain, limiting the frequency and volume to avoid discomfort might be necessary. Instead of giving up or risking injury, the athlete could perform more volume with close-grip bench presses, military presses, or dumbbell presses to optimize results within their limitations.

Due to these individual differences and depending on the phase of the periodized plan, the volume dedicated to accessory work can range from 25 to 50% of the total training volume.

Weak Points in Movement

So far, we have discussed weak points primarily from a muscular perspective and considering limb lengths. However, some theories concentrate on the output, emphasizing weaknesses in certain parts of the movement itself.

In powerlifting circles, it is common to address a “sticking point” or region using various methods, such as pausing at or around these points, employing specific variations of the main lifts, or using variable or ‘accommodating resistance’ (e.g., bands and chains). Some of these approaches are valid, while others rely on flawed assumptions.

Pausing at a specific point in a lift can be effective if executed correctly. It may be used even with your general population clients. Then it becomes crucial that lower intensities are used to ensure a non-compromised form. For instance, if you “stick” at a certain point in a lift’s range of motion, should you pause there during training? While some argue that this allows for more force exertion at your weakest point, this reasoning doesn’t hold up for two reasons:

Pausing intentionally at a point in your range of motion means reducing force output at that point so that the bar stops moving. Training to exert less force at your sticking point isn’t ideal.
The visible part of the range of motion where the bar sticks occur after you can no longer generate enough force to maintain bar velocity. So, are you even pausing at your sticking point at all?

That said, pausing isn’t always useless or counterproductive. Slowing down a part of a lift increases awareness of your body’s position and the bar’s location relative to you. When done intentionally and prescribed logically, pauses can be beneficial.

For example, pausing below the knee on a deadlift might teach you to keep the bar close if it often drifts out in front of you. This method can help you develop better movement patterns by breaking the lift into more manageable “chunks” from a motor learning perspective.

There is merit in training to exert more force at a specific range of motion where you are weaker. While pausing in the middle of a dynamic repetition won’t address this deficiency, some approaches might help address such weak points.

Isometric training at the point in a range of motion where you are weak may be one potential way to get stronger at a sticking point. However, determining the exact point of weakness can be challenging without lab equipment or video analysis.

Sticking points in certain lifters can also be caused by predictable technical faults near maximum effort. For example, some lifters may execute squats perfectly at 90% of their 1RM and lower but perform “squat mornings” when going heavier. It is reasonable to use variations on the main lifts that “punish” these movement faults and “reward” when they are avoided.

Lastly, variable or accommodating resistance is often used to address sticking points. For example, adding chains or bands to a barbell changes the resistance curve of the movement. Although the latest meta-analytic data suggests there is no advantage in training with accommodating resistance compared to traditional resistance programs, it doesn’t mean it couldn’t help individuals with specific weaknesses near lockout.

In summary, a powerlifter or strength athlete might consider the following approaches to address weak points and sticking regions:

Pausing at certain points in a range of motion to improve motor learning but not necessarily at the sticking point.
Isometric training at a point where you have a force deficit (requires motion capture or lab equipment).
Using variations on the main lifts that force you to use a more efficient technique, avoiding technical errors that limit performance at maximal loads.
Explosive training improves the rate of force development before a sticking point, with or without accommodating resistance (not everyone responds to this type of training).

Remember to be intentional and logically informed when choosing variations on the main lifts. Sometimes the best way to improve a lift is to practice it more in competition form. Don’t confuse variation with randomization; be intentional in your approach.

It’s crucial to understand that sticking points don’t genuinely change. Instead, addressing them might be a more efficient way to target the weakest link in a movement’s chain, leading to faster strength gains. If this is the case for your clients, the sticking point will still occur, but they’ll be able to lift more weight despite it. As a lifter or coach, consider that there is some guesswork involved in implementing some of the options, and individuality plays a significant role in most cases. As often in training, a part of it will be down to trial and error.

“sticking point” is commonly understood as the position in a lift in which a disproportionately large increase in the difficulty to continue the lift is experienced.

Form and Its Importance

As mentioned earlier, maintaining proper form is crucial for engaging muscles uniformly in compound lifts like lat pulldowns. For bodybuilders, exercises are a means to an end aimed at achieving muscle growth. In contrast, strength athletes must perform specific exercises. Mastering the squat, bench press, and deadlift is vital for powerlifters to prevent injury and lift the heaviest loads possible.

Many bodybuilders emphasize the so-called ‘mind-muscle connection,’ which posits that effective training of a muscle group requires kinesthetic awareness during movement. While concentrating on a target muscle group can enhance activation, this effect diminishes when lifting heavy loads (80% IRM or higher) in compound exercises like the bench press. When loads are light enough to allow movement without the full engagement of all contributing muscle groups, emphasis can shift between muscle groups. However, when performing a compound lift with a heavy load, all muscle groups must contribute maximally to complete the movement.

Thus, for bodybuilders, focusing on the ‘mind-muscle connection’ during heavy compound lifts may not be helpful. Unless you have a specific issue, like back activation, simply performing compound lifts with heavy loads and the correct form will result in maximal muscle activation. If you couldn’t activate your muscles fully during a heavy compound lift, how would you lift the weight?

The ‘mind-muscle connection’ is real, but it seems to apply only to isolation exercises, developing proper technique, or addressing issues with engaging specific muscle groups.

Mind-muscle connection means to bring your attention to your body as you move. It means thinking about actively engaging the target muscle as you engage in movement.

Exercise Order

After choosing exercises, you need to consider their order. When you’re fresh, you can perform more volume with exercises done first in a session. Therefore, compound barbell exercises should generally be performed first since they’re more complex, fatiguing, and carry a higher injury risk while stimulating the most hypertrophy per repetition.

However, for bodybuilders with a glaring weak point not addressed by compound lifts, it may be advisable to perform an isolation exercise for that muscle group first. This strategy allows for additional volume to offset the weak point but should only be used if it doesn’t significantly hinder compound barbell exercise performance or risk injury.

Range of Motion

As the final part of this section, let’s discuss the ‘range of motion.’ The “Importance of Form” section didn’t cover this topic earlier. Some people have a dogmatic approach to the range of motion, believing that anything less than the maximal range indicates “poor form.” This perspective doesn’t account for individual differences in bone structure, soft tissue extensibility, and safe ranges of motion.

It’s important to advise people to train within their full range of motion. For instance, squatting until hamstrings and calves touch is excellent, provided it can be done while maintaining a neutral spine and flat feet. However, it’s not advisable if this position requires rounding the lower back.

Studies comparing the partial and full range of motion squats, biceps curls, and leg training have shown greater hypertrophy with the full range of motion, even though the partial range allows lifting heavier loads. Thus, while training within your full range of motion, try to gradually increase it through small increments and stretching, but not immediately before training.

Strength is specific, and this applies to the range of motion too. Partial squats only improve strength in partial squats, with poor transfer to full squats. Full squats, however, enhance strength in both full and partial variations. While targeting specific portions of a lift can be valuable, including full-range training is also essential to maintain specific strength.

Here’s a summary of the section on Exercise selection:

Specificity

Focus on the movements you want to improve in your program.
For hypertrophy goals, include compound barbell exercises for optimal results while ensuring proportional development with a mix of compound and isolation exercises. Bodybuilders should be versatile in their exercise execution without compromising proficiency.
Powerlifters or strength athletes should specialize in specific lifts while also considering the inclusion of non-specific exercises to address weak links or potential injury risks.

Efficiency

Prioritize compound movements for uniform muscular development and time efficiency. Add isolation exercises as needed to prevent weak points and ensure complete muscle group training.

Weak Points

Structural factors may necessitate an extra focus on specific muscle groups for bodybuilders.
Biomechanical factors like limb lengths may affect exercise choice for hypertrophy goals. For strength goals, athletes may need to master competition lifts despite their biomechanics and utilize assistance exercises better suited to their individual structure.
Proper form is crucial for effectively engaging all target muscle groups in a balanced manner.

Exercise Order

Generally, perform compound barbell exercises first to optimize performance. If a weak point muscle group can be trained without hindering compound lift performance, consider training it first to address the weakness.

8.12.5 Rest Periods

Rest periods between sets have been considered important for resistance training, particularly for hypertrophy. However, recent research questions the mechanisms behind short rest intervals and their impact on hypertrophy. This discussion explores rest periods, offering practical advice to maintain training quality and time efficiency.

Historically, the 8-12 repetition range was believed to be optimal for inducing hypertrophy due to post-exercise hormonal “spikes.” This led to hypertrophy training recommendations involving compound movements, moderately-high repetitions, and short rest intervals. However, recent research has challenged this viewpoint, suggesting that the hormone response is not the primary cause of muscle growth.

Hormones do play a role in muscle growth, such as the impact of anabolic steroids on muscle growth and strength. However, temporary elevations in hormone levels after exercise are not as influential as once believed. Therefore, recommendations to restrict rest intervals to enhance hormonal response are no longer considered valid.

In addition to progressive tension overload, muscle damage, and metabolic fatigue are also thought to contribute to resistance training-induced hypertrophy. Both low and high-load training can be used for hypertrophy, with low-load, high-repetition training stressing the muscle’s ability to keep contracting. Restricting rest periods may enhance metabolic fatigue and induce hypertrophy. Still, it could also compromise progressive tension and volume, the primary driver of hypertrophy.

Using very short rest intervals can reduce the number of repetitions performed in subsequent sets, potentially sacrificing total volume for metabolic fatigue. While shorter rest intervals can induce overload, performing more repetitions with a heavier load is generally better for hypertrophy.

The impact of reduced rest intervals on muscle damage is inconsistent and varies among individuals. Moreover, it’s crucial to understand muscle damage’s role in hypertrophy. Muscle damage inevitably occurs to some extent during progressive resistance training, as muscle fibers are damaged and must regenerate during the completion of muscular work. With a higher volume of work, more muscle damage naturally occurs. However, it remains unclear whether muscle damage is causative, additive, or simply an unavoidable intrinsic process occurring alongside resistance training-induced hypertrophy.

It is widely acknowledged that noticeable muscle damage is not a prerequisite for muscle growth, implying that a training program designed to induce damage and subsequent soreness is not necessary for growth. In fact, muscle damage can decrease force production capacity, potentially lowering volume and intensity in future training sessions. Excessive muscle damage may even hinder hypertrophy. The key is not to avoid or intentionally induce damage but to understand that an appropriate amount of damage will occur naturally as you aim for progressive overload in your training.

In conclusion, if the rationale for reducing rest periods is to enhance hormonal response, metabolic fatigue, or muscle damage, it should be reconsidered. The potential negative effects of short rest periods on performance outweigh any potential benefits.

If the previous explanation of the flawed arguments for using short rest periods to boost muscle growth didn’t convince you, consider the overwhelming evidence:

De Souza found no significant difference in muscle cross-sectional area when comparing 2-minute rest intervals to as short as 30 seconds.
Ahtiainen’s 6-month study compared 2-minute to 5-minute rest periods with matched volume programs of varying intensities, finding no significant differences in muscle size.
Schoenfeld’s 2014 study with matched volumes in powerlifting and bodybuilding style splits found no significant difference in muscle thickness changes between the 3-minute rest periods for powerlifting and the 90-second rest periods for bodybuilding.
Our review on bodybuilding training stated that no study has yet found variations in rest periods between 1 to 5 minutes to alter the hypertrophic response.
In two systematic reviews by Grgic and colleagues, the first on strength and the second on hypertrophy, both concluded that while shorter rest intervals allowed for robust strength and hypertrophy responses, longer rest intervals appeared superior.
newest study (Rosa et at. 2023) reveals that the number of repetitions achieved during 4 sets of ~10RM lower body training to failure is significantly lower when utilizing 1-minute rest intervals as opposed to 2 to 3 minutes rest periods.

Most studies show either no difference or the superiority of longer rest periods for muscle growth.

Is there a place for reduced rest periods in training?

The answer is yes, using training modalities that save time without compromising stimulus, such as antagonist paired sets (APS).

APS involves performing a set of an exercise and then, instead of performing a second set of the same exercise after resting, executing a set of an exercise targeting the ‘antagonist’ muscle group of the first exercise. For example, a set of leg extensions followed by a set of leg curls. The term “supersets” is commonly used in the fitness community, but there is a distinction between supersets and APS. Supersets often involve exercises targeting the same muscle group, while APS targets opposing muscle groups in the second exercise.

Supersets that train the same muscle group emphasize metabolic fatigue and may hamper total volume. Conversely, APS may potentially enhance performance. For example, pairing the bench press with bench pull (or seal row) trains the pushing musculature during the bench press and the pulling musculature during the seal row, effectively resting the pushing musculature. This may produce an active recovery or potentiation effect that could improve performance when returning to the antagonist exercise. As the 2010 review on APS concluded, while the improved performance effect is not consistently demonstrated in research, structuring training in this manner can be a time-efficient method that doesn’t harm performance. Since the publication of that review, more studies have found performance-enhancing effects, and others have clarified that implementing this strategy might be counterproductive.

How to Effectively Implement Antagonist Paired Sets?

It’s important to note that although Antagonist Paired Sets (APS) may seem similar to supersets in practice, their underlying philosophy is quite different. APS aims to enhance muscular performance and volume rather than increase fatigue. However, when performing APS with compound upper body push and pull movements, you want to avoid cumulative fatigue that could affect performance, so resting between sets is still crucial. To do this, pair a push and a pull exercise, and complete each set within a 3-4 minute timeframe. This allows for one set on the pushing exercise, a rest period of about two minutes, and then one set on the pulling exercise. Since these compound exercises can induce significant total body fatigue, it’s recommended to auto-regulate your rest periods and proceed to the next set on the antagonist exercise when you feel ready.

There is less total body fatigue to consider for isolation exercises using APS, such as tricep extensions and bicep curls or leg curls with leg extensions. Research suggests that more repetitions can be performed when the rest period is about one minute between sets on opposing muscle groups. For example, do a set of leg extensions, rest for about a minute, and then perform a set of leg curls.

However, it’s important to recognize when this strategy could backfire. For example, one study found that performing squats with a three-minute rest interval while doing a set of bench presses and seal rows during the rest period decreased total repetitions performed on squats. This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts require full-body effort, generating local fatigue in multiple muscle groups and causing significant cardiovascular stress. Therefore, for these exercises, it’s better to rest between sets without engaging in any other activities.

Suppose you have an upper-body day that pairs horizontal push-and-pull, vertical push-and-pull, and tricep and bicep exercises. Programming this day with APS might look like this:

Using APS in this manner won’t negatively affect your performance and may even enhance it. It also reduces downtime spent on distractions, allowing you to finish your workout earlier while maintaining or increasing your total volume and load.

However, if you’re a bodybuilder with a leg day that includes squats, or a back day with deadlifts, using APS is not advised, as it could potentially compromise the performance of the main movement. Instead, rest as needed to give your best effort. Lastly, avoiding using APS during crowded gym hours when occupying two pieces of equipment would be inconsiderate or impossible.

Drop Sets and Rest-Pause Sets could be an alternative Intensity Techniques…

Drop sets and rest-pause sets are other methods to perform sets that can be effective depending on your goals. These intensity techniques often involve working past failure or being in a fatigued state.

Drop sets involve reaching failure with a given load, then reducing the load to continue the exercise. Although this approach saves time and keeps muscle recruitment high, it can be difficult to quantify and compare progress when using drop sets.

On the other hand, rest-pause sets involve training to failure, resting briefly, then continuing to perform reps to failure until reaching a target rep count. Rest-pause sets also save time and have been shown to promote strength and hypertrophy adaptations. However, like drop sets, they can present tracking challenges when comparing volume across different workouts or programs.

You might be wondering how to use rest-pause or drop sets properly. Eric Helms finds drop sets to be limiting in terms of overload quantification and tracking, making them a logistical challenge (as you need to track each drop). However, if you’re short on time and only have an accessory movement left that isn’t suited for maintaining form during rest-pause sets (e.g., imagine performing a 10RM on lateral raises and doing rest-pause sets of 2-5 reps, which would lead to significant form breakdown), drop sets can be useful.

In the future, you can compare your progress with previous drop-set performances. On the other hand, rest-pause sets offer more utility than drop sets because they can be executed as planned even when pressed for time. For example, if you have 3×8×225 lb planned, you can view it as 24 reps at 225 lb and complete it using rest-pause sets in a shorter time frame. The drawback is that you’ll be training to failure (which also applies to drop sets), potentially ingraining poor technique and increasing the risk of injury on compound main lifts. Therefore, it’s advisable to use rest-pause sets for accessory work where an injury is less likely, and fatigue from failure is minimized (especially in training on machines).

Reaching failure on compound lifts generally doesn’t yield long-term benefits. While the acute set might be more stimulating, fatigue can carry over into subsequent sessions, disrupting your training plan. For example, in one study, a group performing 3×10 to failure took an additional 24-48 hours to recover muscle damage and performance compared to a group doing 6×5 with the same load, even though volume and load were identical.

To sum it up, rest until you or your clients feel ready to perform optimally on the next set. If you’re prone to under-resting or need to be constantly active during training, consider timing your rest periods to ensure at least 1.5 minutes of rest between smaller muscle groups and 2.5 minutes between compound lifts when training with straight sets. For antagonist paired sets (APS) involving upper body push and pull exercises, rest for about 2 minutes between sets. For APS with isolation exercises, rest for approximately 1 minute. Drop sets can save time but require tracking and should only be compared with similar drop sets. Rest-pause sets are also time-efficient and can be applied in more situations without tracking confusion. However, drop and rest-pause sets generate more fatigue than traditional training. Use them for accessory movements, and be mindful of their placement in the microcycle to avoid fatigue carryover.

8.12.6 Tempo

We now arrive at the final and arguably least critical level of the Pyramid by Eric Helms. This topic is more complex, and focusing on training details rather than the foundation can lead many trainers and trainees astray. This often happens because the least important aspects can be the most confusing, resulting in frequent errors. Unfortunately, there are still many trainers who obsess over these details. However, this is a good thing. These confusions and obsessions have inspired researchers like Eric Helms to research and write books to help you understand priorities and provide guidance on where to focus.

Despite the complexity of the topic of tempo, always remember its importance in relation to the bigger picture. At this level, we’re discussing topics that, if overthought and executed incorrectly, may slow your clients down slightly. Unlike the first 3 or 4 tiers of the Pyramid, where you should invest effort in getting things right, at the highest levels of the Pyramid, the goal is to avoid mistakes.

In this final Pyramid tier, we’ll discuss tempo or the speed at which you lift. Tempo control has gained attention as it’s believed to play a crucial role in hypertrophy training. This is primarily due to the idea that ‘time under tension’ (TUT) is a key variable for maximizing muscle growth. We’ll explore the reasons behind tempo’s importance in hypertrophy training, evaluate the evidence, and provide recommendations.

Eccentric Muscle Actions

Eccentric muscle action refers to the lowering phase of lifts, which is relevant to strength and hypertrophy.

Typically, time under tension recommendations is not made for strength training due to the load-velocity relationship. As the load increases, it becomes harder to overcome its inertia, and movement slows down. In powerlifting, the best lifts that contribute the most to a lifter’s total are the slowest, as they are closest to the heaviest load the person can lift. A well-trained strength athlete can complete 1RM attempts at very slow speeds, a skill novices often lack.

For strength, the load determines the tempo. Most agree that when training for strength, you should control the load on the eccentric phase to achieve the best lifting position and attempt to accelerate the load (with good form) as quickly as possible on the concentric phase.

The focus on eccentric muscle actions in exercise science is one reason why a slower eccentric phase is commonly recommended for hypertrophy training. Helms refers to this as a ‘muscle action’ rather than a contraction because, as we know, the eccentric phase differs from the concentric phase, and it’s not an active contraction.

The muscle lengthens because the force produced is insufficient to resist the load, which can happen involuntarily due to excessive weight or voluntarily when controlling a load into position (e.g., placing a coffee cup down).

Understanding this distinction is important, as people often only consider movement in concentric terms. For instance, when you lift a coffee cup, the bicep shortens, and the load moves toward your mouth. When you lower it, the bicep controls the tension to lower it, which is the eccentric phase. In a squat, the eccentric portion occurs when lowering the bar (and yourself) into position, while the concentric phase is when you squat up. In a deadlift, you start with the concentric phase and then lower the bar in the eccentric phase.

Let’s discuss some key points about eccentrics:

Eccentric action is not active like a concentric contraction, requiring less energy.
You don’t need to overcome the load’s inertia – you’re just lowering it.
Eccentric action occurs as the muscle lengthens, generating force by “loading” the muscle structure (similar to pressing down on a stretched rubber band).

Due to these factors, you are significantly stronger eccentrically than concentrically.

Consider this: you can lower more weight in a squat than you can lift up.

That’s why people typically fail squats on the way up. Similarly, in bench presses, you lower the weight to your chest and often get stuck trying to lift it off the chest.

Since you are stronger eccentrically than concentrically, studies on eccentric-only training show that more volume can be performed (recall sets x reps x load).

You might be wondering how this relates to tempo and why you should care about eccentric-only training, especially since it’s challenging to implement for most exercises outside of a laboratory. The main reason eccentrics are considered a useful training modality for developing strength and hypertrophy in research is likely due to the ability to lift heavier weights, thereby producing more tension and volume (which relates to Tier 2 of the Pyramid – Volume, Intensity, and Frequency).

Unfortunately, some people who read exercise science texts or research and create content based on that may not fully understand the mechanism behind eccentric training or that lab findings don’t always directly translate to real training.

If you lack the equipment to load the eccentric portion heavier while making the concentric portion lighter (or eliminating it entirely), as done in many studies, how can you apply the effectiveness of eccentric training to free weights and machines?

One line of reasoning suggests that if the eccentric phase is so crucial, more time should be spent on it compared to the concentric phase. For example, lifting at a normal speed during the concentric phase and lowering slowly during the eccentric phase. The idea is that emphasizing the eccentric action will stimulate more growth. However, understanding the mechanism behind the effectiveness of eccentric training reveals that excessively slowing down the eccentric phase contradicts the benefits of eccentric training.

The load you can lift in the gym with a machine or free weight is limited by your concentric strength, the weakest link in the chain.
Conceptually, it doesn’t make much sense to perform excessively slow eccentric actions to achieve greater hypertrophy because:
The primary reason for doing eccentrics is to lift heavier.
In the gym, we can’t lift heavier than our concentric strength allows.
Our concentric strength will limit us.
Heavy loading, which makes eccentric training beneficial, won’t be utilized. (More on overloaded eccentrics later in this chapter).

We now understand that using slow tempos to accentuate the benefits of the eccentric portion of a lift is flawed. However, there are other reasons people argue that specific tempos or slower lifting are advantageous for hypertrophy. The most common reason is to achieve greater time under tension (TUT).

Magnitude of Tension = Force

In physics, force multiplied by time equals impulse. Impulse essentially combines the time spent under tension and the magnitude of that tension.

A fascinating study compared two groups performing squats with equated volumes but different intensities. One group did 3 sets of 12 with 70% of 1RM, while the other did 6 sets of 12 with 35% of 1RM to match the volume of the first group. Both groups lifted as quickly as possible with maximal intent to accelerate the bar (without leaving the ground).

In this study, the total time under tension for the training session was significantly higher in the 35% 1RM group, which makes sense as they completed 72 reps with 35% 1RM. In comparison, the 70% 1RM group did 36 reps. If we believed that only time under tension or volume was important, without considering the threshold where load becomes critical, we would likely conclude that the group with more repetitions and time under tension experienced a better stimulus. However, since we understand that both the magnitude of force and the time spent producing it are important, we know that we should be looking at impulse (force × time).

Interestingly, the total impulse was ~25% higher in the 70% 1RM group despite higher velocity, power (force × velocity), and time under tension in the 35% 1RM group. This demonstrates that sacrificing load to spend more time lifting it, when taken to extremes, can reduce the muscle’s total tension stimulus.

Now, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason to train using light loads with high velocity. If you want to increase power (which depends on velocity), that might make a lot of sense—especially for an athlete who only has to propel their body mass or a lightweight implement. But when it comes to muscle and strength development, we also need to consider the magnitude of tension. And remember, if we’re talking about producing muscle force and the time spent producing it, we’re discussing impulse, which is force multiplied by time—the area under the force curve.

Another interesting study on lifting tempo involved a group of lifters participating in two protocols. First, the lifters performed their max using a 2/0/2 tempo—two-second eccentric, no pause, and two-second concentric. This tempo is typical for most people using moderate to moderately-heavy loads without intentionally altering their lifting speed. Then, days later, the lifters tested their maxes again, but this time with a 4/0/2 tempo, slowing down the lowering speed to 4 seconds to emphasize the eccentric action.

After determining their 1RMs at these specific tempos, the lifters returned days later to perform as many reps as possible (AMRAP) with 75% of their 1RM, once using the 4/0/2 tempo and once using the 2/0/2 tempo. The results showed that the 4-second eccentric tempo resulted in a lower 1RM, as lifters got more fatigued from the slower tempo before pushing back up. This finding aligns with the idea that very slow tempos aren’t ideal for strength. However, the more intriguing finding was the effect the tempos had on volume during the AMRAPs, which is highly relevant for hypertrophy.

On the AMRAPs, the slower tempo group performed about one and a half repetitions less. However, the researchers measured the total work performed, considering total reps, bar load, and distance the bar travels. Interestingly, the total work was about 10% less in the slower group, likely because they lifted a lighter load. Thus, the slower tempo reduced volume by compromising load. Ironically, focusing on increasing total time under tension can decrease total volume and load.

It’s crucial not to prioritize minor aspects, like slowing the weight down, at the expense of big-ticket items like volume and intensity. Similar issues can arise with rest periods—if rest periods are too short for increasing fatigue, they can reduce the ability to use more volume and higher loads and generate greater muscle tension.

Suppose you slow the weight down so much that you have to reduce the load or complete fewer reps. In that case, you might produce less total impulse, which is probably the best way to think about hypertrophy stimulus from a physics perspective.

Despite logical arguments, you may still be skeptical. However, the evidence is overwhelming: traditional speed resistance training typically yields superior adaptations compared to slower speed lifting, which requires lower loads. A 2015 meta-analysis examining the effect of intentional repetition duration on hypertrophy found no effect on hypertrophy until repetitions lasted 10 seconds or longer. At that point, the extended duration negatively impacted muscle growth. In terms of strength development, one study found that training with maximal intent to accelerate the load during the concentric portion of the bench press resulted in almost double the strength gains compared to intentionally performing the concentric at half that speed.

There are exceptions to the rule, as always. It’s worth noting that there is evidence showing that deliberately slower tempos of heavy lifting (2-4 second concentric and eccentric phases with 60-85% 1RM) can help with tendon pain and rehab—although the evidence is a bit stronger for isometric and eccentric training. However, we are not training you to become injury specialists, and it’s not within the scope of this book to make recommendations about injury rehab. Instead, this information demonstrates that not all slow-tempo training is misguided.

While adjusting the duration of the eccentric phase may not be beneficial for hypertrophy or strength development, some may wonder if manipulating the load could be valuable.

If you’ve considered using a heavier load for the eccentric portion of a lift, you’re not alone. Research has explored this idea, as most individuals are 20-40% stronger eccentrically than concentrically. This strength difference is evident in gym-goers who can lower a higher weight on their own after reaching their maximum concentric capacity but cannot lift it back up again.

There is potential value in investigating supramaximal eccentric training. From a strength perspective, handling loads beyond your concentric maximum may lead to beneficial neuromuscular and architectural adaptations. In addition, from a hypertrophy standpoint, the muscles experience higher tension than during normal training.

However, there are challenges in implementing supramaximal eccentric training. Most free-weight exercises aren’t suitable for such training, and machines are generally the only solo option. Additionally, it’s difficult to measure performance consistently when using a spotter or self-spotting. Moreover, the current evidence is limited and not very promising at this stage.

A meta-analysis of 15 studies found no significant difference between traditional and supramaximal eccentric training for hypertrophy. Similarly, a meta-analysis of only 5 studies found no significant difference in strength. Therefore, supramaximal (above maximal load) eccentric training is not recommended until more promising research is published. In addition, it can be difficult to implement, dangerous with free weights, and likely to cause more soreness and damage than regular training.

To sum things up, here are some practical guidelines. The take-home message is simple:

Just lift weights.
Don’t intentionally slow down the lifting tempo unless you’re working with a beginner focusing on proper form.
Just use good form and lift.

It’s important to note that letting gravity handle the lowering portion of the lift isn’t a true eccentric action. You should be in control, especially when training for hypertrophy. For strength training, you may occasionally want less eccentric volume, but most of the time, control is crucial.

Control is important in strength training to get into the correct position for the concentric phase. For example, top-level powerlifters lower a squat in a controlled manner to ensure they are in the right position to squat it back up. Similarly, a controlled eccentric phase in the bench press can lead to a faster command from the referee.

In conclusion, the main debates over tempo relate to time under tension. While it is important, the magnitude of tension also matters. To maximize muscle growth, ensure that gravity isn’t doing the work during the eccentric phase, and try to accelerate the load forcefully during the concentric phase. Aim for a forceful concentric contraction and a controlled, but not unnecessarily slow, eccentric contraction.

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