3RD EDITION
THE MUSCLE
& STRENGTH
PYRAMID
TRAINING
ERIC HELMS, PHD, CSCS
ANDY MORGAN, BS
ANDREA VALDEZ, MS
Copyright © 2025 by Eric Helms, Andy Morgan, and Andrea Valdez
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise — without prior
written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
used in critical articles or reviews.
The information contained in this book is based on the authors’ research and
experience. It is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to
their health, particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention. The authors and publisher disclaim any liability
directly or indirectly from the use of the material presented herein.
For more information, contact: team@muscleandstrengthpyramids.com
Cover and illustration design by Anna Wilder / Musa
Editorial support by the team at MASS (Monthly Applications in Strength Sport)
ISBN: 9798274135962
First edition published 2015
Second edition published 2019
This third edition was published in 2025
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A project of this scale is never the work of just three people. First, a big
thank you to the MASS Research Review team for their editorial oversight.
Mike, Trex, and Lauren, your knowledge, scientific writing skills, and expertise as scientist-practitioners ensured we delivered the content in the most
accurate and understandable way possible.
We’d also like to thank the many researchers, practitioners, and coaches
whose work laid the foundation for these principles. Your dedication to evidence-based practice continues to advance the field.
A heartfelt thank you to our clients and readers, who consistently challenge
us with thoughtful questions, real-world applications, and valuable feedback
on previous editions. Your experiences have helped us refine and clarify the
concepts in this book, shaping this third edition into what it is today.
We are also grateful to our families and friends for their patience and encouragement through countless late nights, rewrites, and revisions. Without your
support, this book would not have been possible.
Finally, we’d like to acknowledge the worldwide lifting community — whether you are stepping under a barbell for the first time or competing on the
world stage, you inspire us to keep learning and sharing.
Eric, Andy, and Andrea
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WHAT’S NEW IN THE THIRD EDITION?
PREFACE
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By lead author Eric Helms.
Back in 2012, when I created the original Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid YouTube videos, I already knew I’d eventually need to build a similar
framework for training. Because the confusion in the fitness industry isn’t
limited to nutrition, it’s just as rampant in the world of resistance training.
In both training and nutrition, you’re flooded with content that emphasizes tactics over principles, isolated details over systems, and generalizations
without context. And while training offers more flexibility than nutrition, there
are countless ways to stimulate muscle growth and improve strength — that
very breadth makes it even harder to navigate. The sheer volume of options
can overwhelm even the most dedicated lifter.
That’s part of why it took me two full years after completing the Nutrition
Pyramid to figure out how to translate the same clarity and structure into the
training realm.
Throughout my work with 3D Muscle Journey, both through ongoing coaching and our one-off consultations, I kept seeing the same problem: most
people weren’t struggling due to a lack of effort or motivation. They were
struggling because they lacked a system. They didn’t understand how to organize their training, prioritize variables, or adapt their approach over time.
They’d ask questions like:
“Is 5/3/1 better than Sheiko?”
“What’s the best chest workout?”
Reasonable questions on the surface, but they often point to a deeper misunderstanding of how training actually works. You can’t answer those questions without asking more foundational ones first:
How much volume are you currently adapted to?
How does your current training load compare to the approach you plan
on taking?
Do you understand what actually stimulates muscle to grow?
Unfortunately, the content dominating the fitness space doesn’t help. You’ll
find video titles like “10 Exercises Every Bodybuilder Must Do” and reels
promising “The Best Routine for Massive Legs.” But rarely do they explain
how volume, intensity, exercise selection, and frequency all interact. There’s
little mention of the importance of progression, individualization, or longterm planning.
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Instead, programs are presented as static “things” you follow: pre-packaged
templates that supposedly work for everyone. What gets lost is that training is
a dynamic process. It’s not just about finding the perfect rep range or split; it’s
about understanding how the pieces fit together, how they evolve, and how
they need to be adjusted to suit your goals, your lifestyle, and your physiology.
To reach your full potential, you need more than a collection of exercises or
a spreadsheet with numbers. You need a big-picture understanding of why
training works and how to make it work for you. That’s where The Pyramid
comes in.
When I first started developing this framework, I kept returning to the same
expression: putting the cart before the horse. It’s a fitting analogy. People get
caught up in the fine details, debating exercise variations or weekly splits, before they’ve learned to structure a program or understand training principles.
Imagine trying to become a professional race car driver. You’ve spent months
researching courses, learning about aerodynamics, optimizing your engine, and
building the perfect pit crew. But you’ve never actually learned how to drive.
It sounds absurd, but people do the equivalent of this all the time with training.
So, I built The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid: a six-level framework
that organizes the essential components of resistance training by importance. Level 1, the foundation, is the most critical. As you move up through
Levels 2 to 6, the relative importance decreases. But all levels matter. To get
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THE MUSCLE & STRENGTH PYRAMID: TRAINING
the best results, you need to build from the bottom up, starting with the big
rocks before you worry about the pebbles.
This is the purpose of The Pyramid: to give you structure, clarity, and context, to help you focus on what matters most, in the order that matters most,
grounded in scientific evidence and real-world experience.
WHAT THIS BOOK IS NOT
Before we dive in, let me briefly explain what this book isn’t.
This isn’t a myth-busting manual. While we’ll challenge some popular misconceptions along the way, we won’t do so for entertainment or shock value.
Our goal is to show you what to do, not just what not to do.
We’ll focus on helping you build a training system that works — based on
principles, not hype; structure, not shortcuts.
Sound good?
Great. Let’s get started.
WHAT’S NEW IN THE THIRD EDITION?
The Muscle and Strength Pyramids are evolving, evidence-based frameworks.
As science progresses and our understanding deepens, our recommendations evolve with it. While the foundational order of The Pyramid levels remains the same — grounded in core training principles — many of the details within each level have been revised and refined based on new research,
coaching experience, and reader feedback.
Here’s a quick overview of what’s been updated since the second editions
were released in 2019.
LEVEL 1: ADHERENCE
In Level 1, Adherence, there is now a discussion focused on how your life
constraints, such as your schedule, current levels of motivation, your goals,
and your environment for recovery, are not static, and this will be the largest
factor that constrains and dictates what is the appropriate training dose — a
concept discussed in even more depth in Level 2. Further, there’s a more nuanced discussion of injury and pain based on the shifting paradigm of better
acknowledging the biopsychosocial model in pain and injury science, as well
as more specific, actionable guidance for lifters. Finally, there is updated
information on concurrent training research related to lifters who also play
sports or engage in other fitness activities, with specific guidance on managing any potential interference effects.
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LEVEL 2: VOLUME AND INTENSITY
In Level 2, “Volume, Intensity, and Frequency” is now just “Volume and Intensity,” as recent research indicates that the independent effect of Frequency is
minor or negligible, depending on whether your goal is strength or hypertrophy. Frequency is explained as a tool to better distribute the training dose (Volume and Intensity) via stress distribution and motor learning facilitation. There
is also a discussion of how to count weekly sets (volume) and sessions (frequency) for both strength and hypertrophy based on the exercise or muscle
group(s) in question. Additionally, there is a discussion of how the appropriate
training dose operates on a spectrum from what is minimally to maximally effective, considering the trade-off of higher doses producing less stimulus per
unit of training, the loss of time efficiency, increased risk for injury or burnout,
and a discussion of the “practical dose” being goal-dependent and dictated
by life constraints. Further, new research clarifies the interaction between load,
proximity to failure, and repetitions per set, allowing better guidance for when
you should train closer to, or further from, failure. Finally, there is a discussion
of how volume differentially impacts strength and hypertrophy.
LEVEL 3: PROGRESSION
This section now better explains the difference between progression and
progressive overload, and there is now a simplified discussion to better understand the core fundamental principles of periodization that apply to hypertrophy and strength training. This is translated into an updated framework that simplifies how to structure progression for both hypertrophy and
strength training, while ensuring proper overload and recovery.
LEVEL 4: EXERCISE SELECTION
We’ve included clearer criteria for selecting exercises that are likely more
effective for hypertrophy, as well as a more detailed discussion of specificity
for strength development. This section also expands on the role of range of
motion and execution in making your training more effective.
LEVEL 5: REST PERIODS
In Level 5, Rest Periods, there is more information on drop sets, rest pause
sets, different types of supersets, and time-saving strategies broadly.
LEVEL 6: TEMPO
While our core recommendations remain the same, we’ve expanded the section to include more specific advice on how and when to manipulate tempo
for both strength and hypertrophy.
V
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PROGRAM BUILDING:
Our sample programs and guidelines have been updated to better reflect the
changes in each level. We’ve made them simpler, more actionable, and easier
to adapt to your unique situation.
See:
muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/programs.
We hope you enjoy these new updates as much as we’ve enjoyed putting
them together.
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THE MUSCLE & STRENGTH PYRAMID: TRAINING
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
1. Prioritizing What Matters Most
2. Learning To Adjust
The Levels of The Pyramid
Level 1: Adherence
Level 2: Volume and Intensity
Level 3: Progression
Level 4: Exercise Selection
Level 5: Rest Periods
Level 6: Lifting Tempo
LEVEL 1. ADHERENCE
The Three Important Conditions for Training Adherence
Realistic: Is Your Training Schedule Sustainable and Practical?
Time Frame
Schedule
Enjoyable: Can You Train This Way for a Long Time?
Flexible: Do You Have Flexibility in Your Program to Accommodate the Unexpected?
Flexibility When Stress is High
Flexibility to Adjust Based on Energy Levels
Life Doesn’t Stop for Lifting
Sports, Outdoor, and Fitness Activities Outside of Lifting
Injury
Summary
References
LEVEL 2. VOLUME AND INTENSITY
Understanding the Evidence Pyramid
VOLUME
The Relationship Between Strength and Hypertrophy
1. Strength is a Product of Skill Acquisition, Neurological Adaptation, and Hypertrophy
2. Volume and Proximity to Failure are Important for Hypertrophy
When Do Sets “Count” for Strength and Hypertrophy?
Strength, Hypertrophy, and Volume: A Dose-Response Relationship — Up to a Point
More on Counting Volume
The Strength-Volume Dose-Response Relationship
The Hypertrophy-Volume Dose-Response Relationship
High-Volume Training in the Real World
Volume Recommendations
INTENSITY
Specificity
Measuring Intensity
Percentage of 1RM
RPE and RIR
Failure
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THE MUSCLE & STRENGTH PYRAMID: TRAINING
Intensity Considerations for Strength
1. Muscle Mass (and Other Structural Adaptations)
2. Neuromuscular Adaptations
3. Motor Patterns / Skill
The Relationship of Load and Proximity to Failure with Strength
Intensity Considerations for Hypertrophy
The Relationship of Load and Proximity to Failure with Hypertrophy
Intensity Recommendations
Frequency
How Frequency Can Impact Training
Skill Retention
Training Quality and Recovery
The Relationship of Frequency with Hypertrophy and Strength
Frequency Recommendations
Our Recommendations in Context
Volume and Intensity Interact
The Allure of Black-and-White Thinking
What the Data Can’t Tell You
References
LEVEL 3. PROGRESSION
Progressive Overload
Training Status
Does Volume Need to Increase with Training Status?
The Fitness-Fatigue Model
Overreaching and Overtraining Syndrome
The Biopsychosocial Model
Deloads, Tapers, and Introductory Cycles
What are Deloads?
Tapers
How to Deload
Introductory Cycles
Periodization
Where Periodization Came From and Why It’s So Complex
Periodization Versus Programming
Programming for Strength
Programming for Hypertrophy
Strength Progression System
Hypertrophy Progression System
Tracking Progress When Training For Hypertrophy
How to Identify and Break Plateaus
Changing Volume
Summary
References
LEVEL 4. EXERCISE SELECTION
Exercise Selection Principles for Strength
Movement Specificity
Specificity is More Than a Spectrum
Movement Variation
Efficient Use of Specificity
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Targeted Secondary Lifts
Exercise Selection Principles for Hypertrophy
Exercises Must Train the Target Muscle
Exercises Ideally Challenge the Muscle at Long Lengths
Exercises Must Be Feasible
Exercise Order
Summary
References
LEVEL 5. REST PERIODS
How Long Should You Rest Between Sets?
Rest Periods for Hypertrophy
Time-Saving Techniques
Antagonist-Paired Supersets and Peripheral Supersets
Drop Sets and Rest-Pause Sets
Rest Period Recommendations
References
LEVEL 6. LIFTING TEMPO
Eccentric Phase Duration
Supramaximal Eccentric Training
Concentric Phase Duration
Concentric-Eccentric Transition Phase Duration
Exercise Technique
Summary of Tempo Recommendations
References
GUIDE TO PROGRAM BUILDING
Step 1: Adherence
Frequency Splits for Powerlifting
Frequency Splits for Bodybuilding
Step 2: Volume, Intensity, Frequency
Determining Volume
Determining Frequency
Determining Intensity
Step 3: Progression
Implementing Rep Range Variation and Specialisation Phases
Implementing Autoregulated Double Progression and Phasic Approaches
When Progress Plateaus
Step 4: Exercise Selection
Steps 5 and 6: Rest Periods and Tempo
Warming Up
Does Stretching Have a Role?
Optimizing Your Warm-Up For Performance
Dual Athletes
Non-Competitive “Powerbuilders”
For the Physique Athlete Who Competes in Strength Sport
For the Strength Athlete Who Competes in Physique Sport
For the True Dual Athlete
References
FINAL WORDS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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1. PRIORITIZING WHAT MATTERS MOST
2. LEARNING TO ADJUST
THE LEVELS OF THE PYRAMID
INTRODUCTION
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This book is designed to help you build a strong, adaptable foundation for
long-term progress in the gym. In the pages ahead, you’ll find a step-by-step
guide to building an evidence-based, goal-oriented training plan, one that
supports both strength and hypertrophy while aligning with your lifestyle.
Before we dive into the six levels of the Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid, we’ll first cover the two core skills that will support every decision you
make throughout your lifting career: how to prioritize what matters most, and
how to adjust your training variables in response to life’s inevitable changes.
1. PRIORITIZING WHAT MATTERS MOST
Though it sounds so simple and obvious, this is where lifters often go wrong.
When you train, many different factors influence each other and cause the resultant adaptations of the body. The experiences of trainees in gyms around
the world for the last century, when combined with research over the last
several decades, enable us to establish a fairly clear order of importance as
to what will and won’t give you the most from your training efforts.
When you see seemingly conflicting advice — which exercises to do, how
heavy to go, how many sets to perform, whether to train to failure, lifting
explosively or slowly to ‘feel the burn,’ etc. — you must decide how important these factors are relative to your goals, and how they will affect other
aspects of your training. By looking at these variables through the lens of a
pyramid of importance, you’ll save yourself unnecessary confusion.
As the classic analogy goes, if you want to “fill your cup to the brim” when it
comes to your training potential, get your big rocks in place before you add
pebbles, and your pebbles in place before you add sand.
2 • INTRODUCTION
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2. LEARNING TO ADJUST
The second key to long-term progress is knowing how and when to make
adjustments. Training success isn’t just about following a good plan — it’s
about understanding how to tweak that plan over time without losing sight
of what matters most.
This requires critical thinking, not a rigid, black-and-white mindset. Unfortunately, most commercial training content leans into absolutes. You’ll see
questions like:
• Are squats the best exercise?
• Is the leg press inferior to the squat?
• Is 5x5 better than 3x8?
• Is more volume better?
• Is training twice a week enough?
• Will training every day cause me to overtrain?
The problem with these questions is that they ignore context. In this book,
we’ll encourage a different way of thinking, one that reflects how training
variables actually work in practice. Better questions to ask would be:
• What is unique about the barbell squat that makes it worthy of inclusion in a training program? What are the limitations?
• When is the leg press appropriate?
• What set and rep patterns are appropriate for what exercises, for
me, and when?
• What impact will adding more sets have on my recovery and results?
• What is the best way for me to split the appropriate training volume
over the training week?
This kind of thinking leads to better decisions and better results — not just
for a single program, but over the course of your entire lifting career.
THE LEVELS OF THE PYRAMID
The Pyramid is an organizational structure that places the priorities of training in a hierarchy. There are six levels in this pyramid. The most important
elements of your training program are at the bottom; notice that they have
the largest area. These elements build the foundation of your training.
INTRODUCTION • 3
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MUSCLE
STRENGTH
TRAINING
MUSCLE AND
AND STRENGTH
TRAINING
PYRAMIDPYRAMID
OPTIONAL ,
SMALLEST IMPACT,
LOWEST PRIORITY.
06
05
04
03
02
FOUNDATIONAL ,
L ARGEST IMPACT,
HIGHEST PRIORITY.
01
tempo
rest periods
exercise selection
progression
volume & intensity
adherence
It is likely that ~80% of your progress will be made by focusing on the bottom
four levels, and only the very small finishing touches by the last levels. Most
of the time, our discussion in the final levels will primarily focus on how not
to do something wrong.
Unlike The Nutrition Pyramid, the layers of The Training Pyramid are less
clear-cut because of how interdependent the variables of training are. However, this construct will help you achieve your goals in a more efficient manner and provide a deeper understanding of the principles in context. For
trainers, The Pyramid will help you develop better training plans for your
clients, and if you’re a student, it will take the theory you have learned and
put it into action.
LEVEL 1: ADHERENCE
Strength training is a long game. Meaningful results take time, consistency,
and a plan you can actually follow. Before you get lost in the technical details
of programming, remember this: even the most “optimal” plan won’t work if
you can’t stick to it.
4 • INTRODUCTION
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What looks great on paper is useless if it doesn’t fit your life. That’s why your
first priority should be building a plan around what you can do, not what you
wish you could do in a perfect world.
This chapter is about making your training sustainable. We’ll walk through
the factors that influence adherence and show you how to build a plan you
can maintain week after week, long enough to see real progress.
LEVEL 2: VOLUME AND INTENSITY
Volume and intensity are what form the foundation of programs. These variables make up the “dose” of the stimulus and are interrelated and inseparable. One affects the other and can do so in different contexts. Depending
on the way you look at it, either could be considered the most important.
For this reason, they are in the same layer. Their optimal combination varies
depending on your training age, goals, preferences, schedule, and stage of
your lifting career. Modifications to frequency can also make the same training dose more or less efficient.
This is the longest section and covers the most important concepts in this
book. Make sure to read through it carefully.
LEVEL 3: PROGRESSION
To keep getting bigger and stronger, you need to increase the training stimulus
gradually. This is called The Principle of Progressive Overload. Notably, with an
appropriate training dose, overload will occur, so this principle is primarily addressed in Level 2. If you are a novice or early-stage intermediate lifter, simply
setting up a training plan specific to your goals with an appropriate volume,
intensity, and frequency will produce gains without much additional thought
or effort. With an appropriate dose, simply selecting weights that challenge
you on a session-to-session or week-to-week basis, even with the same set
and repetition schemes within the week, will result in a gradual increase in
strength and size. However, at a certain stage of your development, a plan for
progression will become important to ensure continued progress.
This chapter covers detailed progression theory for both hypertrophy and
strength.
LEVEL 4: EXERCISE SELECTION
The importance of exercise selection varies depending on perspective. Exercise selection is critical for competitive strength athletes because their sport
performance is dictated by the expression of strength via specific competi-
INTRODUCTION • 5
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tion movements. Training these competition lifts, therefore, is a given. Thus,
a discussion on exercise selection for strength athletes centers on how much
time is spent training the competition lifts in relation to assistance lifts and
how assistance lifts are used to transfer to competition lift performance, directly or indirectly.
A wide variety of exercises can stimulate hypertrophy. That said, based on
the biomechanics of the specific movement and individual anthropometry
(the measurements and proportions of your body), some exercises may be
more or less suitable at different times, doses, and for different people. This
is also a relevant consideration for strength athletes. Even though a powerlifter must squat, if that specific powerlifter is not well built to squat, they
might be better off doing more assistance work compared to someone with
limb and torso lengths better suited to a high dose of squats. Physique athletes must also factor in their individual structure and goals. They need to
choose exercises that target specific muscle groups and allow them to focus
on areas that need more development. Their selections will often be shaped
by how well an exercise isolates the intended muscle, how it fits their body,
and how it contributes to improving symmetry or addressing weak points.
In a broad sense, exercise selection comes down to what you’re training for.
Are you trying to lift the most weight possible, or are you trying to build the
most muscle? Understanding the role each exercise plays in your plan, and
how well it matches your structure and goals, will help you get the most out
of your training.
LEVEL 5: REST PERIODS
The amount of rest you take between sets affects both the quality of your
training and how long your workouts last. While it might seem like a simple
detail, there’s still a lot of confusion about how much rest is ideal, especially
for hypertrophy. Part of this stems from older theories being passed around
long after research moved on.
In this chapter, we’ll break down the current evidence and give you practical guidelines for rest periods and also time-efficient techniques like doing supersets, rest-pauses, and drop sets. The goal is to help you maintain
the intended stimulus while also managing your time in the gym efficiently.
Whether you’re training for strength or muscle growth, understanding how
to use rest periods and time-efficient techniques effectively will make your
sessions more productive and better aligned with your goals.
6 • INTRODUCTION
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LEVEL 6: LIFTING TEMPO
Tempo is the speed at which you lift.
This topic is fraught with misunderstanding, sometimes overemphasized for
the sake of ‘time under tension’ without a true understanding of the impact
of tempo on tension.
In this chapter, we help you understand how manipulating tempo impacts
training outcomes and what aspects of tempo deserve your attention from
an applied perspective.
INTRODUCTION • 7
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8 • INTRODUCTION
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THE THREE IMPORTANT CONDITIONS
FOR TRAINING ADHERENCE
1
REALISTIC: IS YOUR TRAINING SCHEDULE
SUSTAINABLE AND PRACTICAL?
LEVEL
ENJOYABLE: CAN YOU TRAIN THIS WAY
FOR A LONG TIME?
FLEXIBLE: DO YOU HAVE FLEXIBILITY IN YOUR
PROGRAM TO ACCOMMODATE THE UNEXPECTED?
SUMMARY
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02
01
adherence
ADHERENCE
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Before losing yourself in the coming levels — the building blocks of what
goes into making a solid training plan — we want to remind you of something more fundamental to your success: a program can only succeed if you
stick to it.
This may seem obvious, but many people unintentionally set themselves up
for failure before they even start. This chapter is, therefore, a critical read to
ensure you don’t become one of those many people.
THE THREE IMPORTANT CONDITIONS
FOR TRAINING ADHERENCE
For any training program to be sustainable, it needs to meet three conditions:
It must be realistic.
It must be enjoyable.
It must be flexible.
These conditions are essential for achieving most goals, not just specific to
strength training.
However, many people give no thought to meeting these conditions (or even
discount them) because they expect training to be hard and that they will
need to use their iron will to grit it out. Indeed, training might sometimes be
those things, but this type of thinking misses the point. Training shouldn’t
be hard for hard’s sake. You will impress no one by setting up a program
you cannot sustain. We all want fast progress, but you will never realize your
potential until you commit to the long haul. Understanding this truth — that
consistent effort over time is the key to success — will help you make fewer
mistakes and reach your goals more efficiently.
Adopting this mindset requires self-restraint and self-awareness. Ironically,
shifting into a long-term perspective is probably harder than jumping feet
first into a brutal plan that requires sheer will and determination. There are
situations where will and determination alone will not cut it. Further, if a situation does require your will, you need to understand how that impacts other
aspects of your life. Those who do not adopt this perspective often struggle
to stick with lifting long-term and never reach their goals.
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REALISTIC: IS YOUR TRAINING SCHEDULE
SUSTAINABLE AND PRACTICAL?
When setting up your training, the first step is to ask whether it fits your life. There
are two key areas to consider: your overall time frame and your weekly schedule.
TIME FRAME
Bodybuilders and powerlifters with a specific competition date need a realistic plan based on the time frame leading up to their contest. If you have
eight weeks until a meet or 24 weeks until a bodybuilding show, you have to
design your training plan around this time frame.
Even for the recreational trainee, if your target is to look good on the beach next
summer, you need to start planning now how long you will be gaining, when you
should start your cut, and how your training should fit with these goals.
In short, you need to align the time frames you deal with in real life with the training approach you are considering. Though this may sound obvious, it’s something that people miss. Often, this occurs because the average lifter doesn’t
know how to design their own training program. So, they try to fit an 8-week
cookie-cutter program into their 6-week time frame and run into problems.
But you are different! You bought this book because you are tired of banging
your head against the wall. You want to learn how to program rather than mindlessly follow a cookie-cutter plan. Step one is choosing a realistic time frame.
SCHEDULE
Your weekly and daily availability matters just as much. Let’s say you decide
the most “optimal” routine is six days a week, two hours per session. But
you’re a parent with a demanding job and weekend family commitments.
That setup probably won’t last.
Instead, flip the process: begin with what you can do before thinking about
what you should do. If a five-day plan looks perfect on paper, but you can
only train four days a week, it’s not ideal for you. Let it go. Focus on making
the most of the time you do have.
Later in this book, we’ll show you how to get the most value from each session, especially if you’re short on time. You’ll learn how to make wise choices
that keep you moving forward without burning you out.
Always remember: long-term consistency beats short-term perfection. A slightly less-than-optimal plan you can
stick to will outperform the perfect plan you can’t.
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ENJOYABLE: CAN YOU TRAIN THIS
WAY FOR A LONG TIME?
Building your plan around your schedule and life demands is a great start.
But to make it stick, it also needs to be something you genuinely enjoy.
Why does enjoyment matter? Because if you love your training, you’ll naturally put more effort into it — even if the plan is technically less than optimal.
In the long run, that extra effort matters more than perfection on paper.
Think about the rise of CrossFit. Plenty of people who join CrossFit gyms
start making better progress than they have in years. Is it because the programming is magic? Probably not. It’s more likely that the community, structure, and energy keep them coming back and giving their all. For many, it’s
not a lack of programming knowledge holding them back; it’s the absence of
a training environment they enjoy.
So when you apply the principles in this book, make sure you’re shaping
them into something you actually want to do. You are not a robot. The more
you enjoy your training, the more consistent and productive you’ll be. And
the more progress you see, the more rewarding it becomes. This creates a
powerful cycle — enjoyment drives effort, effort drives results, and results
reinforce your desire to keep going.
REF Yourself:
Training
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1.1. REF YOURSELF:
TRAINING
BE REALISTIC,
ENJOYABLE,and
ANDFlexible
FLEXIBLE
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a
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ini
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u
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Enjoyment
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For some, whatever gets them the fastest progress and closer to their goals
is what they will love (many athletes are like that). For others, the intellectual
process and puzzle of figuring out what is likely most optimal is enjoyable in
and of itself. But if this doesn’t describe you, you need to pay just as much
heed to what you enjoy as to what produces progress. More so — and this
applies to everyone — focusing all your energy on achieving a goal rather
than the process can undermine your efforts.
Fishbach and Choi reported precisely this in their 2012 multi-experiment
study: “When thinking about goals undermines goal pursuit.” Their most
relevant experiment compared two groups who ran on a treadmill. One
group was instructed to focus on the end goal they wanted to attain by
running. In contrast, the other group was instructed to focus on the process
of running itself. Both groups were told to run as long as they wanted and
to predict how long they thought they would run. Surprisingly, the goal-focused group ran for a shorter period than the process-focused group, and
ran for a shorter time than they’d predicted. In contrast, the process-focused group exceeded their prediction [1]! The take-home is that you have
to learn to enjoy the process. A mindset of program design based purely on
what the most technically “optimal” way to reach your end goals is often
suboptimal in reality.
Returning to the earlier example of the busy parent, even if their training
program is enjoyable in the moment, if it causes family stress, poor sleep, or
mounting anxiety, that enjoyment will eventually fade. And so will the results.
We’ve met plenty of seasoned lifters who regret how they trained in their
early years. Many were convinced they had to hit the gym six days a week for
two hours a session. Now, they look back and realize they didn’t need to do
that to make great progress and could have enjoyed the journey much more
if they had done things differently.
The truth is, there’s plenty of flexibility in what “optimal” can look like. And
it’s not the same for everyone. In the next chapter, we’ll break down what the
latest research says about training dose, how individual differences affect
what’s ideal, and how to identify the minimum effective dose that still moves
you forward when life throws curveballs.
That’s why we’re not giving you a single “optimal” training plan to follow. It
doesn’t exist. And if someone tells you otherwise, be skeptical. Instead, we’ll
teach you the principles so you can build something that works for your
unique situation.
What looks best on paper won’t matter if you can’t sustain it. Aim for a plan
you enjoy — one that fits your life and helps you grow toward your goals.
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An Aside: Is There Any Such Thing as “Optimal”?
“Optimal” is more of a concept than a concrete destination. It’s something to aim for, not something we can ever define with certainty.
As scientists and coaches, we can compare interventions and uncover
patterns. We can say that approach A tends to produce better results
than approach B in a certain context. But we can’t say with absolute
certainty what is optimal, because there are too many variables, and
because science itself is a process. It evolves, inching us closer to better answers, but never handing us final ones.
There’s nothing wrong with striving for excellence. Wanting to train
smarter and push harder is a good thing. But constantly questioning
and second-guessing your approach in search of the elusive “perfect”
plan can become a trap. You’ll always be able to tell yourself, “I should
be progressing faster.” And if you let that mindset take hold, you become vulnerable to the kind of marketing that promises secret shortcuts or “revolutionary” training systems.
The truth is that progress occurs when you consistently apply sound
principles over time. Focus on what’s effective, sustainable, and tailored to your life. That’s far more powerful than chasing an ever-shifting definition of what’s “optimal.”
FLEXIBLE: DO YOU HAVE FLEXIBILITY
IN YOUR PROGRAM TO ACCOMMODATE
THE UNEXPECTED?
Flexibility isn’t just a nice feature of a training plan — it’s a necessity. It supports the other two pillars of adherence, making your plan both more realistic and more enjoyable.
If you plan to train for years, not just weeks, you’ll inevitably run into roadblocks. Work gets busy. Your kids get sick. You travel. You hit a rough patch
mentally. During these moments, what matters most is your ability to adapt,
not whether you can follow your plan perfectly.
Flexibility means knowing how to make changes without losing sight of the big
picture. It helps you avoid the all-or-nothing trap, where a single missed workout can spiral into skipping a whole week or ditching your plan altogether.
This kind of flexibility comes from understanding the principles behind your
training. When you know what matters most and why, you’ll feel confident
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making smart adjustments rather than feeling like you’ve failed. The upcoming chapters will help you develop this mindset, giving you the tools to stay
on track even when life throws you a curveball.
FLEXIBILITY WHEN STRESS IS HIGH
Training, dieting, poor sleep, work, relationships, and daily responsibilities all
act as stressors on the body. While many coaches — ourselves included —
would love to believe that progress is a simple equation of training plus nutrition, reality is more complex. Research shows that individuals experiencing higher levels of perceived negative stress during a training program tend
to adapt less effectively [2].
Some lifters try to control every possible variable that might affect their
progress. But at a certain point, that level of control becomes a stressor itself. No matter how well you plan, there will always be unpredictable events
that disrupt your routine. Work stress, conflict with colleagues, financial concerns, illness, family emergencies — all of these can interfere with your ability
to train and recover.
That’s why learning how to auto-regulate your training is so valuable. Developing structured flexibility allows you to adjust your training to match your
current recovery capacity, rather than trying to force progress through sheer
willpower. We’ll cover auto-regulation methods in detail later in the book, but
for now, the key idea is this: your plan needs room to bend so it doesn’t break.
FLEXIBILITY TO ADJUST BASED ON ENERGY LEVELS
So, how can you apply flexibility to your training in a practical way?
In one study, participants were split into two groups. Both performed the
same workouts over 12 weeks, with matched total volume. However, one
group followed a fixed schedule, doing the sessions in a set order. The other
group could choose between an easy, moderate, or hard session each day
based on how they felt. By the end of the study, both groups had completed
all their sessions, but the flexible group made greater strength gains [3].
In a follow-up study, trained lifters were again divided. One group followed
a structured weekly plan for strength, hypertrophy, and power training. The
other could choose which type of session to do based on how ready they felt
each week. The group that had autonomy over their session order stuck to
their programs more consistently [4].
The takeaway is simple. We know stress affects progress. And we now have
evidence that a flexible programming approach can lead to better results
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and improved adherence, much like flexible dieting often works better than
rigid dieting.
So, once you’ve built your training schedule, follow it when you can. But if
you feel drained on a particular day, consider swapping in the lightest session you had planned for the week instead of trying to force a hard day.
This is just one way to apply flexible training. You’ll learn more strategies as we
move through the book. The important thing is to start thinking beyond sets
and reps and begin looking at your training in the context of the bigger picture.
LIFE DOESN’T STOP FOR LIFTING
The importance of realism, flexibility, and adherence often doesn’t hit home
until real life throws a wrench in your plans. It’s only when people face personal challenges — travel, injury, illness, or unexpected schedule changes —
that these concepts become more than just ideas on a page.
Most of the time, the problem isn’t the situation itself. It’s how you respond
to it. Vacations, family events, work emergencies, or even picking up a recreational sport don’t automatically derail your progress. What tends to cause
issues is the stress, indecision, or overreaction that follows.
There’s a well-known military saying: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Obviously, this isn’t war, but the comparison works. Life will interfere
with your plans, no matter how well-thought-out they are.
Now, if you were a young, single, full-time athlete living at a performance
training center with no outside stressors, the ideal and the realistic would be
much closer together. But that’s not most people’s reality.
In our coaching experience, many lifters try to act like they’re in that ideal
scenario. They build plans that assume nothing will go wrong, and then when
something inevitably does, they’re thrown off course and struggle to adapt.
The truth is, life doesn’t stop for lifting. And when life happens, you need
to be ready to adjust without falling apart. In the next sections, we’ll walk
through some of the most common situations lifters face and how to deal
with them in a smart, grounded way.
“What happens if I miss a workout?”
This isn’t a situation in itself, but rather the most common outcome of all the
things that can disrupt your training schedule.
Fortunately, it’s one of the easiest problems to solve. In most cases, the best
approach is to simply pick up where you left off. If you usually train on Monday,
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out on Friday. Yes, we know your program might be scheduled down to the
day, but there’s nothing sacred about that structure. You’re not falling behind
in any meaningful way by finishing your plan a few days later than intended.
In fact, trying to cram multiple missed sessions into a shorter window — especially during a demanding phase — can backfire. Doubling up on intense
sessions increases fatigue and may compromise training quality or delay recovery, doing more harm than good.
The only exception is if you’re preparing for a competition. In that case, you’re
working toward a non-negotiable deadline, so pushing everything back may
not be feasible. Instead, you’ll need to either skip the session or reschedule
it to squeeze it in without compromising future sessions.
Skipping is often fine when the missed workout is low stress. If you missed
an accessory day, a technique-focused power day, or a session meant mostly
for active recovery, there’s little harm in letting it go. Those sessions help,
but they’re not critical. If you have an extra day later in the week, like Thursday or Sunday, you might consider doing the session then, especially since
it’s unlikely to interfere with your main workouts.
And even in cases where back-to-back hard sessions are unavoidable, it’s not the
end of the world. Several studies have shown that training three days in a row
can yield similar strength and hypertrophy gains to the same workouts spaced
with rest days in between. So while it’s not ideal, it’s not disastrous either [5–7].
Thus, if you have to occasionally do that, it’s unlikely to be a big deal. When
this does happen, however, simply be prepared not to be 100% when you
come in for the second session. Autoregulate your loads appropriately (something we’ll discuss in later chapters) so that the intended effort is where it
should be, rather than rigidly sticking to the load you had listed in your app
or spreadsheet. This will allow you to get through the volume without the
risk of setting yourself back from overdoing it.
SPORTS, OUTDOOR, AND FITNESS ACTIVITIES OUTSIDE OF LIFTING
It’s common for lifters to enjoy other physical pursuits, such as hiking, martial arts, recreational sports leagues, or teaching group fitness classes. But
most powerlifting and bodybuilding programs are written with the assumption that lifting is your only form of physical activity.
Strictly speaking, limiting activity outside of lifting might be ideal for maximizing strength or hypertrophy. But when you zoom out, being a well-rounded, happy person is a better kind of optimal. There’s strong evidence that
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being outdoors, connecting with others, and feeling part of a community can
reduce stress and boost mood [8–10]. These effects, when balanced well, can
easily outweigh the downsides of a little “non-optimal” activity.
Problems arise when you take both lifting and another sport equally seriously without adjusting either one. You can’t treat them as isolated efforts. Athletes in team sports already juggle multiple overlapping stressors: aerobic
and anaerobic conditioning, plyometrics, skill work, and strength training. To
handle it all, they use periodization. You’ll likely need to make similar compromises if you’re serious about lifting and also committed to another sport.
Later in this book, we’ll walk through how to manage competing in both physique and strength sports. But for now, if you’re mixing lifting with another
activity, it’s important to note that we think one needs to take priority.
For example, these days, almost all athletes do some lifting to enhance their
sports performance; however, they are doing just that — lifting to enhance their
sports performance. Their mindset is that lifting is an add-on to their sport and
serves to enhance their performance. Thus, avoiding high-risk exercises, staying
away from failure, finding the minimal volume and intensity necessary to improve
sports performance, and avoiding soreness are all of paramount importance.
A high-level dedicated soccer player shouldn’t try to find the optimal bodybuilding or powerlifting program to do in concert with their sports, as it
would violate this principle. Likewise, a dedicated competitive powerlifter or
bodybuilder who plays soccer recreationally shouldn’t find the optimal aerobic, anaerobic, and sport-specific conditioning program to pursue alongside
their competitive lifting pursuits.
If you’re on board with that mindset and you’re keeping your other activities at a manageable level, you may still wonder how best to organize your
schedule. Fortunately, there’s solid research on what’s called the interference effect — the idea that cardio or other endurance training might blunt
adaptations to strength training.
On a physiological level, the adaptations to endurance and strength training
can compete. Training your body to be efficient at producing low force over
a long time is not entirely compatible with training to produce high force
in short bursts. That said, the interference effect doesn’t mean you’ll lose
strength or size. It just means your progress might be a bit slower. Importantly, the evidence suggests that hypertrophy isn’t significantly affected,
but strength and power might be [11, 12].
Sometimes the issue isn’t the physiology — it’s fatigue and time. Long cardio
sessions or additional physical activity increase your total workload and recovery demands. Managing that properly is the key.
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The good news is that you can greatly reduce the interference effect with
smart planning. Research shows that doing cardio before lifting is more
problematic than doing it afterward. Separating cardio and lifting by at least
three hours is better, and putting them on different days is best of all [12, 13].
Lastly, modality and duration may matter. When possible (and if appropriate
for your goals), choose low-impact modalities with less of an eccentric component to minimize fatigue from joint stress and muscle damage, such as
using an elliptical, cycling, swimming, or rowing. Further, keep your sessions
to 20–30 minutes in most cases, using higher-intensity cardio. If shorter,
high-intensity sessions don’t mesh with your training schedule, try to keep
sessions under an hour [14].
INJURY
Unfortunately, serious resistance training can result in injury. Fortunately, the
risk is not that high, and we would argue that the health benefits of a life that
includes lifting far outweigh the negative effects of the injuries you might
sustain along the way.
But what are the risks?
In the table below, you can see the data we have on injuries per 1000 hours
among strength athletes. Fewer injuries occur during bodybuilding training
than in most non-contact team sports and endurance training, while powerlifting, weightlifting, and CrossFit (you heard me right, you hater) have injury
rates similar to those of these sports and endurance training.
TABLE 1.1. STRENGTH SPORT INJURY RATES,
AS REPORTED BY KEOGH AND WINWOOD [15] AND TUNG ET AL. [16]
Bodybuilding
0.24–1.0 injuries/1000 hours [15]
Powerlifting
1.0–4.4 injuries/1000 hours [16]
Weightlifting
2.4–3.3 injuries/1000 hours [16]
CrossFit
3.1 injuries/1000 hours [15]
Strongman
4.5–6.1 injuries/1000 hours [15]
Highland Games
7.5 injuries/1000 hours [15]
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In comparison to the strength-sport injury rates shown in the table, some
studies report injury rates of 8.5 to 11.1 per 1,000 hours in basketball [17]!
The reality is that if you train seriously, an injury is almost guaranteed to
happen at some point in your lifting career. But relative to most mainstream
sports, the risk is still lower. More importantly, when you consider the alternative, it becomes clear that this isn’t something to worry about. A sedentary lifestyle also carries a risk of injury, along with a host of other health
complications. So the real question is: what should you do when it happens?
First, let’s be clear — we are not physical therapists or medical doctors. (If Eric
were on a plane and a flight attendant asked, “Is there a doctor onboard?” he’d
raise his hand and yell, “Yes! What do you want to know about protein or RPE?”)
If you suffer a significant injury, you should see a physical therapist or sports
injury doctor, ideally someone with experience working with athletes, and
preferably, lifters. We’re always surprised when people post comments on
our Instagram accounts asking what to do about an injury. That’s not treating
the situation with the seriousness it deserves. We’re not injury specialists,
and even if we were, social media is not the place for diagnosis or treatment.
That said, not all injuries are serious. Aches, pains, strains, niggles, irritations,
and general stiffness are often just part of the serious lifter’s experience. When
these little gremlins show up, it’s important to avoid poor decisions that turn
something minor into something major requiring medical intervention.
Don’t try to push through pain if it’s persistent, intense, or shows red flags,
like pain that radiates, is accompanied by visible bruising, dizziness, nausea,
or other unusual symptoms.
At the same time, don’t catastrophize. I’ve seen people with a minor back
strain avoid the gym entirely for weeks, or folks with an upper-body issue
skip leg day. At 3DMJ, we’ve coached athletes through contest prep who experienced back issues during their diet. They replaced squats and deadlifts
with hip thrusts, leg extensions, and curls, and swapped most upper-body
free weight work for machines — and they still won shows!
It’s important to remember that pain is an experience, not a perfect indicator of injury or tissue damage. Your perception of pain can be shaped by
your emotional state, fatigue, past experiences, or even how well you slept
the night before. Take chronic lower back pain, for example — imaging often
doesn’t match up with how someone feels. Some people have disc damage
but no pain, while others are in pain with no clear mechanical cause [18].
Think of pain as a radar system with adjustable sensitivity — it can alert you
to something real, but it also throws false positives and negatives.
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So what’s the middle ground? If a certain exercise, load, range of motion, or
modality causes consistent, reproducible pain, see a specialist. A good physical therapist or sports doctor can help you modify the range of motion, lighten
the load, or swap in a similar movement that doesn’t hurt. For some exercises — especially single-joint ones — blood flow restriction (BFR) can be useful.
It lets you drop the load to as low as 20% of your 1RM while still providing
a solid hypertrophy stimulus (we’ll cover this in more detail later) [19].
These are reasonable options to try, but if you can’t work around the issue
easily, or if the pain lingers for more than a few weeks, it’s time to get professional help.
SUMMARY
To wrap up, keep the acronym REF in mind — realistic, enjoyable, and flexible. These three qualities are key to building a training plan that works not
just on paper, but in real life.
Applying these principles takes self-awareness and restraint. You’ll need to
check in with yourself regularly — REF yourself — to make sure your plan
continues to align with your circumstances and preferences.
We are not robots. The idea of “optimal” often doesn’t survive contact with
reality, and life stress is unavoidable. That’s why you must tailor your program to your life. It should reflect what you can stick to and what you enjoy,
and be flexible when things don’t go according to plan. Get this right, and
your odds of long-term success go way up.
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McNamara, J.M., Stearne, D.J. Flexible Nonlinear Periodization in a Beginner College
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Hunter, G.R. Changes in body composition, body build and performance associated
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Schumann M, Feuerbacher, J.F., Sünkeler, M., et al. Compatibility of Concurrent Aerobic
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Wilson, J.M., Marin, P.J., Rhea, M.R., Wilson, S.M., Loenneke, J.P., Anderson, J.C. Concurrent training: a meta-analysis examining interference of aerobic and resistance exercises. J Strength Cond Res, 2012. 26(8): p. 2293–307.
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Tung, M.J., Lantz, G.A., Lopes, A.D., Berglund, L. Injuries in weightlifting and powerlifting: an updated systematic review. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med, 2024. 10(4): p. e001884.
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Cumps, E., Verhagen, E., Meeusen, R. Prospective epidemiological study of basketball injuries during one competitive season: ankle sprains and overuse knee injuries.
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18.
Hall, A.M., Aubrey-Bassler, K., Thorne, B., Maher, C.G. Do not routinely offer imaging for
uncomplicated low back pain. BMJ, 2021. 12(372): p. n291.
19.
Hughes L., Paton, B., Rosenblatt, B., Gissane, C., Patterson, S.D. Blood flow restriction
training in clinical musculoskeletal rehabilitation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med, 2017. 51(13): p. 1003–11.
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24 • LEVEL 1. ADHERENCE
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2
VOLUME
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRENGTH
AND HYPERTROPHY
WHEN DO SETS “COUNT” FOR STRENGTH
AND HYPERTROPHY?
LEVEL
STRENGTH, HYPERTROPHY, AND VOLUME:
A DOSE- RESPONSE RELATIONSHIP — UP TO A POINT
VOLUME RECOMMENDATIONS
INTENSITY
SPECIFICITY
MEASURING INTENSITY
06
INTENSITY CONSIDERATIONS
FOR STRENGTH
INTENSITY CONSIDERATIONS
FOR HYPERTROPHY
05
INTENSITY RECOMMENDATIONS
04
FREQUENCY
HOW FREQUENCY
CAN IMPACT TRAINING
03
02
volume & intensity
FREQUENCY
RECOMMENDATIONS
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
IN CONTEXT
01
VOLUME
AND INTENSITY
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Volume and intensity are the primary drivers of adaptation. Together, they
determine your overall training dose. Frequency, while sometimes considered separately, is closely tied to both — it’s the primary tool for distributing that dose effectively.
Volume, intensity, and frequency form the foundation of training programs,
and they’re all interconnected. Each one affects the others in ways that vary
depending on context.
For example, training close to or to failure increases muscle damage (the
normal, easily repaired disruption to the fiber from high tension, especially
eccentric contraction). This delays recovery and can reduce the amount of
volume or frequency you can handle.
Lifting heavy loads makes each rep more stimulative, but also more fatiguing. And since you can only do a few reps with heavy loads, you’ll need
more sets to accumulate sufficient volume — especially for hypertrophy. This
makes sessions longer, more fatiguing, and again reduces how much total
work you can recover from.
Likewise, doing 16 sets for a muscle in one day instead of spreading them
across two sessions will reduce performance over time. You’ll either need to
lower the load or accept fewer reps per set as fatigue accumulates. That, in
turn, can limit how often you can train the muscle effectively.
Because volume, intensity, and frequency influence one another, they share
the same level of The Pyramid. The best combination of the three depends
on your experience level, goals, schedule, preferences, recovery capacity,
and individual response.
To create guidelines for these variables (and all guidance in this book),
we rely on another pyramid — the evidence pyramid [1]. While being “evidence-based” is trendy, it is a critical concept in sport science. A truly evidence-based practitioner makes decisions by considering a client’s needs,
abilities, values, preferences, actions, circumstances, and individual response,
with the best available scientific evidence, and then integrates that into their
practitioner experiences to make decisions [2]. Whether programming for
yourself or your clients, this process ensures the best chance of success.
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FIGURE
2.1.2.1.
EVIDENCE-BASED
LIFTING
FIGURE
EVIDENCE-BASEDPRACTICE
PRACTICE ININLIFTING
LI FTER ’S
BI OPSYCHOSOCI A L
S TAT E A ND CI R CU M STA N CES
LI FTER/
TR A I NER
BEST RELE VA N T
RESEA R CH
E VI DENCE
LI F T E R ’S
PREFERENCES
AN D AC T ION S
UNDERSTANDING THE EVIDENCE PYRAMID
But how do we determine what qualifies as the “best available scientific evidence”? This is where the evidence pyramid comes in.
FIGURE
OFSCIENTIFIC
SCIENTIFICEVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
FIGURE2.2.
2.2. HIERARCHY
HIERARCHY OF
ST
NGE
O
STR
METAANALYSES
&
SYSTEMATIC
REVIEWS
RANDOMIZED
CONTROLLED TRIALS
COHORT STUDIES
CASE-CONTROL STUDIES
CROSS SECTIONAL STUDIES
WE
ANIMAL TRIALS & IN VITRO STUDIES
AKE
ST
CASE REPORTS, OPINION PAPERS, AND LETTERS
IMAGE CREDIT: THELOGICOFSCIENCE.COM
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Unlike the foundation-based Muscle and Strength Pyramid, where elements
are stacked from the bottom up in order of importance, the evidence pyramid is a hierarchy of evidence quality, with the strongest forms of evidence
at the top.
As you move down The Pyramid, the strength of the evidence decreases,
but that doesn’t mean the lower tiers aren’t useful. Each level provides value,
especially when higher-tier evidence is lacking.
The top three levels of The Pyramid — randomized and randomized controlled trials, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses — allow researchers
to assess causation, not just correlation. Here’s how they differ:
• Non-randomized controlled trials: Use convenience samples (e.g., a single
team or gym cohort), which means potential systematic differences that
covary with a non-random sample or group assignment may skew results.
• Randomized controlled trials (RCTs): Randomly assign participants to
groups, helping isolate cause and effect. However, small sample sizes
(common in sport science) make results more prone to random variation,
the “noise” that muddies outcomes.
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of controlled trials: Sit at the
top because they statistically combine findings across multiple studies,
increasing confidence and helping detect real effects despite individual
study flaws.
We’ve already referenced a few examples, like meta-analyses on energy deficits and muscle retention, or the interference effect of cardio on strength. You’ll
see even more of this evidence in the chapters ahead, where we rely on these
summaries to draw conclusions about macro intake and dietary strategy.
That said, not every topic has a meta-analysis. When high-tier evidence is
lacking, we must move down the hierarchy and use what’s available:
• Observational studies: Track groups over time but lack control or comparison groups. They accurately catalogue what happened, but can’t isolate its cause, only able to suggest what might work (or that an approach
in aggregate worked), but not why or the exact causal factor.
• Case reports and expert opinion: Case reports or series are also observational studies, but in a small group or a single person. They have the
same limitations but offer useful examples of what worked in unique populations and often collect more data, as there are only a few study participants. Expert opinion is similar and, in sport science, is often based on
coaching experience. The quality of expert opinion varies by how detailed,
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extensive, and systematic the expert is in their real-world observations.
Even when highly detailed, we can’t know if the practices that led to an
outcome were optimal, only that they didn’t prevent success.
In short:
• Top-tier evidence tells us what works, why it works, and how confidently
we can act on it.
• Lower-tier evidence gives us ideas and insights, but must be interpreted
carefully and weighed alongside the broader context.
Observational data and expert opinion should be considered and integrated
into your understanding of a topic when higher-tier evidence doesn’t exist,
as you still must make decisions. By shifting down the hierarchy to observational research, case series, and expert opinion, you can make the best call
possible, but you need to understand the limits of this information: they can’t
determine causation. But, this evidence provides rigorous, valid documentation of what “worked” — i.e., a lifter or group of lifters changed their diet in
W, X, and Y ways and successfully achieved Z.
However, this evidence can’t tell you if W, X, and Y were necessary or the
best approach. In isolation, observational research and expert anecdotes can
only tell you that an approach did not prevent success, not that it caused
success. As practitioners and lifters, our job is to balance the best available
evidence with client preferences, goals, and individual needs.
This chapter outlines the most important principles outside of adherence.
To reflect its importance, we’ve based our guidance on the highest quality
research available, along with our own practical experience. We’ll walk you
through foundational concepts like the minimum effective dose (ED), the
maximum ED, and — most crucially — the practical ED: the amount of training that provides results without exceeding your ability to recover, given
your individual circumstances — which change over time.
Given this section’s importance, we’ll begin with a summary of our recommendations for volume, intensity, and frequency, then unpack the reasoning
behind each in detail.
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TABLE 2.1. VOLUME • INTENSITY • FREQUENCY —
SUMMARY OF STARTING RECOMMENDATIONS
Hypertrophy
Strength
Minimum ED2
4 sets/muscle/wk, increases w/training status.
1 set/lift/wk, increases w/training status.
Maximum ED3
~30 sets/muscle/wk
~5 sets/lift/wk (short-term)
Practical ED4
10–20 sets/muscle wk;
higher volume with specialization.
3–5 sets/lift/wk (short-term),
5–10 sets/muscle/wk (long-term).
Load
~4–30 RM (~30–90% 1RM)
1–8RM (~80+% 1RM)
RIR
4–0 RIR and failure per load/rep combination.
~7–0 RIR per load/rep combination.
VOLUME1
INTENSITY5
4–6RM: 4–0 RIR
6–8RM: 3 RIR to failure
8–12RM: 2 RIR to failure
Load not RIR dictates strength.
RIR is a function of load. Higher loads
allow fewer reps and are inherently
closer to failure.
>12RM: 1 RIR to failure
FREQUENCY6
≥1x/muscle/wk based on volume. If performing
>11 weekly sets per muscle group, increase
frequency so no session exceeds 11 fractional
sets per muscle group.
2–6x/lift/wk based on volume. Higher
frequency provides some benefit. Spread
sets over as many days as possible with
1–2 direct sets per main lift per session.
A s fractional sets. Hypertrophy: sets count as full sets for primary muscles, half for secondary. Strength: tested lift sets count as full sets, other
lifts training primary or secondary muscles as half.
2
Lowest volume to produce measurable gains in 2–3 months. For hypertrophy in trained lifters, requires low RIR (near or to failure). For strength
in trained lifters, requires high specificity (high load and on specific lift). Use if ideal training can’t occur. Produces progress in novice–intermediate, maintenance in intermediate–advanced.
3
Volume threshold when diminished returns reach a plateau.
4
A ppropriate range for real-world, long-term training. Individual differences and circumstances dictate where to fall in these ranges. Higher
volumes closer to maximum ED only advised for advanced lifters via specialization cycles. Long-term strength gains require hypertrophy; thus,
some hypertrophy volume in high efficiency range recommended.
5
High load effective for hypertrophy at high RIR, but sets must be ≥4 reps. RIR underestimation more likely at low loads.
6
H igh volume best distributed with high frequency for hypertrophy, and increased frequency offers benefits for strength by enhancing skill
practice and movement quality.
1
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VOLUME
Volume represents the work performed in training and shares a non-linear
relationship with adaptation (we’ll explore this in more detail soon). It can be
expressed as volume load (sets x reps x load) or simply as the number of sets.
Each method offers a different perspective. For instance, when you increase
reps while keeping sets and load constant, volume load rises substantially —
even though the number of sets stays the same.
FIGURE
2.3.2.3.
VOLUME
NUMBEROFOFSETS
SETS
FIGURE
VOLUMELOAD
LOAD VS.
VS. NUMBER
1RM
6RM
HEAVY
12RM
MODERATE
VOLU M E LOAD THE S AME, S ETS DIFF E R .
EXAMPLE:
7 SET S X 3 R EPS X 100 LBS = 2100 LB S
3 SET S X 10 R EPS X 70 LBS = 2100 LB S
30RM
LIGHT
S E TS THE S AM E , VO LU M E LOAD D I F F E R S.
E X AM PLE :
3 S E TS X 1 0 R E PS X 7 0 LB S = 2 1 0 0 LB S
3 S E TS X 3 0 R E PS X 4 0 LB S = 3 6 0 0 LB S
But this is where context matters.
Volume load comparisons can easily be misleading. Let’s compare two training setups using 100 and 140 lbs (or kg), assuming 100 is 50% of your onerep max (1RM) and 140 is 70%.
• 3 × 25 × 100 = 7500
• 3 × 10 × 140 = 4200
Despite both using three sets, the higher-rep protocol produces 78% more
total volume load. That sounds impressive, but what does it actually mean?
In terms of hypertrophy, not much. Research shows that sets of 8–12 reps to
failure (8–12RM) produce similar muscle growth as sets of 25–35RM, despite
the difference in total volume load [3]. For strength, the story is even clearer:
three sets of 2–4RM at heavier loads outperform three sets of 8–12RM, even
though the total volume load is lower [4].
Consider 3 × 25 × 100 — three sets of 25 reps with 100 lb (or kg), representing
50% of a one rep max (1RM) — compared to 3 × 10 × 140, which is 70% of 1RM.
The first session yields a volume load of 7,500; the second, 4,200. That’s a
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78% increase in volume load from the higher-rep work. But does that actually
mean anything? Would you get 78% more hypertrophy or strength? No.
There are other instances when volume load comparisons are misleading.
You might be able to do a set of 10 dumbbell curls with 20 kg (~45 lbs), but
200 kg (~440 lbs) on the leg press. Thus, a set of 10 on each produces 200
kg and 2000 kg of volume, respectively. Arguably, 10 reps with 20 kg on
curls is a more impressive lift than 10 reps with 200 kg on the leg press. Assuming you did 10 reps at the same proximity to failure in both cases, does
this comparison tell you anything? Not really.
Likewise, a world champion 47 kg female powerlifter might do 5 x 5 x 70 kg
in a moderately easy bench press session, accumulating a volume load of
1750 kg. A regional-level 120 kg male powerlifter might do 3 x 5 x 125 kg
in a moderately easy bench press session, accumulating a volume load of
1875 kg. That doesn’t mean he is a more advanced lifter or did more volume
in any meaningful way.
Ultimately, it’s only worthwhile tracking volume load within the same person,
within the same lift, and for similar rep ranges.
As opposed to volume load, set volume for a given exercise or muscle group
should only increase based on specific metrics, with careful consideration,
and not by large amounts. There will be times when you actually decrease
sets in your career. We’ll discuss this more in the progression chapter, but
as opposed to set volume, volume load should steadily progress over time.
As you get stronger — whether that’s your goal or just as a consequence of
hypertrophy increasing muscle force production — even if you keep reps and
sets the same, volume load increases as a product of sets x reps x load. In
conclusion, assuming other variables are held constant, volume load can be a
useful way to track progress over time within a specific lift. The appropriate
time frame for evaluating that progress depends on your training experience,
which is something we’ll discuss in the next chapter.
Outside of that narrow context, however, volume load isn’t particularly informative.
That’s why, in this book, we define volume using set count — specifically, the
number of sets performed within a given intensity range (based on load and
proximity to failure) — across exercises and individuals. The details and stipulations behind these guidelines are what we’ll cover next.
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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRENGTH
AND HYPERTROPHY
We’ll explore both points below in more detail in the Intensity section, but
here’s what you need to know for now:
1. STRENGTH IS A PRODUCT OF SKILL ACQUISITION,
NEUROLOGICAL ADAPTATION, AND HYPERTROPHY
Your strength is a function of multiple factors: muscle mass (and other structural changes within the muscle-tendon unit), neurological adaptations, and
your technical skill with a lift [5]. This means volume is important because
it determines not just the amount of work that you do, but also how much
practice you get.
Strength is specific to a movement [6] and rep range [3]. This means you
will generally get more transfer to the movement and loading zone you want
to improve by training with loads, rep ranges, and exercises similar to that
specific exercise, rep range, and load.
2. VOLUME AND PROXIMITY TO FAILURE ARE IMPORTANT FOR HYPERTROPHY
Muscle growth is primarily driven by how close your sets are to failure [7]
and how many hard sets you perform [8].
To grow muscle effectively, your sets need to be close enough to failure to
generate a sufficient stimulus. You also need to perform enough sets each
week to accumulate that stimulus over time.
WHEN DO SETS “COUNT” FOR STRENGTH
AND HYPERTROPHY?
A 2024 meta-analysis on volume indicates that performing more sets generally increases the rate of adaptation. This is true to a moderate degree
for strength and even more so for hypertrophy [8]. However, the benefit of
adding more sets follows a pattern of diminishing returns, which we’ll explain
shortly. Looking ahead to the intensity section, it’s also worth noting that the
rep range you can use to stimulate hypertrophy is quite broad. Many different approaches can be effective, provided the set is sufficiently challenging.
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A 2022 meta-analysis of 747 trained and untrained lifters examined the effect
of load on strength and hypertrophy [9]. The authors found that when training to failure, low (<60% of 1RM, or >15 RM), moderate (between 60% and
79% of 1RM, or 9–15 RM), and high (≥80% of 1RM, or ≤8 RM) load training produce similar hypertrophy. In other words, assuming everything else is equal,
training to failure with 3 x 6–8 produces similar muscle growth to 3 x 15–20.
The reason is that during a low-load, high-rep set, each rep generates less
tension individually. However, because you perform more reps and accumulate fatigue, more muscle fibers are recruited over the course of the set [10].
Thus, the net hypertrophy stimulus ends up similar to a high-load, lower-rep
set where each rep stimulates most, if not all, fibers, but doesn’t last as long.
However, there is a point where the load is too high, such that so few reps are
performed, the set does not last long enough to sufficiently stimulate growth
on equal footing as a higher rep set. Where is this threshold? It appears to be
~4–5 reps based on four studies [4, 11–13] comparing the effects of doing the
same number of heavy versus moderate-load sets on hypertrophy.
For example, Schoenfeld and colleagues observed greater hypertrophy in
some, but not all, muscles following training with 8–12RM compared to 2–4RM
[4]. Mangine and colleagues, on the other hand, observed relatively similar
hypertrophy comparing 10–12RM and 3–5RM in most, but not all, muscles
with a slight advantage for 3–5RM [11].
Collectively, these studies indicate ~4–5 is probably the fewest reps per set
you can do for it to fully “count” for hypertrophy (with appropriate proximity
to failure).
You might be thinking, “Hold on, the studies contradict each other, so which
is right?” The answer is both and neither! Remember, small-sample-size sport
science studies contain inherent variability or noise from outside factors.
That’s why single studies rarely give you the whole picture. It’s also why you
can often find studies with contradictory findings (that some cherry-pick to
promote their biases).
However, if you consider all the studies on a topic, the “signal” is typically
stronger than the noise, and patterns emerge. Again, this is precisely why
we rely on meta-analyses and systematic reviews whenever possible to draw
conclusions. In the specific case of the apparent discrepancy between Mangine and Schoenfeld’s results, digging into the study details and comparing
them with other research helps us understand the nuance.
Notably, the 10–12RM group in Mangine and colleagues’ study used one-minute rest intervals, while their 3–5RM group rested for three minutes. As we’ll
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discuss in Chapter 5, this might have been a bit too short and could have
compromised their gains somewhat, giving the 3–5RM group an edge.
Another study by Weiss and colleagues adds further clarity [12]. They compared quadriceps hypertrophy in their participants who were divided into
one of three groups that squatted three times per week for seven weeks, performing four sets of either 3–5, 13–15, or 23–25RM. Interestingly, there were
no significant or meaningful differences in hypertrophy between the three
groups. Finally, Cumming and colleagues [13] compared 3x3–5RM to 3x20–
25RM using a within-participant design (one leg was compared to the other).
This study design, along with the fact that the participants were trained individuals, is quite notable, as quadriceps muscle thickness increased similarly
in both the participants’ legs, with no statistically significant differences. This
reinforces the idea that ~4–5 reps or higher is probably the point at which a
heavy set lasts long enough to produce a similar hypertrophic stimulus to a
higher-rep, lower-load set.
We can conclude that for hypertrophy, sets must be reasonably close to failure and contain enough repetitions to “count.” How close to failure you must
get depends on factors we’ll discuss in the intensity section. As mentioned,
low-, moderate-, and high-load sets produce similar hypertrophy when all
else is equal. However, for strength, higher loads provide an advantage [9].
Unlike hypertrophy, the number of reps per set matters less for strength.
For example, 80% of 1RM might allow you to do ~6–10 reps, depending on
the exercise, while 90% may only allow 2–4 reps. Yet both sets, on average,
produce similar increases in 1RM. Why? Because each stimulates strength
through different but complementary mechanisms. A 90% 1RM set is more
specific to a 1RM effort, as it is heavier and produces more specific skill and
neuromuscular adaptations. In contrast, 80% 1RM is less specific, being lighter, it allows more total reps, contributing to movement practice and hypertrophy, which supports strength gains over time [14].
In the progression chapter and sample programs, you’ll learn how to manipulate variables in an organized fashion to maximize strength by targeting
these complementary mechanisms.
To summarize: volume for strength and hypertrophy can be quantified by
counting sets in a given intensity range. This range is broader for hypertrophy, narrower for strength, and always influenced by proximity to failure and
exercise selection.
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STRENGTH, HYPERTROPHY, AND VOLUME:
A DOSE-RESPONSE RELATIONSHIP —
UP TO A POINT
When collating the findings of dozens of studies on over 1000 participants
for hypertrophy and 2000 for strength, meta-analyses indicate that with all
else equal, strength and hypertrophy have a dose-response relationship with
volume [8]. As you do more volume, you gain more strength and hypertrophy.
However, this is not a linear relationship. The initial sets provide more return
on investment, and as you do more sets, your returns diminish, becoming increasingly less efficient. Eventually, you will make no further progress by adding sets. More
there is a point
where more
is detrimental.
FIGUREimportantly,
2.4. RELATIONSHIP
OF VOLUME
WITHvolume
CHANGES
IN 1RM AND MUSCLE SIZE
FIGURE 2.4. RELATIONSHIP OF VOLUME WITH CHANGES IN 1RM AND MUSCLE SIZE
A
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides very
high efficiency, practical issues very unlikely.
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides high
efficiency, practical issues unlikely.
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides
moderate efficiency, practical issues for some.
Beyond 5 sets additional volume unlikely to
improve strength in short term.
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN 1RM
50 −
25 −
0−
0
10
20
30
WEEKLY SETS
B
AGE CHANGE IN MUSCLE SIZE
20 −
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides high
efficiency, practical issues least likely.
10 −
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides
modest efficiency, practical issues for some.
36 • LEVEL 2. VOLUME AND INTENSITY
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides poor
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Beyond 30 sets data is unclear, growth likely
THE MUSCLE & STRENGTH PYRAMID: TRAINING
0
10
30
20
WEEKLY SETS
B
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN MUSCLE SIZE
20 −
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides high
efficiency, practical issues least likely.
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides
modest efficiency, practical issues for some.
Up to this volume per set stimulus provides poor
efficiency, practical issues for many.
Beyond 30 sets data is unclear, growth likely
plateaus, practical issues very likely.
10 −
0−
0
10
20
30
40
WEEKLY SETS
These volume-response graphs are recreated from these meta-analyses [8]
and illustrate the diminishing returns of training volume. The lines represent
the mathematically modeled relationships between weekly sets and changes
in hypertrophy and strength, based on data from all included study groups.
The shaded regions around the lines reflect the level of uncertainty — wider
bands indicate greater variability in the data.
Each plotted line is based on numerous data points from individual study
groups, which, due to natural variability (“noise”), scatter both above and
below the model. The tighter the data points cluster around the line, the
more confidence we have in the relationship shown.
Notice the shape of the curves differ for strength and hypertrophy. For
strength, the line rises sharply with initial increases in volume, plateauing early
with a consistently low uncertainty. In contrast, the hypertrophy curve increases quickly at first but less steeply than strength, then flattens more gradually
without a clear plateau. Uncertainty also increases steadily as volume rises.
If you don’t understand these graphs yet, don’t worry; we’ll walk you through
the strength and hypertrophy relationships in theoretical and practical terms
in the coming pages. We’ll also explain what the data can’t tell you.
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MORE ON COUNTING VOLUME
As discussed earlier, counting sets in a certain intensity range is a simple,
valid way to represent the stimulus a set provides for strength and hypertrophy. But there is more to determining what “counts” as a set.
For hypertrophy, consider that a bench press set trains your chest, anterior
deltoids, and triceps. Does that bench press set count as one set for each
muscle group equally? Or should it count as a full set for the primary movers — the chest and anterior deltoids — but not for the triceps? Or should the
triceps receive partial credit as a secondary muscle?
Fortunately, the researchers who conducted the meta-analysis on training
volume sought to determine this, and they found that a fractional approach
to counting sets represented the data best [8]. On average, counting sets of
an exercise as a full set for the primary muscles and half a set for the secondary muscles aligned most closely with observed results.
In studies of strength, outcomes are measured based on a specific test — e.g.,
a back squat 1RM. Similarly, the authors of this meta-analysis on volume [8]
found that counting sets using the tested exercise as full sets, and sets from
any other exercise, including the primary or secondary muscles trained in that
exercise as half sets, represented the data best. For example, only back squat
sets count as a full set for back squat 1RM strength gains, while deadlifts, leg
extensions, leg presses, lunges, or hack squats count as half sets.
We’ll use these fractional methods to count sets for strength and hypertrophy throughout the book.
THE STRENGTH-VOLUME DOSE-RESPONSE
RELATIONSHIP
Now that you know what you are looking at and what “a set” represents,
let’s discuss the dose-response relationships between strength-volume and
hypertrophy-volume, starting with strength.
While training volume does influence strength gains, the data indicate you
begin to “max out” the positive effects of doing more sets at relatively low
volumes. As we’ll discuss in the intensity section (and the next chapter),
specificity — represented by load and exercise selection — is the key factor
determining strength in the short- to moderate-term.
In the meta-analysis, the authors reported that just one weekly set was the
minimum effective dose (minimum ED) for producing measurable gains in
strength. Adding a second set approximately doubled the rate of strength
gains, making the first two sets the most stimulative and efficient with the
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highest return on investment — represented by the green dot. To achieve a
similar rate of improvement again, you’d need to roughly double your volume to 3–4 sets, indicating the first drop in efficiency, marked by the yellow
dot. Finally, approximately your fifth weekly set, indicated by the orange dot,
is where the clear beneficial effects of increased volume ended on average,
as rates of strength gain plateau with additional sets.
You might find this hard to believe, as anecdotally, strength athletes train
with higher volume than this. But it’s important to understand that studies,
especially meta-analyses, are primarily descriptive and not directly prescriptive. Being evidence-based means understanding the limitations of research
and the nuances of how they may apply in real-world settings.
Keep in mind that most studies typically last only two to three months. In
this specific meta-analysis, the average study duration was ~10 weeks [8].
Further, strength gains are due to neuromuscular adaptation, skill acquisition, and hypertrophy. These adaptations occur over different time courses.
Hypertrophy occurs at the slowest rate and slows further with increased
training experience [9].
It’s also worth noting that this was a meta-analysis of studies on both trained
and untrained participants. And, critically, the higher volume studies tended
to include fewer direct sets and more indirect ones. Meaning, the lower volume studies included in this meta-analysis were more specific, with a greater proportion of sets coming from the same exercise that was used to test
strength (i.e., if bench press 1RM was tested, more low volume studies consisted mostly of bench press training, while more high volume studies consisted of some bench press training, but more indirect sets for bench press,
like triceps pushdowns and shoulder press). Collectively, this could mean that
the diminishing returns observed in this meta-analysis of volume on strength
might be a bit exaggerated, especially in the context of trained lifters.
With that said, several studies indicate that even trained powerlifters make
meaningful 1RM increases for ~6–12 weeks, doing just ~3–6 weekly heavy sets
of 1–5 reps per lift [15, 16], demonstrating the power of specificity. Heavy competition lifts are very specific to 1RM strength: they’re literally the sport-specific skills of powerlifting. However, it is also important to consider the time
course of these studies, as some research indicates that powerlifters’ 1RM may
plateau after a couple of months of using the low end of this volume range
(1–3 weekly heavy sets) [15]. Furthermore, in a long-term study tracking nearly 15,000 recreationally trained lifters who performed just one weekly set to
failure per exercise for nearly 7 years, strength plateaued within 1–2 years [17].
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So while low volumes can meaningfully increase strength early in your career
in the short- to moderate-term, higher volumes may be needed to move past
this phase. Again, not only did the studies in the present meta-analysis last
just ~10 weeks on average, but ~40% of them were on untrained lifters [8].
Therefore, higher volumes may be more important in trained lifters for periods
longer than 2–3 months. Finally, you must consider how much of your volume
consists of more specific training, as well as the relationship between volume
and hypertrophy for long-term strength gains. With training experience, longterm gains in strength are increasingly influenced by hypertrophy [14].
THE HYPERTROPHY-VOLUME DOSE-RESPONSE
RELATIONSHIP
Just like with strength, volume plays a key role in hypertrophy, and this relationship also follows a curve of diminishing returns. However, unlike strength,
the plateau for hypertrophy occurs at much higher volumes.
In this same meta-analysis, while one set was the minimum ED for strength,
it took approximately four weekly sets to produce detectable hypertrophy
[8]. This doesn’t mean untrained lifters don’t grow from 1–3 sets; they do (remember, this meta-analysis includes untrained and trained lifters). However, to
reliably measure muscle growth in ~10 weeks requires closer to 4 weekly sets.
Why? Because relative increases in 1RM strength are larger than muscle size.
For example, in a study of nearly 600 untrained men and women, increases
in biceps curl 1RM were ~54% on average after 12 weeks, while increases in biceps cross-sectional area were ~19% [18]. Simply put, the changes in strength
are larger and easier to detect. Thus, on average, four weekly sets produced
the minimal detectable change of ~2% in muscle size. However, achieving another 2% increase, 4% in total, required 10 sets on average. Thus, to double
the rate of initial hypertrophy, you must more than double volume: a 150%
increase in volume to get a 100% increase in the rate of hypertrophy. While
this is a loss of efficiency, practically, four sets is a very low volume, and 10
sets also isn’t that high. Thus, 10 sets, represented by the green dot, is the
end of the set range where you get a good return on investment.
From here, efficiency worsens. To push hypertrophy from 4% to 6%, you
need ~18–19 weekly sets — nearly double the volume again, for just a 50%
increase in gains (yellow dot). Practically, this becomes an issue. The time
commitment makes it a non-starter for many. Consider you must do three
sets of squats, lunges, leg presses, hack squats, leg extensions, and split
squats, each, all in a single week, to reach this volume just for your quads.
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However, this volume may be reasonable for some dedicated lifters despite
the low efficiency.
From here, returns diminish even further. To reach 8% hypertrophy rates, you
need to do ~30 sets to get another 2% increase. That’s right, if we compare
~30 sets back to 10 sets, the end of the most efficient volume range, to double the average hypertrophy rate, you must triple your volume. The red dot
represents this highly inefficient and impractical volume.
After this, though the relationship between volume and hypertrophy didn’t
technically plateau in this analysis, the uncertainty is so high that it’s unclear
if additional sets increase hypertrophy rates. Hence, the authors arguably
observed a functional plateau.
So, what does this mean for your programming?
It shows that strength plateaus at surprisingly low volumes, while hypertrophy
continues increasing at much higher, but less efficient, volumes. However, you
shouldn’t base your programming solely on these figures. Research informs
practice; it doesn’t dictate it. Meta-analyses help us understand fundamental
relationships, but they don’t tell you what to do in the gym on Tuesday.
Being evidence-based means considering context. Studies have short durations (typically around 10 weeks), and their findings represent averages
across diverse populations, including trained and untrained individuals, as
well as young and old participants. As noted earlier, the diminishing returns
curve for strength may be overstated in the research, while the curve for hypertrophy may be understated in the real world.
An effective coach understands these limitations and uses the science as a
framework — one that’s adapted with experience and tailored to the individual.
HIGH-VOLUME TRAINING IN THE REAL WORLD
The meta-analysis we’ve been referencing [8] focused specifically on studies measuring hypertrophy through direct means — like muscle thickness
or cross-sectional area via ultrasound or MRI — rather than indirect measures such as DXA-based lean body mass. This distinction matters. To detect
measurable changes, researchers tend to prioritize the muscles being measured, which skews the training programs toward those target muscles, often
at the expense of realism.
In studies that isolate a single muscle group — say, the biceps — participants
might only perform curls, and may even be instructed to avoid other training
entirely. More commonly, studies measure a few selected muscles (e.g., biceps
and quads) and bias training volume toward those while minimizing work for
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other muscle groups to help ensure compliance — especially in studies on
trained lifters. For example, a study measuring quad and biceps hypertrophy
might have an intervention with many sets of rows, pulldowns, curls, squats,
leg presses, and leg extensions, with just a single upper-body press and leg
curls for low volume. Some protocols only measure the lower or upper body
or a specific muscle(s) but allow participants to train non-measured muscles
outside the study (often with some constraints). Typically, the more volume
done inside the study, the less the participants do outside the study.
Combine this with the fact that studies in this meta-analysis lasted ~10 weeks
on average, the shortest being 4 weeks, the longest 32 weeks, and 8 weeks
the most common length, and you must ask: “What does this meta-analysis
really tell me?” It indicates that very high volumes, focused primarily on ~1–3
muscle groups, for ~2–3 months, produce the fastest rates of hypertrophy.
It does not tell you that everyone should always do 30 sets per week for all
muscles all the time.
Additionally, this meta-analysis controlled for the effect of other variables.
Some studies used momentary failure, where participants actually failed a rep.
Others had participants stop sets when they believed they’d reached failure,
while others had participants stop a couple of reps shy of perceived failure.
Rest periods varied between studies, as did exercise selection. Thus, this meta-analysis tells you the theoretical effect of volume in isolation. In the real
world, there is a difference between 20 sets of leg extensions, a couple of reps
shy of perceived failure, while resting for 1 minute between sets, and 20 sets
of squats, failing on the last rep each set, resting for 2 minutes between sets.
Let’s not forget about adherence, either. As discussed in Chapter 1, there’s
an inherent selection bias in exercise research. Not everyone will sign up for
a study if they might be assigned to a 40-set weekly protocol. Further, only
those who complete studies are analyzed. While dropout rates in high-volume
studies aren’t necessarily higher, they do occur, and that influences results.
Injuries are another concern. All else equal, more training time increases injury exposure. Interestingly enough, this is not a linear relationship. In one
large-scale survey of soldiers who performed weight training in their personal time, the injury rate per 1000 training hours actually decreased with
more weekly time spent training [19]. Those soldiers training ≥166 minutes
per week had roughly half the injury rate per 1000 hours of training as those
training 60–165 minutes per week. However, because they were training more
hours overall, their annual injury incidence was still higher — 7.5% vs. 4.4%.
In other words, higher volume may improve resilience, but not enough to
completely offset the increased exposure. This might create a tortoise-and-
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hare scenario — where moderate training volumes lead to greater long-term
progress due to better sustainability.
Lastly, and most importantly, you are an individual, not the average. Studies
estimate average responses for a population, but not everyone responds the
same way, as some respond better or worse for many reasons, such as differences in sleep, nutrition, stress, prior injury, training status, history, or potential genetic differences. In the real world, you adjust based on real-time observations of yourself or your clients. One person’s high volume is another’s
low volume, and what is high volume for you right now might be low volume
at another time in your life or with different circumstances, or vice versa.
To conclude, hypertrophy returns diminish as volume increases, but this effect varies between individuals. Even in the same individual, different circumstances can render more volume counterproductive.
A Theoretical Dose-Response, but a Practical
“Inverted-U” Relationship
While research suggests dose-response relationships between volume and
both hypertrophy and strength — with diminishing returns as volume increases — these relationships are ultimately incomplete. In practice, they must follow
an inverted-U: performance improves with increasing volume to a point, then
plateaus, and eventually declines as volume becomes excessive.
While this inverted-U isn’t shown in research, it’s important to understand
that this relationship is inevitable in the real world with sufficiently high
training volumes. Even though additional progress may occur in the short
term, the downsides of extremely high volume will eventually become apparent. While overtraining syndrome and non-functional overreaching are not
technically concerns for lifters (as we’ll discuss in the next chapter), burnout,
injury, and the negative impacts of opportunity cost from doing extremely
high volumes are concerns. Importantly, these factors simply can’t be captured in training studies like the ones included in this meta-analysis [8].
Therefore, we recommend very high volumes only in very specific cases,
typically through the use of specialization cycles, which we’ll discuss later.
Thus, you must consider practical rather than theoretical limitations on how
much volume you or your clients should perform.
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FIGURE 2.5. PRACTICAL INVERTED-U RELATIONSHIP
WITH VOLUME AND GAINS
FIGURE 2.5. PRACTICAL INVERTED-U RELATIONSHIP WITH VOLUME AND GAINS
GAINS
END OF DOSE-RESPONSE, BEGINNING OF PL ATE AU
DUE TO DIMINISHING RETURNS, OR INABILITY
TO MAINTAIN RIR, EXERCISE SELECTION,
MORE FREQUENT DELOADS, ETC.
END OF PL ATE AU, BEGINNING OF DECRE ASED PROGRESS R ATE DUE
TO AN ACTUAL REDUCED STIMULUS, A NOTABLE REDUCTION
IN RIR, FREQUENT USE OF POORER EXERCISE SELECTION,
MUCH MORE FREQUENT DELOADS, ACHES AND PAINS, ETC.
END OF DECRE ASED PROGRESS, BEGINNING OF
REGRESSION FROM HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO
OF INJURY OR BURNOUT LE ADING TO
TR AINING CESSATION.
VOLUME
VOLUME RECOMMENDATIONS
Do enough to progress, not as much as possible. Only do more when you
plateau if you are well recovered, training appropriately close to failure,
and you’ve technically mastered your lifts.
These two simple sentences distill everything we’ve covered so far into practical guidance. Despite the simplicity, we can’t overstate how often trainees
try to justify doing more, and more, and more when, in fact, they don’t need
to. Some of you may feel like we’re being repetitive, but it’s a message that
needs repeating.
Many will latch onto the idea of a dose-response relationship between volume and strength or hypertrophy, and conveniently ignore the downsides of
doing too much. But more is not always better. The key is to find a sustainable volume you can adhere to, only increasing it if you plateau and all other
variables are optimized. Focus on training quality and recovery first.
However, doing too little is not ideal either. Before you get hung up on specific numbers of sets per muscle group, remember that volume, frequency,
and intensity are all interrelated and affect one another. Therefore, the volume ranges are guidelines at best, not commandments, rules, or the range
that everyone “should” fall into.
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Your ideal volume depends heavily on your circumstances: recovery capacity, available time, nutrition, whether you’re gaining or dieting, life stress,
travel, and more. But you can find the right amount by starting within the
ranges we recommend, then adjusting based on your response.
Here is our summary of recommendations for training volume. This is based
on the data from the 2024 meta-analysis on the impact of fractional set volume per week on a given lift or for a given muscle for strength and hypertrophy [8]. While the theoretical benefits of higher volumes plateau at vastly
different points for strength and hypertrophy, remember the limitations of
this data, such as the length of the studies included, and that you are probably more interested in growing and getting as strong as possible in your lifting career, not just in the next 2–3 months. For this reason, in addition to the
minimum and maximum effective dose (ED), which are theoretical in nature
and based on the research alone, there is a practical ED that is a range below
the maximum ED for hypertrophy and around the maximum ED for strength,
with additional recommended volume for hypertrophy training for long-term
strength gains.
The wisest approach is to start within the recommended range, selecting
a point based on your goals, timeframe, schedule, and past experience. Then,
only add more volume if everything else is dialed in — sleep, recovery, nutrition, intensity, frequency, stress — and you’re still plateauing.
The same principles apply to hypertrophy. In the next chapter, we’ll discuss
how to construct specialization cycles if you’re an advanced lifter to leverage
high volume for a few muscles at a time. But first, remember: training frequency and intensity influence how much volume might be appropriate, so
before making major changes based on these recommendations, finish this
chapter to see how all the pieces fit together.
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TABLE 2.2. VOLUME1 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HYPERTROPHY AND STRENGTH
Hypertrophy
Strength
Minimum
ED2
4 sets/muscle/wk, increases w/training status.
1 set/lift/wk, increases w/training status.
Maximum
ED3
~30 sets/muscle/wk
~5 sets/lift/wk (short-term)
Practical
ED4
10–20 sets/muscle wk;
higher volume with specialization.
3–5 sets/lift/wk (short-term),
5–10 sets/muscle/wk (long-term).
A s fractional sets. Hypertrophy: sets count as full sets for primary muscles, half for secondary. Strength: tested lift sets count as full sets, other
lifts training primary or secondary muscles as half.
2
Lowest volume to produce measurable gains in 2–3 months. For hypertrophy in trained lifters, requires low RIR (near or to failure). For strength
in trained lifters, requires high specificity (high load and on specific lift). Use if ideal training can’t occur. Produces progress in novice–intermediate, maintenance in intermediate–advanced.
3
Volume threshold when diminished returns reach a plateau.
4
A ppropriate range for real-world, long-term training. Individual differences and circumstances dictate where to fall in these ranges. Higher
volumes closer to maximum ED only advised for advanced lifters via specialization cycles. Long-term strength gains require hypertrophy; thus,
some hypertrophy volume in high efficiency range recommended.
1
INTENSITY
Intensity is a critical but often misunderstood training variable. Many people
equate it with how sore they get or how “hardcore” a session feels. But objectively, intensity refers to two specific factors:
Load — typically defined as a percentage of your one-rep max (% of 1RM)
Proximity to failure — commonly expressed as rating of perceived exertion (RPE) in powerlifting circles or repetitions
in reserve (RIR) in bodybuilding circles.
For hypertrophy, both volume and proximity to failure (RIR) are key. You
need to train close enough to failure for the set to provide a meaningful
growth stimulus, especially at lower loads.
For strength, however, your 1RM isn’t influenced by how close you are to failure in each set. Instead, specificity is the driving factor, specifically the load
you use and, as we’ll explore in Chapter 4, the specificity of the movement.
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SPECIFICITY
In the previous section, we briefly introduced the Principle of Specificity, also
known as the SAID principle (Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands).
This principle states that to achieve a particular outcome, you must train
specifically for that outcome.
Strength is a specific performance adaptation. It requires specific neuromuscular adaptation, expressed through a specific skilled lift. Therefore, maximizing your strength requires a specific training stimulus: practicing the movement you want to get stronger in, with similar loads and ranges of motion.
Hypertrophy, on the other hand, is not a performance but a physiological
adaptation. It contributes to strength but isn’t itself a performance measure.
Muscle growth can be achieved across a wide range of exercises and loading
schemes, provided sufficient volume and proximity to failure are met.
To apply these concepts to training for strength or hypertrophy, it’s essential to first understand the concept of intensity — both in terms of load and
proximity to failure.
MEASURING INTENSITY
Load and proximity to failure are most commonly defined as a percentage of
1RM, and RPE and RIR, respectively.
PERCENTAGE OF 1RM
The most common way to quantify load is as a percentage of 1RM. This can
be estimated from a multi-rep RM test or directly measured on an actual 1RM
test. The lower the reps in the RM, the more accurate the estimation of 1RM.
Generally, we advise estimating 1RM from a 2–5RM performance. You can
then prescribe load based on a percentage of that actual or estimated 1RM:
e.g., five reps with 80% of 1RM. This system is based on research in which individuals test their 1RM on a given lift, then perform an RM with percentages
of that 1RM.
The following “Repetitions Allowed Table” is created from the most up-todate data [20]. Importantly, the number of reps allowed changes based on
training experience, history, and the specific exercise in question, which is
why broad ranges are used. For example, in trained lifters using loads over
85% of 1RM on free weight exercises, the lower end of the listed ranges for
repetitions allowed are probably more accurate. However, to encompass
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what can be done on machine-based exercises and by less experienced lifters, the ranges are broader than you might see in other such tables — this
makes the ranges more broadly accurate but arguably impractical.
TABLE 2.3. REPETITIONS ALLOWED TABLE
PERCENTAGE OF 1RM
REPETITIONS ALLOWED
100%
1
95%
2–4
90%
3–6
85%
5–9
80%
8–12
75%
9–15
70%
11–18
While useful in theory, this system has significant limitations.
Some exercises, like lateral raises, aren’t suited to 1RM testing due to their
movement patterns and ambiguous end ranges. But more importantly, after
you establish a 1RM, problems arise when programming with the percentages derived from it. Was your test day a good or bad day? Was fatigue low or
high? Depending on the answer, 80% of 1RM might feel like 85% or like 75%.
Day-to-day fluctuations in strength and fatigue mean fixed percentages can
easily misrepresent the intended training stimulus.
It gets more complicated as you progress. If your strength improves but you
haven’t retested your 1RM, you’ll be training at a lower relative intensity than
intended. Conversely, if your strength has regressed, the programmed load
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might be too heavy. So how often should you update your 1RM? That’s a
tricky question, especially if you’re not regularly testing it.
And if you thought the “repetitions allowed” ranges were already too broad
to be useful, consider that they’re actually too narrow in many cases. The
variation in reps people can perform at a given percentage of 1RM is surprisingly large, especially at low percentages.
Training background plays a role, as demonstrated in a study [21] where
weightlifters hit a 12RM on average with 80% of 1RM on the leg press, while
runners hit a 20RM. The gap at 70% 1RM was even wider, as the weightlifters
managed 20 reps while the runners hit 40! You might think this issue would
disappear if you just compared lifters to one another. Well, the differences are smaller, but unfortunately, they’re still impractically large. In a study
measuring max back squat reps at 70% 1RM in 58 men and women with at
least two years of lifting experience and at least a 1.5x and 1x bodyweight
squat, respectively, 6–26 reps were performed [22]!
These inconsistencies make rigid percentage-based programming impractical
in most settings. So, while we reference percentage-based loads to give you
a useful framework, we don’t use them for load prescription in our programs.
However, as we’ll discuss in the next chapter, there is utility in having a running estimation of 1RM for your main lifts to gauge progress for competitive
powerlifters and experienced lifters training for strength. For now, just know
there is a time and a place for estimating 1RM, even if it’s not a great tool for
load prescription.
RPE AND RIR
The most common way to quantify proximity to failure is via an RPE (Rating
of Perceived Exertion) or RIR (Repetitions in Reserve).
In the modern fitness community, people are familiar with RPE specifically as
a tool for gauging the difficulty of resistance training. But this application is
a recent phenomenon. There are many RPE scales, with the first developed
by Borg in 1970 for use in aerobic training [23]. In the ~40 years since its
creation, the original RPE scale has been adapted for other purposes, like
resistance training, which it was not initially well-suited to.
Traditional RPE scores describe effort qualitatively — with terms like “hard”
or “very hard” — rather than quantitatively in terms of how many reps were
left in the tank. This works well for capturing overall session difficulty, but
it’s less reliable when rating the difficulty of an individual set, especially one
taken to failure.
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Why? Because a set to failure may not always be perceived as maximal exertion. For example, one person’s 5RM on bench press might feel like an 8 RPE,
while another lifter doing the same weight and reps may rate it a 10. Context
matters: training background, exercise selection, rep range, and individual
psychology all affect perceived exertion [24].
To circumvent these issues, IPF champion, renowned coach, and author Mike
Tuchscherer conceptualized and popularized an RPE scale based on RIR for
powerlifting in the late 2000s. This RIR-based scale is shown on the left of
the table, with RPE scores inversely determined by RIR, which are shown on
the right (i.e., a 9 RPE is a 1 RIR, an 8 RPE is a 2 RIR, etc.). RIR-based RPE
scores are now frequently used in powerlifting. They allow lifters to flexibly
“autoregulate” load. For example, rather than eight reps at 80% of 1RM, you
might prescribe eight reps at 8 RPE. This allows load adjustment set-to-set
to maintain the intended proximity to failure.
More recently, using RIR alone has become popular in the bodybuilding community. This method is more direct and easily understood and, importantly,
avoids the concept of “exertion” entirely. The experience at a given RIR differs based on the exercise and the number of reps performed.
The only downside of pure RIR is that it lacks the fidelity important for powerlifting, such as the 9.5 RPE score, as powerlifters perform singles close
to, but not at 1RM, in competition and training. Nonetheless, RPE and RIR
are essentially interchangeable. These scores gauge proximity to failure and
prevent the large discrepancies in repetitions performed by different people
when programming based on a percentage of 1RM.
Here’s how the RIR-based RPE scale works:
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TABLE 2.4. RIR AND RIR-BASED RPE
RPE
10
9.5
Reps in Reserve
Max lift, couldn’t do more
No more reps, could do slightly more load
0
0
9
Could do 1 more rep
1
8.5
Could do 1 more rep, possibility of 2
1-2
8
Could do 2 more reps
2
7.5
Could do 2 more reps, possibility of 3
2-3
7
Could do 3 more reps
3
5-6
Could do 4 to 6 more reps
4-6
The only issue with RIR and RPE scores is that they are rated subjectively.
Over or underestimation can occur, plausibly impacting adaptations to training if large enough. Fortunately, the accuracy of RIR ratings has been thoroughly tested.
In RIR accuracy studies, lifters in a lab are motivated to train to failure with
various exercises, calling out RIR between specific reps. Then, the predicted
and actual number of repetitions achieved at failure are compared. In a 2022
meta-analysis of these studies [25], Halperin and colleagues reported an average underestimation of ~1 repetition in the 414 participants included. This
means RIR ratings, on average, are quite accurate.
However, gauging proximity to failure should be considered a skill, and some
are better at it than others. Further, some factors impact accuracy. RIR ratings made closer to failure are a little more accurate, meaning that a 3 or
4 RIR is more likely to be underestimated compared to a 1 or 2 RIR.
Further, the higher the reps in a set, the worse the underestimation becomes.
This starts to become an issue with sets of more than 12 repetitions, with RIR
underestimation getting progressively worse the higher the reps in a set.
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This may be due to the fact that discomfort, perceived exertion, and general
negative feelings are higher following high-rep sets to failure compared to
moderate-rep sets [26], which is an important consideration for hypertrophy
load selection, which we’ll discuss later.
Learning to Rate RPE and RIR
As mentioned earlier, accurately rating RPE or RIR is a skill, and like any skill,
it improves with intentional practice. If you find yourself struggling, try these
five strategies:
1. Record your sets and review the footage. After watching your set from
a side angle or profile view, rate your RIR or RPE. This gives you a more
objective view of bar speed and rep quality.
2. Run a low-volume training block (3–6 weeks) where you frequently train
to momentary failure. Make sure to have spotters. Doing this allows you
to experience true 0 RIR/10 RPE and calibrate what that feels like.
3. Compare your rating to that of a training partner. Before discussing, rate
your RPE or RIR internally. Then ask your (ideally experienced) partner
what they would rate it. Comparing notes will help sharpen your judgment.
4. Hire a coach who uses RPE/RIR and request feedback on lifting videos.
External feedback is incredibly helpful when learning to self-assess.
5. Test your prediction. Start with a weight you think you can do for 8–12 reps.
As you approach what feels like 2 RIR (RPE 8), keep going. If you stop at
rep 10 and still get to 15, you know you need more practice with estimating proximity to failure.
For those new to RIR or RPE ratings, they can be used alongside a percentage of 1RM (for lifts you have a 1RM estimation for). Some new lifters struggle with determining the initial weight to select when given a prescription
like “8 reps at 2 RIR,” especially on unfamiliar exercises.
In this case, for lifts with a 1RM estimate, you can use the Repetitions Allowed
Table to give you a rough idea to get you in the right ballpark for load selection on set 1, and then adjust after rating RIR or RPE for subsequent sets.
For example, let’s say you are prescribed squats at “3 x 8 x 70% (RIR 2–4).”
On the first set, load 70% of 1RM and do eight reps. Then rate your RIR or
RPE. Our advice is to do this with video assistance (looking at video footage
that will help you gauge RIR based on the bar speed).
• If you think you have 2–4 reps in reserve, you’re on target; keep the load
the same.
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• If you had only one rep left, it was too heavy.
• If you had five or more reps left, it was too light.
For the latter two, adjust the load on the next set. A good rule of thumb is to
adjust the weight by ~4% for every rep off target [27]. So, if you were off by
2 RIR, increase or decrease the load by ~8% on the next set.
FAILURE
Now that we’ve discussed proximity to failure, we must also discuss failure
itself and why it’s a reference point in the first place.
There are different definitions of failure. When some people say failure, they
mean a 0 RIR or 10 RPE; essentially, an RM or doing as many reps as you can
with a given load. This is called volitional failure – doing all the reps you believe you can do, stopping when you’ve hit your last perceived full rep before
actually failing.
However, the most objective definition of failure is momentary failure. Momentary failure is when you continue performing repetitions until the moment you actually fail a rep, being unable to complete its concentric phase
despite your best efforts to do so (i.e., hitting a 9.5 or 10 RPE, or 0 RIR, and
then attempting another rep and failing) [28].
As shown in a 2024 meta-analysis of nearly 3000 participants for strength
outcomes and ~1600 for hypertrophy, proximity to failure has a different relationship with gains in strength than it does with hypertrophy [7].
For strength, RIR has a negligible effect on outcomes. As other research has
shown, strength gains are primarily influenced by load, not proximity to failure [9]. Thus, if you could do 10 reps at 80% of 1RM, you could perform a set
of 3 reps at a 7 RIR, five reps at a 5 RIR, or eight reps at a 2 RIR. However,
with all else equal, those sets would produce a similar stimulus for strength
because they all used the same load.
However, their impact on hypertrophy would differ. Specifically, a linear relationship between hypertrophy and proximity to failure was evident in this
meta-analysis [7]. Meaning, with all else equal, a given set concluded at a 5
RIR is less stimulative than a set at 2 RIR, and hypothetically, a set concluded
at a 2 RIR is less stimulative than a set to momentary failure.
However, as we discussed in the volume section, in the real world, all else is not
always equal. So in practice, the application of this information is more nuanced.
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INTENSITY CONSIDERATIONS FOR STRENGTH
Now that we’ve discussed how intensity is quantified and measured, let’s
turn to its application for building strength, starting with the primary factors
that influence it.
1. MUSCLE MASS
(AND OTHER STRUCTURAL ADAPTATIONS)
Theoretically, larger muscles with more contractile tissue can produce more
force, helping you lift heavier loads [14]. Indeed, when indices of body composition and hypertrophy are measured in powerlifters, they are strongly
related to their 1RM strength [29–33].
However, hypertrophy isn’t the only structural adaptation related to strength.
Several other adaptations also contribute:
• Non-contractile muscle elements, such as titin, the extracellular matrix,
and costameres.
• Connective tissue, including tendons, fascia, and ligaments.
• Bone structure, including bone mineral content and density.
• Muscle architecture, such as:
• Fascicle length, which affects force production at different muscle lengths
• Pennation angle, the angle at which fibers insert into the tendon, can
increase force production by allowing more fibers to pack into a given
muscle volume.
These adaptations are conditionally linked to strength outcomes [29, 31].
Notably, even short-term hypertrophy matters. Increases in muscle size in
the 12 weeks leading up to a powerlifting meet are strong predictors of 1RM
improvements [33], reinforcing the connection between muscle growth and
performance.
2. NEUROMUSCULAR ADAPTATIONS
The neurological system recruits and activates muscles to produce force.
Neuromuscular adaptations, such as the increased voluntary ability to recruit and fire motor units (a neuron and the muscle fibers it recruits) at faster
rates, allow contractions to be more forceful and efficient [5]. Importantly,
these adaptations occur predominantly in the early stages of strength development, contributing primarily to initial strength gains [34].
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Indeed, unlike the strong links between muscle size and strength observed in
well-trained study participants, initial increases in size — while they do causally contribute to strength — play a smaller role initially [35].
These changes explain why beginners can get stronger without significant
increases in muscle size. However, in the long run, when an unskilled contraction (such as a maximal isometric contraction, i.e., pushing or pulling an
immovable object) is compared between untrained and well-trained lifters,
muscle size is the dominant factor explaining why well-trained lifters produce more force [36, 37].
That said, as we’ll discuss, neuromuscular adaptations continue to be important throughout a lifter’s career, just not what you typically think of as “neuromuscular adaptations,” but rather improvements in muscle synchronization and coordination to improve a strength task — i.e., skill development [5].
3. MOTOR PATTERNS / SKILL
In Chapter 4, we’ll discuss how to specifically manipulate exercise selection
to improve your lifting skill. For now, understand this: while force production in a lab — isolated to a single joint — is largely determined by muscle
size and neural drive, real-world strength is expressed through coordinated
movement. In other words, strength is a skill.
When comparing elite weightlifters and powerlifters to novice weightlifters
and powerlifters, one key difference is movement efficiency, contributing to
their superior performance [38–40]. This book isn’t a seminar or video series, so we won’t teach you how to lift. Instead, our focus is on explaining the
theoretical importance and contribution of technical skill to strength.
Think of strength like any sport-specific skill: shooting a basketball or hitting
a baseball, for example. To get better, you practice that exact skill. You go
to the batting cages, shoot free throws, or simply play baseball and basketball. In the sport of powerlifting or weightlifting, when you compete, you’re
not doing reps, and you’re not doing accessories or variations. Your goal on
the platform is to lift the heaviest possible load in the specific competition
lifts. Therefore, specificity relates to the velocity, load, joint angles, and the
recruitment patterns that you use when performing these lifts. Simply put,
a large part of how strong your competition lifts are is determined by how
skilled you are at lifting to competition standards.
Therefore, if you want to get good at lifting heavy things in specific ways,
you have to lift heavy things in specific ways. So, does this mean that if you
want to get a higher 1RM on a given lift, you should just max out that lift as
often as you can? Believe it or not, that works [41]. There are entire systems
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of training based on frequently maxing out. Indeed, there is something to
learn from the simplicity and efficacy of these systems.
However, strength is more than just skill; it’s a combination of movement
proficiency and structural factors (like muscle mass and limb lengths). This
broader perspective forms the foundation for the strength programming
strategies presented in this book. Additionally, there is much more nuance
to understanding what specificity really means in practice, beyond simply
doing frequent maxes.
Next, we’ll explore load specificity — how closely your training loads should
resemble your 1RM — and in Chapter 4, we’ll combine this with movement
specificity to show how to apply exercise variation to drive strength gains.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF LOAD AND PROXIMITY
TO FAILURE WITH STRENGTH
As mentioned previously, a 2024 meta-analysis of nearly 3000 participants
assessing the relationship of proximity to failure with maximal strength found
that RIR has a negligible impact on strength gains [7]. Like the analysis discussed in the volume section, this data provides an understanding of the relationship, in isolation, between RIR and strength. This is an important caveat
because, in the real world, load impacts RIR.
The heavier the load, the fewer reps it allows, so by default, heavier loads
require lower RIR. If you can only do three reps at 90% of 1RM on a squat,
for example, the lowest your RIR can be is two if you do a single repetition.
However, at 80% of 1RM, if you can do eight reps, you could perform a set
anywhere from 7 to 0 RIR.
Thus, it’s important to understand that this meta-analysis does not conclude
that sets at 70%, 80%, and 90% of 1RM produce equivalent impacts on maximal strength, because the authors controlled for the effect of load.
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FIGURE 2.6. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RIR AND STRENGTH GAIN
FIGURE 2.6. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RIR AND STRENGTH GAIN
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN 1RM
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
2
4
6
8
10
ESTIMATED PROXIMITY TO FAILURE (RIR)
Robinson et al. [7] demonstrated in their meta-analysis that RIR, independent from load, has
no Robinson
meaningful
impactin on
1RM strength
gains. Each
represents
a study
group,
et al. [7] demonstrated
their meta-analysis
that RIR, independent
from load,individual
has no meaningfuldot
impact
on 1RM strength gains.
Each individual
its size indicates
its
influence
on
the
analysis,
and
the
shaded
area
represents
the
uncertainty.
dot represents a study group, its size indicates its influence on the analysis, and the shaded area represents the uncertainty.
Indeed, two separate 2022 meta-analyses [9, 42] reported that higher
loads produce greater strength gains, with complementary inclusion criteria
demonstrating the importance of load in relation to RIR [9] and volume [42].
Lopez and colleagues focused on studies that trained participants to failure,
categorizing load into:
• Low (<60% of 1RM)
• Moderate (60–79% of 1RM)
• High (≥80% of 1RM)
Carvalho and colleagues, on the other hand, analyzed studies with matched
volume load, classifying intensity into four categories:
• Very low (<30%)
• Low (30–59%)
• Moderate (60–79%)
• High (≥80%)
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Both analyses found a linear dose-response: the higher the load, the greater
the maximal strength gains, particularly when moving from moderate to high
loads. The greater the disparity was in load, the greater the size of the effect
(e.g., high loads produce substantially more strength gains than low loads,
and modestly greater gains than moderate loads).
Considering volume’s effect on strength “maxes out” at a surprisingly low
weekly set number [8] and RIR’s independent effect from load being negligible, these findings demonstrate that the load used in a set — rather than how
many reps you do with it or how close those reps take you to failure [7] — is
the main stimulus for strength gain.
What About Very High Loads (≥90%)?
You might be wondering about the effects of even higher loads on strength.
The two meta-analyses in question classified “high loads” as ≥80% of 1RM,
which allow 8–12 reps depending on exercise, training status, and other factors. Considering strength athletes regularly train with loads that only allow
1–5 reps, does that indicate ≥90% is even better than ≥80%? Perhaps. But
there are opportunity costs and risks to training exclusively with heavy loads,
which we’ll discuss in more detail in the exercise selection chapter.
However, both anecdotal data and some powerlifting research indicate loads
>90% of 1RM have notable positive impacts on strength.
A study by Androulakis-Korakakis et al. [15] compared two groups of powerlifters over six weeks:
Group 1: Daily Max Only
Performed a daily single at 9–9.5 RPE for the squat (2x/week), bench
(3x/week), and deadlift (1x/week). That was their entire program, with no
back-off work. This equated to:
• 3 bench sets
• 2.5 squat sets (due to fractional volume contributions from deadlifts)
• 2 deadlift sets
Despite the low volume, they still increased their total — a testament to the
power of specificity and heavy loading.
However, these increases were small in magnitude compared to what would
be considered “meaningful.” Further, the total increases were driven by the
squat and bench press, as the deadlift stayed roughly the same on average,
perhaps due to its low volume.
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Group 2: Daily Max + Back-Offs
Did the same daily heavy singles, but added 2x3 at 80% of the daily max
after each single (avg. RIR 3–5). This increased volume to:
• 9 bench sets
• 7.5 squat sets
• 6 deadlift sets
In their case, all three lifts increased similarly to one another, likely because
each had enough volume, and they made much greater gains than the daily
maxes group. Further, they increased their total more than what would be
considered meaningful over six weeks.
It’s important to temper conclusions from this study. It was a short-term
study with a small sample size. Also, just because these powerlifters made
gains in six weeks doesn’t mean they’d continue at this rate. Powerlifters
are not always at peak strength. Like any athlete, performance fluctuates
throughout the year, with the goal of reaching a higher peak in competition
than last season. Thus, some of the athletes were getting near, back to, or
in some cases, beyond their previous bests. Therefore, heavy singles over
90% of 1RM did cause gains in just six weeks in trained powerlifters; however,
greater gains occurred in the daily maxes with the back-offs group. Considering these limitations, a cautious interpretation suggests that high and very
high-load sets are powerful for short-term strength gains. Furthermore, this
study reinforces that while volume is important for strength — as the group
performing 6–9 sets per lift outperformed the group performing 2–3 sets —
it doesn’t require that high a volume to achieve the full benefit of specific,
high-load training.
Therefore, a reasonable volume (and frequency, which we’ll discuss) of specific, high-load training is the cornerstone of a strength program. If additional work is performed, that volume would be best invested in hypertrophy
work (which we’ll discuss next) to support long-term strength.
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INTENSITY CONSIDERATIONS
FOR HYPERTROPHY
For hypertrophy, the absolute load on the bar is much less important than
it is for strength. Instead, proximity to failure (RIR) is critical, with notable
interactions with both high and low loads, which impact programming.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF LOAD AND PROXIMITY
TO FAILURE WITH HYPERTROPHY
As discussed, in addition to volume, proximity to failure has a large impact
on hypertrophy. This likely isn’t news to most lifters, as the importance of
“training with intensity” has long been emphasized in bodybuilding circles.
However, what exactly is meant by “intensity” can differ. Eight-time Mr.
Olympia Ronnie Coleman famously claimed, “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift this heavy-a** weight!” In contrast, fellow
eight-time Mr. Olympia, Lee Haney, famously advised lifters “to stimulate,
not annihilate” when you train. Thus, while bodybuilders almost universally
discuss the importance of proximity to failure, anecdotes regarding the importance of load differ, with some lifting heavy and others light. Fortunately,
we can combine anecdotal experience with high-quality evidence to uncover
the tangled relationship between proximity to failure, load, and hypertrophy.
Some figures in the bodybuilding world dismiss the concept of RIR entirely.
They believe that the only proximity to failure worth discussing is failure itself. While proximity to failure is important, the overly black-and-white view
that you must train to failure is a myth. Like many pervasive myths, this myth
is compelling for many reasons. Not only do champion bodybuilders report
training to failure as central to their success, but it also appeals to the “no
pain, no gain” philosophy of lifters who associate harder training not only with
better physical outcomes but also with self-discipline and moral character
[43]. In addition to these cultural components, this myth has grains of truth.
As discussed, a 2024 meta-analysis including ~1600 participants indicates
there is a dose-response relationship between hypertrophy and sets terminated closer to momentary failure [7]. Specifically, as RIR decreases from 10
to 0, the per-set stimulus increases. However, like the relationship between
very high volumes and hypertrophy, there is uncertainty in this model, indicating RIR is just one of many factors that impact hypertrophy.
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FIGURE
2.7. RELATIONSHIP
RIRAND
ANDMUSCLE
MUSCLE
GROWTH
FIGURE
2.7. RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN
BETWEEN RIR
GROWTH
25
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN MUSCLE SIZE
20
15
10
5
0
-5
-10
-15
-20
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
ESTIMATED PROXIMITY TO FAILURE (RIR)
Robinson et al. [7] demonstrated in their meta-analysis that while the relationship was relaRobinson
et al. [7] demonstrated
their meta-analysis
that while
the relationship
was relatively
uncertain,
lower RIR (closerNote
to failure)
produced study
more
tively
uncertain,
lowerin RIR
(closer to
failure
produced
more
hypertrophy.
where
hypertrophy.
Note
where
study
groups
cluster
at
0
versus
8
RIR
and
that
the
highest
hypertrophy
at
8
RIR
is
roughly
+10%
compared
to
roughly
+20%
at 0 RIR.
groups cluster at 0 versus 8 RIR and that the highest hypertrophy at 8 RIR is roughly +10%
Each individual dot represents a study group, its size indicates its influence on the analysis, and the shaded area represents the uncertainty.
compared to roughly +20% at 0 RIR. Each individual dot represents a study group, its size indicates its influence on the analysis, and the shaded area represents the uncertainty.
Another important factor is load. Independently, in the range of ~30–90%
1RM, load does not meaningfully impact hypertrophy when training to failure
[9] or with matched volumes [42], but there may be an interaction between
load and RIR.
In an exploratory sub-analysis — meaning the findings are less statistically
robust due to the smaller study groups — the authors of the meta-analysis
found that as load increased, the influence of RIR on hypertrophy diminished.
In other words, going closer to failure appeared to matter less when lifting
heavier loads. Specifically, at 90% of 1RM, the effect of RIR was no longer
meaningful, with 0–7 RIR (remembering that “repetitions allowed” differs by
training status, exercise, and other factors) producing similar hypertrophy,
with all else equal.
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FIGURE 2.8. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
HIGH-LOAD AND
RIR ON
HYPERTROPHY
FIGURE 2.8. THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN
HIGH-LOAD
AND RIR ON HYPERTROPHY
90% 1RM
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN MUSCLE SIZE
20
10
0
-10
-20
0.0
2.5
5.0
7.5
10.0
ESTIMATED PROXIMITY TO FAILURE (RIR)
Robinson et al. [7] also demonstrated in their meta-analysis that as load increases, the imporRobinson
al. [7] alsodiminishes.
demonstrated in their
that as load
increases,
the importance
of failure
diminishes. In hypertrophy.
fact, at 90% of 1RM, RIR
no
tance
ofetfailure
Inmeta-analysis
fact, at 90%
of 1RM,
RIR
no longer
influences
Each
longer influences
hypertrophy. Each aindividual
representsits
a study
group,
its size indicates
influence on the
and the shadedand
area the
individual
dot represents
studydotgroup,
size
indicates
its its
influence
onanalysis,
the analysis,
represents the uncertainty.
shaded area represents the uncertainty.
While an exploratory analysis on its own does not constitute definitive proof,
shortly after the publication of this meta-analysis, Refalo and colleagues
[44] found evidence supporting these findings. Specifically, they reported
equivalent quadriceps hypertrophy in the legs of highly trained lifters regardless of whether they trained to failure or to a 1–2 RIR when performing
sets of 8–10 and 10–12 reps on leg press and leg extension, respectively. As
you’ve already learned, high-load sets must last long enough — at least ~4–5
repetitions — to “count” on equal footing with higher repetition, lower-load
sets for hypertrophy [4, 11–13]. Therefore, when training with heavy loads in
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the ~4–6 repetition range, you can likely train at a 3–4 RIR and still produce
a comparable stimulus to a set closer to, or even to failure.
As load decreases, so too must the RIR (training closer to failure) in a linear manner to maintain the stimulus of the set. This relationship between RIR and load exists because you must produce more force to lift heavier loads. To produce more
force, you must recruit more muscle fibers, resulting in a sufficient hypertrophy
stimulus further from failure when training heavy compared to training light [45].
While training closer to failure may be more important with light loads, unfortunately, RIR estimations become increasingly inaccurate when repetitions per set exceed 12 [25]. Indeed, very high-rep sets to failure (25–30RM)
produce greater discomfort, perceived exertion, and general negative experiences compared to moderate-rep sets to failure (8–12RM). This is especially
true for compound lifts like hack squats, bench presses, and lat-pulldowns,
which recruit a lot of muscle mass simultaneously [26]. The higher perceived
“general fatigue” may lead you to think you’re closer to failure than you actually are, which may reduce the real-world hypertrophy stimulus of very
high-repetition sets. Indeed, Lasevicius [46] observed greater biceps and
quadriceps hypertrophy in their volume-equated study training to momentary failure with 80 versus 20% 1RM, but not compared to 60 or 40% 1RM.
Based on these findings, one could certainly argue that only moderate and
heavy loads should be used when training for hypertrophy. However, this
is an unnecessarily restrictive perspective, as some exercises are arguably
better suited to low-load, high-rep training. If you recall from Level 1, while
bodybuilding and powerlifting both have relatively low injury rates (compared to, say, contact sports), bodybuilding has the lowest injury rate of all
strength sports. While this may not be due to lighter loads alone — exercise
selection plays a role — load likely contributes. Indeed, authors of a volume-load matched study comparing 7 x 2–4RM versus 3 x 8–12RM across
a full complement of free weight and machine upper and lower body multi-joint and isolation exercises reported a 20% dropout rate due to joint pain
in the high-load group and no dropouts in the moderate-load group [47].
Therefore, rather than a one-size-fits-all recommendation for RIR or load, we
should make nuanced recommendations. Specifically, multi-joint (especially lower body) exercises, which can exacerbate general fatigue when performed with high repetitions to failure, can instead be performed with high
load and moderate RIR. Likewise, machine-based, upper-body multi-joint exercises can be performed with moderate to high repetitions and moderate
to low RIR. Finally, single-joint exercises performed with higher repetitions
(which may be a good idea if joint discomfort occurs when using high loads
on these exercises) can be performed at low RIR, closer to failure.
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INTENSITY RECOMMENDATIONS
Perform sets appropriately close to failure for hypertrophy, and lift heavy for
strength. Include hypertrophy work to support long-term strength gains.”
If hypertrophy is the goal, the load doesn’t need to be heavy, just heavy
enough (above ~30% 1RM), and RIR should scale inversely with load. This
means you can stay a handful of reps shy of failure when training heavy in the
4–6 rep range, which is especially useful when performing lower-body freeweight exercises. Squat and hinge variations recruit a lot of muscle mass,
such that you can consider them full-body lifts, and require mental focus due
to their technical nature. Doing low-load high-rep sets with these exercises,
especially while going to failure, is arguably higher risk and produces unnecessary fatigue without any upside.
On the other hand, single-joint, upper-body, and machine-based work is far
less demanding, so the fatigue of doing higher-rep sets or training close to
failure is less of a concern.
As an example, if you kick off a leg day with 20-rep sets of squats or deadlifts to failure, certainly you’ll look and feel hardcore, but doing so may result
in poorer performance in subsequent exercises due to fatigue, and you’ll be
more likely to underestimate RIR. A better strategy would be to:
• Start with 4–6 rep sets at 3–4 RIR or 6–8 reps at 2–3 RIR on squats/deadlifts.
• Follow up with leg press in the 6–8 rep range at 2–3 RIR, or 8–12 reps at
1–2 RIR.
• Conclude with isolation work in the 8–12 or 12+ rep range at 0–2 RIR, optionally taking final sets to failure.
Smart combinations of load, reps, and RIR form the foundation of effective
intensity programming for hypertrophy.
If strength is the goal, specificity is key, so your emphasis should be on training with heavier loads. Does that mean all your sets should be as heavy as
possible? No. Remember our volume recommendations: the number of sets
needed to maximize short-term strength is relatively low, especially if you
train using specific lifts on which you’re trying to increase your 1RM. After
you reach this relatively low volume of specific, high-load training, more volume of specific work may not provide much additional benefit. Therefore,
additional sets should be done for hypertrophy of the muscles involved in
these lifts to support long-term strength gains.
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These guidelines are shown in the following Intensity Recommendations
Table. Importantly, these recommendations represent appropriate average
target ranges. In the next level of The Pyramid, we’ll discuss how these recommendations should vary over time. But before we discuss that, we must
address frequency.
TABLE 2.5. INTENSITY RECOMMENDATIONS TABLE
Load
Hypertrophy
Strength
~4–30 RM (~30–90% 1RM)
1–8RM (~80+% 1RM)
4–0 RIR and failure per load/rep combination.
~7–0 RIR per load/rep combination.
4–6RM: 4–0 RIR
RIR
6–8RM: 3 RIR to failure
8–12RM: 2 RIR to failure
Load, not RIR, dictates strength.
RIR is a function of load.
Higher loads allow fewer reps and
are inherently closer to failure.
>12RM: 1 RIR to failure
High load effective for hypertrophy at high RIR, but sets must be ≥4 reps. RIR underestimation is more likely at low loads.
FREQUENCY
Frequency refers to how you distribute your weekly training dose. Increasing
frequency can be beneficial — not because you do more training overall, but
because it can enhance skill development and improve the relationship between training stress and recovery, ensuring that no single session becomes
overly taxing.
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HOW FREQUENCY CAN IMPACT TRAINING
Theoretically and practically, frequency can potentially impact training
based on how it impacts skill retention and how it impacts training quality
and recovery.
SKILL RETENTION
Think of the extreme example where you try to cram all of your volume into
one weekly session. Compare this to when you were a student. You may have
done a lot of cramming, memorizing huge volumes of information in one day,
the night right before a test. We’re guessing you usually did okay on the test,
but you didn’t remember much of what you studied a week later. Are we right?
There’s a limit to the amount of effective study you can actually do in a single
session, at least if the goal is to retain that information. There is educational
research suggesting that while cramming might maximize how much you can
remember for a test the next day, spacing out study sessions over multiple
days will result in better information retention over time [48]. Some evidence
suggests this principle may apply to motor learning tasks as well [49].
Remember, strength is not just a physical quality, but a skill you develop
through practice. Anecdotally, lifters who cram all their sets into one day
often find their attentional focus and movement quality decline across the
session. By breaking up that same volume over multiple sessions, skill acquisition may be enhanced, as sleep and rest between sessions aid memory
consolidation [49].
However, on the other end of the frequency spectrum, it’s important to note
that lifters must identify errors in their technique to correct them. Coaching
techniques that purposely amplify errors help lifters become aware of them
so they can correct them. In fact, this coaching technique works better than
simply identifying an error for a lifter and telling them to correct it [50].
While there are no studies on this exact topic, it is at least plausible that
theoretically performing a very low session volume at a very high frequency
might not provide enough opportunities to notice errors and improve.
In theory, if training is spread too thin, such as doing just one set per session
across six days, you may not get enough practice volume in each session
to identify and fix errors. Contrast that with performing a top set and two
back-off sets on two different days. In the latter setup, you can recognize
errors and then immediately apply corrections. In the former, you may not
get a second chance until the next day. With that said, this type of training
organization is rarely seen in the real world, let alone in research.
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While the motor learning data is relatively sparse for lifting specifically, there
are indications that higher frequencies can be independently beneficial for
strength gains, albeit with diminishing returns [8].
TRAINING QUALITY AND RECOVERY
While frequency can help with skill retention, it’s important to remember
that you’re not practicing sketching lines on a page. You’re practicing heavy
strength training, and that comes with a physical toll. So how does that interact with frequency?
Anecdotally, some claim you need more time to recover from hard training,
so therefore, you should have a low frequency of training, providing as many
days off as possible between sessions. Others claim the opposite: higher frequency allows you to spread out your training so that no single session is too
demanding, which can improve recovery and maintain higher quality training
across the week.
So which is it?
Let’s step back from the theory for a moment and look at what we’ve seen
in the real world. In our coaching experience, the ideal frequency is highly
individual and depends on how someone trains.
Some people seem to require longer to recover, somewhat independently
from the volume of work they do, if the training was sufficiently intense. Likewise, some people experience lingering joint discomfort from certain exercises that can last longer than muscle soreness. For example, many powerlifters
report that deadlifts produce lumbar discomfort for annoyingly long periods
of time. Finally, some lifters are simply better at maintaining focus across
longer sessions, while others benefit from shorter, more frequent training.
Thus, in the real world, some people appear to do better with lower or higher
frequencies, especially when training with certain exercises.
As far as the data indicate, despite these anecdotes, the independent effect of
frequency when training doses are equated is negligible for hypertrophy [8].
Further, while higher frequency has a positive impact on strength, you get the
majority of these benefits with a relatively low number of weekly occurrences.
To better understand how this translates into programming, let’s take a closer look at what the frequency research shows.
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THE RELATIONSHIP OF FREQUENCY
WITH HYPERTROPHY AND STRENGTH
Like volume, RIR, and load, frequency has a relationship with hypertrophy
and strength. In the previously discussed 2024 meta-analysis examining volume, the authors also analyzed frequency [8]. Once again, their initial step
was to determine how to best quantify frequency to establish which counting method best fit the data. Like volume, the fractional method best represented the data.
Specifically, just like you would count a set of bench press as a full set for
the chest and half a set for the triceps, performing two bench press sessions
on two different days per week would count as a weekly frequency of two
for the chest, and one for triceps (counting bench press days as half days for
the triceps). Likewise, for strength, if you had two weekly bench press sessions and overhead presses in a third session, that would count as a weekly
frequency of 2.5 for bench press (counting the overhead press day as a half
day) and 2 for overhead press (counting bench press days as half days).
Frequency and Strength
Using this counting method, based on the data from over 2000 participants,
the authors found a dose-response relationship between strength and frequency. Specifically, notable increases in rates of strength gain occur when moving
from a weekly frequency of one to two days, and then rates continue to increase, albeit with diminishing returns, as the frequency increases from three
to four, to five, and then to six days per week (the highest analyzed frequency).
Therefore, the common modern practice in raw powerlifting and weightlifting of training competition lifts multiple times per week (and often multiple
times per day in the case of weightlifting) has merit. However, the most
meaningful effect occurs when transitioning from a weekly frequency of one
to two, resulting in an increase in rates of strength gain from ~13% to ~17%.
But, from this point, diminishing returns are notable. To achieve a similar increase again, you need to train six times a week!
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FIGURE
2.9. 2.9.
THETHE
RELATIONSHIP
FREQUENCY
STRENGTH
FIGURE
RELATIONSHIPBETWEEN
BETWEEN FREQUENCY
ANDAND
STRENGTH
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN 1RM
50 −
25 −
0−
0
2
4
6
WEEKLY FREQUENCY PER LIFT (FRACTIONAL)
Pelland et al. [8] demonstrated in their meta-analysis that while the relationship became
Pelland et al. [8] demonstrated in their meta-analysis that while the relationship became weaker after training a lift twice per week, as weekly
weaker
after training a lift twice per week, as weekly frequencies increased, so too did 1RM
frequencies increased, so too did 1RM strength gains. Each individual dot represents a study group, its size indicates its influence on the analysis,
strength gains. Each individual dotandrepresents
a study group, its size indicates its influence on
the shaded area represents the uncertainty.
the analysis, and the shaded area represents the uncertainty.
Frequency and Hypertrophy
Regarding hypertrophy, in their analysis of over 1000 participants, the authors found a positive relationship between higher frequencies and rates of
muscle gain [8]. However, the positive effect is much smaller. Arguably, the
independent effect of frequency on hypertrophy is negligible.
To put the effect into perspective, the average estimated positive impact of
higher frequency on hypertrophy is about one-tenth of the positive effect of
frequency on strength. Anecdotally, there is a far greater variety in the frequencies at which elite bodybuilders train compared to modern, elite barbell
athletes, supporting the present findings.
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However, note that this analysis details the independent relationship between
frequency and hypertrophy. Meaning that in isolation, with all else equal, frequency has no major impact on muscle growth. However, in the real world,
higher-frequency training typically also means higher-volume training.
Bodybuilders train more often as a way to reach higher volumes. Going back
to the data, however, the independent effect of frequency on hypertrophy
pales in comparison to the effects of RIR and volume. Certainly, you can use
higher frequencies to increase volume, but it is the volume that produces
the benefit. Indeed, a limitation of this analysis is that the average weekly
volumes are relatively low, at eight sets for strength and 13 for hypertrophy.
Thus, with higher weekly volumes, the relationships could differ.
PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN MUSCLE SIZE
FIGURE 2.10. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
FIGURE 2.10. THE RELATIONSHIP
FREQUENCY AND HYPERTROPHY
FREQUENCY BETWEEN
AND HYPERTROPHY
10 −
20 −
-10 −
0
2
4
6
WEEKLY FREQUENCY PER MUSCLE GROUP (FRACTIONAL)
In the Pelland
et al. [8] meta-analysis, they did not, however, observe a meaningful relationship
In the Pelland et al. [8] meta-analysis, they did not, however, observe a meaningful relationship between hypertrophy and weekly frequency per
between
and
weekly
frequency
per
muscle
indicating
that
with all
muscle hypertrophy
group, indicating that with
all else
equal, frequencies
of one or more
times
per week aregroup,
similarly effective.
Each individual
dot represents
a else
equal, frequencies
one
orindicates
moreits times
per
weekandare
similarly
effective.
Each individual dot
studyof
group,
its size
influence on
the analysis,
the shaded
area represents
the uncertainty.
represents a study group, its size indicates its influence on the analysis, and the shaded area
represents the uncertainty.
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Indeed, high volumes likely change the relationship between frequency and
hypertrophy. Rather than assessing weekly volume per muscle group, like
prior meta-analyses, Remmert and colleagues assessed volume per muscle
group per session in their 2025 meta-regression of nearly three dozen studies, including over 1000 participants [51].
Like weekly volume, they also found a diminishing returns relationship, but
this time at a session level. Specifically, after ~11 sets per muscle group per
session, it was uncertain if additional benefits would occur. Again, this is
largely a descriptive rather than prescriptive finding; it still offers a useful
guideline: the more sets you perform in a single session, the less effective
each additional set becomes.
However, we can still use this research to guide practice in a loose manner,
such that you should increase your weekly training frequency per muscle
group if the volume for that muscle group in a single session would exceed
~11 sets. By increasing frequency around this point, you spread volume across
more days to maintain as high a training efficiency as possible.
TABLE 2.6. FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS BY VOLUME
WEEKLY FRACTIONAL SETS
PER MUSCLE
WEEKLY FREQUENCY
PER MUSCLE
4–10
1–2
11–20
2–3
21–30
3+
FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS
Organization matters. You can do too much in a single session. Spread your
work over the number of sessions required to facilitate skill acquisition, training quality, and recovery.
When it comes to programming, there’s no single ideal frequency; it depends
on your training volume and your schedule. Some people have certain days
free, with large blocks of time, and can train for three hours if needed. OthLEVEL 2. VOLUME AND INTENSITY • 71
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ers only have an hour but can train six days per week. Organize your volume
based on what your schedule allows.
That said, training ~3–6 sessions per week is appropriate for most goals (even
twice per week can work well for time-pressed novices), with the choice determining how frequently you train each muscle group or movement.
Use the following three-step process to determine your ideal frequency:
1. Determine your weekly volume (consider the number of exercises, sets,
rest periods, and warm-ups) to make progress towards your goal. Consider how much time it would take to complete it all. Consider what frequency allows you to break it up into manageable chunks that will enable you
to perform with focus and intention.
2. Apply the theory:
a. For hypertrophy, don’t exceed ~11 fractional sets per muscle group in
a given session. If needed, increase frequency to keep per-session volume within this range. Consider mental focus, recovery, and personal
preference for session length and pace.
b. For strength, you want to maximize high-quality practice. Give yourself
at least two weekly “exposures” per movement, even if one is relatively
easy (low RIR and volume, e.g., 3 x 1 x 80% 1RM), as it may make a noticeable impact on gains.
3. Test and adjust:
a. If you have too much volume on any single day to perform well, redistribute the volume across your weekly sessions, or, schedule permitting,
add another session to your training week.
b. Likewise, if you have an easy day, you can complete with minimal fatigue, consider adding more volume to this day so that other sessions
aren’t as fatiguing.
The following frequency recommendations represent the average values to
be used when training for strength or hypertrophy. However, these values
often change over time in a periodized plan, which will be covered in more
detail in the next chapter.
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TABLE 2.7. FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS
Goal
Frequency Guideline
Hypertrophy
≥1x/week per muscle group, based on volume. If you exceed ~11 fractional sets for a
muscle in a session, increase frequency to distribute volume better.
Strength
2–6x/week per lift, depending on volume. Spread sets across as many sessions as
possible, with 1–2 direct sets per lift per session.
High volume is best distributed with higher frequency for hypertrophy, and increased frequency offers benefits for strength by enhancing skill
practice and movement quality.
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS IN CONTEXT
VOLUME AND INTENSITY INTERACT
It’s cognitively challenging to think about the second- and third-order effects of how manipulating one training variable impacts another, especially
when you aren’t dealing with linear effects. Our monkey brains always strive
to oversimplify, sometimes to the detriment of our understanding.
If you found yourself thinking, “Closer to failure is better, and closer to 30 sets
per muscle group per week is better, so I should try to hit 30 sets and take
them all to failure,” that’s an understandable, but ultimately flawed, interpretation of the guidelines.
Consider the interaction between volume and RIR, and what it means that
they both have diminishing returns with hypertrophy. Anecdotally, what typically happens is that as people try to do more and more volume, they end
up training further from failure, consciously or subconsciously, as a means
of pacing themselves to simply survive the massive workload they want to
accomplish, mentally and physically.
Additionally, remember that going from 5 to 15 sets per muscle group per
week will produce roughly twice the expected gains as going from 15 to 25,
even though both are 10-set increases in volume. Likewise, the hypertrophic
difference between training at 3 RIR, 2 RIR, 1 RIR, or to failure exists, but it’s
relatively small.
This means that increasing from 5 to 15 sets — from low to moderate volume — gives a substantial improvement in gains without dramatically compromising proximity to failure. But going from 15 to 25 sets — moderate
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to high volume — offers only a small additional benefit if you maintain the
same RIR.. However, if you train just ~2 RIR further from failure on average to
survive the high-volume protocol, even though this would only have a small
effect, it might negate the potential benefit of increasing volume, because
going from moderate to high volume is also just a small effect.
Consider the ramifications of such a trade-off in the real world. You’ve nearly
doubled volume, going from 15 to 25 sets, but you slightly decreased proximity to failure for the same stimulus. Now you’re in the gym for longer, training harder in aggregate, getting more fatigued and frustrated. You think you
followed the evidence, but in actuality, you oversimplified it without considering its complexities.
THE ALLURE OF BLACK-AND-WHITE THINKING
Specific numbers, clear-cut concepts, and simple answers are appealing.
Many are drawn to science because they want a universal, “best” answer.
Ironically, this is why people are drawn to “gurus” claiming to know the best
training plan for everyone. These confident, charismatic influencers create
cult-like followings, not because they’re right, but because they sound like
they have “the answer.” But such a thing doesn’t exist.
If you used to follow these gurus (don’t worry, we did too), it can be easy to
unintentionally make science your “new guru.” Old habits die hard, but treating science like an infallible guru is directly counter to the nature of science.
Studies don’t give definitive answers; they help us make better estimates over
time. For every answer science provides, it raises just as many questions. And
frustrating as that might be, the answers also change — because science is
self-correcting, constantly refining itself as new information emerges.
So don’t treat research like gospel. It will never give you the Ten Commandments of Training. That’s not how this works.
If this uncertainty makes you uncomfortable, we get it. If that makes you look
back at the confident gurus and wonder if maybe they’re “ahead of the science,” we understand. The slow pace of controlled study and its limitations
can be maddening, but evidence-based practice — combining data with our
experience and individual needs — is the best path we have.
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WHAT THE DATA CAN’T TELL YOU
Remember the limitations of the research. Studies tell us a lot, but they don’t
tell us everything. We don’t have studies on multi-year training plans. We
don’t have studies that manipulate many variables simultaneously. Sport science cannot, and was never meant to tell you what to do in the gym on Tuesday, or what to do in perpetuity.
As we get into the next layers of The Pyramid, it will become apparent that
a given training dose can be more or less effective based on the other programming variables you manipulate. The same training dose with poor exercise selection, inappropriate rest periods, or poor technical execution will
produce dramatically poorer results. The opposite is true as well.
And as you’ll know if you’ve read The Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid,
what you do outside the gym — your diet, sleep, and lifestyle — also plays a
huge role in your results.
One variable worth emphasizing is exercise selection. While the volume and
frequency guidelines in this chapter are based on the fractional counting
method, as it was the model that fit the data best, it’s essential to understand that all models are ultimately wrong. While wrong, models are useful
if they provide sufficiently accurate, actionable information, so long as you
understand their limitations.
Fractional set counting is useful because it’s accurate enough, but a bench
press set is not literally half as effective for triceps growth as a triceps pushdown. An overhead press set is not literally half as effective for increasing
bench press strength as an overhead press. Rather, on average, when looking
across dozens of studies and thousands of individuals, this method of counting is a good representation of what is observed.
In the real world, some triceps exercises are better than others. Further, some
exercises are a better fit for certain people than others. Depending upon an
individual’s previous training experiences, current barriers to improving performance, and their individual relative limb and body segment lengths and
prior injury history (and other factors), certain exercises will have more or less
transfer to one another for strength, or be better or worse for hypertrophy.
But when providing broad guidelines, we count all triceps exercises, regardless of quality, as one triceps set. Likewise, we count all exercises that are not
the main lift, which train any of the same muscles, as half a set for that lift.
This chart shows how we count primary and secondary muscles for different exercises. And in the Exercise Selection chapter, we’ll dive deeper into
choosing the right lifts for you.
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TABLE 2.8. HYPERTROPHY: EXERCISES AND MUSCLE GROUPS TRAINED
Movement Pattern
Primary Muscle Groups
Secondary Muscle Groups
Squat
(all variations, leg press, single leg
variants, etc.)
Quads, Glutes
Erectors
(if free weights)
Hip Hinge
(deadlift variations, good morning,
back ext)
Glutes, Hams, Erectors
Scapular Retractors
Vertical Pull
(chins, lat pull)
Lats, Scapular Depressors
Rear Delts, Bis
Vertical Push
(OHP variations)
Anterior Delts
Triceps, Middle Delts
Horizontal Pull
(row variations)
Lats, Scapular Retractors
Rear Delts, Bis, Middle Delts
(face pull)
Horizontal Push
(flat, incline, decline variants)
Chest, Anterior Delts
Tris, Middle Delts (incline)
Horizontal Hip Extension
(hip thrust, glute bridge, etc.)
Glutes
Hams
Pull Over
(DB, BB, cable, machine)
Lats
Chest, Rear Delts, Tris
(secondary, only long head)
Upright Row
(DB, BB, cable)
Scapular Elevators, Middle Delts
Rear Delts, Bis
Fly
(cable, DB, machine)
Chest, Anterior Delts
N/A
Isolation Exercises
Target muscle
N/A
These Guidelines are Dynamic
So, how should you view our recommendations?
The most accurate way is to see them as what works best for most people,
with all else being equal. Programs that fall within our guidelines might work
better on average than those that don’t, but some will get better results coloring outside of the lines.
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Not only are our guidelines best conceptualized as appropriate average values to start with, but they should be seen as appropriate average values over
the course of a training block. There will be phases of training that emphasize higher or lower intensities, volumes, and frequencies depending on the
time point in the training plan (more to come in the next chapter). In reality,
the best combination of volume, intensity, and frequency is highly individual
and changes over a lifting career.
Our guidelines provide a good starting point that is likely within the ideal
range for most beginner to intermediate lifters. More importantly, understanding the relationships and principles that underlie these recommendations will help you know what “levers to pull” when diagnosing plateaus or
addressing barriers to success in your own training, or that of your clients.
In fact, a large portion of Level 3 is devoted to helping you understand how to
change the training dose, specifically volume, over time. This flow chart demonstrates the process to follow when you think you are plateaued and you’re considering changing your program. We will come back to it in Level 3.
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FIGURE
2.11.
ASSESSINGAND
AND RESPONDING
RESPONDING TOTO
PLATEAUS
FIGURE
2.11.
ASSESSING
PLATEAUS
WHEN UNSURE ABOUT HOW TO PROGRESS - FLOWCHART
ARE YOU PLATEAUED?
(Not making gym progress appropriate to your training status.)
NO
Don’t change anything.
YES
Is the answer "no" to any of the following?
Sleeping 7+ hours? Not in an energy deficit?
Protein 0.7g/Ib+ (1.6g/kg+)? Neither over or under estimating RPE?
Training muscles/lifts min 2x/week (strength goals)?
Is exercise selection, ROM, and tempo appropriate
and consistent?
NO, I'VE TAKEN CARE OF ALL OF THOSE.
YES
Fix that, run another mesocycle, reassess.
Ok, are you recovering?
Dreading the gym? Sleep quality worse than normal?
Load/reps actually decreasing? Life stress seems worse than normal?
Aches and pains feel worse than normal?
If no to all, or all but 1 question: yes, you're likely recovering.
If yes to 2 or more: no, you are likely not.
NO
Temporarily reduce volume. Take a light week.
If that improved performance then great.
If you quickly fatigue again and stall then that probably
means you need more than just a deload or taper but should
consider doing less volume or organizing it differently
to manage fatigue.
YES
It may be time to increase
your training dose.
Finally, remember our emphasis on the practical effective dose, rather than
the maximum effective dose, and that Adherence is at the bottom of The
Pyramid. If you can keep all of that in mind, you will be able to use our guidelines to facilitate a successful career.
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3
PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD
TRAINING STATUS
LEVEL
THE FITNESS-FATIGUE MODEL
DELOADS, TAPERS, AND INTRODUCTORY CYCLES
INTRODUCTORY CYCLES
PERIODIZATION
TRACKING PROGRESS WHEN
TRAINING FOR HYPERTROPHY
06
HOW TO IDENTIFY AND BREAK PLATEAUS
05
04
03
progression
02
01
PROGRESSION
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The principle of progressive overload is a foundational concept taught in all
exercise science courses. It states that to keep making gains in fitness, training
must progress in difficulty over time. In fact, you might wonder why progressive overload is only coming up in the third level of The Pyramid rather than
earlier. However, progression and progressive overload are not the same thing.
PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD
In the context of exercise, “overload” describes a stimulus sufficient to induce
adaptation; something that challenges homeostasis, signaling your body to
be ready for it in the future. These physiological changes are your body’s
way of helping you survive. It doesn’t know you’re training for performance
or aesthetics — it just knows it’s being challenged and adapts accordingly
[1]. That’s a good thing!
In the case of lifting, adaptation means getting bigger and stronger. To make
this happen, your training must consistently challenge your body enough
to force it to change. Specifically, you must repeatedly perform challenging
training to cause continuous improvements in fitness. Adaptation only continues if your training continues to provide overload.
The training dose that produces overload is what we focused on in the last
chapter. That was the “Overload” part. But what about the “Progressive”
part? That’s where most people get it wrong.
For overload to continue to be overload, rather than just moving around in
the gym, it must progress. This is a reality you must respond to, not a checklist item that you must do proactively [2]. In fact, one could argue that “The
Principle of Overload,” leaving out ‘Progressive,’ is arguably all that’s needed
to communicate this critical aspect of effective training. Let’s explain.
Picture someone on their first day of training. They squat 60 kg for five reps
and genuinely don’t think they could manage a sixth. This is a robust overload. Prior to that, they’d never squatted more than bodyweight for two reps
(one time, they dropped their keys while getting off the toilet and had to
squat back down to get them). For this person, even the empty bar would
have produced overload.
Nonetheless, imagine they kept doing a single set of 5 reps with 60 kg every
few days. How long would this produce an overload? Certainly not forever,
but for a while. Eventually, what was their 5-rep max (5RM) would become
their 10RM, 15RM, and maybe their 17 or 18RM. At this point, five reps with
60 kg would not be an overload anymore; it would just be a warm-up for a
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heavier set that never came. However, for a time, five reps with 60 kg was an
overload. It didn’t stop being an overload after just one session; it stopped
once they fully adapted to that stimulus.
Thus, it is not what you previously lifted that determines overload, but what
you are currently adapted to [3].
This is an important distinction. Many people believe that progression means
doing more than last time — more sets, more reps, more weight, pushing
closer to failure. But that’s only half the story. Progression isn’t about what
you did last session; it’s about whether that stimulus is still enough to challenge you now. You can apply more stimulus than is needed, but that doesn’t
mean you’re “locked in” to having to do even more next time. The idea that
overload must always be proactively increased is a misconception.
Put another way: progressive overload is not the proactive process of progressing the overload (i.e., increasing the sets, reps, or load lifted); it should
be viewed in reverse: if you are able to progress, it’s because overload occurred [2, 3].
Therefore, a good training program must regularly meet the stimulus threshold needed to produce gains, and this threshold is based on what you’ve
already adapted to.
• In strength training, this means establishing an appropriate volume (on
average, which may change over a training plan) and increasing the load
as you get stronger to maintain an appropriate intensity. (For example,
what starts as 80% of your 1RM becomes 70%, then 60%, then 50% if you
don’t adjust the load.)
• In hypertrophy training, this means establishing a given volume (which
can also fluctuate) and increasing load or reps as you make progress to
maintain the appropriate proximity to failure. (Otherwise, what was 1 RIR
becomes 3, 4, and 5 RIR as you progress).
When you view progressive overload in this manner, it becomes clear that we
already addressed many of its key components in the last chapter. That’s why
Level 3 is called Progression, because unfortunately, progressing throughout
your entire lifting career requires more than simply establishing a given volume, frequency, and intensity. Eventually, plateaus will happen as you advance in training status, and when they do, you’ll have to figure out why and
what to do about it.
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TRAINING STATUS
We aren’t all dealt the same hand at the proverbial gains table. Some people
are naturally bigger or stronger without lifting weights than others who have
spent years training.
Often, we label “advanced athletes” as those who’ve reached a certain competitive level — a bodybuilder with a national title or pro card, or a powerlifter who hit a certain total, coefficient, or qualified for World Championships.
In most cases, these athletes trained for decades to achieve these goals.
But what about athletes who were dealt a royal flush at the gains table? For
them, it doesn’t take nearly as much training for them to become “advanced”
relative to their peers. Yet that doesn’t mean they are advanced relative to
their potential.
This is an important distinction for understanding training status. Rather
than classifying training status as your competitive level, strength, muscularity relative to others, or some arbitrary standard, we classify training status
based on how quickly you can make progress in the gym.
Your rapid “newbie gains” are wonderful. But, unfortunately, the closer you
get to your potential, the slower progress comes [4]. With sufficient, consistent effort, solid recovery (sleep, nutrition, stress management, etc.), and
sound training, you won’t plateau in the novice phase; you will only deal with
plateaus as an intermediate and advanced lifter.
Understanding your training status provides appropriate expectations for
your rate of progress and informs your approach to progression.
That said, training status isn’t the only factor in how fast you progress. Genetics, starting point, and recovery environment matter too. So, while we talk
about categories — novice, intermediate, and advanced — they aren’t clearly
defined boxes. Training status exists on a spectrum, stretching from your
first session to your unknown, hypothetical full potential.
For example, if you trained your upper body throughout high school and into
your early 20s but only then started training legs, you might be intermediate or advanced in upper body strength and muscularity but novice in lower
body strength and muscularity. We point this out so that you understand
that these classifications have nuance in the real world. Therefore, these approximate rates of average progress by training status (shown below) are
just that — approximations.
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TABLE 3.1. TRAINING STATUS DEFINITION
AND ESTIMATED AVERAGE RATES OF PROGRESS
Novice
Able to add load and/or reps each time a lift is repeated in the same week or from week
to week. This phase can last for years but may be as short as 6 months with consistent,
progressive training, sufficient recovery, and effort.
Intermediate
Progress slows. You might add reps in the 10–20 rep range week to week, or add load in
lower rep ranges month to month. With appropriate training, most reach this stage by year 1
and may remain here through years 4–5. Many never progress past it.
Advanced
Gains are much slower. You may add a rep or two in the 10–20 rep range month to month,
or make small increases in reps or load in lower rep ranges over longer timeframes.
Progress becomes increasingly difficult as you approach your muscular potential.
Most lifters never reach this phase.
Importantly, these rates of progress are based on what most lifters can feasibly measure: gym progress. We’ve delineated the ability to increase load and
reps in both higher and lower rep ranges. This is because load increments,
especially on single joint movements, typically require a larger increase in
force production capacity than adding reps. And from a percentage perspective, it is a smaller relative improvement to go from 20 to 21 reps with a
given load (+5%) than it is to go from 5 to 6 reps with a given load (+20%).
In the next section, we’ll discuss research on the time course of adaptations
among lifters of various training statuses. We’ll also discuss whether advanced lifters need to change their training dose over time and, if so, why
that might be the case.
DOES VOLUME NEED TO INCREASE
WITH TRAINING STATUS?
Earlier in this chapter, we explained that within a fixed volume of training,
maintaining overload requires keeping pace with your strength increases —
by adjusting load for strength goals or maintaining RIR for hypertrophy. But
do you eventually reach a point where a fixed number of sets is no longer
sufficient to allow further adaptation? In other words, does training volume
(i.e., number of sets) need to increase as your training status advances?
This is a debated question. Some even claim that with experience, you become so much stronger and more efficient that you don’t need to increase
volume, and maybe you even need to decrease it, as you can now generate
more fatigue and stimulus per set.
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So, which perspective is right?
It likely depends on your starting volume. Suppose you were doing far more
than necessary as a novice alongside low training quality (e.g., sloppy technique, underestimated RIR). In that case, it’s conceivable that you could reduce volume while improving execution and still achieve better gains. However, if you start with a very low volume, you may need to increase volume at
a certain point to advance.
In a nearly 7-year analysis by Steele and colleagues of almost 15,000 recreational lifters performing just one weekly set per exercise to failure [5],
strength plateaued in 1–2 years, increasing only as much as 50% from baseline. In contrast, many experienced coaches have seen beginners double
their strength in less time.
You don’t need to rely on anecdotal experience to confirm this. In a study
of response variability by Hubal and colleagues [6], the highest responders
among nearly 600 untrained men and women increased their biceps curl
1RM by 250% (10.2 kg/22.5 lb), with the average increase being 54% in just
12 weeks! As opposed to one set to failure, these participants did nine sets
for biceps — though not to failure — twice per week, for 18 total weekly sets.
Thus, a single weekly set to failure isn’t enough for most novice lifters to ever
become intermediates.
This illustrates an important point: the minimum effective dose (ED) to advance your training status does increase over time, but that doesn’t mean
the ideal volume you should perform necessarily increases.
This increase in the minimum ED with training status can be demonstrated across
many athletic disciplines by contrasting detraining and maintenance research
in athletes with the general population. For example, elite cyclists training ~10–
14 hours/week in-season can maintain endurance performance when reducing
training time to 40–70% if they include a single, short, weekly high-intensity
interval session. If you remove the intervals, their performance slowly degrades
despite training ~6 hours/week [7, 8]. However, if you gave this protocol to untrained, older, sedentary people, even without the intervals, that protocol would
be at a higher intensity than needed and more than double the required training time to maximize their increases in endurance [9]! Simply put, the volume
a novice needs to progress — or their minimum ED — is considerably different
from what a highly experienced individual needs to progress.
Similar parallels exist for lifters. As discussed, a single weekly set to failure
can increase strength for 1–2 years in initially untrained lifters, and on average, as we discussed in the last chapter, Pelland reported that only four
weekly sets are needed to produce measurable hypertrophy in 2–3 months
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in their meta-regression on both untrained and trained lifters [10]. However,
while experienced strength athletes can temporarily “peak” their strength by
performing a similarly low volume of heavy sets on their competition lifts,
after a few months, strength may plateau [11, 12]. Further, slight reductions
in muscle size sometimes occur in National-level weightlifters [13, 14] while
doing reduced volume peaking phases at a volume higher than the minimum
ED for hypertrophy, as reported by Pelland [10].
Importantly, just because the minimum ED increases with training status
doesn’t mean it ever reaches astronomical levels or that, therefore, the ideal
volume for trained lifters increases. However, it can appear that way.
As we’ve discussed, it’s not uncommon for lifters’ strength to more than double
in the first few years of lifting. Unfortunately, rates of progress inevitably slow
down. Most modern, raw, competitive powerlifters have strength trained for
~3–4 years before they start competing [15]. They’ve already made the largest
relative increase in strength they’ll ever experience — their newbie gains.
Still, as new competitors, they continue to gain strength. Latella and colleagues analyzed over 9000 drug-tested powerlifters from the Open Powerlifting database for up to 17 years into their competitive careers [16]. On
average, lifters increased their totals by ~10% during their first year competing. Unfortunately, on average, it took another 9 years to increase totals by
another 10%, for a 20% total increase, over a decade. This inevitable slowdown occurs despite modern, raw powerlifters training 6–10 hours per week
across 4–6 weekly sessions, on average [17–19].
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FIGURE
3.1.3.1.
YOUR
GENETIC
ASAN
ANASYMPTOTE
ASYMPTOTE
FIGURE
YOUR
GENETICLIMIT
LIMIT AS
NOVICE
HIGH
INT ERMEDI AT E
ADVAN C ED
GENETIC LIMIT
PROGRESS
LOW
0 3 6
9 12
18
24
36
48
60
72
84 MONTHS
TIME
Understandably, athletes don’t just accept this slowed progress. They do
everything in their power to maintain the fastest rate of progress they can,
sometimes burning out or getting injured in the process. Even though you
haven’t plateaued, the experience of increasing your total by 10% over 10
years can feel like you’ve plateaued. Worse, when surrounded by others — in
person or on social media — lifters compare themselves not just to their past
progress, but to peers who may be genetic outliers that made elite progress
from their newbie gains alone.
To try and “break through,” many lifters increase volume. As discussed in the
last chapter, doing more volume can increase strength and muscle mass, up
to a point. For advanced lifters, adding muscle becomes a more important
component of strength gains [20].
But just because some advanced lifters do a ton of volume doesn’t mean
they need that much volume. These lifters might believe they need that much
volume to progress simply because if they did only what they needed to progress, they’d consider their rate of progress unacceptably slow. Therefore,
many athletes try to offset slowing progress by doing more.
Whether doing more is a good or bad decision depends on context. For example, a competitive bodybuilder trying to place higher at Worlds next year
may do far more volume than they need to progress. Is that wise? Maybe not.
But, so long as they don’t burn out, get hurt, or make life sacrifices they re-
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gret, it’s arguably a good move. Unfortunately, many often do burn out, get
hurt, or look back with regret.
THE FITNESS-FATIGUE MODEL
As training status increases, plateaus become inevitable. Breaking through
them is necessary to keep progressing. However, not all plateaus are due
to training status. Some are short-lived and simply reflect the interplay between fitness and fatigue.
When you train with sufficient intensity to produce overload, two things happen:
1. Your fitness improves (the adaptations you want), and
2. You accumulate fatigue (which temporarily masks those gains).
You understand fatigue intuitively because you feel its effects. You experience
a painful burn in your muscles, a loss of strength, breathlessness, and struggle to maintain focus and motivation as you progress through a hard training session. If you just did a 10-rep set to momentary failure, you know even
with a few minutes rest, you won’t be able to get another 10 reps with that
same load. Then, in the subsequent days, you will feel soreness in the muscles
you trained, be sluggish when moving, and be less mentally prepared to train
again. You may experience mild joint pain, and if you train the same movements shortly after a very hard session, your strength might be suppressed.
Fatigue comes from multiple sources and operates on different time scales
[21, 22].
• In the short term, muscular work depletes energy stores and results in
metabolite accumulation that inhibits muscular contraction strength to
varying degrees based on the dose of exercise. Additionally, the brain
receives feedback due to the muscular and cardiorespiratory fatigue you
experience, leading to additional neuromuscular fatigue that inhibits contraction strength. Many of these sources of fatigue resolve within minutes
following exercise, others take hours, while some — with appropriate nutrition and recovery — resolve at most within a day or two.
• In the longer term, muscle damage is the primary cause of fatigue [23,
24]. The initial mechanical and metabolic stress from training and the subsequent inflammation associated with remodeling, adaptation, and repair
(which you experience as delayed-onset muscle soreness or DOMS) lead
to reduced performance. Total volume, proximity to failure, training novel-
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ty, eccentric forces, forces at long muscle lengths, and individual factors
dictate the degree of muscle damage.
• Fortunately, with training experience, exercise familiarity, and exposure
to a given dose, muscle damage substantially decreases with repeated
training. This is called the repeated bout effect. But this doesn’t mean
fatigue disappears entirely. Any training hard enough to cause overload
creates a degree of muscle damage, even if it is much less than you experienced as a novice. In most trained individuals, depending on individual
factors and what they are accustomed to, muscle damage and DOMS resolve within days or at most a week. However, it can take weeks to resolve
large amounts of muscle damage in completely untrained individuals first
exposed to an inappropriately hard training session.
If training didn’t generate this fatigue, your fitness would almost perfectly mirror your performance (we say almost because other factors outside
training also impact performance). However, since training generates both
fitness and fatigue, it is often unclear if you’ve made gains in the presence
of fatigue.
Mathematically:
Performance = Fitness – Fatigue [25]
This relationship is often visualized in the Fitness-Fatigue Model.
FIGURE 3.2. THE FITNESS-FATIGUE MODEL —
FIGURE 3.2. THE FITNESS-FATIGUE
MODEL
— A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
A CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK
FITNESS
FATIGUE
BEFORE TR AINING
POST TR AINING
PERFORMANCE
TIME
AFTER RECOVERY TIME
This graph demonstrates this interplay. You can see that before training, there
is a small level of fatigue from previous training sessions. Post-training, fitness increases due to the training effect, but fatigue also increases, masking
the positive effect on performance. After recovery, fatigue drops to baseline,
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and the increase in performance is apparent (shown by the increase in the
yellow performance bar overall).
This model helps explain why your strength might not reflect your true capability immediately after a tough session and why a few days of rest can
sometimes produce a surprising rebound in performance.
Fortunately, fatigue fades quickly after a training session, while fitness fades
slowly. In most cases, a few days off every week and training different lifts
and muscle groups on different days ensures you can manage fatigue to recover sufficiently to train hard enough to produce overload. This “two-factor
model” is useful for understanding how to distribute and organize training
within a week to optimize recovery and, therefore, performance.
3.3. THE FITNESS-FATIGUE
MODEL
—
FIGURE 3.3.FIGURE
THE FITNESS-FATIGUE
MODEL — CHANGES
IN PERFORMANCE
CHANGES IN PERFORMANCE
OVER
A TYPICAL WEEK
OVER A TYPICAL
WEEK
FI T NE SS
P E R FO RM ANCE
FAT I G U E
The Fitness-Fatigue Model can help you make programming decisions from
block to block as well. Indeed, balancing fitness and fatigue is a hallmark of
effective programming [26]. In most cases, effectively organizing your training and off days prevents fatigue from becoming an issue, but not always.
In your quest to continually provide overload, especially if you are sustaining a high training dose to progress as fast as possible, you might experience counterproductive levels of fatigue. In extreme cases, this can result in
Overtraining Syndrome, though this is very rare in resistance training alone.
More commonly, you’ll encounter non-functional overreaching, where performance drops and injury risk rises. Therefore, sometimes, you need to take
proactive steps, such as a deload.
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OVERREACHING AND OVERTRAINING SYNDROME
The current understanding of Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) is that it is a decline in performance lasting months or longer, with or without secondary
hormonal, psychological, immune, or sleep impairment symptoms [27].
In the lifting community, however, the term “overtraining” is often thrown
around loosely. Lifters use it to describe any drop in performance or lack of
progress, sometimes even just feeling run-down. As a result, questions like
“Am I overtraining?” or “Is this program too much?” are common. But these
questions often stem from misunderstandings about what overtraining really
is and how likely it is to occur. Therefore, it’s important to have a clear understanding of OTS and other related concepts so that you can manipulate your
program confidently to ensure recovery.
To get right to the point, true OTS is rare, especially in lifters. Although it
sometimes occurs in endurance and team sport athletes, it is extremely uncommon in those who only lift [28]. It can sometimes happen with concurrent aerobic or sports training or in high-intensity “functional fitness” athletes (like CrossFit) [29], and it can appear to occur in underfed lifters, but
is actually due to low energy availability [30] — essentially, being underfed.
In sufficiently fuelled people who only lift, OTS is so rare as to be functionally non-existent. It’s arguably more likely you will get injured on the way
to OTS before you ever get there. With that key point established, let’s dive
into the details.
The Fatigue Spectrum: From Normal Fatigue to Overtraining
Overtraining Syndrome exists on the far end of the spectrum of the fatigue
response from overload. An OTS diagnosis requires a sustained decrease in
performance lasting multiple months. Secondary physiological and psychological symptoms are also likely but not necessary for diagnosis.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is normal fatigue from overload, causing only short-term reductions in performance that resolve before the next
similar training session.
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Between these two extremes is overreaching, which can be either:
• Functional Overreaching (FOR):
A short-term dip or stagnation in performance lasting days to weeks, followed by an increase in performance above baseline after recovery.
• Non-Functional Overreaching (NFOR):
A longer-lasting decline in performance — typically weeks to months —
that is not followed by an increase in performance above baseline.
Either may occur with negative physiological or psychological symptoms [27].
FIGURE
MODEL—
CHANGES
IN PERFORMANCE
FIGURE3.4.
3.4.THE
THE FITNESS-FATIGUE
FITNESS-FATIGUE MODEL—
CHANGES
IN PERFORMANCE
DUE
DUE TOTO‘FUNCTIONAL
OVERREACHING’
A TRAINING
‘FUNCTIONAL OVERREACHING’
IN AINTRAINING
CYCLE CYCLE
FI T NE SS
P E R FO RM ANCE
FAT I G U E
A
B
The above graph depicts functional overreaching.
Imagine that the training dose sharply increases at the first dotted line; you
can see that fitness starts to increase faster in response. However, because
the increase in training dose was sudden and sharp, fatigue rises disproportionately as the lifter does not have time to acclimatize to the dose. Thus,
excessive fatigue starts to mask fitness, reducing performance.
At the second dotted line, when fatigue is highest, performance gets so low
that the decline in performance limits the lifter’s ability to induce overload
and fitness plateaus. Theoretically, if the lifter kept pushing a high training
dose at this point, they might experience non-functional overreaching, a potential injury, or eventually Overtraining Syndrome. However, if at this point,
the lifter either strategically or due to weariness and burnout, decides to reduce the training dose, fatigue dissipates before fitness is negatively affected. Since fitness is maintained and fatigue dissipated, performance reaches
a new level. PRs are had, and there is much rejoicing.
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FIGURE 3.5. THE FITNESS-FATIGUE MODEL —
CHANGES IN PERFORMANCE DUE TO ‘NONFUNCTIONAL OVERREACHING,’
FIGURE 3.5. LEADING
THE FITNESS-FATIGUE
MODEL —INCHANGES
IN PERFORMANCE
TO OVERTRAINING
A TRAINING
CYCLE DUE TO
‘NONFUNCTIONAL OVERREACHING,’ LEADING TO OVERTRAINING IN A TRAINING CYCLE
FI T NE SS
P E RFO RM ANCE
FAT I G UE
A
B
C
The second graph depicts non-functional overreaching leading to Overtraining Syndrome. Here, the trainee has decided not to decrease the training
dose at the point of the second dotted line. The trainee sees performance
decreasing but puts it down to a bad run of training sessions, or maybe tried
to overreach and took it too far. The fatigue-induced drops in performance
last long enough that overload stops occurring, and fitness decreases.
Eventually, either due to pain, mild injury, burnout, or simply because they
realized their mistake, they reduce the dose at the third dotted line. Unfortunately, they are so fatigued that it will take weeks to recover, and only then
can they build their training back to normal levels to regain the lost fitness
for performance to rebound.
How Common Is This Really?
Let’s be clear: while this second graph depicts Overtraining Syndrome, it’s
extremely rare, especially in lifters.
In fact, one study found that among endurance athletes experiencing symptoms like fatigue and declining performance, only 15% met the formal criteria
for Overtraining Syndrome [31].
And lifters? Far rarer.
Traditional strength training simply doesn’t generate the volume of total
work (contractions, time under load, total training time) that endurance and
team sport athletes can accumulate. For most lifters, the logistical limit of
training volume is far below what’s needed to cause true OTS.
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Grandou and colleagues [28] illustrated this in a 2020 systematic review of
overtraining research in resistance training. In 10 of the 22 studies where researchers attempted to induce overreaching or Overtraining Syndrome, they
failed, as no reduction in performance occurred — despite putting the athletes through some very high-dose protocols (which in many cases caused
increases in performance, not decreases).
Of the 12 studies where performance did decline:
• Four lacked follow-up, so it’s unclear whether participants were functionally or non-functionally overreached.
• The remaining eight had follow-ups, but the longest lasted just eight
weeks — too short to confirm true Overtraining Syndrome, which requires
a performance decline of months.
Thus, Grandou and colleagues concluded that OTS had never been reported
in the resistance training literature.
However, in the same year, Bell and colleagues also reviewed the OTS literature in lifters and strength athletes [29], and based on their interpretation, a single study reported some participants experiencing full-blown OTS
(while the other participants experienced non-functional overreaching). In
this study, Fry and colleagues [32] had participants test their 1RM on a squat
machine, followed by 10 attempted singles with their 1RM. If they failed a rep,
they reduced the load by 10 lbs and had the participants continue until they
completed 10 successful lifts — failed reps didn’t count! Most importantly,
the participants did this every day for two weeks! After the protocol, participants had to take two to eight weeks off training entirely before they could
resume normal training.
Needless to say, while OTS is technically possible, it takes a truly ludicrous
protocol to induce it from lifting alone, and it is certainly not something that
will creep up on you.
Strength is a physiological quality that is last and least negatively impacted by excessive training load. In many of the studies reviewed in these
overtraining analyses [28, 29], secondary signs of overtraining, like hormonal disruption, sleep impairment, loss of motivation, depression and mood
changes, immune suppression, and more, occurred even when performance
hadn’t declined.
Further, injuries are sometimes reported in studies where the researchers attempt to induce OTS [33], and when a participant experiences an injury or pain,
they typically drop out of the study and aren’t included in the final analysis.
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In our anecdotal experience, when lifters overdo their training dose, they stagnate (indicative of non-functional overreaching), then either change their training because they get hurt or because of a loss of motivation or mild depression.
Ultimately, you don’t need to worry about accidentally doing too high a training dose. It won’t sneak up on you: if you are doing too much, the downsides
will be apparent.
When you’re doing too much, performance fluctuates more day to day; motivation is harder to sustain; aches and pains crop up; higher-than-normal DOMS
occurs; sleep might be disrupted; and you may get ill more often. More importantly, it negatively impacts other aspects of life, creating additional psychological and social stress, hopefully making it clear that the dose is too high.
When these signs follow a bump in training volume or intensity, that’s your
cue: it’s time to manage fatigue.
Respond early, and you’ll prevent bigger problems later.
THE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL MODEL
As you can see, predicting the time course of adaptation and recovery is not just
a matter of calculating the training dose in your spreadsheet. The Fitness-Fatigue model provides a cohesive but isolated picture of the biological response
to training. It conceptualizes the physical act of training in isolation and assumes the same recovery effect always occurs between training sessions.
While useful conceptually, this isn’t how fitness and fatigue operate in the
real world, and mathematical attempts to use this model to predict changes
in performance have failed [34]. Likewise, while Overtraining Syndrome and
overreaching are real phenomena, they are also hard to predict because so
many factors influence them.
Many variables outside of training impact how we adapt to training. Social
and psychological factors, not just biological factors, impact our stress response, which must be acknowledged in training theory [35]. This biopsychosocial model of stress explains how two different individuals — or the
same individual in different circumstances — can generate a different amount
of fitness and fatigue from the same training program.
Factors like:
• Age
• Genetic make-up
• Prior training experience
• Sleep
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• Motivation
• Cumulative life stress
• Nutrition
• Arousal
• Motivation during exercise (and more),
…can all impact the fitness and fatigue a program generates [36].
For example, negatively perceived life stress can reduce the magnitude of
strength development [37] and impair recovery after training [38].
In essence, the responses to training, both fitness and fatigue, are highly individual and constantly shaped by the context of a lifter’s life. For these reasons, the response to training is not always predictable. While good planning
is essential, you must also be flexible and reactive in your quest for gains.
DELOADS, TAPERS, AND INTRODUCTORY
CYCLES
WHAT ARE DELOADS?
Deloads are a well-known, almost assumed, part of training among serious
lifters. If you’ve been around the lifting community for any length of time,
you’ve probably heard the term. And if you haven’t, you may still be using
them without realizing it.
Surprisingly, despite their popularity, there are very few direct studies on deloads. That might sound odd, given that you’ll hear them regularly discussed
in the science-interested lifting community. But the truth is, while deloads
are rooted in established scientific principles like the ones we’ve discussed
up to this point, they are largely informed by expert opinion, observational
research, and indirect research.
That’s not a knock on deloads. In fact, learning to apply general principles to
real-world programming in the absence of direct research is a key skill for any
coach. Scientific studies aren’t designed to tell you precisely what to do in every
training scenario. They give us concepts, and it’s our job to apply them wisely.
So what exactly is a deload?
In 2022, Bell and colleagues interviewed 18 high-level coaches in powerlifting, weightlifting, and bodybuilding to learn how they defined, rationalized,
and implemented deloads [39]. To quote the authors:
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“Overall, participants defined deloading as a point within the overall training programme where training demand was intentionally and systematically reduced.”
That’s it: reduced demand, implemented with purpose.
Typically, this takes the form of a short (usually one-week) period of reduced
volume and/or intensity, placed between blocks of harder training. Coaches
reported using deloads for two main reasons:
• To manage fatigue and promote recovery.
• To facilitate long-term progression.
More specifically, they believed deloads:
• Facilitated adaptation.
• Promoted physical and mental regeneration.
• Enabled athletes to perform subsequent progressive training programs.
• Helped prevent injury and burnout.
Coaches’ beliefs about deloads are supported not by direct trials on deloading itself, but come from their experiences in the field, as well as the wellknown sport science principles we’ve discussed. Thus, it’s understandable
that deloading is common practice among coaches, and probably for good
reason. As we discussed in the last section, while true overtraining is rare
in lifters, getting fatigued from high-dose training can increase the risk of
illness, injury, mental burnout, and cause shorter-term plateaus. An intuitive
response to such situations is to decrease training demands enough so the
athlete can recover, but not so much that fitness is lost. In other words: implement a deload.
However, before we explain how to deload, we would like to explain the limited research that informs deloads, starting with the related concept of tapers.
TAPERS
Tapers are intentional reductions in training dose implemented close to competition to allow fatigue to dissipate and performance to peak. While they are
commonly performed by athletes in many disciplines, among competitive lifters, they primarily consist of decreasing training volume [40–43], not intensity.
Whereas deloads are inserted between training blocks to manage fatigue and
prepare for further progress, tapers are timed specifically before strength
testing or competition to maximize acute strength. In a sense, deloads and
tapers are closely related but serve different goals.
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Tapers consistently result in acute strength increases when they follow a period of intentional overreaching, making them a key part of the functional
overreaching strategy. Interestingly, while the expected average improvement
in maximal strength falls in the ~2–4% range following a taper, the degree of
improvement can differ depending on how the taper is structured [44].
Tapering styles — either short and sharp or gradual reductions in volume —
can have a positive, neutral, or even negative impact on hypertrophy [45].
For example, one study showed that tapering can result in increased power
output but decreased muscle size at the same time [14]. While this is fine for
strength athletes on meet day who care only about maximizing strength, as
deloads occur more frequently, they shouldn’t result in muscle loss.
How to Taper
Tapers follow broad, evidence-based guidelines that consistently produce
strength enhancements [46]:
Volume should be reduced substantially — usually by 50–80% — to allow
muscle damage and fatigue to dissipate.
Load (intensity) should be maintained or even slightly increased to preserve the specific skill of strength.
The length of a taper depends on the level of prior fatigue:
• If a long and challenging overreaching period precedes the taper, the process may need to span several weeks or an entire block.
• After a shorter, less fatiguing period, a one-week taper may suffice.
• In cases with minimal accumulated fatigue, a taper might simply mean
two to three days off before testing or competition.
Notably, if the taper’s reduction in volume is too deep or lasts too long, it
could result in some minor detraining — reductions in work capacity and
muscle size.
This is where tapers and deloads must be clearly differentiated. Deloads
are meant to manage fatigue without compromising muscle mass or performance potential. They prepare you for more training, not for peak performance. Therefore, you wouldn’t pull volume back as far in a deload as you
would in a taper, right?
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Taking Time Off Completely: Desensitization and Resensitization
The answer is a surprising “maybe,” as this is where the last line of research
indirectly related to deloading comes in: the data on desensitization and
resensitization.
Desensitization is the idea that the longer you’re exposed to a stimulus, the
smaller your magnitude of adaptation will be. Some coaches use desensitization or “anabolic resistance” to justify planned time off from training or
deloads. The idea is that you must cut back on training volume substantially
or take time off fully to resensitize your muscles for a stimulus to keep providing optimal results.
There is some support for this notion. Specifically, Jacko and colleagues [47]
had a small group of participants perform leg presses and extensions three
times per week for four weeks, then take 10 days off from training. The authors measured type I and II muscle fiber diameter and anabolic signaling
at baseline, during training, after training, and again after the 10-day break.
Key findings:
• Both fiber types increased in size after four weeks of training.
• After 10 days off, muscle size was maintained.
• Anabolic signaling decreased progressively during training, but returned
to baseline after the 10-day break.
While this looks like a win for the concept of resensitization and intentionally
taking complete rest between training blocks, it’s important to stress that we
still don’t understand the interplay between muscle damage repair and muscle remodeling (hypertrophy). Many of the signaling pathways overlap, and
the repeated bout effect may be necessary to provide the muscle’s structural
integrity for future growth. Put simply, we don’t yet know whether deliberately trying to “resensitize” muscles with time off actually leads to better
long-term results.
To explore this further, we can look at two studies by Ogasawara and colleagues. In the first [48], the authors reported that untrained young men who
trained continuously for 15 weeks achieved the same increases in bench press
1RM and pec and triceps hypertrophy as those who trained for six weeks,
took three weeks off, then trained for another 6 weeks. The two groups got
to the same place despite one group training for three weeks less.
This begs the question: if they’d continued this study longer, would the group
taking periodic breaks have surpassed the continuous group? Unfortunately,
that wasn’t observed when Ogasawara conducted the follow-up study, which
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lasted a full 24 weeks [49]. This time, the periodic detraining group performed
three six-week blocks of training with two three-week detraining periods, one
between each six-week cycle. Once again, both groups made similar gains.
Thus, at least in these initially untrained participants, over 24 weeks, periodic
time off didn’t provide a net advantage for muscle growth or strength.
These findings do indicate novice and early-stage intermediate lifters can rapidly regain lost ground returning from time off, which should be a relief to hear
if you’re concerned that a deload might hamper your gains or if you’re worried
about vacations or other life disruptions that force you to take brief periods off.
HOW TO DELOAD
When it comes to deciding how and when to deload, we don’t need to rely
solely on expert opinion or indirect evidence from tapering and training cessation studies. There is now some new direct research on deloads as well.
In 2024, Coleman and colleagues compared trained men and women assigned
to a continuous nine-week hypertrophy program or to a “deload” group who
took the fifth week off completely [50]. This is a useful study, as it is common
for some lifters just to take a week off when they feel like they need a deload.
The previous research we discussed on time off used longer breaks — from 10
days to three weeks — which doesn’t reflect typical practice.
In Coleman’s study, whether the lifters trained continuously for nine weeks
or took the fifth week off, it didn’t seem to impact muscle size, power, or endurance, which increased in both groups. However, the deload group gained
less strength and experienced more soreness.
• Framed positively, both groups grew similarly, but the deload group took
a full week off without hurting hypertrophy.
• Framed negatively, the deload provided no advantage, impaired performance, and increased soreness.
However, before deciding whether deloads are “good or bad,” we must consider the context: these lifters trained four times per week, doing 10–20 sets
per muscle group, to failure. In exit interviews, nearly all participants said
they’d trained harder than they ever had before. Yet almost none felt they
needed a deload after the study. In fact, nearly all of the participants planned
to return to their regular training within a few days.
This outcome starkly contrasts the previously discussed overreaching studies
on strength athletes, where tapers were necessary to demonstrate improved
performance. So, not everyone needs to do pre-planned deloads, even when
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following hard but still relatively typical training programs. Simply put, not
everyone is a full-time strength athlete or bodybuilder pushing the limits of
their recovery.
Coleman’s study demonstrates there aren’t tangible benefits, at least in the
short term, from attempting to desensitize and resensitize by taking a week
off every month when doing reasonably hard training. In fact, the authors
reported that many participants in the deload group felt lethargic after the
week off rather than refreshed. This may be because they simply didn’t need
to deload, and the participants actually detrained a bit, losing some fitness.
Perhaps if they had simply reduced their training volume by 50%, for example, this might not have occurred, considering tapers more consistently
result in strength increases compared to short periods of complete rest. In
fact, in contrast to tapers, in well-trained lifters, training cessation longer
than three days sometimes actually results in strength decreases [51].
What Determines the Need for a Deload?
The decision to deload depends on:
• The goal
• Training status
• Exercise selection
• Total training dose
• Individual recovery
Coleman’s study suggests that even challenging but typical training doesn’t
require automatic deloads every few weeks. This challenges the belief that
regular deloads are necessary to prevent hidden fatigue from undermining
gains, or that training must be hard enough to require them.
In fact, there’s no evidence that functional overreaching produces faster hypertrophy or strength gains than hard training that doesn’t induce overreaching. As discussed in Level 2, although there’s clearly an inverted-U-shaped relationship between training volume and adaptation, this turning point hasn’t
been observed in the research. Meaning, over the time periods that most
studies last (6–12 weeks), even very high-volume programs don’t produce a
sufficient amount of fatigue to require deloads in order to be beneficial.
So does this mean deloads are pointless? Not at all. Rather, deloads should occur
on an as-needed basis rather than as pre-planned components of all programs.
Most fatigue can be managed by taking days off, sleeping enough, eating
a recovery-promoting diet, and managing stress. Remember: recovery and
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deloads are not the same thing. While recovery is necessary for adaptation,
you don’t necessarily need a deload to recover.
Think about it: reducing your training dose for an entire week is an arbitrary
length of time. There is no rule indicating you need that much recovery for
your training to be optimal. Recovery starts as soon as you finish exercising.
In most cases, lifters train 3–6 days per week for 1–2 hours per session. That
means most people train 3–12 hours per week, leaving 156–165 hours to recover. Given this reality, it’s fair to ask: Why would the average recreational
lifter need a week off every month?
With that said, some people might very well need to regularly deload. If you
are a competitive athlete training 5+ times per week, for 1.5–3 hours for each
session (and not because you spend 90% of that time talking to people),
pushing the limits of your strength and training near failure, it could be a
different story. But again, if you use deloads as needed, you will cover your
bases in either scenario.
Reactive Deloads: An Autoregulated Recovery Tool
So, how might you do a reactive deload, one based on how you’re actually
feeling rather than a pre-set schedule?
We recommend using a weekly self-assessment, ideally including both training and rest days, to evaluate your recovery status. A simple checklist based
on Overtraining Syndrome research can help guide this decision.
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TABLE 3.2.
SELF ASSESSMENT AFTER COMPLETING A WEEK OF TRAINING
AND DAYS OFF
Y/N?
Dreading the gym?
Sleep worse than normal?
Loads or reps at the same load decreasing from last training cycle?
Stress worse than normal?
Aches and pain worse than normal?
Yes to 0-1 questions: carry on
Yes to 2+ questions: consider a deload
Note: Saying “yes” to a few of these questions does not mean you are overreaching or experiencing Overtraining Syndrome; it simply indicates you are
going into the next training week a little less recovered than usual. If that’s
the case, you might consider a deload.
So, how do you deload?
You have a few options. There aren’t specific guidelines for what is “optimal”
because recovery is dynamic and context-specific. Ultimately, the broad principles of deloading come from tapering, but conceptually, deloads should be
a bit more conservative. Specifically, you want to reduce fatigue, but you
want to do so without detraining. Therefore, don’t reduce volume as much
as you would in a taper (~50–80%); instead, reduce sets on all exercises by
~30–50%. This roughly one-third to one-half reduction is what we’d describe
as a standard deload, and it’s useful when you feel generally beat up and
under-recovered.
The general guidelines for a standard deload can be summarized as follows:
• Volume: Reduce sets by ~30–50% across all exercises.
• Intensity: Maintain normal loading and proximity to failure.
• Frequency: Keep the same number of sessions per week.
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However, you won’t always feel equally recovered throughout your body. It’s
not uncommon to feel fine but have lingering lumbar soreness (or soreness in
another body region). Using the checklist, this shows up as saying “yes” to experiencing more aches and pains than normal but “no” to the other questions.
If that’s the case, you simply deload the exercises that train that area or even
remove certain exercises, depending on the severity of your experience.
For example, if you feel great overall but have lingering, substantial lumbar
soreness, you can do a targeted deload, keeping hack squats, leg extensions, leg curls, and hip thrusts at their normal volume, but remove deadlifts
and/or back squats completely next training week. Further, you can mix and
match these strategies if you are under-recovered generally and have localized aches and pains. For example, if your lumbar is fatigued and you feel
wrecked generally, you can reduce overall volume by 30–50% in a purposefully unbalanced manner, cut out all your sets of squats and deadlifts, but
only cut a few sets off your other lower body lifts, and reduce your upper
body sets symmetrically.
Finally, just because we generally recommend maintaining frequency and
intensity (i.e., load and proximity to failure) during a deload doesn’t mean
there isn’t a time and a place for adjusting them. For example, if it feels like
a waste of time to commute to the gym to train for 30 minutes doing half
as many sets, you can restructure your training into fewer days to reduce
volume. Let’s say you had a four-day upper/lower split. If the two upper and
lower body days were similar in exercise selection and volume, you could do
one upper and one lower day, training just twice that week.
Similarly, if you experience aches and pains that flare up with heavier loads, but
not at higher reps, you could do higher reps for a week for those movements.
Ultimately, deloading is about smart fatigue management, not ticking boxes.
Let your body (and context) guide the adjustments.
INTRODUCTORY CYCLES
A concept closely related to deloads is the introductory cycle (or “intro cycle”). While deloads occur after a period of hard training to manage accumulated fatigue, intro cycles occur at the beginning of a new training block
to help you acclimate to a new (or newly reintroduced) training dose and its
associated fatigue.
If you jump right into doing 20 sets per muscle group and training near failure, but previously were only doing 10 sets per muscle group at a lower RPE,
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things might not go too well. You’ll probably experience crippling DOMS that
prevents you from performing the intended training dose, which could have
been avoided.
The solution (besides not doubling your volume overnight) is to insert an
intro week. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
• Perform ~75% of your planned volume.
• Train slightly further from failure than planned for the main block.
• Keep intensity and movement patterns consistent with your upcoming
program.
This will help you bridge from your current level of fatigue resistance to the
needed level.
While both strategies reduce training stress, their purpose and timing differ:
• Deloads help you recover from accumulated fatigue after a challenging
training period.
• Intro weeks help prevent excessive fatigue before starting a harder or
higher-volume phase.
As we’ll discuss, intro weeks are specifically useful when finishing a lower-volume block of training focused on intensity, before moving into a lower-intensity block with higher volume. So while they are similar concepts,
they differ in purpose: intro weeks are based on what’s coming, versus what
you already did.
Below is a demonstration of when these two might occur when transitioning
between periods of training focused on high volumes and lower load (a volume phase) and lower volumes and higher load (a load phase):
Volume Phase > Deload > Load Phase
Load Phase > Intro Week > Volume Phase
If you’re thinking, “Hold on, what’s this about volume and load phases?” Don’t
worry, we’ll explain that next. But for now, just know that an intro week is a
bridge between two periods of training with a different focus. For example,
after a lower volume phase, ending in a taper leading into a powerlifting
meet (and after a few days off after the competition to recover), you can use
an intro week if you plan to start a higher volume training phase. In practice,
you “bridge” differences in volume, RIR, and rep range to minimize the potential of excessive fatigue when you start the new training phase.
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As you can see, while the guidance in Level 2 provided the broad constraints
of where your training dose will fall on average, this chapter helps you plan
out changes to your training dose depending on your goals and timeline (if
you compete in strength sport, for example). The process of long-term training planning is called periodization.
PERIODIZATION
Periodization is the structured organization of training into distinct time
blocks or “periods,” sequenced in a way that aims to produce better longterm adaptations while avoiding stagnation and injury.
At its core, periodization is about planned variation. Training that remains
the same over time — with no changes in volume, intensity, or focus — is considered non-periodized.
Basic Periodization Terminology
To understand periodization, it helps to know the basic training time scales.
In periodization parlance, a week of training, or one cycle of a “training split,”
is a microcycle. Blocks of microcycles lasting one to two months are mesocycles, and the organization of multiple, successive, planned mesocycles over
a given period (typically a season or a year), often leading to a competition,
is a macrocycle [52, 53].
• Microcycle = a week of training.
• Mesocycle = a block of training lasting 1–2 months.
• Macrocycle = multiple, successive, planned mesocycles.
WHERE PERIODIZATION CAME FROM
AND WHY IT’S SO COMPLEX
Periodization emerged conceptually with the dawn of formal sport science.
Over time, layers of theory and terminology were added, leading to a range
of different models, each manipulating variables like volume, intensity, frequency, rep range, exercise selection, exercise order, rest intervals, and more.
Given its scope and history, it’s no surprise that many periodization models
exist:
• Linear periodization (aka “classic” or “Western” periodization).
• Reverse linear periodization
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• Undulating (non-linear) periodization – further split into daily or weekly
models.
• Block periodization
• Conjugate periodization
• Mixed periodization
To make matters more confusing, the rationale, efficacy, application, model
definitions, and even the definition of periodization itself are debated [36,
53]. More broadly, there are debates as to whether or not studies of periodization even exist, as periodization is meant to encompass long training
periods, sometimes multiple years (think of an Olympic cycle), while “periodization research” typically lasts 8–12 weeks [53].
Consider the differences between:
• A field athlete who must balance position-specific skill work, strength,
power, endurance, agility, and recovery, all while navigating in-season and
off-season schedules, frequent travel, and constantly shifting demands.
• A powerlifter, who competes a few times per year and trains exclusively
to improve their 1RM in the squat, bench, and deadlift.
These constraints and demands are radically different, and so their periodization approaches must be as well.
Given all this, periodization theory can appear to lack internal consistency,
have rigid rules, opaque philosophies, obscure justification, and a multitude
of potential applications that can lead to paralysis by analysis. Subsequently,
learning about it can seem overwhelming.
Fortunately, for the pure purpose of gaining strength and/or size, most of
these debates, complexity, and confusion are irrelevant. You only need to
understand two interrelated periodization concepts, which more accurately
fall under the umbrella of programming. These are the concepts of linearity
and variation.
PERIODIZATION VERSUS PROGRAMMING
While periodization refers to long-term training planning, programming is
the manipulation of training variables over the short to mid-term. Given the
unpredictability of adaptation, detailed plans should arguably be constrained
to the short and mid-term anyway.
There’s nothing wrong with having long-term plans and goals, like a timeline
for when you plan to compete, be in an energy deficit or surplus, and when
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you’ll do more or less specific training. But there’s not much point in planning specific reps, sets, and exercises a year in advance.
Due to its short-term nature, the “periodization research” is probably more
accurately described as the study of programming [53]. This research examines the manipulation of training within a microcycle (e.g., daily undulation, different repetition ranges on different days), between microcycles
(e.g., weekly undulation), or even across two to three mesocycles (e.g., block
periodization), and has come to valuable conclusions.
In their 2022 meta-analysis of 35 studies including ~1000 participants, Moesgaard and colleagues reported that “periodized” programs led to greater
1RM increases than non-periodized programs [54]. This occurred regardless
of the specific periodization model. Why? To answer that, we need to dig
into what makes a program “non-periodized.”
In the research, non-periodized programs use static volumes, intensities,
and frequencies. Thus, you might perform 3 x 4–6RM on the same three exercises, on the same three days per week, for the entirety of the program.
Non-periodized programs still include overload; e.g., when you can get more
than 4–6 reps with a given load, for example, you increase the load on the
next set or session, but every microcycle structure is the same besides that.
In this sense, the program is the training split.
A periodized program, however, contains variation. Variation can come in
the form of breaking the eight-week protocol into two four-week mesocycles with different rep ranges, or may vary those repetition ranges every
week or day-to-day.
The lack of variation in non-periodized programs also means they lack linearity.
Linearity and Variation: The Core of Periodized Programming
In periodization, linearity typically refers to the progression from:
High volume, lower intensity training ➝ Low volume, higher intensity training.
This mirrors the classic hypertrophy-to-strength progression:
• Early blocks: More sets, moderate reps, lower loads — focus on hypertrophy.
• Later blocks: Fewer sets, lower reps, heavier loads — focus on strength
specificity.
Even undulating programs, sometimes labeled “non-linear,” often follow
a linear trend over time. For example:
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Weeks 1–4:
• Mon: 3x8–12
• Wed: 3x8–10
• Fri: 3x6–8
Weeks 5–8:
• Mon: 3x6–8
• Wed: 3x4–6
• Fri: 3x2–4
This still reflects a gradual shift toward heavier, more specific training — i.e.,
linearity.
Why Are Variation and Linearity Beneficial?
Variation is thought to be beneficial for two reasons:
1. Performance and Recovery
In sport science broadly, varied training seems to result in better performance and fewer incidences of OTS and illness compared to monotonous
training [36].
2. Motor Learning
In motor learning, ‘varied practice’ seems to help skill retention more than
constant, unvaried practice [56]. Most notably when learning “open skills”
(a skill performed in an uncontrolled environment, like a basketball game,
often reactively), and to some degree even when learning “closed skills”
(a skill in a controlled environment, where the athlete decides when to
start and stop), like lifting weights.
In fact, most relevant to readers of this book, higher variation may be more
important for trained lifters compared to untrained lifters. Specifically, in
their meta-analysis [54], Moesgaard also found that undulating periodization, which varies reps and loads more often than other forms of periodization, produced greater strength gains in trained lifters (but not untrained
lifters, who may not need as much complexity to optimize early-stage motor
learning). The concept of varied practice is something we’ll discuss in more
detail in the next chapter, as you can also vary exercises and exercise variations, not just sets, reps, and load.
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In addition to variation, linearity might also be why periodized programs increase strength more than non-periodized programs. Like variation, linearity
might also be beneficial for two reasons:
1. Bigger muscles produce more force [20].
Doing hypertrophy work before strength training theoretically results in
greater muscle mass, allowing the subsequent strength phase to produce
a higher peak 1RM. However, this might not be a primary factor over shorter time periods. While Moesgaard reported greater hypertrophy following
periodized programs, the effect was non-significant and trivial in magnitude [54].
2. Specificity
The more likely reason that linearity is beneficial is that in periodized protocols, you lift heavier, more similar to a 1RM, closer to 1RM testing, leveraging the principle of specificity.
Indeed, some researchers point out that the positive effects of periodized
programs on 1RM strength can’t be confidently attributed to their specific
structure, as they could simply be due to performing specific training close
to the test [57]. Others suggest it’s the variation itself that helps [58].
But in practice, these aren’t mutually exclusive. Without variation, you don’t
have linearity. And even if the only advantage of periodized programming is
that it includes these two elements — that’s still a practical takeaway you can
apply when writing programs.
PROGRAMMING FOR STRENGTH
While concepts like periodization, variation, and linearity seem complicated,
programming is simple and logical.
Take daily undulating programming, for example, the concept of using different loads, volumes, or rep ranges on different days.
Zourdos and colleagues [59] compared two versions of undulating programming in powerlifters to see which produced greater strength gains. Both
groups trained the squat, bench press, and deadlift three times per week:
Group 1:
• Monday: 3–5 sets of 8 reps at 75% 1RM.
• Wednesday: 3 sets of AMRAP (as many reps as possible) at 85–95% 1RM.
• Friday: 3–5 singles at 80–90% 1RM.
Group 2: Same sessions — just swapped Wednesday and Friday.
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Interestingly, the second group increased their 1RMs to a greater degree.
Why?
Because session order matters.
Group 1 hit their most fatiguing session — high volume on Monday — and then
had to perform their hardest effort (AMRAP at 85–95%) just two days later,
likely while still carrying fatigue and muscle damage. Group 2, on the other
hand, placed their least fatiguing session (singles at moderate intensity) between the high-volume and AMRAP sessions. This allowed better recovery
and, as a result, better performance on the high-intensity, high-specificity
day — the one most likely to drive improvements in 1RM strength.
This study demonstrates that you can configure the order of your training
days in better or worse ways, leading to better or worse recovery and, subsequently, better or worse gains.
There is nothing magical about most programming concepts; you just need
to think about the effects that each of your training sessions has on subsequent days and weeks.
For strength, effective programming therefore consists of:
1. Establishing an appropriate dose and frequency.
2. Ensuring specificity occurs at the appropriate time (linearity and variation)
3. Ordering and distributing your training within and between weeks to facilitate recovery and, therefore, strength.
Shortly, we’ll show you a programming system that moves from higher-volume, less specific training to build strength and hypertrophy to lower-volume, more specific training to peak strength and maintain hypertrophy. The
system leverages all the concepts discussed to this point, including overload,
fatigue management, variation, and linearity. It can be adapted to your training status and has built-in progression monitoring to ensure your strength
progresses as long as possible throughout your lifting career.
PROGRAMMING FOR HYPERTROPHY
As discussed earlier, periodized programs didn’t meaningfully outperform
non-periodized programs for hypertrophy in the meta-analysis by Moesgaard
et al. [54]. However, it’s important to note that all of the programs included
were strength-focused, not hypertrophy-specific.
So, drawing the conclusion that periodization offers no benefit for muscle
growth based on this analysis would be like claiming swimming doesn’t im-
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prove running performance based solely on studies of swimmers. Periodization is designed to improve athletic performance, not to make muscles as big
as possible. In periodization, hypertrophy training is just one of many phases
used to improve performance, not the end goal in and of itself. That said,
some elements of periodized training can still be valuable for hypertrophy.
Although not conclusive, several studies indicate that varying repetition
ranges beyond the classic 8–12 “hypertrophy range” may yield slightly greater muscle growth [60–62]. Whether this is due to slight differences in which
mechanism of hypertrophy is emphasized when using different rep ranges,
slight differences in the stimulus imposed on type I versus type II muscle
fibers, or practical differences in joint stress, injury risk, fatigue, discomfort,
and perceived exertion between higher and lower load training is unclear,
but nonetheless, varying repetition ranges is recommended to maximize hypertrophy [52].
Additionally, since hypertrophy is primarily influenced by volume and proximity to failure, a training configuration that facilitates completing more volume, at a closer proximity to failure, is likely superior for hypertrophy.
Therefore, effective programming for hypertrophy consists of:
1. Establishing an appropriate dose and frequency, ensuring a degree of variation across the repetition spectrum.
2. Ordering and distributing your training within and between weeks to facilitate recovery and, therefore, muscle growth.
Shortly, we’ll show you a programming system that leverages all the concepts discussed to this point, including overload, fatigue management, and
rep range variation. For advanced lifters, practical constraints like time and
recovery sometimes require focusing on specific muscle groups through
specialization cycles to ensure a sufficient stimulus occurs, ensuring you
keep growing as long as possible throughout your lifting career.
STRENGTH PROGRESSION SYSTEM
The system outlined below incorporates all the key concepts discussed so
far — including progressive overload, specificity, fatigue management, variation, and linearity — to help you continue making strength gains throughout
your lifting career.
It’s designed to be highly adaptable across different programs, preferences, and schedules. Whether you’re a competitive powerlifter or a general
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strength enthusiast, this system can work for you. We encourage you to reference our sample programs to see how this framework is applied in practice.
The strength system contains three mesocycles, a volume phase, a load
phase, and a peak phase. The peak phase is an optional taper, only used if
you wish to peak to compete or test your strength.
In all phases, each session begins by working up to a single (a one rep set) at a
5–10 RPE/0–5 RIR on the main lifts you want to increase your strength on. This
could be the squat, bench press, and deadlift if you’re a powerlifter, or a variety
of lifts (but typically not more than five) if you’re a general strength enthusiast.
These singles serve not only to provide specific practice and drive strength
but also to monitor your estimated 1RM to assess progress. Additionally, in
each phase, you may or may not have a variable number of main lifts (or
close variation) back-off sets, where you do sets of 2–5 reps on the main lifts.
Finally, there are secondary lifts you’ll use to increase or maintain muscle
mass, depending on the phase.
The Volume Phase
The goal of the volume phase is to build muscle in the muscles used by your
main lifts, laying the foundation for future strength gains. To recover from
the high training volume required for hypertrophy, you’ll do minimal main-lift
work, focusing instead on secondary lifts that target the same musculature.
Thus, you will only perform a few reasonably heavy singles to at least maintain, or hopefully increase, main lift strength.
Main Lifts
In each session, you’ll work up to a single at 5–8 RPE (5–2 RIR). Over the
course of the phase, microcycle to microcycle (week to week), you’ll progress
these singles gradually from RPE 5 toward RPE 8. This gives you frequent exposure to heavy, specific loading without accumulating excessive fatigue.
Depending on how many main lifts you have, how many days per week you
train, your training status, strength, and prior training data, you’ll perform
one to three singles per main lift per week.
Each time you perform a single, estimate your 1RM. Google “1RM Calculator” — there are lots out there — and choose one. Don’t worry if some give
you slightly different estimations; the purpose is to assess progress over
time, so make sure to use the same one.
If you performed 100 kg at a 7 RPE (3 RIR), for example, you’d plug in 100 kg
for four reps, counting the rep you performed and the three additional reps
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you believe you could have done. Expect your strength to fluctuate, but the
goal of this phase is for your average estimated 1RM to:
Novice: increase week to week.
Intermediate: increase over the full phase.
Advanced: maintain (or slightly increase).
Secondary Lifts
Set your secondary lift volume reasonably high for you, based on what you
are adapted to, as informed by any prior, high-quality training log data you
have. If you know how much volume you seem to respond best to in terms of
muscle growth, use that amount. Remember, by only doing a low volume of
main-lift training, you will have more time and be less fatigued to accommodate more volume than you might otherwise be able to do when doing a lot
of main-lift work. If you aren’t sure where to start, follow the Level 2 hypertrophy guidelines. Use low-stress, non-technically demanding exercises so
you can accumulate a lot of volume while incurring fewer aches, pains, and
mental fatigue than you would if this volume were performed with main lifts.
While we’ll discuss this more in the next chapter, most do better to not perform the main lifts themselves when trying to hypertrophy main lift musculature. Consider that a leg press or hack squat might produce just as much
quad growth as a barbell back squat, but might be friendlier on your joints,
less mentally fatiguing, and result in less lumbar fatigue at higher volumes.
Further, you benefit less from highly specific, main lift training when you are
further from peaking.
For these secondary lifts, you’ll use the autoregulated double progression,
which we will present shortly in the Hypertrophy Progression System section.
With that said, if you do just fine with certain main lifts at higher volumes, you
can certainly do them with higher rep ranges as secondary lifts. For example,
you might do higher rep touch-and-go bench presses to reach your target volume if higher volume bench press work doesn’t cause you any issues.
The length of this phase can be adapted to your timeline, but we generally
recommend that it last 6–12 weeks. This phase and the load phase can last
longer if you need to take any reactive deloads.
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TABLE 3.3. SUMMARY TABLE: THE VOLUME PHASE
Goal
Build muscle; maintain or build strength.
Main lifts
1–3 singles/lift/week; progress from 5 to 8 RPE (5 to 2 RIR).
Secondary lifts
10–20 sets/week per main lift muscle group; mostly in the 6–20 rep range at 0–3 RIR;
autoregulated double progression, primarily non-specific, low-demand exercises.
Length
6–12 weeks per timeline.
The Load Phase
In the load phase, the structure remains similar, but the emphasis shifts. The
goal now is to build strength in your main lifts, while at least maintaining,
and ideally still building, muscle mass. This is accomplished by increasing the
intensity and volume of your main lifts, while reducing the volume of secondary lifts to make room for the added workload.
Main Lifts
Your main lift singles become heavier, moving the RPE range up so that they
progress from a 6 to a 9 RPE (4 to 1 RIR) through the phase, and the volume of
singles increases by one set. Ideally, you achieve this increase in main lift volume
by increasing the frequency by one occurrence per week, if your schedule allows.
If your schedule is limited (e.g., you’re already doing a single on all available
days), simply perform two singles on the same day. For example, on a threeday program where you’re already benching each day, just double up your
singles on one day. Finally, the secondary lift volume is lower to make room
for added main lift back-off sets.
The goal of this phase is for your average estimated 1RM to increase weekto-week if you are a novice, every two to three weeks if you’re an intermediate, and increase to some degree over the whole phase if you are advanced.
After each single, you’ll do two back-off sets of 3–5 reps at RPE 5–8 (5–2
RIR), starting further from failure on the first back-off sets, and getting a bit
closer on the second back-off set due to cumulative fatigue. If you are doing
two singles on a single day because your schedule won’t allow a frequency
increase, complete both singles before doing your four back-off sets.
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Back-off sets start as sets of five, and then gradually come down to sets of
three throughout the phase. The pace of this linear rep reduction depends
on the length of the phase and how many days you do back-off sets for a lift.
For example, if it’s a six-week phase, and you do singles followed by back-off
sets for a lift twice per week, that means you’ll perform back-off sets after
singles 12 times in this phase. Therefore, you could do two weeks with sets of
five, two weeks with sets of four, and two weeks with sets of three.
Here’s a progression example for a 6-week phase (training the lift twice/week):
• Weeks 1–2: sets of 5
• Weeks 3–4: sets of 4
• Weeks 5–6: sets of 3
If you aren’t sure what load to use to land you in the 3–5 rep range at a 5–8
RPE (5–2 RIR), a decent place to start is using 80–85% of the estimated 1RM
for the day. Start closer to 80% if you are unable to do a lot of reps at heavy,
but still submaximal loads, and closer to 85% if you can do a lot of reps at
submaximal loads. Then, progress from here throughout the phase to keep
pace with the RPE/RIR target.
Importantly, if you cannot do this many singles or back-off sets on the main
lifts due to mental fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, or prior injury-related limitations, use close variations of your main lifts instead. Safety bar squats or
high bar squats in place of low bar squats, low block pulls in place of deadlifts, and medium grip bench presses in place of competition grip bench
presses are often good options. The next chapter will discuss exercise selection and variation for strength.
Secondary Lifts
To accommodate the increased main lift workload, cut your secondary lift
volume in half compared to the volume phase. Thus, if you followed the
10–20 Level 2 set guideline, you’d do 5–10 sets on your secondary lifts.
Gradually reduce your secondary lift volume throughout the phase as your backoff sets and singles get heavier (see the example pattern in the summary table).
Here’s an example for an 8-week phase:
• Weeks 1–2: 10 sets
• Weeks 3–4: 9 sets
• Weeks 5–6: 8 sets
• Weeks 7–8: 6 sets
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This linear reduction in overall volume while load and specificity increase
should allow you to put more focus and effort into your singles and back-off
sets. Also, since the secondary lift volume is lower, you can replace some of
your non-specific secondary lifts with variations of your main lifts to help
support strength gains. Just be mindful that you will also be doing back-off
sets on your main lifts, so ensure that you can recover and manage any potential aches and pains.
Once again, the written and tabulated guidelines are intended to be broad
enough for you to adapt them to your needs. For a specific example that
may help you to implement this guidance, check out the example programs.
TABLE 3.4. SUMMARY TABLE: THE LOAD PHASE
Goal
Build strength; maintain/build muscle.
Main lifts
2–4 singles/lift/week; progress from 6 to 9 RPE (4 to 1 RIR). 2 back-off sets/single at 5–8 RPE
(5–2 RIR); progress from 5 to 3 reps (~80–85% 1RM). Use variations if needed.
Secondary lifts
5–10 sets/week/main lift muscle group, mostly 6–20 reps at 0–3 RIR;
autoregulated double progression, primarily non-specific, low-demand exercises.
Length
4–8 weeks per timeline, gradually reduce secondary lift volume by 1–2 sets every 1–2 weeks
(e.g., 10 sets in weeks 1–2, 9 sets in weeks 3–4, 8 sets in weeks 5–6, and 6 sets in weeks 7–8).
Peak Phase
Finally, we come to the optional peak phase, used when preparing for a powerlifting meet (or other strength sport competition) or a mock meet where
you plan to test your 1RMs. Notably, it is not necessary to test your 1RMs to
ensure you are getting stronger, as you’ll constantly be estimating your 1RM
on each lift from the singles. However, if you are competing or want to max
out for whatever reason, use the peak phase to be at your strongest.
Importantly, after completing a peak or load phase, use an intro week before
going back into a volume phase for the reasons we discussed previously.
Once again, the structure remains similar for this phase, with specific tweaks,
as this is a taper. It includes unique elements, like “opener practice” and a
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light “primer session,” which is a low-load, low-volume session with the main
lifts that may acutely enhance performance for 24–48 hours [63].
The emphasis of this phase is to peak strength in your main lifts, while maintaining muscle mass. The length of this phase scales with how long your prior
volume and load phases were (excluding deloads):
• 2 weeks if they totaled 10–12 weeks.
• 3 weeks if 13–15 weeks.
• 4 weeks if 16+ weeks.
Regardless of length, the final two weeks of this phase are always the same.
Let’s start there.
Final Two Weeks (Meet or Mock Meet Taper)
We’ll use a powerlifting example with a 3/4/2 frequency (squat/bench/deadlift sessions per week), but you can adapt these concepts regardless of your
exercise selection or training frequency.
Here is the step-by-step process two weeks out from the meet/mock meet:
Two Weeks Out
• Main Lifts: Perform 2–5 singles per main lift, in the 7–10 RPE (3–0 RIR)
range. (The frequency and number of singles should be one higher than
the load phase if you can sustain it.)
• Session Types:
• SBD Day (Squat, Bench, Deadlift): 2 sessions
• SB Day (Squat, Bench): 1 session
• Bench-only Day: 1 session
• Order & RPE:
• First SBD Day: ~9–10 RPE
• SB Day: ~8–9 RPE
• Bench-only: ~7–8 RPE
• Final SBD Day: Opener Practice — lift planned first attempts (~90–92%
of 1RM or ~8 RPE). (If you’re making rapid gains, use your estimated
1RMs instead.) No back-off sets.
• Back-off Sets: One set of two reps at 5–8 RPE (5–2 RIR, or ~85% of estimated 1RM if unsure) after each single (except opener practice).
• Secondary Lifts: ~2 sets per muscle group, placed on SB and bench-only days.
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One Week Out
Next is the plan for one week out, the week of the meet/mock meet:
• Drop One Session: No bench-only session this week.
• Sessions:
• First SBD Day: Singles at 7–8 RPE (lighter than openers, around or
slightly higher than your last planned warm-up before openers).
• SB Day: Singles at 6–7 RPE.
• Final SBD Day (1–2 days out): Primer Session, meaning perform singles
at 4–5 RPE, and no other work. Choose to do this 1 or 2 days out, depending on fatigue and schedule. If you feel fatigued, choose two days
out to have a full day of rest before your meet/mock meet.
• No back-off sets or secondary lifts this week.
Weeks One and Two (Only for 3–4 Week Peak Phases)
Now that we have the last two weeks outlined, we’ll discuss the one to two
weeks that precede them, which you perform when your peak phase is three
or four weeks long. These first one to two weeks continue the linearity from
the load phase. Therefore, you’ll make an initial incremental increase of half
to one full RPE value (AKA a reduction of one or half an RIR) reaching near
maximal, and one to the volume, and frequency of the main lift singles from
the load phase. Additionally, you’ll perform 2–3 back-off sets of 3–4 reps at a
5–8 RPE (5–2 RIR), again, ~85% of the single if you are unsure of the load to
use. To accommodate this increased main lift dose, the secondary lift volume
is reduced to the minimum effective dose. You’ll perform ~3–4 sets per muscle
group per week in weeks one and two of a three- or four-week peak phase.
Like the load phase, you can use main lift variations for your secondary lifts
that are more likely to support strength gains, just be mindful of recovery.
Here’s how that looks:
• Main Lifts:
• Increase singles to match or exceed the load phase by 0.5–1 RPE (reducing RIR by 0.5–1).
• Perform 2–3 back-off sets of 3–4 reps at 5–8 RPE (use ~85% of the single if unsure).
• Secondary Lifts:
• ~3–4 sets per muscle group per week (minimum effective dose).
• Variations of main lifts are fine if recovery allows.
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If you have a full four-week peak phase, you continue the linearity of the load
phase over the full first two weeks of the peak phase. Increase RPE on the
singles from week one to two; for example, do singles at a 7–8 RPE in week
one and 8–9 RPE in week two while decreasing the volume of back-off sets
from three to two sets and decreasing the reps per back-off set from four to
three. Further, decrease secondary lift volume from four to three sets from
week one to two.
As mentioned in the load phase, if necessary, use close variations of the main
lifts for your singles and/or back-off sets if you can’t handle this amount of
main lift training. Likewise, if you can’t increase your frequency of training to
accommodate the increase in singles and back-offs, do multiple singles of
the same lift on the same day.
For a specific example that may help you to implement this guidance, check
out the example programs.
TABLE 3.5. SUMMARY TABLE: THE PEAK PHASE
Goal
Peak strength, maintain muscle.
Main lifts
2–5 singles/each/week at 7–10 RPE (3–0 RIR); 0–3 back-off sets/single at 5–8 RPE (5–2 RIR). If
3–4 weeks progress from 4 to 2 reps/set (~85% 1RM). Use variations if needed.
Secondary lifts
0–4 sets/week/main lift muscle group, mostly 6–20 reps at 0–3 RIR; autoregulated double
progression; primarily non-specific, low-demand exercises.
Length
2–4 weeks, 2 weeks if the volume and load phase lasted 10–12 weeks, 3 weeks if 13–15 weeks, 4
weeks if 16+ weeks. Decrease the back-off set and secondary lift volume weekly.
Peaking for Competitive Bodybuilders
While we’re discussing peaking for strength, it’s worth briefly touching on
peaking for a physique competition. Unlike strength sports, where peaking
is about maximizing performance, physique peaking is about maximizing appearance, and that means it’s primarily a nutrition strategy, not a training one.
In fact, as a bodybuilder in your final week, what you do with your training
has nothing to do with reducing fatigue to allow strength to peak — tapering
in the traditional sense is only used to test strength periodically throughout
the year. For competition, the goal is to peak performance, and that means
adjusting training to help your carbohydrate load.
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To do that, you want to challenge the glycolytic energy system (using glycogen as fuel) in the final week to encourage more glycogen storage (carbs in
the muscle) while also minimizing muscle damage, which can impede glycogen storage [64].
A simple way to do this is as follows:
• Keep your training split, exercise selection, and number of sets the same
as usual during peak week.
• Use higher reps (8–20 reps per set) on all training days.
• Keep RPE between 6 and 8.5.
• Avoid exercises that cause soreness, especially those that emphasize eccentric loading at long muscle lengths (e.g., Romanian deadlifts).
• Finish your training two to three days before competition day.
• In the final 1–2 days before the show, perform a brief full-body pump-up
routine, similar to what you’ll do backstage before stepping on stage.
Keep the RPE no higher than six and the session under 30 minutes.
For a deeper dive into the nutrition side of physique peaking — including
water, sodium, and carbohydrate strategies — make sure to check out The
Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition book!
HYPERTROPHY PROGRESSION SYSTEM
While the strength progression system incorporated elements of periodization, like a phasic approach and linearity through varying rep ranges to enhance strength, the hypertrophy progression system strips things down to
only what’s relevant to the pure goal of building muscle.
For advanced lifters, the system takes a phasic approach, but not for the purpose of linearity. Rather, it includes muscle group specialization cycles as a
way to make higher training doses for specific muscle groups more feasible.
This system also emphasizes two key features:
• Rep range variation, which may enhance hypertrophy by stimulating different muscle fibers, leveraging different growth mechanisms, and reducing joint stress and fatigue.
• Autoregulated double progression, a method of progression that helps
you stay within the right proximity to failure while driving increases in
reps and load over time.
First, we’ll discuss training structures you can use to build rep range variation. Then, we’ll outline how to implement autoregulated double progression
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within that structure. Finally, for advanced lifters, we’ll discuss how to use
specialization cycles.
Hypertrophy Training Structures
There are many effective ways to incorporate rep range variation into your
hypertrophy training. While rep range variation beyond the “traditional hypertrophy” range of 8–12 seems to be beneficial, no evidence indicates that
any specific structure is superior to another.
For example, while these differences were not significant, Schoenfeld and
colleagues [62] and Dos Santos and colleagues [60] reported greater hypertrophy effect sizes favoring groups training with 2–30RM and 5–15RM,
respectively, compared to groups training exclusively with 8–12RM. Specifically, Schoenfeld compared training every day with 8–12RM, against a daily
undulating structure of heavy (2–4RM), moderate (8–12RM), and low-load
(20–30RM) across the week. Dos Santos, on the other hand, compared two
within-session structures of pyramid training: either 12RM, followed by 10RM,
followed by 8RM, or 15RM, followed by 10RM, followed by 5RM. Finally, Carvalho and colleagues [61] reported significantly — albeit slightly — greater
increases in quadriceps hypertrophy in a group that trained with a block
structure to vary rep ranges, compared to a constant 8–12RM group. Specifically, the block structure was three weeks of 8–12RM, followed by three
weeks of 1–3RM, and a final 5-week block of 8–12RM.
However, you want to avoid spending too long (longer than ~3 weeks) exclusively training outside of hypertrophy guidelines. For instance, Bartolomei
and colleagues [65] reported greater hypertrophy in a group of trained men
who performed hypertrophy, strength, and power work in every session for 10
weeks, compared to a group that performed the same total volume over 10
weeks, but that organized training into three blocks: a 4-week hypertrophy
block (10 x 10 at 1RIR on each exercise), followed by a 4-week strength block
(6 x 3 at 2 RIR on each exercise), then a final 2-week power block (explosive
exercises and plyometrics done with 5 RIR, or further from failure). The blockbased group did about three-quarters of their volume in the first 4-week block,
resulting in six weeks of subsequent, lower volume training, with the last two
weeks of this six-week period, right before they measured hypertrophy, having the lowest volume and highest RIR — likely resulting in muscle loss.
Together, these findings suggest two key principles:
1. Rep range variation is probably beneficial for hypertrophy.
2. Avoid long stretches of training completely outside hypertrophy guidelines (e.g., <6 reps with high RIR).
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Beyond that, you have a lot of flexibility in designing hypertrophy protocols.
As a demonstration of this flexibility, Antretter and colleagues [66] found no
significant differences in hypertrophy between groups that trained across the
spectrum of 4–25RM, regardless of whether they did so in each session or with
a different repetition target within this range on a week-to-week basis.
This means you can vary reps:
• Within each session (with different rep ranges on different lifts).
• Between sessions (low-rep days and high-rep days within a week).
• Alternating by week.
• Alternating by mesocycle (provided each block includes hypertrophy-relevant rep ranges).
Choose a structure that fits your preferences and keeps you mentally engaged. Just remember from Level 2 that multi-joint, free-weight technical
lifts that simultaneously train many muscle groups are probably not as well
suited to higher-rep work due to the high levels of discomfort that may degrade RIR accuracy. Therefore, consider exercise selection carefully when
performing high-repetition days, weeks, or mesocycles.
For demonstration purposes, the table shows how a four-day upper/lower
split could be structured to provide rep range variation within or between
sessions, between weeks, or between mesocycles.
TABLE 3.6. HYPERTROPHY TRAINING STRUCTURES TO ACHIEVE REP RANGE VARIATION
Within Session
Variation
Lower A: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Upper A: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Lower B: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Upper B: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Between
Session
Variation
Lower A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep ranges
on all lifts.
Upper A: 4–6,
6–10, and 8–12 rep
ranges on all lifts.
Lower B: 8–12,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges on all lifts.
Upper B: 8–12,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges on all lifts.
Alternating
Week Variation
Week A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep ranges
on all days.
Week B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges
on all days.
Week A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep
ranges on all days.
Week B: 8–12,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges on all days.
Alternating
Mesocycle
Variation
Meso A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep ranges
all weeks.
Meso B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges
all weeks.
Meso A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep
ranges all weeks.
Meso B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges
all weeks.
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Autoregulated Double Progression
Autoregulated double progression is a system of progression that ensures
overload continues to occur within your training structure [3]. This is the
progression system you’ll use on all your lifts if you are training for hypertrophy, and for all of your secondary lifts if you’re training for strength.
In this system, each lift has a rep range and RIR (Reps in Reserve) range —
e.g., 10–15 reps at 0–2 RIR, which we’ll use as an example. Your goal is to select loads that consistently fall within this rep and RIR range, and to increase
the load once it becomes too easy to stay within those limits.
How It Works
1. Choose a Load for Set 1
After warming up, select a weight you expect to land near the top of the RIR
range and the middle or lower end of the rep range. For example, you might
pick a weight you think you can do for 12 reps at 2 RIR — i.e., your ~14RM.
2. Stop at the RIR Target
Perform the set, stopping once you hit the upper RIR boundary — in this
case, 2 RIR — even if you could do more reps.
3. Repeat with the Same Load (If Within Range)
If your first set lands within the rep range (e.g., 12 reps), stick with that
load for all remaining sets and aim to maintain the same reps. Your RIR will
naturally decrease across sets due to cumulative fatigue, but don’t exceed
the lower RIR boundary. If after a few sets, your reps fall below the target
rep range, that’s fine; these sets are still doing their job.
4. Adjust the Load (If Outside Range)
If your reps on your first set were below or above the target rep range,
adjust the load on the next set, up or down, making your best guess of
what load would put you in the rep range on the next set. If unsure, adjust
load ~4% up or down for every rep outside the range. Then perform each
subsequent set with this same load.
5. Progress Load When Ready
When you can hit the top end of the rep range at the lowest end of the RIR
range (e.g., 15 reps at 2 RIR), increase the load next session.
6. Allow for Fluctuations
Performance won’t always progress linearly. Some weeks will regress
slightly — that’s normal. Think in terms of trends, not single sessions.
As you train week to week, you sometimes might think you are at a higher
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RIR than you really are during a set, and then accidentally hit a 1 RIR on
your first set when you meant to hit a 2 RIR. That’s totally fine. Being a
little aggressive, trying to see if you can get more reps, and being a little
overzealous now and again is not a bad thing.
The following table shows an example of what this might look like for an intermediate lifter. However, realistically, performance fluctuates at times, and
you may regress one week before making a larger progression the next week.
TABLE 3.7. EXAMPLE 1: AUTOREGULATED DOUBLE PROGRESSION
FOR AN INTERMEDIATE LIFTER
HERE’S HOW AN INTERMEDIATE LIFTER’S PROGRESSION MAY LOOK FOR 3 SETS OF 10–15 REPS AT 0–2 RIR.
SESSION
LOAD
REPS
FIRST SET RIR
1
40 lbs
12, 12, 11
2
2
40 lbs
13, 13, 12
2
3
40 lbs
14, 14, 12
2
4
40 lbs
15, 14, 14
1
5
40 lbs
15, 14, 14
2
6
45 lbs
11, 10, 9
2
Novice, intermediate, and advanced lifters experience progression at different rates using this system. In the intermediate example, it took five sessions
for the trainee to progress the load. This is how this model operates when
everything is dialed in properly for an intermediate. A novice can increase
the load at a faster rate; on the other hand, an advanced lifter might take
twice as long to increase the load.
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TABLE 3.8. EXAMPLE 2: AUTOREGULATED DOUBLE PROGRESSION FOR A NOVICE LIFTER
HERE’S HOW A NOVICE LIFTER’S PROGRESSION MAY LOOK FOR 3 SETS OF 10–15 REPS AT 0–2 RIR.
SESSION
LOAD
REPS
FIRST SET RIR
1
40 lbs
12, 12, 11
2
2
40 lbs
14, 14, 12
2
3
40 lbs
15, 14, 14
2
4
45 lbs
11, 10, 9
2
Importantly, intermediate and especially advanced lifters are not only allowed
to “break the rules” of this progression model, but we encourage it. Why?
Interestingly, after fatiguing training, your peak strength and work capacity
can recover at different rates [67]. More experienced lifters anecdotally report that they can tell during their warm-up sets when they might be “better
at reps” but not quite as strong, or vice versa. Therefore, you are allowed to
jump the progression if you feel more prepared to lift heavy than do reps on
any given day. Likewise, if you don’t feel as strong, but feel like you have more
stamina than usual, you can drop back a load increment, and see if you can get
more reps than you previously did with that load (yes, even if it would put you
above the rep range target — we promise not to call the lifting police).
As long as you stay within the RIR range and continue progressing over time,
you’re on track. The flexibility of this model allows it to adapt to your day-today recovery and readiness while still driving long-term gains.
Muscle Group Specialization Cycles
As covered in Level 2, higher training volumes, albeit with substantial diminishing returns, can increase rates of hypertrophy. Also, as noted earlier in this
chapter, the progress you make between years three and four of lifting may
equal the progress you’ll make over the next eight years combined [16]!
Advanced lifters can certainly try to offset this slowing rate of progress by
simply doing more hard training, but you can only offset so much in the face
of making one-tenth of the gains you were making in the intermediate stage.
Consider if you can only put on a pound of muscle in half a year of training
at this advanced stage of your lifting career, would you even be able to noLEVEL 3. PROGRESSION • 129
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tice if you put on two pounds instead? Maybe. While that is twice the gains
from a relative perspective, the absolute difference is quite small. Certainly,
however, any advanced lifter would jump at the chance to double their rate
of progress, even if the total rate is slow. Unfortunately, the feasibility of attempting to offset your slowing rate of progress via simply training more is
a major roadblock.
Recall from Level 2 that, on average, and if everything else is unaffected (i.e.,
you can maintain sleep, stress, and nutrition habits, and training quality remains just as high), going from 10 sets per muscle group [10] to 30 sets per
muscle group theoretically could double your rate of hypertrophy. However,
it’s highly likely that something else would be affected if you tripled your
training dose. It’s hard to maintain training quality with such an increase in
training quantity, and if the time demand impacted sleep, nutrition, or life
stress, it probably wouldn’t be worth it.
Think about it, if you’re currently training four hours per week to achieve 10
sets, do you have the time to add close to another eight hours of training to
your schedule? If you aren’t sitting around your house, thinking it would be
nice to start a new part-time job with all the time on your hands, the answer
is probably not. Second, you can’t just jump into tripling your training dose
(well, you can, but you really shouldn’t); you’d need to build up to it. Third,
a lot of caveats apply to the data that indicate higher volumes increase hypertrophy. These data report the average response, not your response. More
importantly, the studies that demonstrate this relationship are primarily 8–12
weeks long and consist of high-volume training for several muscle groups,
not the whole body.
We don’t see these limitations as a “bug” that makes it impossible to apply
these data to the real world; we see it as a feature. Specifically, these data
provide indirect evidence that muscle group specialization cycles are effective. From a feasibility perspective, this is good news, as it is much more
reasonable to achieve a really high training dose on just a muscle group or
two, rather than all muscle groups. In fact, anecdotally, many bodybuilders
report that instead of just keeping volume the same for all the non-specialized muscle groups while increasing it on specialized muscle groups, actually decreasing volume on the non-specialized muscle groups works better.
While this hasn’t been tested in research, it likely never will be over the time
frames we’d need to observe in advanced lifters. Thus, these anecdotes are
all we have to go on. However, from a practical perspective, decreasing the
volume of your other muscle groups a bit makes sense. Doing so allows you
to maintain your normal amount of training time.
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As an advanced lifter, serious about your gains, you are probably already
performing the highest amount of training you can, without negatively impacting your recovery, enjoyment, and training quality that your schedule
allows. Thus, specialization cycles in which you decrease the volume on
non-specialized muscles enable you to “make room” for the added volume
on the specialized muscle groups.
As a final note on the use of specialization cycles, advanced lifters often
have lagging body parts. While generally, novices and intermediates simply
need to focus on overall growth, advanced lifters frequently want to finetune their physiques, bringing up specific muscle groups to improve symmetry. Sometimes, this is due to underdevelopment, but often, this is due to
bone structure, muscle shape, and muscle attachment locations. If you’re a
bodybuilder with huge delts, but with a small rib cage, wide waist, and narrow clavicles, you’ll want even huger delts for the necessary v-taper in front
poses to be competitive — it doesn’t matter that from a development standpoint, your delts are already big.
Therefore, for advanced lifters training for hypertrophy, we recommend
phasic training, alternating between “balanced phases” and specialization
phases. These phases need to be long enough to produce adaptation, and
their volumes represent average volumes over the course of the two to three
months they last. You can integrate them with any of the training structures
we discussed in the hypertrophy training system.
TABLE 3.9. MUSCLE GROUP SPECIALIZATION PHASE MESOCYCLES
Balanced Phase
Specialization Phase
Balanced Phase
Specialization Phase
Balanced Phase
8–12 weeks,
10–20 sets/wk on
all muscle groups.
8–12 weeks, 20–30 sets/
wk on 1–2 muscle groups,
5–15 on remaining.
8–12 weeks,
10–20 sets/wk on
all muscle groups.
8–12 weeks, 20–30 sets/wk
on 1–2 muscle groups,
5–15 on remaining.
8–12 weeks,
10–20 sets/wk on
all muscle groups.
Note that the numbers in the above table are based on the assumption that
you are normally performing 10–20 sets per muscle group. If you respond
better to a lower or higher volume, shift these values up or down. Increase
the volume on the muscle groups you’re specializing in by ~50%, and decrease the volume on other muscle groups by one-third to half to preserve a
similar total weekly amount of training.
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For example, if you usually thrive on 12 sets/week, increase to ~18 on specialized groups and reduce to 6–8 on others.
If you are specializing in large, especially lower body muscle groups that require more multi-joint, axially loaded, fatiguing training, like the hamstrings,
glutes, or quads, build up to the target volume incrementally over the first
2–4 weeks of your specialization cycle. Additionally, train specialized muscle groups first in a session to ensure you are as fresh as possible and bring
your full focus to those exercises. You don’t want to increase your RIR, train
further from failure, or perform lifts haphazardly to simply “get through” the
new, higher volume.
Likewise, make sure that no single session for your specialized muscle groups
becomes too taxing. You can set up your training to have a couple of weekly
marathon sessions for your specialized muscle groups, with easy sessions on
your other training days, but a high-frequency strategy may result in a higher
training quality. Anecdotally, many do better by simply starting all sessions,
or most sessions, with three to four sets on the specialized muscle groups to
reach the target weekly volume.
Implementation Tips
• Progress Gradually: If specializing in large, fatiguing muscle groups (e.g.,
quads, glutes, hamstrings), build up to your target volume over 2–4 weeks.
• Train Specialized Groups First: Prioritize them at the start of your sessions when you’re freshest.
• Avoid “Going Through the Motions”: Don’t let increased volume turn into
sloppy work. Keep RIR targets and execution sharp.
• Distribute Workload: Instead of a couple of marathon sessions, consider
a high-frequency approach (e.g., 3–4 sets of the specialized group at the
start of each session).
• Manage Fatigue Intelligently: Reducing non-specialized group volume
makes room for added work without overloading recovery.
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TRACKING PROGRESS WHEN TRAINING
FOR HYPERTROPHY
While training for strength provides constant feedback as to whether or not
you’re getting stronger, at the advanced stage of your lifting career, you are
not going to be able to increase your muscle mass at a pace that makes objective physique measurement and evaluation possible over any reasonable
time frame. Thus, even if you are training to compete in a physique contest
(or if you’re trying to build a physique like those athletes), it is best to use
changes in strength as the primary measure of progress. Visual assessments,
caliper readings, or tape measurements can still play a role, particularly during fat loss phases, but they shouldn’t be your main feedback mechanism.
To understand why, consider that it is not uncommon for advanced natural
bodybuilders to compete every other year or to take a few years off between
seasons to make offseason progress. However, the progress they’ve made
is often subtle enough that one cannot see it until these bodybuilders have
dieted down again and competed (and even then, the changes are not often
pronounced). In fact, frequently in these cases, stage weight might only have
increased by a pound or two (if at all). Often, their biggest improvements are
in muscle retention or coming in leaner, not in adding size.
This is not to say large changes in stage weight never occur in natural, advanced bodybuilders. But when they do, it’s typically for one of the following
reasons:
• Better contest prep (leading to less muscle loss),
• Recovery from an injury that had held back a muscle group,
• Fixing major flaws in training or nutrition (i.e., the athlete wasn’t truly at
an advanced level yet).
Even with advanced tools like DXA, the so-called “gold standard” for measuring body composition, measurement errors often exceed the changes you’re
trying to detect. These errors stem from factors like hydration, food intake,
glycogen levels, gut contents, time of day, and training-induced inflammation. Without strict standardization, DXA readings can vary by ±5% — which
could mean a 9 lb (~4 kg) swing in estimated lean mass for some athletes.
Now imagine you’re an advanced natural bodybuilder trying to gain 9 lb of
muscle. That could take years, and if your measurement tool isn’t sensitive
enough to confirm that progress until it’s complete, it’s not helpful in guiding
short-term training decisions.
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That’s why performance is the best proxy for hypertrophy at this level. Instead of trying to measure muscle growth directly, you assess whether progressive overload is happening — rep by rep, set by set. If you’re continually
adding load, reps, or improving performance within the hypertrophy framework, and you’re sleeping, eating, and recovering well, then some degree of
muscle growth is very likely occurring.
HOW TO IDENTIFY AND BREAK PLATEAUS
If your strength is no longer progressing at a rate appropriate for your training age (as outlined earlier), it’s time to troubleshoot. Use the diagnostic
flowchart introduced at the end of Level 2 to systematically identify the
cause of the plateau and apply a targeted solution.
The flowchart will help you determine whether the issue is:
• Training-related — such as insufficient volume, poor exercise selection, or
inadequate overload.
• Recovery-related — such as low sleep quality, poor nutrition, or excess
life stress.
• Technical or psychological — like poor movement execution or life stress.
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FIGURE
ASSESSINGAND
AND RESPONDING
RESPONDING TOTO
PLATEAUS
FIGURE
3.6.3.6.
ASSESSING
PLATEAUS
WHEN UNSURE ABOUT HOW TO PROGRESS - FLOWCHART
ARE YOU PLATEAUED?
(Not making gym progress appropriate to your training status.)
NO
Don’t change anything.
YES
Is the answer "no" to any of the following?
Sleeping 7+ hours? Not in an energy deficit?
Protein 0.7g/Ib+ (1.6g/kg+)? Neither over or under estimating RPE?
Training muscles/lifts min 2x/week (strength goals)?
Is exercise selection, ROM, and tempo appropriate
and consistent?
NO, I'VE TAKEN CARE OF ALL OF THOSE.
YES
Fix that, run another mesocycle, reassess.
Ok, are you recovering?
Dreading the gym? Sleep quality worse than normal?
Load/reps actually decreasing? Life stress seems worse than normal?
Aches and pains feel worse than normal?
If no to all, or all but 1 question: yes, you're likely recovering.
If yes to 2 or more: no, you are likely not.
NO
YES
Temporarily reduce volume. Take a light week.
If that improved performance then great.
If you quickly fatigue again and stall then that probably
means you need more than just a deload or taper but should
consider doing less volume or organizing it differently
to manage fatigue.
It may be time to increase
your training dose.
As an aside, if you only say yes to having joint/tendon pain, you can probably do a “normal” training week in terms of volume and RPE, but just up the
reps to 12–20 on exercises that cause pain. If that’s not enough to be painfree, you could even lower the weight more and use blood flow restriction
(BFR) — more on this in a second — for limb training.
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BFR training is an interesting method of training used primarily in clinical
settings, whereby a blood pressure cuff, bandage, wide tourniquet, or even
knee wraps are applied at the proximal limb (upper thigh or armpit) during
training so that venous blood flow out of a muscle is restricted, while arterial blood flow into the muscle is maintained. This prevents metabolites from
clearing, resulting in earlier fatigue of muscle fibers, and subsequent recruitment of high-threshold motor units and their associated fibers at training
loads as low as 20–30% of 1RM.
While BFR isn’t more effective than traditional training, it can be equally
effective for hypertrophy (though not for strength) [69]. BFR can be especially useful when experiencing joint pain in the knees or elbows, as you can
maintain a muscular stimulus, with a load much lower than normal, which
may facilitate joint recovery [70].
So if you do happen to answer “yes” to the specific question related to aches
and pains due to elbow or knee discomfort, you can swap out limb training
exercises for BFR versions where you use a knee wrap (or flexible bandage,
or even a specialized wrap sold for BFR specifically) wrapped to a 7 out of
10 tightness — firm but not restrictive to the point of tingling or discoloration (purplish). If you notice either, loosen the wrap.
Then, perform your normally programmed number of sets using 20–30% of
1RM, taken to 0–3 RIR. This can be an effective way to keep progressing
while staying pain-free.
CHANGING VOLUME
If you’ve dialed in your nutrition, sleep, stress, training organization (i.e., how
training stress is distributed across sessions), and RPE/RIR accuracy, yet
you’re still not recovering even after a deload, then volume is likely too high.
You may be doing too much, such that only a microcycle or two puts you in
the hole, requiring a deload, which is an inefficient ratio of stress to recovery.
In this case, you need to simply do less. A decent place to start for a volume
reduction is reducing sets by ~20% across the board. So if you were doing
15 sets for a muscle group or movement, you’d go down to 12. Then, see if
you can progress more consistently without having to constantly address
overreaching.
On the other hand, you might need to do the opposite. However, very frequently, volume is not the issue; rather, a technical issue is preventing you
from getting stronger or bigger. You may be:
• Misjudging RIR.
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• Using poor form or suboptimal exercise selection, failing to target the intended muscle effectively.
• Lifting with inconsistent tempo or range of motion.
We’ll discuss these potential issues in more detail in later chapters. However, if there are no technical issues and other potential bottlenecks are not
causing the plateau (sleep, nutrition, life stress, training organization), you’re
feeling recovered, and you have the time and energy to do so, a ~20% increase in volume is a reasonable and research-supported guideline likely to
result in additional progress [71]. This increase can be global, across all muscle groups or lifts if you’re plateaued on all lifts, or targeted if only specific
movements are stalling.
Finally, when increasing volume, consider adjusting your frequency to distribute the added workload better. For example, adding an extra training day
can help prevent any single session from becoming too demanding.
SUMMARY
Establishing an appropriate training dose, as we outlined in Level 2, is critical. However, to ensure long-term progress, your plan must adapt and evolve
over time.
By understanding the concepts in this chapter and how they’re applied
through the strength and hypertrophy systems, you’ll be equipped to get as
close to your potential as possible, provided you’re willing to invest the time,
effort, and attention needed.
If these ideas still feel a bit abstract, be sure to check out the sample training
programs for concrete examples of how these systems are implemented in
practice.
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4
EXERCISE SELECTION PRINCIPLES FOR STRENGTH
EXERCISE SELECTION PRINCIPLES FOR HYPERTROPHY
LEVEL
EXERCISE ORDER
SUMMARY
06
05
04
exercise selection
03
02
01
EXERCISE
SELECTION
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The importance of exercise selection depends on your training goal and perspective. You can argue that exercise selection should be lower in The Pyramid. For instance, consider a powerlifter who avoids their competition lifts
entirely and trains only with non-specific movements, such as the leg press,
shoulder press, and back extension. This would make their training dose and
strategy for progression almost meaningless, as their sport performance is
the expression of strength via these specific movements.
Likewise, consider a hypertrophy program filled with less effective exercises.
If you had a high dose of these exercises, it might be less effective even than
a lower dose of more effective exercises. Progression becomes harder if your
movement choices aren’t well-suited to the goal.
Like many explanatory models, the importance of the levels within The Pyramid
relative to one another is built on assumptions. Here, we assume that if your
goal is strength, you’re including the main lifts you want to improve. And if your
goal is hypertrophy, you’re using a “typical” mix of traditional bodybuilding
movements. With those assumptions, we place exercise selection at the middle
of The Pyramid. However, even with these assumptions in place, there is still a
great deal to discuss, and exercise selection requires careful consideration.
While traditional bodybuilding exercise selection has produced many champions, and is certainly sufficient, that doesn’t mean every aspect of tradition
is ideal. As we discussed in Level 2, anecdotes can only show that something
didn’t prevent success, not that it caused it. As the saying goes, “Success
leaves clues,” not “Success leaves answers.”
A critical limitation of exercise selection anecdotes is that they often focus
on elite performers. We ask, “How do the best squatters, benchers, or deadlifters train?” or “What do bodybuilders with standout legs or backs do?” In
many cases, these individuals are built to perform certain lifts and naturally
have stand-out body parts. That’s not true for everyone. Even though all
powerlifters have to squat, a high volume of squatting may be inefficient or
even problematic for some individuals. Likewise, physique competitors must
consider which exercises suit their individual biomechanics and how to modify exercise selection to address weak points in their physique.
In this chapter, like others, we start with broad principles. We’ve previously
touched on specificity as it relates to load in Level 2, and we touched on variation in rep ranges in Level 3. However, in this chapter, we’ll discuss movement
specificity and movement variation, as they are important for strength, and
we’ll outline a set of principles and subsequent guidelines for effective hypertrophy exercise selection. We’ll also address how biomechanics, weak points,
and technical skill demands influence what exercises are best for you.
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EXERCISE SELECTION PRINCIPLES
FOR STRENGTH
MOVEMENT SPECIFICITY
We’ll first discuss training for strength. As discussed in Level 2, strength is
expressed through specific movements, and therefore, strength should be
seen not just as a quality of the body but as a skill. If you want to improve a
specific movement, you need to understand the concept of specificity.
The principle of specificity, or the SAID principle, is a fundamental tenet
of exercise science that states the body will make “Specific Adaptations to
Imposed Demands” [1]. Every trainer and exercise science student becomes
familiar with this principle early in their education, along with other principles like progressive overload — which, as we discussed in the last chapter,
is often misunderstood. Similarly, specificity, while a simple concept, is also
misunderstood, as it is frequently conceptualized in too narrow a manner.
SPECIFICITY IS MORE THAN A SPECTRUM
Many lifters conceptualize specificity as a spectrum, from less to more specific. In strength training, this spectrum is typically framed in terms of movement and load specificity. The idea is that less specific movements or loads,
visualized on the left side of the spectrum, have less transfer for every “unit”
of training to the movement or load shown on the right side of the spectrum
that you are trying to enhance.
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THE MUSCLE & STRENGTH PYRAMID: TRAINING
FIGURE
4.1.4.1.
SPECIFICITY
ANDMOVEMENT
MOVEMENT
SPECTRUMS
FIGURE
SPECIFICITYOF
OF LOAD
LOAD AND
ASAS
SPECTRUMS
LOAD (% 1RM) SPECI FI CI TY
LES S S P ECIFIC
5 0%X2 0
LES S S P ECIFIC
60%X1 5
70%X 8
75%X 1
80%X 1
MOVEMENT SPECI FI CI TY
MORE S PE C IF IC
90%X 1
100%X 1
MORE S PE C IF IC
Indeed, there is some truth to this. As discussed in Level 2, training at higher percentages of 1RM generally produces greater improvements in 1RM
strength than training at lower percentages [2, 3]. Likewise, doing volume
with the specific lift you’re trying to improve tends to be more effective than
similar movements targeting the same muscles [4], which is the rationale
behind our use of fractional set counting.
However, fractional set counting is just a model. It helps quantify average
training effects, but it’s not literally true that every variation is exactly half
as effective as the main lift. In practice, some non-specific exercises transfer
more effectively than others.
For example, Rossi and colleagues [5] compared three training groups: one
did only leg presses, one did only squats, and one split their training between
squats and leg presses, to see the effects on squat and leg press 1RM, and
jump height. The two groups that performed squats enhanced their jump
height more than the leg press-only group. This makes sense — while neither
the squat nor the leg press is a jump, the squat is biomechanically more similar. If you could magically make the barbell disappear off the back of a lifter
in the middle of a heavy squat set right before lock-out, they’d jump into the
air. Not so with the leg press.
Therefore, understanding movement specificity as a spectrum of movement
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tional set math. But even the spectrum model oversimplifies things, as it fails
to capture the role of motor learning and technical complexity.
Let’s revisit the Rossi study to examine the 1RM squat and leg press findings
[5]. The squat-only group improved squat strength significantly more than
the leg press-only group, but all three groups improved similarly on the leg
press. Why? Because complex movements like squats are more “sensitive”
to specificity, while less complex movements are not. In other words, the
complex skill of the squat transfers quite well to leg press strength, but not
the other way around. Simpler movements like the leg press benefit from a
broader range of training inputs. Complex movements require more practice to master.
Even if we constrain this conversation to complex movements, like multi-joint
free-weight lifts, viewing specificity as a simple spectrum still misses important nuance as it neglects the interaction of other variables. To illustrate,
here’s a question to consider: Which is more specific to a competition lift:
1RM, a single rep at 80% 1RM using your competition lift, or a 1RM on a close
variation of that lift? One is more specific in terms of movement pattern, the
other in terms of load.
The answer isn’t obvious, and that’s the point. Specificity is multidimensional. Movement and load specificity interact. And beyond that, how often, how
much, and when you vary training also plays a role in developing the skill of
strength.
MOVEMENT VARIATION
In the last chapter, we discussed how repetition and load variation may help
motor learning based on the motor learning principle of varied practice.
However, varied practice applies to movement variation as well.
The principle of varied practice states that you can more effectively ingrain
motor skills when multiple variations of the skill are practiced in a given period, as opposed to just practicing the same skill over and over in identical
conditions (e.g., practice schedule, location, length of practice, etc.).
Chua and colleagues [6] discussed and demonstrated this in their multi-experiment paper, by showing that participants improved throwing and golf
putting accuracy more when they practiced at multiple distances rather than
always using the same one. This better skill development occurs, at least in
part, through the enhanced attentional focus required to learn the skill in a
changing environment.
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Czyż and colleagues described how varied practice leverages “contextual
interference” to reinforce motor learning in their 2024 meta-analysis of 54
studies, spanning the original research from the 1960s to the modern era [7].
Contextual interference is simply creating “interference” to learning a skill
by changing the context in which you learn it. For example, instead of just
learning to bench press with one grip width, using only the 20 kg bar for 30
minutes, you could create contextual interference by alternating 15 minutes
of that practice with squatting before coming back to the final 15 minutes
of bench press practice. Another example would be taking a break in the
middle of practice to do something completely unrelated to lifting, like dart
throwing, before coming back to benching [8]. You could also change your
grip width, use different loads, or alter some other aspect of bench pressing
throughout the 30 minutes of practice.
In each example, you create variation in the context in which the skill is
learned. Interestingly, contextual interference actually makes initial, shortterm skill acquisition less efficient. However, it boosts long-term skill retention. Motor skills become more solidified in your memory due to a changing
environment, which requires you to be more intentional during practice.
Does This Apply to Lifting?
An important limitation of this research is that very few studies have been
done on lifting weights. In fact, in the meta-analysis by Czyż and colleagues
of 54 studies [7], only a single one was on lifting [8]. This is important because “open” sports skills like throwing and cutting, where you must react
to an opponent or gauge distance, where the environment changes how the
skill is performed, seem to respond better to varied practice than “closed”
skills [9], like swimming, cycling, track and field events, or potentially, lifting
weights. In fact, it’s important to acknowledge that there are approaches to
lifting, like the Bulgarian method, where you just work up to a max attempt
on the specific lift you are trying to improve every time you train, which has
produced champion lifters. However, just because hyperspecificity is a viable
option doesn’t mean it is the best option for all contexts, for all lifters, or for
the long term, or that it doesn’t come with notable downsides. Further, while
there isn’t much research on varied practice in lifting, there is some.
A 2014 study by Fonseca et al. [10] compared two training groups: one did
all their training on the Smith machine squat, while the other split volume between the Smith squat, deadlift, lunge, and leg press. The result? The varied
group improved more on the Smith machine squat, even though that was just
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one of four exercises they performed. And that was despite the squat-only
group using varied rep and load schemes.
Now you may be wondering, “How could practicing something less similar
to the skill I’m trying to enhance be better than practicing the skill itself?”
That’s an understandable question, and it’s why we stated that simply viewing specificity as a spectrum doesn’t tell the full picture. Varied practice via
movement variation can be used to enhance the skill of strength, sometimes
more efficiently than just hammering away at the same movement.
However, there are important caveats to consider and limits to how much
variation you should use.
• Fonseca’s participants were recreationally trained, not competitive powerlifters. It’s possible that movement variation is more important during
the early stages of learning a skill.
• All groups improved, even those who trained only with the Smith squat. So
you can make progress purely with specific training, it just might not be ideal.
• Variations need to be relevant. Some tasks are so dissimilar from the skill
you’re trying to enhance that they can’t be considered variants. We aren’t
advocating that swimming transfers to your deadlift (although if done between bouts of deadlifting, it might provide contextual interference and
help retention).
To conclude, you should absolutely perform a fair amount of specific training, using the movements you’re trying to improve at high loads. But you
should also engage in varied practice. The challenge is finding the balance:
at what point does more specificity stop helping, and when does adding variation lead to greater gains?
That’s the key question. And it’s what we’ll help you answer in the next section.
EFFICIENT USE OF SPECIFICITY
Just because varied practice is beneficial doesn’t mean that specificity is
unimportant. As we discussed in Level 2, in a large-scale meta-regression of
trained and untrained lifters [2], a low volume of specificity, right around ~5
fractional sets for a specific lift, was all that was needed to get the maximal
benefit from highly-specific training, on average. Five weekly sets of squats
isn’t easy, but it’s well within the time, energy, and recovery capacity of most
trained lifters. This finding doesn’t indicate that specificity isn’t important; it
indicates it’s so powerful that you only need a relatively modest dose of it to
get its maximal benefit.
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Now, if you’re thinking, “That sounds too low for actual strength athletes,” we
understand. A key limitation of the aforementioned meta-analysis is that it
didn’t focus on competitive strength athletes. But even among powerlifters
and weightlifters, more specificity isn’t always better.
Take the Androulakis-Korakakis et al. study discussed in previous chapters:
competitive powerlifters trained for six weeks using a “2/3/1” weekly frequency — two heavy singles on the squat, three on the bench, and one on the
deadlift, each followed by 2x3 back-off sets at 80% [11]. That’s just:
• 14 total squat reps.
• 21 total bench reps.
• 7 total deadlift reps per week.
Meaning, these competitive powerlifters made substantial strength gains doing just 14, 21, and seven total working reps (not sets) on the squat, bench,
and deadlift per week, respectively.
This successful low-volume approach in powerlifters shows that highly-specific training is both very effective (at least in the short term) and that you
really don’t need very much of it to benefit maximally. Essentially, high movement and load specificity is very efficient, providing a maximal return on a
low time investment.
But What If You Want to Do More?
You may be thinking, “Okay, but I have more time and energy to invest, why
not do more on the main lifts?” Well, research suggests you can only invest
so much before it potentially becomes counterproductive.
A study by Gonzalez-Badillo et al. divided 29 junior weightlifters into three
volume-equated groups, each performing different proportions of their total
training volume on the squat, snatch, and clean and jerk in the 90–100% of
1RM range over 10 weeks [12] to compare their strength gains. The groups
completed:
• Low group: 46 heavy reps.
• Moderate group: 93 heavy reps.
• High group: 184 heavy reps.
Despite doubling the heavy training volume from one group to the next,
there were no significant differences in strength gains. If anything, the lower
and moderate proportion groups actually performed better, as effect sizes
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tion group, and the low and moderate proportion groups significantly increased their clean and jerk and their squat. In contrast, the high proportion
group only increased their squat 1RM from baseline.
Why might this be?
Heavy, highly specific lifts are resource-intensive. They require multiple
warm-up sets, long rest periods, and greater mental and physical effort. A
strong lifter might need 30+ minutes to complete five heavy sets of squats;
time that could be used to perform twice as many sets of lighter, more manageable assistance work.
More importantly, the extra long-term strength gains from increasing specific volume typically come from hypertrophy, not from additional practice of
the movement itself. But heavy sets (e.g., 2–4RM) are less efficient for hypertrophy than moderate loads (8–12RM) [13]. This means that while you can
gain similar muscle mass using heavy sets with the competition lifts, it’s hard
to justify why you would choose to do so, since you have to perform multiple additional sets to get equivalent hypertrophy to fewer moderate rep
sets [14]. Furthermore, machine-based exercises produce lower perceived
exertion than free-weight lower-body exercises [15], and bodybuilders (who
train lighter, with more single-joint and machine-based exercises) have lower
injury rates than powerlifters or weightlifters [16].
So, if you’re doing additional volume with a main lift for hypertrophy rather
than skill development, you should ask yourself whether getting some of that
additional volume with a secondary lift that is easier to recover from would
make more sense. Further, hypertrophy is not the only reason to use secondary lifts. Lifts are skills, and sometimes technical mastery is held back for a
specific reason that, ironically, is best addressed by performing a “non-specific” variation.
TARGETED SECONDARY LIFTS
Sometimes, the smartest way to break through a performance plateau is to
use a variation of the main lift — a targeted secondary movement. These
situations are often specific to individual athletes’ problems, so we’ll rely on
coaching experience in this section. Specifically, we’ll switch to the “I” voice
as Dr. Helms shares some of his powerlifting coaching experiences.
More than a decade ago, Bryce Lewis (former IPF World Champion) and I
were working together, trying to break through the 700 lbs deadlift barrier. I’d
been working with him for about two years at this point, and he was a conventional deadlifter at that time. We’d flirted with sumo but found he wasn’t any
stronger with it, so we scrapped it. However, as he got stronger, his deadlift
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sessions took more and more out of him. The soreness would bleed into squat
sessions, and a second deadlift day, even if we kept it light, seemed to be too
much. So, we switched to sumo purely because he could recover from it faster.
That allowed for more frequent deadlift training, and with that increased frequency came a new wave of progress, and his first 700 lb pull.
This is a useful example in a couple of ways. First, it shows that the cost of
specific training can sometimes be its own bottleneck to further progress,
requiring an individualized solution. Second, in this case, the solution was to
change the definition of what was specific (to sumo), which allowed a higher
dose of specific training, which broke the plateau.
However, the next bottleneck Bryce faced was different. As he continued to
get stronger, his grip started to become the limiting factor. Even though he
could now deadlift two to three times per week using a sumo style, he got
to the point where he could pull more with straps and would occasionally
miss deadlifts due to grip failure. In fact, he reached a point where he could
deadlift 800 lbs with straps but wasn’t able to do it without them.
Obviously, a terrible decision would have been to add another heavy deadlift
session to improve his grip strength. An additional session of heavy deadlifts
would have hurt the whole program due to the additional fatigue. Instead, I
simply programmed heavy barbell holds for time, having him load up near
his deadlift max in the rack, just below his lockout height. Doing a two-inch
range of motion rack pull proved far less taxing than an additional day of
deadlifting. He’d hold these weights for time, steadily increasing the weight,
and the grip bottleneck was reliably fixed each time it came up as he continued to get stronger without negatively impacting other aspects of the
program. Eventually, in 2021, he deadlifted over 800 lbs in competition. Ten
years prior, if we’d decided to rigidly stick with the conventional deadlift, and
if we’d decided not to address the grip issue directly, only doing pure deadlift training and no secondary lifts, I doubt we’d have ever gotten to the 700
lbs mark, let alone 800 lbs.
As another example, for years, I coached a powerlifter with a solid deadlift
who was a former national bench press record holder but who had a relatively poor squat in comparison. She had very long femurs, a short torso,
and a history of back pain. These body segment lengths meant that to reach
squat depth, she was in a very bent-over position, and her history of back
pain and injury meant that she could only do a couple of sets per week of
squats, at most, without it causing pain and interfering with squat and deadlift training. This issue resulted in a plateau on both lifts and a lot of frustration. However, she ended up making her best progress of all time on squats
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when we reduced her squat volume to just performing one single at a 9–10
RPE every 1–2 weeks. That’s right, just one working rep every 1–2 weeks. All
of her other “squat” training consisted of deadlift and deadlift variations and
bodybuilding and strength work on the leg press, lunges, back extensions,
leg extensions, leg curls, and machine hip thrusts. This approach led to a new
squat personal best after a multi-year plateau, and it occurred because she
could train with less pain, more motivation, and because it produced better
lower-body muscular development than she’d previously achieved.
As a final anecdote, I’ve had multiple lifters benefit from paused deadlifts
at mid-shin. I don’t apply them haphazardly, though. Rather, I use this as
a teaching tool in a specific case: when a lifter regularly loses position on
deadlifts such that the bar drifts away from their shins, resulting in a missed
or much harder lift. When lifters exert a lot of force immediately to get a bar
moving off the ground, they sometimes struggle to maintain control of the
bar position and lose it forward. Some lifters aren’t aware that this is what’s
causing them to miss, as it all happens so fast. However, by pausing in the
range of motion where they sometimes lose shin contact, they get an opportunity to notice when the lost contact occurs and correct it (at least, this is
what I think is happening). Ultimately, doing a lighter, less specific variation
of the deadlift reliably led to several of my lifters fixing this specific technical
issue and improving their competition deadlift at what seemed like a faster
pace than if I’d just had them do more competition deadlifts.
Each of these examples presents a unique problem with a tailored solution,
but they all highlight the same principle: “Non-specific” training can be highly specific — when it’s targeted at the right problem.
Movement Weak Points and “Sticking Regions”
A common approach in strength sport is to use secondary lifts to address
the “sticking point” of main lifts. This is often done by pausing at or near
the sticking point, using specific lift variations thought to train that point
differently, or applying variable (a.k.a. “accommodating”) resistance (e.g.,
bands and chains). Some of these methods have merit; others rely on flawed
assumptions.
Do Pauses Work at Sticking Points?
Using a pause at a sticking point may seem logical, as spending more time
where you’re weakest might seem beneficial. But this idea breaks down under scrutiny:
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1. To pause during a lift, you must reduce force output to slow or stop the
bar, exactly the opposite of what you need to overcome a sticking point.
2. The point where the bar visibly sticks is after you’ve already failed to generate sufficient force to sustain velocity. This is like hitting the brakes in
a car and skidding past your intended stop.
This doesn’t mean pauses are useless. They can enhance awareness and control. For example, pausing just below the knee in a deadlift can teach you
to keep the bar closer to your shins. Breaking up a lift into “chunks” like this
may help reinforce better motor patterns.
In squats, if you lose tightness as you come out of the hole and struggle to
control the ‘bounce,’ pausing in the hole allows elastic energy to dissipate
and gives you time to pay attention to and focus on generating tightness.
Similarly, pause squats or pin squats can teach better control through the
transition from eccentric to concentric when you return to regular squats.
In benching, as you get closer to competition, you might decide to do longer
pauses on your chest before pressing the bar up. Given you aren’t always
sure how long you’ll have to wait for a press command in competition, getting better at generating force from a dead stop may help you on comp day.
Also, don’t get us wrong, there is merit to the idea of training to exert more
force at a given portion of a range of motion where you are weaker. As we
discussed in Level 2, strength is specific in many ways, including at specific
joint angles. While pausing in the middle of a dynamic repetition won’t address this deficiency for the reasons we gave above, some approaches might
help address such weak points [17].
Isometric training (pressing or pulling against an immovable object) at the
point in a range of motion where you are weak may be a potential way to get
stronger at a sticking point. However, the problem remains that it is hard to
discern exactly where you are weak versus the visible point where momentum stopped carrying you through the sticking point. (To be precise, it would
require lab equipment or at least video analysis.)
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Technique Breakdowns Can Mimic Sticking Points
Sometimes the issue isn’t the lift itself but how your form breaks down near
maximal effort. For instance:
• Some lifters perfectly execute squats at 90% of 1RM and lower, but perform “squat mornings” (the hips shoot up out of concert with the torso,
back tightness is lost, and it slightly resembles a good morning) when
going heavier.
• During deadlifts, another common technical fault at maximal loads is
when the ordinarily rigid thoracic (and sometimes lumbar) spine moves
into flexion.
These faults (and others) can prompt or exacerbate a sticking point. It is
reasonable to use variations on the main lifts that “punish” these movement
faults and “reward” when they are avoided. For example, a front squat will be
almost immediately dumped forward and lost if your hips shoot up and you
lose back tightness. Maintaining a proper rack position requires intentional
focus and provides an anti-flexion challenge to the back extensors. Other
such exercises that highlight when you make an error can be used in similar
scenarios for other technical faults that might lead to a sticking point.
Accommodating Resistance and Changing Strength Profiles
Accommodating resistance — using bands or chains — is commonly used to
address sticking points:
• By adding chains to a barbell, more and more links uncoil off the ground
as the bar is lifted further from the floor during the concentric phase,
making the load progressively heavier.
• Similarly, with bands attached to the bar and anchored to the floor, the resistance on the bar increases during the concentric phase as the bands stretch.
Either method changes the resistance profile of the movement, as typically
the squat is most difficult just after ascending from the hole, after the help of
the stretch-shortening cycle dissipates, the bench press a few inches above
the chest for the same reason, and the deadlift is (typically) hardest below
the knee. Subsequently, these movements get easier (though not always) as
you approach lockout. Adding accommodating resistance alters this slightly
so that load also increases as you gain a biomechanical advantage.
The use of bands and chains gained original popularity with equipped lifters.
To some degree, bands and chains mimic the strength profile of lifting with
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suits, knee wraps, and bench shirts. This lifting equipment provides most of
its assistance in the early stages of the concentric phase, and less assistance
as you approach lockout. However, suits, wraps, and shirts are difficult to get
in and out of, uncomfortable, and time-consuming to train with. Subsequently,
training in equipment is not done year-round. Instead, a fair amount of time is
often spent training “raw” (without a suit or bench shirt) but with accommodating resistance, to provide a bit more specificity to lifting in equipment.
A 2022 meta-analysis of ~500 participants showed no average benefit of accommodating resistance over traditional loading [18]. However:
• These studies didn’t test equipped lifters specifically.
• Lack of average benefit doesn’t rule out individual usefulness, particularly
near lockout.
• Generating more force prior to a sticking point may create momentum to
carry you through it [17].
Power Work and Speed Training
While traditional, heavy resistance training is an effective way to increase
the rate of force production, explosive “power” type training (often called
“speed work”) has been proposed as well.
Accommodating resistance can be helpful for power training, as traditional
speed work with light loads results in a “braking” phase near lockout [19] as
you decelerate the bar to prevent your back from “jumping” off the bench or
your feet from leaving the floor when squatting or deadlifting. With bands
or chains, the increasing resistance makes lighter loads heavier near lockout,
preventing this from occurring [20]. Thus, bands or chains allow you to attempt to accelerate the bar through the full range of motion. Therefore, an
argument could be made that if you are a lifter who gets stuck right off your
chest when benching, in the hole when squatting, or who can’t break the bar
off the ground when deadlifting, that explosive training (possibly with accommodating resistance) could be of utility. However, it seems that whether
or not explosive training improves the rate of force development compared
to just heavy lifting is highly individual [21].
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Summary of Potential Tools to Address Weak Points and Sticking Regions
Let’s recap the potential approaches a powerlifter or strength athlete might
take [17]:
1. Pauses in key areas to improve motor control and position awareness, but
not necessarily at the visible sticking point.
2. Isometric training at a point where you have a force deficit (though finding this exact point would require motion capture or lab equipment, unfortunately).
3. Variations that punish common technical faults and reward more efficient
technique.
4. Explosive training to improve the rate of force development prior to a
sticking point, with or without accommodating resistance (not everyone
is a responder to this type of training, unfortunately [21]).
When assessing the above options as a lifter or coach, you’ll see there is a
degree of guesswork involved and a great deal of individuality in most as
well. Thus, we want to reiterate that choosing variations on the main lifts,
be they with pauses, bands or chains, limited or increased range of motion,
etc., should be intentional and logically informed. They also aren’t required.
Sometimes the best way to improve a lift is to do more practice with the lift
in competition form.
Ultimately, sticking points don’t disappear, and addressing them doesn’t remove them. But doing so strengthens the weakest link, allowing you to lift
more before they appear again.
Strength Recommendations
By now, it should be clear why both specific and non-specific exercise selection are important when training for strength. The first step is to assess
how much specific training a lifter can tolerate. While you could meet the
fractional set recommendation of 3–5 sets per week by simply performing
3–5 sets of the competition lift, that isn’t always the best approach, especially if the lifter struggles to recover from that volume of heavy, specific work.
In such cases, using a lower volume of the main lift combined with close variations that the lifter tolerates better can be a more effective and sustainable
strategy. Not only does this provide beneficial, varied practice, but if those
variations are chosen to target specific performance bottlenecks, they can
be even more effective.
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For example, imagine a lifter who experiences hip pain when doing more
than 3–4 heavy sets of low-bar, competition-style squats. To reach five fractional sets of squatting per week, they could perform:
• 2 sets of competition squats.
• 6 sets of close squat variations (e.g., safety bar squats, front squats, high-bar
squats, banded/chain squats if the weak point is near lockout, or belt squats).
These six variation sets would contribute roughly three additional fractional
sets. (Also note: while not mentioned in this example, deadlift work contributes to squat volume as well.)
For their 5–10 sets of hypertrophy work, it would not be wise to perform lowbar squats, given their poor recovery profile and potential for aggravating
pain. Further, while they could choose to do more sets on squat variations, it
might be easier to recover from machine-based movements like leg presses,
hack squats, or even leg extensions or isolated glute work.
The recommendations here should be integrated with the volume, frequency,
and intensity recommendations from Level 2 and the Strength Progression
System from Level 3, helping you to choose which exercises you’d use within
those structures. If you aren’t sure what this looks like as an actual program,
make sure to check out our sample strength programs to give you an example.
EXERCISE SELECTION PRINCIPLES
FOR HYPERTROPHY
EXERCISES MUST TRAIN THE TARGET MUSCLE
In bodybuilding, we often associate exercises with specific muscles, talking
about biceps, back, quadriceps, or hamstring exercises. But this is a simplification. While bodybuilders think of the leg curl and Romanian deadlift (RDL)
as “hamstring exercises,” they are not interchangeable. The hamstrings are
not a single muscle but a group of four — the biceps femoris (long and short
heads), semitendinosus, and semimembranosus.
All four contribute to knee flexion, which is the action performed during a
leg curl. However, only three of them — excluding the biceps femoris short
head — also contribute to hip extension, the primary action during a Romanian deadlift (RDL). Thus, if you were only to perform the RDL, you would
not effectively grow the short head of the biceps femoris. Indeed, during
leg curls, there is more electrical activity in the region of the biceps femoris
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short head than during RDLs [22], indicating the short head is minimally recruited during an RDL.
FIGURE
OF THE
THEHAMSTRINGS
HAMSTRINGS
FIGURE4.2.
4.2.ANATOMY
ANATOMY OF
BI CEPS FEMORI S
L ONG HEAD
(CROSSES HI P AND
KNEE, BI ARTI CULAR)
S E M I TE ND IN OSUS
( CR O S S E S H IP A N D
K N E E , B I ART ICULA R)
S E M I ME MBRA N OSUS
( CR O S S E S H IP A N D
K N E E , B I ART ICULA R)
BI CEPS FEMORI S
SHORT HEAD
(ONLY CROSSES KNEE,
MONOARTI CUL AR)
This is just one example of the complexity of human movement. Muscles
coordinate contractions to complete exercises, with some stabilizing while
others produce visible movement. They are categorized and grouped based
on function and location. For instance, the quadriceps are a group of four
muscles on the front of the thigh, all of which attach to the knee, but differ
in their origins on the femur. One, however, the rectus femoris is unique. It
crosses both the hip and knee joints, originating on the front of the pelvis.
This means it plays a role in both hip flexion and knee extension, unlike the
other quadriceps muscles.
Understanding where muscles attach and how many joints they cross helps
us determine how they function and which exercises effectively train them.
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FIGURE
THEQUADRICEPS
QUADRICEPS
FIGURE4.3.
4.3.ANATOMY
ANATOMY OF
OF THE
VASTUS
INTERMEDI US
(ONLY CROSSES KNEE,
MONOARTICUL AR)
VAS TUS
L ATE RAL IS
(ONLY CROSSES KNEE,
MONOARTICULAR)
VAST US
ME DI AL I S
(ONLY C ROSSES KNEE,
MONOARTICULAR)
RE C TUS
F E M ORIS
(CROSSES HIP AND KNEE,
BIARTICULAR)
Some muscles are monoarticular, meaning they attach at only one joint,
which they move or articulate. For example, the biceps femoris short head
and all quadriceps muscles except the rectus femoris are monoarticular. Using our examples, as the biceps femoris short head attaches at the back of
the femur and the knee, it only flexes the knee — the action of a leg curl. Likewise, the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius (the monoarticular quadriceps) only attach at the front of the femur and the knee, so
they only extend the knee — the action of a leg extension.
In contrast, biarticular muscles cross two joints and act on both when they
contract. This can make their role in compound movements less intuitive,
and certain exercises may recruit them poorly.
Take the rectus femoris, for example. Because it attaches at the front of the
knee and the hip, it attempts to extend the knee and flex the hip (the action
of a hanging leg raise). Thus, if the rectus femoris produced force during exercises when you also attempted to extend the hip (the action of an RDL),
it would oppose that force, which is inefficient. Therefore, when you do ex-
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ercises that combine simultaneous knee extension and hip extension, like
squats, leg presses, hack squats, lunges, etc., your nervous system minimally
recruits the biarticular rectus femoris [23]. However, if you perform knee extension in isolation, like a leg extension, the rectus femoris is recruited [24].
The same is true of the hamstrings. Again, the biceps femoris short head is
monoarticular, and the rest of the hamstrings are biarticular, so they not only
flex the knee (the action of a leg curl) but also extend the hip. In a squat, you
simultaneously extend the knee (opposing knee flexion) and the hip, so the
hamstrings and the rectus femoris are minimally recruited [25]. Thus, following squat training, minimal hypertrophy occurs in the hamstrings and rectus
femoris [26]. Further, leg extensions produce superior rectus femoris hypertrophy compared to both Smith machine squats [27] and leg presses [28].
Due to this biomechanical complexity, hypertrophy training to develop a
maximally muscled, proportionate physique demands more exercise variety
than strength-focused training. To maximize development of all muscles —
especially biarticular ones — you need to include isolation movements.
This applies to the upper body as well. The long head of the triceps, unlike
the other two triceps heads, is biarticular. Like the rest of the triceps, the
long head attaches at the back of the elbow so it can extend the elbow (the
action of a tricep pushdown). However, the long head also attaches at the
scapula, so it also brings the arm back towards the torso when the arm is in
front or to the side of it (like the upper arm action of a row or lat pulldown).
Thus, during pressing exercises, like bench or overhead press, where you
perform the opposite action of a row or lat pulldown, the long head isn’t recruited, as it would oppose those actions. Likewise, the long head also isn’t
effectively recruited during rows and pulldowns because it would oppose
the biceps’ action. Therefore, like other biarticular muscles, to effectively
train the long head, you must isolate it. Thus, bench pressing alone grows
the other two heads of the triceps but produces minimal growth in the long
head; however, if you perform pushdowns and bench presses, all heads of
the triceps grow [29].
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FIGURE 4.4. ANATOMY OF THE TRICEPS
FIGURE 4.4. ANATOMY OF THE TRICEPS
HUMERUS
TRICEPS LONG HEAD
(CROSSES SHOULDER AND ELBOW,
BIARTICULAR)
TRICEPS MEDIAL HEAD
(ONLY CROSSES ELBOW,
MONOARTICULAR)
TRICEPS LATERAL HEAD
(ONLY CROSSES ELBOW,
MONOARTICULAR)
TRICEPS TENDON
A complete understanding of functional anatomy requires a separate book.
What is important to know is that both single and multi-joint exercises are
needed to hypertrophy all muscle groups effectively.
Isolated knee extension and flexion, in addition to hip hinges and squats,
are needed to develop the hamstrings and quadriceps fully. Isolated elbow
extension, in addition to upper body pressing, is needed to develop the triceps. Further, the biceps are also biarticular: they cross the shoulder and elbow, but they are relatively weak shoulder flexors [30] (the action of a front
raise). Nonetheless, some data indicate upper body pulling – like rows — may
not develop the biceps as effectively as biceps curls [31]. Thus, unlike a lifter
focused on strength, who might not do limb isolation work, a lifter focused
on hypertrophy probably should in most cases.
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FIGURE 4.5. ANATOMY OF THE ELBOW FLEXORS
FIGURE 4.5. ANATOMY OF THE ELBOW FLEXORS
BICEPS BRACHII
(CROSSES SHOULDER
AND ELBOW, BIARTICULAR)
BRACHIORADIALIS
(ONLY CROSSES ELBOW,
MONOARTICULAR )
BRACHIALIS
(ONLY CROSSES ELBOW,
MONOARTICULAR)
In addition to including single and multi-joint exercises, training in different upper body angles may aid hypertrophy, as some muscles have multiple compartments. The clavicular (upper region) and sternal heads (lower
region) of the pectoralis major, despite being considered the same muscle,
produce slightly different joint actions and, importantly, are innervated by
separate nerves [32]. This may be why some data indicate that incline pressing produces more upper pec growth than flat pressing [33].
Similarly, the various muscles of the back attach at different sites on the
spine and scapula [34], making it likely that upper body pulling in multiple
planes is necessary to maximize back hypertrophy.
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FIGURE 4.6. NERVES INNERVATING THE STERNAL AND
CLAVICULAR
MAJOR PECTORALIS MAJOR
FIGURE 4.6. NERVES INNERVATING
THE PECTORALIS
STERNAL AND CLAVICULAR
C5 NERVE
T1 NERVE
CLAVICLE
STERNUM
CLAVICULAR HEAD
STERNAL
HEAD
PECTORALIS MAJOR M.
XIPHOID PROCESS
Finally, just because an exercise targets a given muscle doesn’t mean it trains
it effectively. For effective training, the target muscle must be sufficiently
fatigued as you approach task failure (high RPE or low RIR). In other words,
the muscle should be one of the limiting factors in the lift.
A 2023 study by Plotkin and colleagues [35] illustrates this point. They compared hip thrusts and squats performed to failure for their effects on hypertrophy. Hip thrusts are most challenging at lockout, when the glutes are in
a shortened position. This is a less-than-ideal resistance profile for hypertrophy, as muscles tend to grow better when trained at longer lengths (for
reasons we’ll discuss in more detail in the next section). Squats, by contrast,
provide the greatest resistance at the bottom, when the glutes are maximally
stretched. Despite this, both exercises produced similar glute growth.
Why? Likely because the hip thrust is mostly an isolation exercise for the glutes. When you reach task failure on a hip thrust, your glutes are the limiting
factor. However, multiple muscle groups contribute to squats. If the quads,
glutes, lumbar, or adductors (which, despite their name, are actually strong
hip extensors [26]) fatigue during squats, you will likely reach task failure.
Depending on your biomechanics and relative strengths, any of these may
cause you to fail first, meaning the glutes may not always be fully fatigued.
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Isolation exercises ensure the target muscle is effectively trained, while multi-joint exercises train the muscles involved with varying efficacy. The tradeoff is that multi-joint movements are more time-efficient. In Plotkin’s study
[35], squats not only matched hip thrusts for glute growth but also produced greater hypertrophy in the quadriceps and adductors. For this reason,
a combination of single- and multi-joint exercises is often best.
TABLE 4.1. HYPERTROPHY: EXERCISES AND MUSCLE GROUPS TRAINED
Movement Pattern
Primary Muscle Groups
Secondary Muscle Groups
Squat (all variations, leg press,
single leg variants, etc.)
Quads, Glutes
Erectors (if free weights)
Hip Hinge (deadlift variations,
good morning, back ext)
Glutes, Hams, Erectors
Scapular Retractors
Vertical Pull (chins, lat pull)
Lats, Scapular Depressors
Rear Delts, Bis
Vertical Push (OHP variations)
Anterior Delts
Triceps, Middle Delts
Horizontal Pull (row variations)
Lats, Scapular Retractors
Rear Delts, Bis, Middle Delts
(face pull)
Horizontal Push (flat, incline,
decline variants)
Chest, Anterior Delts
Tris, Middle Delts (incline)
Horizontal Hip Extension
(hip thrust, glute bridge, etc.)
Glutes
Hams
Pull Over (DB, BB, cable,
machine)
Lats
Chest, Rear Delts, Tris
(secondary, only long head)
Upright Row (DB, BB, cable)
Scapular Elevators, Middle Delts
Rear Delts, Bis
Fly (cable, DB, machine)
Chest, Anterior Delts
N/A
Isolation Exercises
Target muscle
N/A
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EXERCISES IDEALLY CHALLENGE
THE MUSCLE AT LONG LENGTHS
Full range of motion training is traditionally considered best for hypertrophy [36]. However, this interpretation was largely based on comparisons of
full-range versus shortened partial training [36, 37]. Shortened partials are
the typical partial rep, when you perform just the last part of the concentric
(think of half squats, where you don’t go down all the way). Shortened partials train muscles at shorter lengths. While full-range training often outperforms shortened partials, reviewers noted that in the rare comparisons with
lengthened partials [38], full-range training did not produce greater hypertrophy [36]. Lengthened partials are partial reps with the initial phase of the
concentric (think of deep squats, but you don’t go all the way up). Muscles
are at a longer length in the initial phase of the concentric. This discrepancy
led to speculation that full-range training was superior to shortened partials
because full-range training includes the range of motion when the muscle is
longer, which is thought to result in higher tension [36–38].
Research has confirmed this. When lengthened and shortened partials are
matched for the same degrees of joint motion (so the distance moved is
equal), lengthened partials produce greater hypertrophy [39–41]. Similarly,
isometric training — pushing or pulling against an immovable object — results
in more hypertrophy when performed at longer rather than shorter muscle
lengths [42]. Even with the same ROM, exercises that position a biarticular
muscle in a more stretched state produce more growth by manipulating the
second joint’s position [43–47].
For example, performing the same range of motion on a seated leg curl, where
the hamstrings are more stretched due to hip flexion, produces more hamstrings hypertrophy than that same range of motion on a lying leg curl, an exercise that provides a greater stretch for and subsequently grows the sartorius
more, a knee flexor muscle that attaches on the front of the hip [43].
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FIGURE 4.7. IMPACT OF HIP POSITION ON HAMSTRINGS
FIGURE 4.7. IMPACT OF HIP
POSITION
ON HAMSTRINGS
AND SARTORIUS IN LEG CURLS
AND
SARTORIUS
IN LEG CURLS
A : LYIN G
B: SEATED
Same range of motion in A and B, but A stretches the sartorius more and the hamstrings less, while B stretches the hamstrings more, and the sartorius less.
As a final example, setting the seat on a leg extension all the way back produces
more rectus femoris hypertrophy than being upright, as leaning back stretches
the biarticular rectus femoris more because it attaches at the hip [47].
FIGURE 4.8. IMPACT OF HIP POSITION ON
RECTUS
IN RECTUS
LEG EXTENSION
FIGURE 4.8. IMPACT
OF HIPFEMORIS
POSITION ON
FEMORIS IN LEG EXTENSION
A : SEAT ED LE G EX T E N SION
B: LEANED BACK LEG EXTENSI ON
A is a normal upright position on leg extension while B is with the seat set all the way back.
Both have the same range of motion, but B stretches the rectus femoris more.
However, simply reaching long muscle lengths may not be enough — being
challenged at those lengths appears to be just as, if not more, important.
Kobayashi and colleagues compared incline biceps curls to preacher curls,
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measuring changes in biceps, brachialis, and brachioradialis volume via MRI
[46]. The brachialis and brachioradialis are monoarticular, crossing only the
elbow, so their length depends solely on elbow angle, not shoulder position.
The biceps, however, are biarticular, crossing both the shoulder and elbow,
and are more stretched during incline curls, where the shoulder is extended
(arm behind the torso).
As expected, the biceps grew slightly more after incline curls. But the brachialis and brachioradialis grew more following preacher curls. This was
likely due to differences in where peak loading occurred. Because gravity
pulls downward, the challenge is greatest when the forearm is parallel to the
ground — the point where the lever arm is longest. In preacher curls, this
happens just after the start of each rep, when the brachialis and brachioradialis are at longer lengths than at the equivalent point in an incline curl. This
outcome was replicated in another study, which compared the same exercises but measured total elbow flexor muscle thickness [48]. These researchers
observed slightly greater hypertrophy following preacher curls at the upper
region of the elbow flexors, which only contains the biceps, but the lower
region — which includes the brachialis — grew more following preacher curls.
FIGURE
4.9. IMPACT
OF SHOULDER
POSITION AND
RESISTANCE
FIGURE
4.9. IMPACT
OF SHOULDER
POSITION
PROFILEPROFILE
ON ELBOWONFLEXORS
AND RESISTANCE
ELBOW FLEXORS
SHOULDER E X TE N DE D,
B ICEPS M OR E STR E TC HE D
T HAN PRE AC HE R C U R L
SHOULDER F L E X E D,
B ICEPS LESS STR E TC HE D
T HAN IN CLIN E C U R L
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H I G HE ST C H A L L E N G E
W HE N BR AC H I A L I S A N D
BR AC H I O R A DI A L I S L E S S
STR E TC HE D TH A N
P R E AC HE R C U R L
H I G HE ST C H A L L E NG E
W HE N BR AC H I A L I S A ND
BR AC H I O R A DI A L I S
M O R E STR E TC HE D T H A N
INCLINE CURL
STR E TC HE D TH A N
P R E AC HE R C U R L
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SHOULDER F L E X E D,
B ICEPS LESS STR E TC HE D
T HAN IN CLIN E C U R L
H I G HE ST C H A L L E NG E
W HE N BR AC H I A L I S A ND
BR AC H I O R A DI A L I S
M O R E STR E TC HE D T H A N
INCLINE CURL
Maeo and colleagues further demonstrated the importance of challenging
muscles at long lengths in a study of the hamstrings [44]. They compared
Nordic leg curls — a bodyweight exercise where a partner holds the ankles —
to eccentric-biased seated leg curls (using both legs on the concentric and
only one on the eccentric). The seated variation, which stretches the biarticular hamstrings due to hip flexion, produced greater growth in those muscles. In contrast, the monoarticular biceps femoris short head, whose length
is influenced only by knee position, grew more from Nordic curls. This makes
sense — Nordics are most challenging when the knees are fully extended,
with the body nearly parallel to the ground, meaning the short head is most
challenged in its most elongated position.
FIGURE 4.10. IMPACT OF HIP POSITION AND
RESISTANCE
PROFILE
ON HAMSTRINGS
FIGURE 4.10. IMPACT
OF HIP POSITION
AND RESISTANCE
PROFILE ON HAMSTRINGS
F L E X E D HIP ST RETCHES
B I A R T I CUL AR HAM ST R IN GS
H I G HE ST C H A L L E N G E W HE N
M O N OA R TI C U L A R BI C E P S
F E M O R I S S H O R T HE A D
I S STR E TC HE D
These three studies [44, 46, 48] and others [49] suggest that hypertrophy
depends not just on reaching long muscle lengths, but on applying significant
load there. This has led some researchers to hypothesize that because the
shortened portion of a lift may be less effective for growth, skipping it altogether and focusing on lengthened partials could produce even better results.
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Lengthened Partials versus Full Range of Motion
While it is intuitive that lengthened partials are better than shortened partials,
since shortened partials don’t train muscles at long lengths, the hypothesis
that lengthened partials are better than even full range of motion training is
less so. The logic is that effort expended at the end portion of full-range training, when the muscle is shorter, is more or less wasted. Thus, all effort should
be spent in the lengthened range. While plausible, the evidence is mixed.
Kassiano and colleagues [50] compared calf raises on a leg press using a full
range of motion, shortened partials (top half only), or lengthened partials
(bottom half only). The lengthened partial group experienced substantially more calf growth than not only the shortened partial group but the full
range of motion group as well. Similarly, Pedrosa and colleagues [41] had
their lengthened partial participants perform just the initial 45 degrees of
a leg extension, and they achieved similar hypertrophy in the upper quad
and greater hypertrophy in the lower quad than participants performing
full-range leg extensions. Lastly, Maeo and colleagues [51] observed greater glute hypertrophy following lengthened partials on a multi-hip machine
compared to full range.
FIGURE 4.11. FULL, INITIAL (LENGTHENED PARTIAL),
FIGURE 4.11. FULL, INITIAL (LENGTHENED PARTIAL), AND FINAL
AND FINAL (SHORTENED PARTIAL) RANGE OF MOTION CALF RAISES
(SHORTENED PARTIAL) RANGE OF MOTION CALF RAISES
I N I TI A L (L E N G THE N E D PA R TI A L )
R A N G E OF MOTI ON
F ULL R A N GE OF M OTION
-25°
0°
-25°
+25°
0°
FI N A L (S H OR TE N E D PA R T I AL )
R A N G E OF MOTI ON
0°
+25°
However, four other studies found similar growth between lengthened partials and full range [38, 52–54]. Two of these are difficult to interpret due to
minimal hypertrophy in both groups.
First, Werkhausen and colleagues [38] compared the lengthened partial leg
press to the full range leg press; however, the training was designed to maximize explosive power. Both groups used a shallow range of motion, not coming down very far, and only performed the concentric, receiving assistance
on the eccentric. Thus, neither group experienced any hypertrophy, so not
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much can be said about the effect of lengthened partials versus a full range
of motion from this study. Likewise, Gschneider and colleagues [53] reported upper arm and thigh hypertrophy measured by skinfold and circumference estimations. While this is not a precise measurement, they overcame
this limitation with a large sample of nearly 300 participants. Unfortunately,
little hypertrophy also occurred in this study, possibly due to the use of a single set per exercise protocol in trained participants, making any comparison
between full range and lengthened partial training difficult.
The remaining two studies, which did report meaningful growth, both used
upper body exercises that already challenge the target muscle most in its
lengthened position.
For example, Wolf [52] included the overhead dumbbell triceps extension,
which is hardest when the forearm is parallel to the ground — where the triceps are longest — and much easier toward lockout.
FIGURE 4.12. IMPACT OF SHOULDER POSITION
FIGURE 4.12. IMPACTAND
OF SHOULDER
POSITION
AND RESISTANCE
PROFILE ON TRICEPS
RESISTANCE
PROFILE
ON TRICEPS
F O R E A R M PA R ALLEL TO GROUN D,
M A K I N G C H A LLEN GE HIGHEST
W HE N T R I C E P S M OST ST R ETCHED
S H O U L DE R F L E X E D,
STR E TC H I N G LO N G HE A D
LOA D I N L I N E W I TH G R AV I T Y,
M I N I M A L C H A L L E N G E AT E ND
OF ROM
Hinson [54] and Wolf also used the behind-the-back cable curl, which loads the
biceps heavily in the stretched position and minimally at the top. In such cases,
lengthened partials add little because the short range is already unloaded.
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FIGURE
4.13:4.13:
IMPACT
OFOFCABLE
RESISTANCE
PROFILE
FIGURE
IMPACT
CABLEPOSITION
POSITION ONONRESISTANCE
PROFILE
CAB LE LIN E O F P U L L
M IM ICS PULL O F G R AVI TY,
CHALLEN GE H I G HE ST
AS B ICEPS AR E STR E TC HE D
C H A L L E N G E DE C R E ASE S
AS BI C E P S S H O R TE N
This may explain why studies favoring lengthened partials [41, 50, 51] all used
machines with more consistent resistance profiles, where the short range still
presents significant load. With free weights, it’s often obvious which part of
the lift is hardest, but with machines, the resistance curve is engineered and
less intuitive.
Practical takeaway:
• If an exercise is hardest when the muscle is shorter (e.g., calf raises at lockout,
many rows, and pulldowns), it’s a good candidate for lengthened partials.
• If it’s hardest when the muscle is longer (e.g., squats, RDLs, many presses),
lengthened partials may offer no benefit, and in some cases may be worse, as
staying in the lengthened range can severely limit breathing and reduce reps.
To further illustrate this last point, consider squats and RDLs, which challenge
large muscle groups at long lengths, right out of the hole and near the floor,
respectively, and are aerobically demanding. Their sticking point is when you
naturally hold your breath to brace due to the high force demand. Typically,
people perform a couple of reps, breathe at the top of a rep, and then complete a few more reps, repeating until they finish the set. But if you stay in
the initial range of squats and deadlifts, never locking out, where you naturally hold your breath, breathing becomes challenging, and perceived effort
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increases. We’d wager you’d get fewer reps in the lengthened position doing
exclusively lengthened partials because the top of deadlifts and squats takes
little effort and allows you to breathe (you could, however, intersperse a few
full reps with lengthened partials to breathe). Thus, lengthened partials are
not a great fit for all lifts.
To conclude, training at long muscle lengths (not necessarily lengthened
partials) likely produces superior hypertrophy, but it is not just the act of
reaching long muscle lengths that is important, but that the muscle is challenged at long lengths. Lengthened partials are just one demonstration of
this broad finding, but they are likely only better than full-range training on
exercises where performing the end range (when the muscle is shorter) creates enough fatigue to detract from your ability to get more exposure to the
initial range (when the muscle is longer).
EXERCISES MUST BE FEASIBLE
The next principle of hypertrophy exercise selection is less “sciencey” and
more intuitive: feasibility. Regardless of an exercise’s resistance profile, how
much it’s lauded by influencers, or where it appears on a YouTube tier list,
ultimately, you should only use it if it’s practical for you.
To assess this, use the PLATE checklist:
1. Painful? If an exercise causes you consistent pain, due to your injury history, individual biomechanics, or any other reason, it’ll be demotivating and
may inhibit your ability to generate force and tension in the muscle.
2. Loadable? If an exercise is difficult to load — for example, if you wanted
to do Nordic curls because we brought up that they cause more biceps
femoris short head growth — but you can only do two good reps, it’ll be
very hard to progress.
3. Available? If you have a 90-minute training window and you normally go
to the gym across the street to save time, but there’s new fancy equipment at a gym 30 minutes away, it’s a bad idea to commute for a full hour
versus two minutes. You won’t have enough time to use the fancy equipment — it’s essentially unavailable to you.
4. Time-efficient? Suppose you want to do a chest-supported rather than a
free-weight row, but the only option is spending 20 minutes constructing a
tower of aerobic blocks and plates to put a bench and a barbell on. In that
case, you’re better off just doing a bent-over row variation or a cable row.
5. Enjoyable? If you dread RDLs but love conventional deadlifts and back extensions, choose the ones you enjoy. While RDLs have a longer range of
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motion and ensure a muscularly controlled eccentric compared to conventional deadlifts and a better resistance profile than back extensions, the
fact that you hate RDLs will likely impede you from putting forth full effort.
Ultimately, the “best” exercise is the one you can perform consistently, progress over time, and fit within your schedule and preferences. Even if science
points to a marginally better alternative, results come from long-term adherence — the base of The Pyramid!
Unfamiliar Movements Are Less Effective
For Inducing Hypertrophy
A common claim is that you must constantly swap exercises to keep growing, often referred to as “muscle confusion.” In reality, the opposite can be
true: unfamiliar movements tend to produce less hypertrophy until you’ve
mastered them.
In 1998, a study was conducted where the untrained participants performed
bench presses, leg presses, and bicep curls for 20 weeks [55]. At the 10-week
and 20-week mark, hypertrophy and 1RM were assessed. Arm hypertrophy
was significant at the midpoint, as were strength increases. However, trunk
and leg hypertrophy had not yet been observed, and it wasn’t until the 20week mark that hypertrophy in the limbs and trunk became apparent.
Why was there a delay in muscle growth in the trunk and legs, and not the
arms? The researchers concluded that low-complexity movements, like the
biceps curl, are learned quickly, allowing early overload and growth. In contrast, more complex multi-joint lifts, such as the bench press and leg press,
take longer to master, delaying the point at which you can apply sufficient
overload to stimulate hypertrophy [55].
As was discussed in prior chapters, initial strength gains on new exercises,
especially complex ones, are primarily (but not exclusively) due to neuromuscular adaptations [56]. As movement skill develops over time, a lifter
can expose muscles to progressive overload and produce hypertrophy [57].
Thus, even if your goal is purely hypertrophy, you want to master the movements you use to drive muscle growth.
As discussed prior to this section, you need some exercise variation to effectively stimulate all muscle groups, regions, compartments, and biarticular
muscles. However, appropriate exercise variety does not require constantly
varying exercises. You can swap out exercises from time to time, but don’t
continually change them to the point where you lose familiarity.
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Hypertrophy Recommendations
To ensure sufficient variety for hypertrophy, base your training around the
six core movements:
1. Squats — any bilateral or unilateral simultaneous knee and hip extension
exercises; machine, bodyweight, or free weight (e.g., squat, leg press, hack
squat, front squat, lunge).
2. Hinges — any bilateral or unilateral hip-dominant exercise; machine, bodyweight, or free weight (e.g., deadlift, back extension, RDL, good morning,
hip thrust).
3. Horizontal presses — any exercise where you are primarily horizontal
pressing, at any angle (incline or decline), bilaterally or unilaterally; machine, bodyweight, or free weight (e.g., bench press, incline dumbbell
press, dips, machine press, weight push-ups).
4. Vertical presses — any exercise where you are primarily pressing vertically, including high incline if mobility is limited, unilaterally or bilaterally; machine, bodyweight, or free weight (e.g., OHP, high incline dumbbell
press, machine shoulder press, pike push-ups).
5. Horizontal pulls — any exercise where you are primarily pulling horizontally, but at any angle (high or low row), unilateral or bilateral; machine,
bodyweight, or free weight (e.g., bench row, chest supported dumbbell
row, inverted row, machine row, cable row).
6. Vertical pulls — any exercise where you are primarily pulling vertically,
including high incline, unilateral or bilateral; machine, bodyweight, or free
weight (e.g., lat pulldown, machine pulldown, pull up, single-arm pulldown,
high cable row).
Within each category, consider the principles of hypertrophy exercise selection, select 1–3 exercises based on their feasibility, and distribute your volume between these exercises.
Additional Guidelines
• Include some incline pressing for upper pec development.
• For the back, include at least two variations each for horizontal and vertical pulling. For horizontal pulls, choose one variation with elbows flared
and a higher pull path to target the scapular retractors and posterior deltoid, and another emphasizing shoulder extension.
• If you include incline pressing and have mobility or neck issues, you may
skip overhead pressing; the anterior deltoid is already heavily trained in all
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pressing movements. If you do this, consider adding more isolation work
to meet your deltoid volume targets.
• Include at least one isolation exercise for:
• Biceps (and the rest of the elbow flexors).
• Triceps
• Calves (only the straight leg is needed).
• Quadriceps (to train the biarticular rectus femoris).
• Hamstrings (to train the biceps femoris short head).
• Middle deltoid (as it is less active in most multi-joint upper body lifts).
• Direct training for upper traps, forearms, or abs can be added if these
areas are underdeveloped, though in our coaching experience, they often
grow little from direct work, likely because they already receive substantial indirect training.
EXERCISE ORDER
Once you’ve chosen your exercises, the next step is deciding their order.
You can typically perform more total repetitions per set when an exercise
is done earlier in the session, while you’re fresh [58]. For this reason, multi-joint free-weight lifts usually belong first; they stimulate more total muscle mass, are the most technically complex, create the most fatigue, and
carry the highest injury risk.
From a strength perspective, a 2021 meta-analysis of 11 studies (268 participants) found that strength gains are slightly greater when an exercise is
performed first [59]. However, the same analysis found no difference in hypertrophy based on exercise order.
One exception applies to bodybuilders with a glaring weak point that is not
well-stimulated by the day’s planned multi-joint lifts. In this case, training
that muscle group first can make sense; the meta-analysis suggests it won’t
hurt hypertrophy, and logically, prioritizing a lagging area when you’re fresh
is reasonable. The caveat: doing so should not significantly reduce performance on subsequent multi-joint barbell lifts, as that could hinder overall
development or add unnecessary fatigue.
For example, a bodybuilder with weak biceps or calves may decide to train
them first before doing overhead presses, bench presses, squats, or deadlifts, respectively. Training the biceps before the bench press won’t negatively influence the performance of this exercise. Likewise, training the calves
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prior to a squat or deadlift should also have a minimal effect on the performance of these lifts.
SUMMARY
Prioritize the movements you want to get stronger at. Perform them first in
the session and achieve your target volume with the specific versions you
aim to improve, unless you cannot tolerate that much specific work. In such
cases, or during phases with more strength-specific training, use variations
that transfer well to your main lifts, chosen based on factors such as pain,
injury history, technical faults, sticking points, equipment availability, and
personal preference.
For your hypertrophy volume to support strength, choose exercises that are
less fatiguing, less time-consuming, and align with the principles of hypertrophy exercise selection.
If your goal is hypertrophy, you may still include multi-joint barbell movements, even if you don’t care about strength. Consider not only the exercise
selection principles for hypertrophy but also practicality. Multi-joint lifts are
time-efficient and, in the case of squats, hinges, and presses, tend to have
favorable resistance profiles. However, you also need to consider recovery,
the total volume you are trying to achieve for a given muscle, and the mental demands of each training session. Thus, you will need to find a balance
between multi-joint free weight lifts, machine-based exercises, and isolation
exercises. Some muscle groups simply cannot be effectively trained with
a barbell-centric, multi-joint lift purist approach to training. Compared to
a strength athlete who specializes in two or three lifts, you must be a jack
of all trades as a bodybuilder. More variety, however, doesn’t mean constant
variation. Skill with your chosen lifts matters, and too much swapping can
stall progress by forcing repeated relearning.
In most cases, perform compound barbell exercises first when you are fresh to
optimize your performance. If you have a single muscle group that is a weak
point that, if fatigued, won’t hinder the performance of your compound lifts
for the day, it can be trained first for the same reason.
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TABLE 4.2. SUMMARY OF EXERCISE SELECTION RECOMMENDATIONS
Strength
Use your main lifts to achieve the target volume for those lifts unless you have a low tolerance for
their total volume. In that case, select variations with high carryover based on your biomechanics,
injury history, technical needs, and/or sticking points. For hypertrophy work, choose less fatiguing,
higher-rep exercises that are quicker to set up and perform.
Hypertrophy
Following the principles of feasibility and ensuring the target muscle is both trained and challenged
at long lengths, choose 1–3 lifts for each of the six core movement patterns. Include:
• An incline press.
• An elbow-flared row plus a shoulder-extension–dominant row.
• At least one isolation exercise each for the quads, hamstrings, biceps, triceps, middle delts,
and calves.
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5
HOW LONG SHOULD YOU REST BETWEEN SETS?
TIME-SAVING TECHNIQUES
LEVEL
REST PERIOD RECOMMENDATIONS
06
05
rest periods
04
03
02
01
REST PERIODS
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At this stage of The Pyramid, much of our guidance is about avoiding pitfalls
that can make your training less effective. Rest periods directly influence fatigue accumulation within a session, which in turn affects the loads and reps
you can perform, and therefore, potentially your ability to adapt to training.
When using straight sets, you simply perform a set, rest, and repeat the following sets with the same load. Here, the key is truly as simple as just making
sure you don’t cut rest periods too short.
However, for many lifters, the biggest obstacle to consistency isn’t effort —
it’s time. For people with limited time, it is critical to make training more
time-efficient without compromising its effectiveness. The same applies to
advanced lifters and competitors who perform high training volumes: time
often becomes the limiting factor. In both cases, understanding how to leverage time-saving techniques like antagonist-paired supersets, peripheral-paired supersets, drop sets, and rest-pause sets can be a game-changer.
HOW LONG SHOULD YOU REST
BETWEEN SETS?
If you have unlimited time to train, deciding how long to rest is simple: rest
long enough to maintain performance. While you don’t need a study to tell
you this, if you’re an experienced lifter, longer rest periods (up to a point)
provide greater recovery between sets, allowing more reps per set.
As an example, Senna and colleagues [1] had 15 trained men performing five
sets for as many reps as possible with their 10RM on bench press, leg press,
machine flyes, and leg extensions, in sessions where they rested one, three,
or five minutes between sets. Unsurprisingly, when they rested 3–5 minutes
per set, they better maintained repetition performance, getting more reps
across all five sets compared to when they rested only one minute.
So, should you simply rest as long as you need to maintain performance as
much as possible? If you are training a main lift, and your goal is strength,
that’s exactly what you should do. In Grgic and colleagues’ 2018 systematic
review of 23 studies on nearly 500 participants, they concluded that resting
at least two minutes between sets was necessary to maximize strength gains
in trained lifters [2].
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REST PERIODS FOR HYPERTROPHY
If your goal is hypertrophy, load matters less than ensuring each set provides
a strong growth stimulus. This means some drop in reps or load between sets
is acceptable, provided you maintain an appropriate RIR and total volume.
When time is limited, the decision becomes trickier. Shorter rests reduce the
per-set stimulus, but the time saved can allow you to complete more sets in
the same session, potentially offsetting the loss by increasing the stimulus
per unit of time.
For example, resting 1–2 minutes instead of 2–4 will likely lower your reps
and/or load per set if the number of sets is fixed. But if your session length
is fixed, shorter rests may let you fit in more sets, which can make up for the
reduced performance per set and resulting loss of stimulus [3].
The key is knowing when rest is so short that fatigue prevents you from recruiting and training enough muscle fibers, which shows up as a meaningful
drop in volume load, and, over time, reduced hypertrophy.
Fortunately, this is precisely what Singer and colleagues addressed in their
2024 meta-analysis [4] on the impact of different rest intervals on gains in
muscle mass. They reported that differences in hypertrophy were negligible
when rest exceeded ~90 seconds. Once rest reached about 90 seconds, volume load was no longer meaningfully reduced.
Context Matters
It’s important to remember that the meta-analysis provides an average value
across the levels of strength, rep ranges, and different lifts in the studies included. The more muscle mass you use, the more energy you’ll expend. For
example, you’ll experience far more breathlessness after a set of 10 squats
than 10 lateral raises.
Even comparing an exercise to itself, energy expenditure scales with the volume load you complete [5], and the more energy you expend in the set, the
more recovery you’ll need.
Importantly, you expend more energy during higher rep sets, which produce
a higher volume load. For example, assume a 100 kg 1RM, then consider a
realistic hypothetical of someone who can do ~25 reps with 60% of 1RM (60
kg) and ~10 reps with 80% of 1RM (80 kg) — that’s nearly a two-fold difference in volume load.
Finally, as you get stronger, you’ll expend more energy per set, even if you
do the same reps at the same percentage of 1RM, because you are now using
a higher absolute load. (If 80% of 1RM was 100 kg, and it’s now 120 kg, the
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same set, rep, and percentage 1RM combination will now produce 20% higher volume load.)
So, 90 seconds should be viewed as a general average, and may be plenty
for single-joint lifts or lighter loads, but stronger individuals or those doing
heavy, multi-joint lower body lifts will likely need more.
What is more important, however, is the concept that even if you cut your
rest intervals short to some degree, you can make up for the per-set stimulus
reduction if the time saved allows you to do more sets. So, if you have no
time constraints, rest as much as you need. But if you have time constraints
stopping you from getting in as much volume as you know is appropriate (or
you estimate is appropriate based on our Level 2 guidelines), then consider
cutting your rest intervals short.
With that said, all of the above applies to training exclusively with straight
sets. Other training structures can save time while preserving — or only
slightly reducing — the per-set stimulus. We’ll look at those next.
TIME-SAVING TECHNIQUES
ANTAGONIST-PAIRED SUPERSETS
AND PERIPHERAL SUPERSETS
A superset is when you perform one exercise and immediately follow it with
a different exercise, only resting after both are complete.
Bodybuilding culture often frames supersets as an “intensity” or “advanced”
technique, especially when pairing exercises for the same muscle group (agonist-paired supersets). For example, bench press followed immediately by
incline dumbbell press. However, when compared to straight sets to failure,
this approach reduces force output due to fatigue, resulting in fewer total
reps [5]. For this reason, they are better categorized as a time efficiency
technique.
With that said, supersetting bench presses with an exercise that trains the
opposite muscle group (AKA the “antagonist”) — like a row — or an exercise
that trains completely different muscle groups, like a squat, results in no loss,
or much less loss of force output, respectively [6].
Supersets performed with opposing muscle groups are called antagonist-paired supersets. There are many examples, such as a set of shoulder
presses immediately followed by a set of lat pulldowns, leg extensions paired
with leg curls, bench presses paired with rows, or bicep curls paired with tri-
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cep extensions. Supersets performed with unrelated, but not necessarily opposing muscle groups, are called peripheral-paired supersets. Interestingly,
unlike agonist-paired supersets, these types of supersets sometimes result
in better performance than even straight sets. This is probably because you
actually get to rest the working muscles a bit longer than you do during
straight sets, even though total rest time is shorter. How? Let us explain.
Imagine doing three supersets of bench press and cable rows. When you’re
benching, you’re training your pushing musculature; while you’re rowing,
you’re training your pulling musculature. However, that also means that while
you’re benching, your pulling musculature is resting, and vice versa. Also,
after each superset, you rest for two minutes. Compare that to doing three
straight sets of bench presses and three straight sets of rows, each with
two-minute rest intervals between sets. During straight sets, your local musculature only gets two minutes of rest, but during supersets, you not only
get two minutes of rest, but you’re also resting the antagonist muscles while
you’re performing the opposing exercise. This additional local rest may be
why several studies report that slightly more volume load is completed during antagonist-paired supersets of bench press and rows [7, 8] and leg extensions and leg curls [9], compared to straight sets.
Most importantly, however, in two separate longitudinal studies published in
2024, Burke and colleagues [10] and Iverson and colleagues [11] compared
antagonist-paired superset training to straight-set training. In both studies,
similar hypertrophy occurred after straight sets and supersets, but the participants completed their training in half [11] to two-thirds the time [10].
The Trade-Off
With that said, antagonist-paired supersets are not completely without cost.
Even though you can get the same hypertrophy in less time, you are doing
the same amount of work in less time. While your local musculature gets to
rest enough, your cardiorespiratory system is getting less rest. This higher
work-to-rest ratio results in higher perceived exertion.
Specifically, Burke’s participants rated an entire session of supersets about one
point higher on a 10-point RPE scale than an entire session of straight sets [10].
Exercise pairing also matters. In Iverson’s study, participants alternated between:
1. Bench press/row (antagonist) + leg press/lat pulldown (peripheral).
2. Lat pulldown/leg press (peripheral) + bench press/row (antagonist).
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This meant the row was sometimes last in the session, and the lat pulldown
was always paired with leg press — a highly fatiguing lift. The result: slightly
less training volume and smaller strength gains for those lifts compared to
straight sets [11].
Indeed, in some prior short-term studies, squat volume can suffer when
paired in peripheral supersets with upper-body compound lifts, compared
to traditional training [6, 12].
Therefore, you need to ensure that you are in good cardiorespiratory shape
if you want to do antagonist and peripheral-paired supersets. Further, due to
their cardiorespiratory demand, lower-body compound exercises should not
be supersetted with other compound lifts or exercises for large muscle groups
in most cases (pair them with calf raises, arm training, delt training, etc.).
Implementing Antagonist and Peripheral-Paired Supersets
When performing supersets, ensure the cumulative fatigue doesn’t detract
from performance. This means that resting long enough between supersets
is important. In research, supersets are typically performed by doing a set
of each exercise back-to-back, then resting for ~2 minutes. However, rather
than worrying too much about how long you rest, simply alternate sets on
each exercise, completing a set of each in a 3–5 minute period. Meaning, you
can even rest a bit between exercises in addition to between supersets if you
are out of breath, especially when you are first acclimating to supersets, and
especially during multi-joint lifts.
With isolation exercises (e.g., triceps extensions with biceps curls, or leg extensions with leg curls), cardiorespiratory fatigue is lower, so you can often
reduce rest between supersets to ~1–2 minutes. There’s no fixed rule — just
ensure you’re ready to perform and that reps aren’t dropping sharply from
set to set.
The table shows a hypothetical example of an upper-body day using antagonist-paired supersets of a horizontal push with a horizontal pull, a vertical
push with a vertical pull, and a tricep exercise with a bicep exercise:
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TABLE 5.1. EXAMPLE: UPPER-BODY ANTAGONIST-PAIRED SUPERSET SESSION
Super Set 1
Super Set 2
Super Set 3
Bench Press
Overhead Press
Tricep Press-downs
Chest Supported Row
Lat Pulldown
Bicep Curls
~2 minutes rest
~ 2 minutes rest
~1 minute rest
Bench Press
Overhead Press
Tricep Press-downs
Chest Supported Row
Lat Pulldown
Bicep Curls
~ 2 minutes rest
~2 minutes rest
~1 minute rest
Bench Press
Overhead Press
Tricep Press-downs
Chest Supported Row
Lat Pulldown
Bicep Curls
~2 minutes rest
~2 minutes rest
~1 minute rest
When the Gym is Crowded
Holding two pieces of equipment is either rude or unrealistic in a busy gym.
Instead, bring dumbbells with you over to a piece of equipment. For example:
• Perform dumbbell shoulder presses while seated backward on the lat pulldown machine.
• Perform dumbbell rows on the bench press.
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The Role of Agonist-Paired Supersets
While agonist-paired supersets generally produce lower net force output
and volume compared to the same number of straight sets [5], they still save
time. They can also be used strategically:
• As a drop-set alternative: Like drop sets (which we’ll discuss next), agonist supersets reduce stimulus per set but save time, allowing you to potentially make up for the loss with more total work.
• “Insurance policy” for target muscles: Use them to ensure a specific muscle reaches full fatigue after a compound lift.
Example: After an incline press, superset incline flyes or incline cable
crossovers to ensure the clavicular head of the pec is fully fatigued rather
than leaving the anterior deltoids, triceps, or sternal pec to take over.
DROP SETS AND REST-PAUSE SETS
Beyond antagonist and peripheral-paired supersets, there are other time-saving strategies often labeled “intensity” or “advanced” techniques in bodybuilding circles. Two of the most common are drop sets and rest-pause sets.
Drop Sets
A drop set is when you reach failure with a given load, then “drop” the
load — typically by ~20% in research — and go to failure again, repeating
until you’ve completed all intended drops. This allows you to extend a set
“past failure” as you could no longer produce enough force to do more reps
with the initial load.
Drop sets save a lot of time. Performing an equivalent number of drop sets
usually takes less than half the time of the same number of straight sets, because you only rest between exercises, not between each set.
However, unlike antagonist or peripheral supersets (which preserve per-set
stimulus), drop sets reduce per-set stimulus. This reduction in stimulus occurs because the load must be lowered on each drop, meaning:
• Less force production, which can negatively impact strength gains.
• A smaller pool of active fibers as fatigue builds, which can slightly reduce
total hypertrophy stimulus per set.
That said, the time savings can make the trade-off worthwhile.
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In a 2023 systematic review of six studies including ~140 participants with a
meta-analysis of five of these studies, Sødal reported that drop set groups
had to perform ~13 sets on average to achieve the same hypertrophy as
straight set groups performing 10 sets [13]. Since 13 drop sets (including the
initial set) take much less time than 10 straight sets, this tradeoff is worthwhile for those with limited time.
A rule of thumb for counting drop sets is that the initial sets and all subsequent sets are equivalent to 75% as many straight sets. Simply put, if you’d
normally do three straight sets, you could do one initial set + 3 drops for
a similar training effect.
Rest-Pause Sets
Rest-pause sets are similar to drop sets, but you don’t reduce the load. Instead, you take very short “mini rests” (often ~20 seconds) before attempting more reps with the same weight.
A typical rest-pause protocol in research:
1. Choose a load.
2. Train to failure.
3. Rest ~20 seconds.
4. Do more reps to failure.
5. Repeat until you hit a target total rep count or number of rest-pause sets.
Unlike drop sets, there isn’t as much research on rest-pause sets. Further, fair
comparisons of rest-pause sets with straight sets in research are challenging, often requiring researchers to compare failure to non-failure training or
to use slightly different loads. Nonetheless, the available research indicates
rest-pause sets promote similar strength and hypertrophy as straight sets
when load, proximity to failure, and volume load are similar.
However, certain exercises are not a good fit for drop sets: imagine racking
and unracking heavy squats every 20 seconds. Thus, even though you maintain load, which on paper is good for strength, rest-pause sets are impractical for many lifts, especially for strong individuals.
Comparing the Two: Example Study
To demonstrate how rest-pause sets compare with drop sets (and straight
sets), consider a 2021 study by Enes and colleagues [14]. Rather than demonstrating the time-saving qualities of rest-pause sets or drop sets, the researchers demonstrated how rest-pause and drop sets can produce adap-
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tations similar to straight sets under certain conditions. Specifically, they
compared the following three groups:
1. Straight Sets: 4 x 12 x 70% 1RM, two minutes inter-set rest.
2. Rest-Pause Sets: 3 x 10 + 6 x 75% 1RM (after each set of 10, they did a
rest-pause set of 6), 20 seconds rest before rest-pause sets, two minutes
inter-set rest.
3. Drop Sets: 3 x 10 x 75% 1RM +6 x 55% 1RM (after each set of 10, they
dropped immediately to 55%, with no rest, and did six reps), two minutes
inter-set rest.
All three groups received light spots when needed to ensure all reps were
completed and thus, performed similar volume, similar proximity to and
“past” failure, and achieved similar hypertrophy. By design, but unlike in the
real world, time efficiency was similar between groups, as they had the same
inter-set rest. However, strength gains were highest in the rest-pause group.
Notably, the rest-pause group did the most reps with the heaviest load, 75%
of 1RM. To make each group as equivalent as possible in proximity to failure
and volume load, the load lifted differed to a small degree.
This study shows there is nothing magical about rest-pause sets or drop
sets. If you accomplish a similar volume load at a similar proximity to failure,
you will hypertrophy to a similar degree as with straight sets, and if you use
a higher load, you might gain more strength.
The Role of Training Dose
While manipulating rest intervals and set structures might seem complicated,
it all comes down to how these manipulations impact the training dose — the
variables we discussed in Level 2. Another study from 2022 by Longo and
colleagues [3] demonstrates that when rest interval manipulation impacts
the training dose, it reliably changes the adaptation to training.
Specifically, Longo compared four single-leg leg press training conditions,
assigning each participant to either condition one and two (one leg to each),
or condition three and four (one leg to each). All training conditions used
80% of 1RM:
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1. 3 sets to failure, three minutes of inter-set rest on their first leg,
2. As many sets to failure as needed on their second leg to match the first
leg’s (condition 1) volume, one minute of inter-set rest.
3. 3 sets to failure, one minute inter-set rest on their first leg,
4. As many sets to failure as needed on their second leg to match the first
leg’s (condition 3) volume, three minutes of inter-set rest.
Hypertrophy was the same when comparing the participants’ left and right
quadriceps assigned to conditions one and two. Likewise, hypertrophy was
the same when comparing the participants’ left and right quadriceps assigned to conditions three and four. Why? Because the same volume was
performed by both legs and both legs were trained to failure, regardless of
the difference in rest period structure. However, the participants who had
their legs assigned to conditions one and two completed ~40% more volume
load than the participants assigned to conditions three and four because the
shorter rest interval in condition three constrained volume. Subsequently,
the participants assigned to conditions one and two experienced twice as
much quadriceps hypertrophy as those assigned to conditions three and four.
Again, the training dose dictates the adaptation. Thus, when rest intervals or
set structure influence the training dose, that will influence adaptation.
Practical Considerations
• Experience matters. While drop sets and rest-pause sets aren’t “advanced
techniques,” they require accurate proximity-to-failure judgment, especially at high reps. Novices often underestimate how close they are to
failure, blunting the intended effect.
• Load selection. Research often uses moderate-to-heavy loads (~80%
1RM), where you don’t need to go fully to failure for the set to “count”
toward hypertrophy [15] (although the sets probably need to consist of
at least 4–5 reps [16–18]). Further, discomfort and perceived exertion are
higher following high rep sets to failure versus moderate rep sets [19],
which is probably why it’s also harder to gauge when you are close to failure during high rep (>12) sets [20].
• Fatigue management. These techniques can create more cardiorespiratory fatigue, especially if combined with supersets. This can make it harder
to push to the needed effort level.
• Motivation helps. When training to failure is done in research, multiple researchers verbally motivate participants, which doesn’t happen in the real
world. Thus, it can be harder to achieve the intended proximity to failure
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when extending sets “past failure” with drop or rest-pause sets. Experienced lifters can probably push through this, but novices might inadvertently train further from failure, making experience necessary. Additionally,
a workout partner providing motivation can help as well.
Implementing Drop Sets
Roughly four drop sets (including the initial set) produce a similar hypertrophy stimulus as three straight sets — provided RIR is matched — but in far
less time. This makes them a great fallback option when you’re short on time.
For example, if you forgot the gym closed earlier on weekends, and realized
after arriving that you only have 30 minutes to complete an hour-long session, you might decide to perform drop sets. If you normally do 3 sets of 6
exercises at ~10 minutes per exercise (1 hour total), you could finish in roughly half the time by doing 1 top set + 3 drop sets for each exercise, resting
only between exercises.
How does this play out?
Let’s use an example of the bench press prescribed for 3x10 at 1–3 RIR. Each
set, you select a load you think you can do for 10 reps with 1–3 perceived
reps in reserve. If you planned to use 100 kg for your first set and maintain
that load for all three sets, letting RIR decrease set-to-set due to fatigue,
how would you convert this to drop sets? In a study, you’d train to failure. But
this is not a study. In evidence-based practice, you strive to apply research
findings conceptually, not literally. Thus, use the same RIR to preserve the
intention of your program.
Begin your drop sets the same way you’d begin straight sets by loading 100
kg, doing 10 reps, and rating your RIR. Then, instead of resting and doing
100 kg again, begin your series of drop sets, decreasing load ~20% each
time until you complete three, with each drop set at a 1–2 RIR, the same RIR
you’d likely achieve on your second and third straight set due to cumulative
fatigue, finishing with the last drop set at a 1 RIR to get the most out of the
drop sets without exceeding your RIR prescription.
Don’t worry too much about how many reps you get on each drop set, or the
specific RIR. The exercise, RIR prescription, your training history, and individual characteristics will heavily influence reps per drop set. The table provides
this hypothetical comparison of drop sets to straight sets.
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TABLE 5.2. EXAMPLE: CONVERTING 3×10
@ 1–3 RIR “STRAIGHT SETS” TO DROP SETS
Straight Sets
Drop Sets
Set 1: 100 kg x 10 at 3 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Top Set: 100 kg x 10 at 3 RIR, no rest
Set 2: 100 kg x 10 at 2 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Drop Set 1: 80 kg x 10 at 2 RIR, no rest
Set 3: 100 kg x 10 at 1 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Drop Set 2: 65 kg x 8 at 1 RIR, no rest
Next Exercise
Drop Set 3: 52.5 kg x 9 at 1 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Next Exercise
Implementing Rest-Pause Sets
Alternatively, you could do rest-pause sets. Rather than dropping the load
20% and immediately going into the next set, you maintain the load, rest
20 seconds, then perform more reps, stopping in the 1–3 RIR range on each
rest-pause set until you get 30 reps. This ensures you get the same number
of reps with the same load, and saves time — but not quite as much as drop
sets due to the 20-second rest between rest-pause sets.
Remember, rest-pause sets are impractical on multi-joint lower-body freeweight exercises (especially squats, where you have to rack and re-rack)
because of the high absolute loads and large amount of muscle mass used.
In some cases, it will take nearly as long as straight sets due to the cardiorespiratory challenge. Upper-body multi-joint lifts, machine exercises, and
single-joint exercises are probably the only appropriate exercises for restpause sets for most people.
The table provides this hypothetical comparison of rest-pause sets to straight
sets. Again, remember the actual reps performed, and RIR will depend on
the lift, your training history, and individual characteristics.
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TABLE 5.3. EXAMPLE: CONVERTING 3×10
@ 1–3 RIR “STRAIGHT SETS” TO REST-PAUSE SETS
Straight Sets
Rest-Pause Sets
Set 1: 100 kg x 10 at 3 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Top Set: 100 kg x 10 at 3 RIR (10 reps out of 30), 20 seconds rest
Set 2: 100 kg x 10 at 2 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Rest-Pause Set 1: 100 kg x 6 at 2 RIR (16 reps out of 30), 20 seconds rest
Set 3: 100 kg x 10 at 1 RIR, 2 minutes rest
Rest-Pause Set 2: 100 kg x 5 at 2 RIR (21 reps out of 30), 20 seconds rest
Next Exercise
Rest-Pause Set 3: 100 kg x 4 at 1 RIR (25 reps out of 30), 20 seconds rest
Rest-Pause Set 4: 100 kg x 3 at 1 RIR (28 reps out of 30), 20 seconds rest
Rest-Pause Set 5: 100 kg x 2 at 1 RIR (30 reps out of 30), 2 minutes rest
Next Exercise
Consider the following two points when viewing the above example:
1. There is a total of 100 seconds of rest within this series of rest-pause sets,
making it less time-efficient than drop sets, but still more time-efficient
than straight sets (requiring 6 minutes).
2. The average RIR is much lower per repetition with rest-pause sets. Straight
sets produced six reps in the 1–3 RIR range; rest-pause sets produced
13 reps in the 1–3 RIR range.
Therefore, if you are looking for the biggest time savings, choose drop sets.
Further, expect rest-pause sets to feel harder and produce more fatigue and
soreness, especially if you aren’t acclimated to them.
There isn’t enough research on rest-pause sets to know whether being closer
to failure on all your reps might actually produce a greater stimulus. It may,
but it probably isn’t a major difference if there is one. However, at the very
least, you should account for the fact that even when you perform the same
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number of total reps with the same load when using rest-pause sets compared to straight sets, it’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison.
REST PERIOD RECOMMENDATIONS
After all of that information, the recommendations are quite simple.
If your goal is strength, and you’re training a main lift, rest until you feel
ready to perform at your best. For most, this means rest for at least two
minutes — often longer if the lift uses a lot of muscle mass, involves high
absolute loads, or if your cardiorespiratory conditioning is limiting. You can
tell when you aren’t resting long enough, as you will experience a large drop
off in load or reps per set. While some drop off will occur, even resting 3–5+
minutes, anecdotally, reps or RIR should only decrease ~1–2 set-to-set when
training at a 1–3 RIR in moderate to low rep ranges with multi-joint lifts.
For hypertrophy, larger reductions in reps, RIR, or even load are acceptable since the goal is muscle stimulation, not maximal load. However, there
is a point where you haven’t sufficiently recovered to recruit and stimulate
enough muscle fibers to make the next set worthwhile. Thus, make sure to
rest at least 90 seconds between sets on average, with the same caveats —
strong lifters and lower-body multi-joint lifts often require more.
If you’re time-pressed or using high volumes, use time-saving techniques:
• Antagonist or peripheral-paired supersets can cut training time by roughly a third or more. Rest for at least two minutes between supersets that
include a multi-joint lift. Only pair lower-body multi-joint lifts with isolation work.
• Drop sets are even more time-efficient. Count four drop sets (including
the initial set) as equivalent to three straight sets.
Rest-pause sets sit between supersets and drop sets for time savings, but
aren’t practical for heavy squats or other demanding multi-joint lifts, especially if you’re strong. Expect higher fatigue than in straight sets, as you perform more reps close to failure.
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REFERENCES
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Senna, G., Willardson, J.M., de Salles, B.F., et al. The effect of rest interval length on
multi and single-joint exercise performance and perceived exertion. J Strength Cond
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Grgic, J., Schoenfeld, B.J., Skrepnik, M., Davies, T.B., Mikulic, P. Effects of rest interval
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Longo, A.R., Silva-Batista, C., Pedroso, K., et al. Volume Load Rather Than Resting Interval Influences Muscle Hypertrophy During High-Intensity Resistance Training. J Strength
Cond Res, 2022. 36(6): p. 1554-9.
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Singer, A., Wolf, M., Generoso, L., et al. Give it a rest: a systematic review with Bayesian
meta-analysis on the effect of inter-set rest interval duration on muscle hypertrophy.
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Wallace, W., Ugrinowitsch, C., Stefan, M., et al. Repeated Bouts of Advanced Strength
Training Techniques: Effects on Volume Load, Metabolic Responses, and Muscle Activation in Trained Individuals. Sports (Basel). 2019. 7(1): p. 14.
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Weakley, J.J.S., Till, K., Read, D.B., et al. The Effects of Superset Configuration on Kinetic, Kinematic, and Perceived Exertion in the Barbell Bench Press. J Strength Cond Res,
2020. 34(1): p. 65-72.
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Robbins, D.W., Young, W.B., Behm, D.G. The effect of an upper-body agonist-antagonist
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24(10): p. 2632-40.
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Paz, G.A., Robbins, D.W., de Oliveira, C.G., Bottaro, M., Miranda, H. Volume Load and
Neuromuscular Fatigue During an Acute Bout of Agonist-Antagonist Paired-Set vs. Traditional-Set Training. J Strength Cond Res, 2017. 31(10): p. 2777-84.
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Maia, M.F., Willardson, J.M., Paz, G.A., Miranda, H. Effects of different rest intervals
between antagonist paired sets on repetition performance and muscle activation.
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10.
Burke, R., Hermann, T., Pinero, A., et al. Less time, same gains: Comparison of superset
vs traditional set training on muscular adaptations. SportRχiv, 2024. [Pre-print].
11.
Iversen, V.M., Eide, V.B., Unhjem, B.J., Fimland, M.S. Efficacy of Supersets Versus Traditional Sets in Whole-Body Multiple-Joint Resistance Training: A Randomized Controlled Trial. J Strength Cond Res, 2024. 38(8): p. 1372-8.
12.
Ciccone, A.B., Brown, L.E., Coburn, J.W., Galpin, A.J. Effects of traditional vs. alternating
whole-body strength training on squat performance. J Strength Cond Res, 2014. 28(9):
p. 2569-77.
13.
Sødal, L.K., Kristiansen, E., Larsen, S., van den Tillaar, R. Effects of Drop Sets on Skeletal
Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Med Open, 2023.
9(1): p. 66.
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Enes, A., Alves, R.C., Schoenfeld, B.J., et al. Rest-pause and drop-set training elicit
similar strength and hypertrophy adaptations compared with traditional sets in resistance-trained males. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab, 2021. 46(11): p. 1417-24
15.
Robinson, Z.P., Pelland, J.C., Remmert, J.F., et al. Exploring the Dose-Response Relationship Between Estimated Resistance Training Proximity to Failure, Strength Gain,
and Muscle Hypertrophy: A Series of Meta-Regressions. Sports Med, 2024. 54(9):
p. 2209-31.
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16.
Mangine, G.T., et al. The effect of training volume and intensity on improvements in
muscular strength and size in resistance-trained men. Physiol Rep, 2015. 3(8): p. e12472.
17.
Schoenfeld, B.J., et al. Differential effects of heavy versus moderate loads on measures of
strength and hypertrophy in resistance-trained men. J Sports Sci Med, 2016. 15(4): p. 715.
18.
Weiss, L.W., Coney, H.D., Clark, F.C. Gross measures of exercise-induced muscular hypertrophy. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, 2000. 30(3): p. 143-8.
19.
Ribeiro, A.S., Dos Santos, E.D., Nunes, J.P., Schoenfeld, B.J. Acute Effects of Different
Training Loads on Affective Responses in Resistance-trained Men. Int J Sports Med,
2019. 40(13): p. 850-5.
20.
Halperin, I., Malleron, T., Har-Nir, I., et al. Accuracy in Predicting Repetitions to Task
Failure in Resistance Exercise: A Scoping Review and Exploratory Meta-analysis. Sports
Med, 2022. 52(2): p. 377-90.
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6
ECCENTRIC PHASE DURATION
CONCENTRIC PHASE DURATION
LEVEL
CONCENTRIC-ECCENTRIC TRANSITION PHASE DURATION
06
tempo
05
04
03
02
01
LIFTING TEMPO
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You’ve reached the final level of The Training Pyramid. As mentioned in the
last chapter, our goal here is to help you avoid pitfalls rather than provide
critical advice. In the previous level, we covered time efficiency in detail. But
if time isn’t an issue and you simply rest between sets until you feel recovered, you’ll be fine in most cases. Problems arise when someone insists you
must cut rest intervals short “because of growth hormone [1]” (or some other misplaced idea) that can actually hamper your gains [2, 3].
Likewise, while the information in this chapter can help in certain situations,
most lifters will be fine using an intuitive tempo. Ironically, it’s often the least
important training concepts that seem the most complex, which can cause
confusion.
So, what is tempo? Simply put, it’s the speed at which you perform a lift.
Each repetition has three phases:
Concentric: the lifting phase, where your muscles shorten to overcome
resistance.
Eccentric: the lowering phase, where your muscles lengthen to control
the resistance.
Transition: the brief eccentric-concentric changeover phase between
the two.
Some lifts begin with the concentric phase, such as deadlifts from the floor, selectorized machine lifts, or biceps curls. Others start with the eccentric phase,
like squats, bench presses, RDLs from the rack, or good mornings. In both phases, the same muscles are working: during the concentric phase of a curl, your
elbow flexors lift the weight; during the eccentric, they control it back down.
You can perform these phases with different tempos (with some limitations).
Light loads can be lifted quickly because you can easily overcome their mass.
You can also choose to lift light loads slowly. Heavy loads, however, move
slowly no matter how hard you try to accelerate them, because you can’t
easily overcome their mass. On the eccentric, you can control a heavy load
at almost any speed, from fast to very slow.
ECCENTRIC PHASE DURATION
The eccentric phase is the lowering phase of a lift, when the muscle lengthens because you produce less force than is needed to resist the load. This
can happen involuntarily if the weight is too heavy or fatigue sets in. For
example, failing on the concentric of a squat and being pushed back down
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despite effort, ending up “pinned” on the rack. More commonly, eccentrics
are voluntary, as you lower the load under control to set up the next rep.
In a powerlifting meet, a lifter’s third squat attempt is usually the slowest, if
it’s successful. Failures typically occur in the concentric phase, not the eccentric. This is because muscles can lower heavier loads than they can lift:
during active lengthening, muscle structure “loads” in a way that produces
more force (like a stretched rubber band), making eccentric actions stronger
and more energy-efficient than concentric ones [4]. On average, muscles are
~40% stronger eccentrically [5].
However, with standard equipment, your concentric strength limits what you
can lift, so while you must perform the concentric slowly at high loads, you
can choose to vary your eccentric speed. The question is, should you?
That’s what Amdi and King asked in their 2025 meta-analysis [6] of nine
studies, including 166 participants, on the effects of eccentric phase tempo
on strength, hypertrophy, and jump height: all nine assessed 1RM, five assessed hypertrophy, and three assessed jump height. While faster eccentric
tempos (1–2 seconds) led to greater increases in jump height than slower (3–6 seconds), the effects on strength slightly leaned in favor of slower eccentrics, but overall were generally uncertain. Slower eccentrics led to
greater strength gains in studies where volume load was matched, and also
in studies on trained lifters, with slightly more clarity. But these categories
overlapped a fair amount, making it hard to separate the effects. The most
plausible explanation is that with matched volume load, slower eccentrics increase set difficulty, bringing you closer to failure and boosting the stimulus.
Consider that if the same concentric tempo, reps, sets, and load are used in
two groups, but one uses slower eccentric tempos, that group’s sets become
longer and more challenging, finishing closer to failure. If you match the
volume load but slow your eccentrics, you make the stimulus higher. This is
probably why greater strength gains occurred in aggregate when analyzing
the four volume-matched studies.
However, in the other five studies reviewed [6], instead of matching volume
load, the researchers had both groups match sets and train to failure, with
participants either reducing the load to maintain a pre-specified rep range
or doing fewer reps to maintain a pre-specified load. In both cases, so long
as the eccentric duration isn’t excessively slow (>3–6 seconds), this results in
similar mechanical work. If you do slow eccentrics, it’s like doing more reps.
A set of 20 reps that each last two seconds is quite similar to a set of 10 reps
that each last four seconds due to prolonged eccentric phases. In both cases, you’ll have to use a similar load to complete the set.
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That said, these “slower is better” results may partly be an artifact of study
design, since most studies restrict concentric speed (only one of eight allowed unrestricted concentric velocity). This matters because faster eccentrics can enhance elastic energy storage, improving the speed of the next
concentric [7], which, as we’ll discuss later, benefits strength performance.
Thus, in most cases, for the goal of strength, you should perform your eccentrics as fast as you can while still maintaining good technical control
(which probably won’t be very fast with heavier loads). With that said, there
are times when it might be beneficial to use purposefully slow eccentrics if
your goal is strength. If you are experiencing pain, discomfort, or are simply
burnt out from heavy training, slowing your eccentric tempos to 3–6 seconds
may allow you to get a slightly greater stimulus than you otherwise would
from lighter load training.
For hypertrophy, Amdi and King found uncertain and likely not meaningful
effects, indicating we need more research to clarify how manipulating tempo
impacts muscle growth [6]. Theoretically, tempo may not matter much as
long as the eccentric is controlled. Letting gravity do the work — as in dropping deadlifts or letting the dumbbell fall between alternating curls — cuts
your effective training volume in half. In the studies analyzed, slow groups
used 3–4 second eccentrics, fast groups 1–2 seconds. For hypertrophy, anywhere from 1–4 seconds works, but if you use faster eccentrics, make sure
you, not gravity, are moving the weight.
SUPRAMAXIMAL ECCENTRIC TRAINING
While manipulating eccentric tempo, within reason, doesn’t seem to meaningfully impact strength or hypertrophy, savvy readers may wonder if manipulating the eccentric load might have value.
Since you are ~40% stronger eccentrically than concentrically, you can use
specialized equipment or techniques that increase the load on the eccentric
but not the concentric. This enables you to lift above your concentric 1RM
during the eccentric phase, heavier than would otherwise be possible. These
are called supramaximal eccentrics.
Supramaximal eccentrics can be done with specialized equipment like
weight releasers, which detach at the bottom of a squat or bench press
to allow one supramaximal eccentric at the start of a set, or motorized
systems that add eccentric resistance to every rep. Outside of specialist
equipment, you can load above your 1RM and have a spotter assist on the
concentric, or use both limbs for the concentric and one limb for the eccentric on a machine (e.g., leg press).
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The question is, will this result in greater gains in strength or size?
For strength, the answer is maybe. In 2018, Buskard and colleagues published a meta-analysis of only five studies that showed a slight advantage for
supramaximal eccentrics in increasing lower-body 1RM strength over traditional training, but the effect was small and non-significant [8]. Among the
studies published afterward or that did not fit their inclusion criteria, some
reported no meaningful differences [9–11], while others reported slightly
greater strength gains for supramaximal eccentric training compared to traditional training [12–15]. Thus, the research is neutral to positive in favor of
supramaximal training for strength, but the effects are underwhelming. Perhaps because you are trying to increase your concentric 1RM, eccentric loads
above your concentric 1RM provide little added benefit.
For hypertrophy, research is even more limited. However, while future data
may vindicate supramaximal eccentrics for strength, for hypertrophy, you
shouldn’t anticipate a beneficial effect since RIR and volume are the key variables that influence muscle growth, not load.
Practical considerations
Ultimately, we can’t confidently advise supramaximal eccentric training without more research. If you’re an advanced lifter and want to try supramaximal eccentrics to increase strength, be careful. Supramaximal training is potentially dangerous, especially with free weights, and requires a competent
spotter and safeties. Further, you will likely experience more muscle damage,
soreness, and acute strength suppression compared to normal training.
CONCENTRIC PHASE DURATION
The concentric, or active lifting phase, is when you overcome the mass of
the load you’re lifting. Therefore, heavy loads you can barely lift move slowly,
while light loads move quickly if you lift with maximal intent. You can also
intentionally slow the concentric with light or moderate loads, but doing so
means producing less force (force = mass × acceleration) [16].
In their 2023 meta-analysis of 625 participants across two dozen studies,
Hermes and Fry reported that, regardless of age or training experience, poorer strength gains occur when lifters purposefully slow the concentric phase
[17]. This should come as no surprise. In Level 2, you learned that heavy loads
produce greater strength than light loads. With a sufficiently heavy load, if
you produce less force trying to move it slower than you otherwise could, it
won’t budge. Thus, intentionally slow concentric training — if slow enough —
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is, by definition, light load training. Further, even when lifting moderate loads
intentionally slowly, since you produce less force doing so, it makes the stimulus for strength worse.
While purposefully slow concentric phases are rarely recommended for
strength, some recommend them for hypertrophy. Typically, the rationale is
to increase “time under tension.” Again, remember what you learned in Level
2. Set volume and proximity to failure are the key variables for hypertrophy,
not load. For example, Jenkins and colleagues [18] had groups perform biceps
curls for four sets to failure with 30 or 80% of 1RM. Relevant to this discussion,
they recorded time under tension. The 30% of 1RM group performed 25–40
reps on average across their four sets, while the 80% group performed 6–12.
Thus, time under tension in the 30% group was nearly threefold that of the
80% group, yet hypertrophy was similar. While a set lasting longer because
you did high reps isn’t exactly the same as a set lasting longer because you
slowed down your concentric phases, these findings demonstrate that time
under tension does not independently produce greater hypertrophy. If it did,
high reps would produce more hypertrophy than low reps — but they don’t.
In fact, overly slow concentrics may impair hypertrophy if they prevent you
from training close enough to failure. We turn again to Level 2, remembering
you can train too light for hypertrophy. Sets with loads under ~30% of 1RM
seem to produce less hypertrophy than heavier sets [19], possibly because
when you reach perceived failure, it is due to discomfort and higher perceived exertion [20] rather than muscular fatigue, which may be why RIR
ratings are less accurate with high rep training [21]. If you perform a moderate number of very slow reps, sets last as long as very high rep sets with a
normal tempo, which may hinder hypertrophy for the same reasons.
But how slow is too slow?
In both a 2015 meta-analysis of 204 participants in eight studies by Schoenfeld and colleagues [22] and a 2022 systematic review of 726 participants in
24 studies by Moreno-Villanueva and colleagues [23], total repetition durations longer than eight seconds resulted in poorer hypertrophy. Since hypertrophy is likely similar using eccentric tempos from 1–4 seconds, your concentric tempos need to be fast enough so that the total repetition duration
doesn’t exceed eight seconds when combining concentric, eccentric, and
the transition phase between the two.
Further, both sets of authors noted that while repetition durations of eight
seconds or shorter can be used, similar hypertrophy may only occur when
training to (or near enough to) failure [22, 23]. If you train to failure, you will
eventually fatigue all muscle fibers and produce equivalent hypertrophy per
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set, even if you produce less force per rep early in your sets due to slow concentric tempos. The same is true of high-rep low-load training: you produce
less force per rep but get equivalent hypertrophy to heavy training if you
train close enough to failure.
Importantly, you don’t need to train to failure to make slower concentric
tempos effective; you simply need to do enough reps so that by the end of
the set, your concentric tempo becomes involuntarily slow.
When you train with maximal concentric intent, trying to move the load as
fast as you can, reps will still inevitably slow down, despite your best efforts,
as you get close to failure. Your final rep will be slower than your prior rep at
1 RIR, which will be slower than your prior rep at 2 RIR, which will be slower
than your prior rep at 3 RIR, etc. The same thing will happen even if you start
with intentionally slow concentric reps; they will shift from being voluntarily
slow to involuntarily slow, and eventually they will slow down even more as
you approach failure. So long as this involuntary slowing of concentric tempo occurs (as appropriate for the prescribed RIR) and your reps are ≤8 seconds long, your sets will probably produce a similar hypertrophy stimulus.
CONCENTRIC-ECCENTRIC TRANSITION
PHASE DURATION
The transition phase between eccentric and concentric actions also has a tempo, determined by whether you pause before initiating the concentric, and if
so, for how long. While there’s considerable research on varying concentric
and eccentric tempos, there is comparatively little on this transition phase.
Importantly, when the concentric phase is preceded by an eccentric, like any
rep on a back squat or the second rep on a deadlift, and you don’t pause, you
transfer elastic force from the eccentric phase on top of your active contractile force. As noted earlier, faster eccentrics tend to store more elastic energy, enhancing the speed — and therefore force production — of the following
concentric [7]. If you pause, some of this passive, elastic force dissipates,
reducing absolute strength (or how many reps you can do with submaximal
loads) to a greater degree the longer you pause [24].
For strength, this reduction in force production has several implications.
Some coaches argue that deadlift training for powerlifters, who only perform single repetitions without a preceding eccentric in competition, should
be paused on the floor or that the hands should be released between reps,
with a new setup before each rep. Similarly, since the bench press requires
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a “press” command once the bar is motionless on the chest, some argue for
pausing every rep. However, as discussed in Level 4, specificity is more nuanced than simply always training exactly to competition standards.
Using the logic that it is always better to perform lifts to competition standard, you would predict pin-squats (where you start at the bottom of a squat
on the rack pins, pausing subsequent reps on the pins before the concentric)
to produce poorer back squat 1RM increases than back squats themselves.
However, in a study comparing pin squats to back squats, the authors found
that both increased back squat 1RM similarly [25]. Why? This is likely because the powerlifts’ sticking regions are in the early concentric phase, where
you are biomechanically disadvantaged [26–28]. While pausing makes you
acutely weaker as you have less elastic energy providing momentum to surpass the sticking region, training with pauses makes you better at producing
active force in these weak positions.
While more research is needed, from a coaching perspective, athletes who
either lose control during the eccentric-concentric phase transition, or who
rely on a fast eccentric and subsequent “bounce” out of the hole on squats
(or the equivalent on other lifts) seem to benefit from pin or pause training.
This doesn’t mean these lifters should stop relying on the bounce, as a faster eccentric does acutely increase concentric force production [7]; rather,
these lifters may get even more out of the bounce if they are also trained to
increase their active force in the sticking region.
For hypertrophy, pausing reps is also sometimes recommended by coaches, but for different reasons. As mentioned in Level 4, the range of motion
where muscles are longest seems to be the most stimulative for inducing
muscle growth. Thus, some coaches recommend pauses to spend more time
in this stretched position. In support of pausing in the stretched position,
some coaches note that static stretching, if it lasts a long time (~1 hour) and
is intense (8/10 stretch discomfort) [29], or if it lasts a moderate length (~15
minutes) and is highly intense (maximal discomfort) [30], produces similar
hypertrophy to resistance training if stretching is done frequently (4–7/days
week). However, a one or two-second pause is much shorter and probably
not comparable to stretch-induced hypertrophy.
Others suggest pausing to eliminate elastic contributions so that force comes
solely from active contraction. While logical, mechanosensors in muscle fibers respond to both active and passive tension, and in some cases even generate passive tension themselves [31–33], meaning elastic contributions are
not inherently “wasted” for hypertrophy.
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These debates exist because the research on this topic is unclear. Ultimately,
if total repetition duration does not exceed eight seconds, and you train reasonably close to failure, you shouldn’t anticipate a large impact of pausing in
the stretched position on hypertrophy. Thus, choose to pause (or not) based
on your personal preference for what best facilitates consistent technical
execution of each lift.
EXERCISE TECHNIQUE
While not directly dictated by tempo, exercise technique is influenced by it.
Many “styles” of the same lift exist — bodybuilding, weightlifting, and powerlifting squats, for example — and individual lifters perform exercises in subtly
or obviously different ways. When first learning a movement, use a tempo that
feels comfortable, often slower, until you can maintain control at faster speeds.
Remember that strength is a skill expressed through movement, not just a
quality of the body. Thus, perform lifts consistently so that progress reflects
genuine improvements, not simply changes in technique (e.g., shortening
range of motion). Whether or not you compete, you can learn from competitive lifters in this respect.
In competitive lifting, the most important factor is adhering to the technical rules. Powerlifters must squat to depth and be able to do so consistently in training. Weightlifters need the mobility to perform a deep snatch
to maximize 1RM. Strongmen/women must perform many movements to
specific standards. Variations between sports exist. While you can perform
sumo deadlifts in powerlifting, you can only perform conventional deadlifts
in strongman/woman. You can “hitch” and use straps to deadlift in strongman/woman, but you cannot in powerlifting. In strongman/woman, you can
press, push press, or jerk weights overhead, but you fail the lift if you do a
“press out” in weightlifting. In the same sport, some federations have different rules. Some powerlifting bodies use a “start” command for bench press
and require a minimal elbow depth to limit arching, while others do neither.
While universal standards define what counts as a legal lift, highly specific,
universal standards for “good” technique do not and should not exist. A “correct” squat looks different for lifters with different injury histories, heights,
limb-to-torso ratios, proportions, and joint mobility (which depends on both
modifiable factors, like soft tissue flexibility, and non-modifiable factors, like
joint shape). Some technical principles are universal — such as performing the
joint actions that define the lift and maintaining balance over your center of
gravity — but many widely shared technique “rules” range from unproven to
context-dependent. So, be wary when presented with narratives about high-
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ly specific and controlled, universally best ways to perform lifts. These range
from “incorrect and potentially harmful or limiting” to “potentially true in some
contexts or for certain goals, but without strong evidence to support them.”
For strength, use a technique that meets your sport’s standards, maximizes
your 1RM, and allows pain-free, consistent training at the volume, load, and
frequency needed for progress.
For hypertrophy, there are no governing standards, so you’ll encounter
more subjective opinions. One research-based definition describes lifting
technique as “the controlled execution of bodily movements to ensure an
exercise effectively targets specific muscle groups while minimizing injury
risk. This involves the orchestration of body positioning and alignment, ROM,
and repetition tempo” [34]. In Level 4, we covered ROM and positioning for
hypertrophy. Beyond this, debates about “strict” versus “loose” form and
“cheat” reps center on how much momentum you use from muscles other
than the prime movers to complete a rep.
Bodybuilders use exercises as vehicles to stimulate hypertrophy in specific muscle(s). As discussed in Level 4, a “good” exercise, and by extension
a “good” exercise technique, targets the intended muscle(s), results in it
reaching failure (or being near it) when task failure occurs, and reaches and
challenges it at long lengths. Cheating can either help or hinder this. For
example, a bent-over row can be done nearly upright (shorter lat length) or
parallel to the floor (longer lat length). In barbell cheat curls, lifters often
thrust their hips to bypass the hardest part of the lift, lean back to finish
the rep, and then drop the weight with little eccentric control, cutting longlength tension and halving the total work by not performing the eccentric.
Not all instances of “cheating” are necessarily bad. It’s not uncommon for a
bodybuilder to continue to perform partial range of motion reps after being
unable to complete full range of motion reps. Theoretically, this makes sets
more stimulative. Further, for exercises with a resistance profile where failure occurs at short muscle lengths, you can continue to do additional partial
range of motion reps at long muscle lengths. Larsen and colleagues [35]
recently had lifters perform calf raises to failure on one leg, defined as when
they could no longer reach full ankle extension, compared to their other leg,
where they continued past full range of motion failure until they could no
longer move out of full dorsiflexion (the bottom, deep portion of a calf raise)
at all. Indeed, performing partial reps past failure caused substantially more
calf growth. So, if you purposefully alter the range of motion or the contribution of other muscle groups, do it with purpose rather than ego; make sure it
increases the stimulus rather than decreases it.
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Mind-Muscle Connection
Finally, many bodybuilders focus on the “mind-muscle connection,” suggesting that to train a muscle effectively, you must have awareness of it during a
movement and feel it pumping and squeezing. While focusing on a muscle
can enhance its electrical activity [36, 37], when loads get heavy (~80% 1RM
or higher) on a compound lift such as the bench press, this effect seems to
go away [37]. When loads are light enough that you can move them without
involving all contributing muscle groups, you can partially shift the emphasis
from one muscle to another. However, when a multi-joint lift is performed
with a high load, all muscles must maximally contribute to complete the
movement. Furthermore, you would expect the same by the end of a set
when training close to failure.
In fact, focusing “internally” on the working muscles or position of the body
rather than “externally” on the intended movement outcome may inhibit
strength [38]. Lifters interested in strength should use such external rather
than internal cues (e.g., “push the floor away” versus “hips”).
For the same reason, bodybuilders shouldn’t focus on the mind-muscle connection during most heavy, free-weight, multi-joint lifts. With that said, doing so probably isn’t harming you on single-joint lifts, although if single-joint
exercises are performed correctly, there is no way for the movement to occur without engaging the target muscle. However, for some machine-based
multi-joint lifts, if you have a specific issue with feeling or getting sore in a
muscle that should be involved, altering your technique or having a trainer
provide you with instruction can help in some cases. Other times, it may be
better to choose a different exercise.
Lifters vary in their biomechanics and the relative strength of different muscles. For example, while the lats may be the limiting factor for one lifter
during a back exercise, a different muscle could limit another lifter. In such
cases, doing isolation work for that muscle may be the best solution.
Finally, as mentioned in previous chapters, you learn to lift by doing, not by
reading. This book is not intended to teach you how to lift but rather to help
you program your training to reach your goals. So get out there and lift the
weights!
SUMMARY OF TEMPO RECOMMENDATIONS
Eccentric (Lowering Phase)
• Strength: Lower as fast as possible while maintaining technical control.
Heavier loads will naturally be slower. Slow eccentrics (3–6 seconds) can
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be useful when you can’t lift heavy due to pain, injury, or fatigue, as they
make lighter loads more stimulative.
• Hypertrophy: Use 1–4 seconds under muscular control. Make sure it’s you,
not gravity, lowering the weight. Fast eccentrics are fine if you control the
load, but don’t exceed ~8 seconds total length (across all phases) per rep.
Concentric (Lifting Phase)
• Strength: Lift with maximal intent (as fast as possible with control), assuming you aren’t dealing with pain or injury. Avoid intentionally slow
concentrics as they impair strength gains.
• Hypertrophy: You can lift with maximal intent, or you can intentionally
slow your concentrics, especially if it improves control or technique. However, concentric tempo must eventually become involuntarily slow as you
approach failure for sets to be effective. Slow concentrics are fine if you
get to the target RIR by the end of sets, but don’t exceed ~8 seconds total
length (across all phases) per rep.
Eccentric–Concentric Transition (Pauses)
• Strength: Conditionally beneficial or harmful based on context. Use pauses strategically to focus on active force production or to address technical
issues. Pausing dissipates elastic energy, so expect a lower force per rep.
• Hypertrophy: Pausing in the stretched position is optional. Short pauses
(1–2 seconds) are unlikely to meaningfully boost hypertrophy unless they
improve control or ROM consistency. It can be useful in instances where
you want to make a lighter load harder.
Tempo Consistency
• Strength: Keep technique and tempo consistent between sessions to track
true strength changes. Adjust tempo only for specific training purposes.
• Hypertrophy: Maintain enough consistency to compare progress, but feel
free to vary tempo for exercise variation or control.
Special Methods
• Strength: Supramaximal eccentrics may provide small additional strength
gains for advanced lifters but carry a higher injury risk; use only with proper equipment and spotting.
• Hypertrophy: No clear hypertrophy advantage from supramaximal eccentrics; prioritize RIR and volume instead.
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Mind–Muscle Connection
• Strength: Focus on external cues for maximal performance.
• Hypertrophy: Internal focus may help activation of specific regions on
single-joint or lighter-load exercises; less useful on heavy compound lifts.
Technique Adjustments
• Strength: Technique must meet competitive standards, be pain-free, and
allow sustainable progression.
• Hypertrophy: Choose technique variations that best target intended muscles at long lengths and allow training close to failure.
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STEP 1: ADHERENCE
STEP 2: VOLUME, INTENSITY, FREQUENCY
STEP 3: PROGRESSION
STEP 4: EXERCISE SELECTION
STEPS 5 AND 6: REST PERIODS AND TEMPO
WARMING UP
DUAL ATHLETES
GUIDE TO
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After reading the previous chapters, you may feel a bit of information overload or struggle to “connect the dots” into an actionable training program.
This chapter will help you do exactly that.
We’ll walk through each level of The Pyramid, summarizing the key points
and showing you how they translate into practical programming decisions.
We encourage you to take a look at our Sample Programs spreadsheet so
you can see these principles in action.
See:
muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/programs.
It’s crucial to note that these are not “The Muscle and Strength Pyramid Programs.” They are examples of how to put The Pyramid’s principles into cohesive training plans for building strength or size, based on your goals, time
availability, and circumstances.
Think of them as blueprints to help you integrate the concepts you’ve learned.
With some customization and adaptation, these sample programs are perfectly usable and, dare we say, highly effective.
STEP 1: ADHERENCE
The main takeaway of Level 1 is selecting how many days per week you train.
Choose a realistic number of training days that would not stress your life or
schedule. This value can be anywhere from two or more days per week.
Decide whether fewer, longer sessions or more frequent, shorter sessions
suit you better. Your training experience interacts with this decision, as at a
certain point, it is challenging for most people to progress (although maintenance is certainly feasible) without training at least three times per week.
For advanced lifters, a two-day schedule is rarely practical as the loads and
volumes required make each workout a gruelling marathon.
Once you’ve set your weekly training schedule, you can choose from several
possible setups (often referred to as “splits”).
FREQUENCY SPLITS FOR POWERLIFTING
The Strength Frequency Matrix for Choosing Splits table shows example
training splits for powerlifting-focused strength work. Remember: any movement that trains the same muscles as a main lift, but is not the main lift itself,
adds 0.5 to your weekly frequency for that lift. For example, a squat session
also contributes 0.5 to your weekly deadlift frequency, and vice versa.
As you might recall, ideally, you train each lift with a frequency of at least
twice per week. However, if you can only train twice per week, this requires
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two days where you perform all three main lifts (if you are following a powerlifting program), which may not be feasible for everyone. Thus, we provide
examples of weekly lift frequencies in the 1.5–2x per week range as well.
Anecdotally, most powerlifters find squats create less next-day discomfort and
soreness than deadlifts, so our examples lean toward higher squat frequency.
If you find the opposite is true for you, feel free to reverse this emphasis.
Find your available training days in the left column. The rows to the right
show split options, with weekly main-lift frequencies (not counting secondary lifts) listed at the top. Remember: a secondary lift that trains the same
muscle groups will add 0.5 to your weekly frequency for that main lift.
TABLE 7.1. STRENGTH FREQUENCY MATRIX FOR CHOOSING SPLITS
Days
Per Week
Main Lift Frequency Per Week
1.5-2
2
2-3
3-4
4-5
6
2
S/B, B/D
S/B/D, S/B/D
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
S/B, B, D
N/A
S/B, B/D, S/B
S/B/D, B,
S/B/D, B
N/A
N/A
4
S, B, D, B
S/D, B, D/S, B
S/B, B, D, S/B
S/B, B/D, S/B,
B/D
S/B/D, B/S,
S/B/D, B/D
N/A
5
S, B, D, B,
Secondaries
S/D, B, D/S, B,
Secondaries
S/B, B, D, S/B,
Secondaries
S/B, B/D,
S/B, B/D,
Secondaries
S/B, B/D, S/B,
B/D, S/B
N/A
6
S, B, D, B,
Secondaries,
Secondaries
S/D, B, D/S, B,
Secondaries,
Secondaries
S, B, D, B, S, B
S, B, D, B,
S/B, B/D
S/B/D, B, D,
S/B, B/D, S/B
S/B/D, S/B,
B/D, S/B/D,
S/B, B/D
S = Squat
B = Bench
D = Deadlift
NA = Not Applicable
“/” Indicates performed in the same session, commas separate days.
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FREQUENCY SPLITS FOR BODYBUILDING
For hypertrophy training, you have a lot more room for flexibility in your split.
Remember that, unlike strength, muscle group frequency has a very small impact on your outcomes. Therefore, you can see the matrix displays a non-exhaustive list of approaches you can use. The main goal when designing your
split is to avoid sessions becoming logistically impractical, overly fatiguing,
demotivating, or exceeding roughly 11 sets per muscle group per session.
When you view the Sample Programs spreadsheet, you’ll see that we’ve used
an arrangement that differs from most traditional bodybuilding setups. Specifically, we alternate between primarily:
• Chest & Back with Quads & Calves
• Arms & Middle/Rear Delts with Glutes & Hamstrings
In prior editions of The Pyramids, we provided traditional sample programs,
such as Upper/Lower, Full Body, and Body Part splits. These are so commonplace now that we believe you should have no issue translating the guidance in this book into those types of splits. Thus, we aim to provide you with
even more examples of how to divide up your volume in a week; we are not
implying that those types of splits are inferior by omitting them in our Sample Programs spreadsheet.
In addition, the frequency matrix will help you learn all the options you can
use to find the best balance between stimulus and recovery. In our experience, especially when trying to achieve higher volume approaches, most
traditional approaches (body part splits, lower/push/pull) are not ideal for
optimizing the balance between recovery and stimulus, so being more creative is important as you advance.
The Hypertrophy Frequency Matrix for Choosing Splits table will help you
explore both traditional and non-traditional options. Start by finding the
number of days you can train in the left column, then review the potential
split options in the right column. The top row lists the weekly training frequency for each muscle group, which includes fractional frequency from indirect work. If you aren’t sure of what any of the session types refer to, see
the descriptions below the matrix.
Even when using classical bodybuilding splits, where you only train each
muscle group once per week, because of indirect work producing fractional sets (i.e., bench press indirectly trains the triceps, adding 0.5 to triceps
weekly frequency), few training splits provide a true weekly muscle group
frequency of only one.
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TABLE 7.2. HYPERTROPHY FREQUENCY MATRIX FOR CHOOSING SPLITS
Main Lift Frequency Per Week
Days Per
Week
2
1-2
2
3
4
5
6
Upper, Lower or
Full Push,
Full Pull
Full Body,
Full Body
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Lower,
Upper Push,
Upper Pull
Lower, Upper,
Full Body Or
Full Push,
Full Pull,
Full Body
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body
N/A
N/A
N/A
Chest & Tris,
Back & Bis,
Shoulders,
Lower
Lower, Upper,
Lower, Upper
Or Full Push,
Full Pull,
Full Push,
Full Pull
Upper,
Lower,
Full Body,
Full Body Or
Full Push,
Full Pull,
Full Body,
Full Body
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body
N/A
N/A
Chest, Back,
Lower,
Shoulders,
Arms
Lower, Upper
Push, Upper Pull,
Lower, Upper
Or Lower,
Upper Push,
Upper Pull,
Full Push,
Full Pull
Lower, Upper
Push, Upper
Pull, Full, Full
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body, Upper,
Lower
Or Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Push,
Full Pull
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body
N/A
Lower,
Upper Push,
Upper Pull,
Lower,
Upper Push,
Upper Pull
Lower, Upper,
Lower, Upper,
Lower, Upper
Or
Full Push,
Full Pull,
Full Push,
Full Pull,
Full Push,
Full Pull
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Lower, Upper
Push, Upper Pull
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body, Upper,
Lower
Or
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Push,
Full Pull
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body,
Full Body
3
4
5
6
Chest, Back,
Quads & Calves,
Shoulders, Arms,
Glutes & Hams
NA = Not Applicable
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Session Type Descriptions for the Hypertrophy Frequency Matrix
Muscle Group Sessions
Train one or two muscle groups (e.g., chest; chest and triceps; back; back and
biceps; quads and calves; shoulders, etc.), allowing high muscle-group volume per session without excessively long workouts. These sessions require
a longer recovery time for the trained muscles, resulting in a lower weekly
frequency. Best suited for low to moderate weekly muscle group volumes
(~4–12 sets). Less effective for higher weekly volumes unless combined with
other session types (e.g., a 4-day upper/lower split plus 1–2 muscle group
sessions for specialization).
Upper Push or Pull Sessions
Used in the popular “Legs/Push/Pull” split, these train all upper-body pushing muscles (chest, triceps, anterior delts) or pulling muscles (back, biceps,
rear delts). Choose one day to train middle delts. This structure allows reasonably high volume without excessively long sessions. Suitable for low to
moderate weekly volumes when performed once per week, but can also support moderate to high weekly volumes (~12–24 sets) if performed multiple
times per week (e.g., a 6-day repeated legs/push/pull split) or combined
with other session types (Full Body, Upper, Lower, Full Push, Full Pull).
Upper or Lower Sessions
Train the entire upper or lower body together. Allows moderate muscle-group
volume without overly long sessions. Works well for low to moderate volumes when performed once per week, and moderate to moderately high
volumes (~12–18 sets) when performed twice per week (e.g., a 4-day Upper/
Lower split). Higher volumes are possible if alternating six days per week
or combining with other session types (e.g., Full Body, Full Push, or Full
Pull). Note: Lower body sessions are disproportionately challenging due to
the loads and number of muscle groups trained. Non-traditional approaches
may be better for those seeking very high lower-body volumes.
Full Body Sessions
Train the entire body to some degree in each session. A strict “full body” approach (training all muscle groups in every session) limits per-session muscle-group volume unless workouts become very long. Works well for low to
moderate weekly volumes when used 2–3 times per week, and can support
moderate to moderately high volumes (~12–18 sets) when used 3+ times per
week or combined with other session types. Higher volumes are possible at
5+ sessions per week with careful programming.
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Because per-session muscle-group volume is low per session, training muscle groups on consecutive days can occur without compromising recovery,
provided RIR, muscle length, and exercise selection are managed to avoid
excessive overlap and fatigue.
Full Push or Pull Sessions
Combine an upper push or pull session with lower-body work: push days include quads and calves; pull days include glutes and hamstrings. Like the
non-traditional approach in the sample programs, this is a non-strict interpretation of “full body.” Because you aren’t attempting to perform an entire leg
day, these sessions allow a higher muscle group volume per week without any
single session becoming too long and therefore too physiologically or psychologically demanding. Alternating these sessions is a good alternative to the
sample programs for those who wish to train on consecutive days, especially
if you experience a negative impact of prior-day arm training on chest or back
performance, or vice versa. Supports a wide range of weekly volumes:
• Low if done twice per week with shorter sessions.
• Moderately low to moderately high if done 3–4 times per week.
• Very high if alternated 5+ times per week with moderate session lengths.
Key Programming Note
With the same total weekly volume, your chosen split determines how much
work each muscle group gets per session and, therefore, session length.
• Six “full body” days → fewer exercises per muscle group, fewer sets per
exercise, shorter sessions.
• Two “full body” days → more exercises per muscle group, more sets per
exercise, longer sessions.
In the hypertrophy sample programs, higher weekly volumes are paired with
higher frequencies, and vice versa.
In strength training, the frequency matrix is organized around how often you
train the:
• Bench press.
• Squats and deadlifts combined (due to overlap in stimulus and stress).
Very high or very low frequencies can be problematic. Overloaded sessions
can cause performance drop-off, while high frequencies may cause joint or
connective tissue stress regardless of total volume.
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For ~90% of lifters, train 3–5 days per week with a muscle/movement frequency of 2–4 times per week, as this typically strikes the best balance between stimulus and recovery.
Pencil in the split you’ve chosen for now, because in step two, we’ll discuss
some other potential considerations that might impact your decision.
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STEP 2: VOLUME, INTENSITY, FREQUENCY
As a reminder, these are the broad starting guidelines appropriate for most people:
TABLE 7.3. VOLUME • INTENSITY • FREQUENCY - SUMMARY OF STARTING
RECOMMENDATIONS
Hypertrophy
Strength
Minimum ED2
4 sets/muscle/wk, increases w/training status.
1 set/lift/wk, increases w/training status.
Maximum ED3
~30 sets/muscle/wk
~5 sets/lift/wk (short-term)
Practical ED4
10–20 sets/muscle wk;
higher volume with specialization.
3–5 sets/lift/wk (short-term),
5–10 sets/muscle/wk (long-term).
Load
~4–30 RM (~30–90% 1RM)
1–8RM (~80+% 1RM)
RIR
4–0 RIR and failure per load/rep combination.
~7–0 RIR per load/rep combination.
VOLUME1
INTENSITY5
4–6RM: 4–0 RIR
6–8RM: 3 RIR to failure
8–12RM: 2 RIR to failure
Load not RIR dictates strength. RIR is
a function of load. Higher loads allow fewer
reps and are inherently closer to failure.
>12RM: 1 RIR to failure
FREQUENCY6
≥1x/muscle/wk based on volume. If performing
>11 weekly sets per muscle group, increase
frequency so no session exceeds 11 fractional
sets per muscle group.
2–6x/lift/wk based on volume. Higher
frequency provides some benefit. Spread sets
over as many days as possible with 1–2 direct
sets per main lift per session.
A s fractional sets. Hypertrophy: sets count as full sets for primary muscles, half for secondary. Strength: tested lift sets count as full sets, other
lifts training primary or secondary muscles as half.
2
Lowest volume to produce measurable gains in 2–3 months. For hypertrophy in trained lifters, requires low RIR (near or to failure). For strength
in trained lifters, requires high specificity (high load and on specific lift). Use if ideal training can’t occur. Produces progress in novice–intermediate, maintenance in intermediate–advanced.
3
Volume threshold when diminished returns reach a plateau.
4
A ppropriate range for real-world, long-term training. Individual differences and circumstances dictate where to fall in these ranges. Higher
volumes closer to maximum ED only advised for advanced lifters via specialization cycles. Long-term strength gains require hypertrophy; thus,
some hypertrophy volume in high efficiency range recommended.
5
High load effective for hypertrophy at high RIR, but sets must be ≥4 reps. RIR underestimation more likely at low loads.
6
H igh volume best distributed with high frequency for hypertrophy, and increased frequency offers benefits for strength by enhancing skill
practice and movement quality.
1
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DETERMINING VOLUME
You’ve already penciled in your frequency in Step 1. Next, it’s time to choose
an appropriate volume.
Remember, “optimal” depends on your circumstances and goals:
• For hypertrophy with minimal time, optimal might mean the lowest volume that still produces good returns.
• For a competitive bodybuilder, optimal might mean maximum achievable volume for the highest possible rate of muscle gain.
• Your training history also matters. If you have detailed logs showing your
rates of progress at different volumes, use them to guide your choice. If
not, start tracking now and adjust in future cycles. For now, consider your
time availability and perspective on “optimal” in your decision.
TABLE 7.4. HYPERTROPHY VOLUME TIERS BY TIME COMMITMENT,
AVERAGE STIMULUS PER SET, AND TOTAL STIMULUS
1
Weekly Sets per
Muscle
Time Commitment
Average Stimulus Per Set
Total Stimulus
4-8
Minimal (~1-2.5 hours)
Highest
Lowest (~25-45% of highest tier)
9-12
Low (~3-4.5 hours)
High
Modest (~45-60% of highest tier)
13-16
Medium (~5-6.5 hours)
Medium
Medium (~60-70% of highest tier)
17-20
High (~7-8.5 hours)
Low
High (~70-85% of highest tier)
21-30¹
Very High (~9+ hours)
Lowest
Highest (~85-100% if sustainable)2
Often best accomplished via specialization cycles, with other muscle groups in a lower volume tier.
If RIR increases, technical execution degrades, effective exercises are dropped, or frequent deloads occur (causing lower net volume),
overall stimulus may not be the highest.
2
DETERMINING FREQUENCY
The higher your weekly volume, the more sense it makes to spread it over
more sessions. This:
• Prevents excessively long, fatiguing sessions.
• Maintains session quality.
• Increases skill practice for strength goals.
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As a reminder from Level 2, our frequency per lift or per muscle group recommendations are inextricably linked to weekly volume, session volume, and
the number of weekly sessions performed.
TABLE 7.5. FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS
Goal
Frequency Guideline
Hypertrophy
≥1x/week per muscle group, based on volume. If you exceed ~11 fractional sets for a muscle
in a session, increase frequency to distribute volume better.
Strength
2–6x/week per lift, depending on volume. Spread sets across as many sessions as possible,
with 1–2 direct sets per lift per session.
High volume is best distributed with higher frequency for hypertrophy, and increased frequency offers benefits for strength by enhancing skill
practice and movement quality.
TABLE 7.6. FREQUENCY RECOMMENDATIONS BY VOLUME
WEEKLY FRACTIONAL
SETS PER MUSCLE
WEEKLY FREQUENCY
PER MUSCLE
4–10
1–2
11–20
2–3
21–30
3+
If your volume doesn’t match well with your Step 1 split, either:
• Adjust your total volume.
• Adjust your split choice.
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Hypertrophy Volume Distribution Example
With your volume level and frequency chosen, if your goal is hypertrophy,
you will spread that volume for each muscle group across the week. Once
again, just pencil this in to get an idea of how your week is shaping up.
For example, let’s say you are doing 13–15 sets per muscle group with a
4-day, two times per week muscle group frequency, doing a ‘Lower, Upper
Push, Upper Pull, Full Body’ split. Spreading things out, you’d probably do
4–6 sets per muscle group on your Full Body day, leaving 9–11 sets per muscle group for your Legs, Push, and Pull days.
• Goal: 13–15 sets per muscle group per week.
• Split: Lower / Upper Push / Upper Pull / Full Body.
• Full Body day: 4–6 sets per muscle group.
• Other days: 9–11 sets spread across targeted muscles.
Strength Considerations
If your goal is strength, you’d take the same approach as someone with a hypertrophy goal for your secondary work, but you also have the added complexity
of determining your main lift frequency. The total volume for your main lifts will
be lower than your secondary work, and you’d want to have a relatively high
frequency to facilitate faster gains through frequent main lift practice. Thus, you
have to think about how to spread out your main lift work to ensure recovery
from your secondary lifts so that muscle soreness doesn’t impede strength.
However you distribute your volume across your frequency selection, make
sure you aren’t putting a lot of lower body secondary work prior to squat or
deadlift main lift training, or a lot of upper body pressing secondary work
prior to bench press main lift training (apply the same principles to other
main lifts if you aren’t using the powerlifting main lifts).
• Secondary work: Same volume/frequency approach as hypertrophy.
• Main lifts: Lower total volume but higher frequency to improve skill.
• Avoid interference: Don’t schedule heavy secondary work for the same
muscle group the day before main lift training (e.g., avoid lots of quad
work before squats, lots of pressing before bench).
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DETERMINING INTENSITY
Once you’ve set your frequency and volume, the final step in Step 2 is to
assign load and RPE/RIR.
The chart shows appropriate repetition ranges and RPE/RIR values for hypertrophy (including hypertrophy work for strength goals) based on exercise and microcycle organization. Note that the chart provides a little more
specificity than the main volume, intensity, frequency table, as it also considers exercise selection, such that while 0 RIR can be appropriate for lowrep high-load training for hypertrophy, it’s not ideal for most free weight
compound lower body and upper body pressing exercises for safety, or even
lower compound machine exercises for fatigue management.
Likewise, while the 4–6 rep range can be used for hypertrophy, the resistance
profile of certain exercises (most back training and many isolation exercises)
makes it challenging to maintain form, and for those prone to joint discomfort
or with prior injuries, it might be better reserved for compound exercises.
TABLE 7.7. REP AND RPE/RIR RANGE COMBINATIONS FOR
HYPERTROPHY BY EXERCISE TYPE
Exercise
Rep Range
RPE/RIR Range
Lower Free Weight Compound
(squat, deadlift, RDL, etc.)
4–8
6–8 RPE/4–2 RIR
Lower Machine Compound
(leg press, hack squat, etc.)
or Upper Free Weight Pressing
(OHP, bench, incline DB, etc.)
4–12
6–9 RPE/4–1 RIR
Upper Machine Pressing
(machine chest or shoulder press, etc.)
or Pulling Compound
(lat pulldown, BB row, cable row, etc.)
6–15
7–10/3–0 RIR and failure
Isolation
(curls, tricep pushdown, calf raise, leg extension,
lateral raise, etc.)
8–20
8–10/2–0 RIR and failure
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For hypertrophy (and secondary work for strength), the higher the fatigue
generated by the movement, the greater the technical demand, and the
greater the safety risk. Therefore, it makes more sense to train further from
failure and use a higher load to ensure the set retains its full stimulus. This
avoids fatigue bleeding into the rest of a session, may reduce the risk of injury, and also ensures that the volume you perform is effective because, as discussed in previous chapters, it’s harder to accurately rate RPE on high-rep,
fatiguing movements. Compound movements are generally a better vehicle
for doing the portion of your volume that is lower rep and further from failure, and thus heavier. Likewise, isolation exercises and machines are better
vehicles for the higher-rep, lower-load portion of your volume.
For main lifts trained for strength, remember that load is the driving force
for adaptation. Therefore, the set, repetition, load, and RPE/RIR combinations heavily depend on your goal with the movement on that day, in the
specific phase of training. This means there is no “cheat sheet” as you might
decide to do a single at a 5 RPE/5 RIR 16 weeks out from a meet to maintain skill while producing minimal fatigue, or you might do so days from the
meet during your taper to maintain peak levels of strength while dissipating fatigue. Ultimately, repetition and RPE/RIR combinations for your main
lifts will be dictated by specificity and proximity to when you want to peak
strength, with load dictating RPE/RIR. For examples of how these manipulations might occur over time, see the example strength programs as they go
from volume to load to peak phases.
When you combine this information with Step 3, you can really start to see
how your program unfolds.
STEP 3: PROGRESSION
At this stage, your program begins to take its final shape. You’ll now decide
how to assign reps and sets across weeks and phases. Your approach depends on your goal: hypertrophy or strength.
IMPLEMENTING REP RANGE VARIATION
AND SPECIALISATION PHASES
For hypertrophy, as you recall from Level 3, you simply need variation in your
repetition ranges, a plan to accommodate potentially unwieldy high volumes
if you’re advanced and trying to use them to offset the natural slowing in
your rate of hypertrophy, and a system to ensure progression to keep pace
with your adaptations, maintaining the effectiveness of each set.
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First Step → Decide how you’ll incorporate rep range variation. This variation can be applied:
• Within a single session (e.g., one lift in the 6–8 range, another in the 12–15 range).
• Between sessions (e.g., heavy day / light day).
• Between weeks (e.g., rotating rep targets across weeks in a block).
• Between training blocks (e.g., spending several weeks in moderate rep ranges
before moving to higher or lower ranges).
TABLE 7.8. HYPERTROPHY TRAINING STRUCTURES TO ACHIEVE REP RANGE VARIATION
Within Session
Variation
Lower A: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Upper A: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Lower B: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Upper B: 4–8, 6–10,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges varying lift
to lift.
Between
Session
Variation
Lower A: 4–6,
6–10, and 8–12 rep
ranges on all lifts.
Upper A: 4–6,
6–10, and 8–12 rep
ranges on all lifts.
Lower B: 8–12,
10–15, 15–20 rep
ranges on all lifts.
Upper B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges on
all lifts.
Alternating Week
Variation
Week A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep
ranges on all days.
Week B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges
on all days.
Week A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep
ranges on all days.
Week B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges on
all days.
Alternating Mesocycle
Variation
Meso A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep
ranges all weeks.
Meso B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges
all weeks.
Meso A: 4–6, 6–10,
and 8–12 rep
ranges all weeks.
Meso B: 8–12, 10–15,
15–20 rep ranges all
weeks.
Additionally, if you are an advanced lifter, you might decide to include specialization cycles to accommodate higher, muscle group-specific volumes in phases
to facilitate continued hypertrophy long term as your rate of progress slows.
TABLE 7.9. MUSCLE GROUP SPECIALIZATION PHASE MESOCYCLES
Balanced Phase
Specialization Phase
Balanced Phase
Specialization Phase
Balanced Phase
8–12 weeks,
10–20 sets/wk
on all muscle
groups.
8–12 weeks, 20–30
sets/wk on 1–2
muscle groups, 5–15
on remaining.
8–12 weeks,
10–20 sets/wk on all
muscle groups.
8–12 weeks, 20–30
sets/wk on 1–2
muscle groups, 5–15
on remaining.
8–12 weeks, 10–20
sets/wk on all
muscle groups.
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IMPLEMENTING AUTOREGULATED DOUBLE PROGRESSION AND PHASIC APPROACHES
With your mid-term plan for repetition range variation established, and your
optional long-term plan for muscle group specialization phases (if advanced)
determined, the only thing that remains is remembering how to implement
autoregulated double progression, which you’ll use for all exercises, which
you can see in the Example Autoregulated Double Progression for an Intermediate Lifter table from Level 3.
TABLE 7.10. EXAMPLE: AUTOREGULATED DOUBLE PROGRESSION
FOR AN INTERMEDIATE LIFTER
Here’s how an intermediate lifter’s progression may look for 3 sets of 10–15 reps at 0–2 RIR.
SESSION
LOAD
REPS
FIRST SET RIR
1
40 lbs
12, 12, 11
2
2
40 lbs
13, 13, 12
2
3
40 lbs
14, 14, 12
2
4
40 lbs
15, 14, 14
1
5
40 lbs
15, 14, 14
2
6
45 lbs
11, 10, 9
2
For a strength program, there is a little more you need to manage, as you
need to not leverage specificity while managing fatigue to peak strength in
the short term, but also facilitate hypertrophy long term to maximize your
strength potential.
For this reason, we recommend a phasic approach, alternating volume and
load phases, and implementing peak phases as needed when preparing to
test or compete. For your secondary lifts, you’ll use autoregulated double
progression just as you would for hypertrophy-focused training. However,
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the repetition range, RIR/RPE, and volume and frequency of your main lifts
will be phase-dependent. The summary tables outline guidelines for structuring each phase of your strength program.
TABLE 7.11. SUMMARY TABLE: THE VOLUME PHASE
Goal
Build muscle; maintain or build strength.
Main lifts
1–3 singles/lift/week; progress from 5 to 8 RPE (5 to 2 RIR).
Secondary lifts
10–20 sets/week per main lift muscle group; mostly in the 6–20 rep range at 0–3 RIR;
autoregulated double progression, primarily non-specific, low-demand exercises.
Length
6–12 weeks per timeline.
TABLE 7.12. SUMMARY TABLE: THE LOAD PHASE
Goal
Build strength; maintain/build muscle.
Main lifts
2–4 singles/lift/week; progress from 6 to 9 RPE (4 to 1 RIR). 2 back-off sets/single at 5–8 RPE
(5–2 RIR); progress from 5 to 3 reps (~80–85% 1RM). Use variations if needed.
Secondary lifts
5–10 sets/week/main lift muscle group, mostly 6–20 reps at 0–3 RIR; autoregulated double
progression, primarily non-specific, low-demand exercises.
Length
4–8 weeks per timeline, gradually reduce secondary lift volume by 1–2 sets every 1–2 weeks
(e.g., 10 sets in weeks 1–2, 9 sets in weeks 3–4, 8 sets in weeks 5–6, and 6 sets in weeks 7–8).
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TABLE 7.13. SUMMARY TABLE: THE PEAK PHASE
Goal
Peak strength, maintain muscle.
Main lifts
2–5 singles/each/week at 7–10 RPE (3–0 RIR); 0–3 back-off sets/single at 5–8 RPE (5–2 RIR).
If 3–4 weeks progress from 4 to 2 reps/set (~85% 1RM).
Use variations if needed.
Secondary lifts
0–4 sets/week/main lift muscle group, mostly 6–20 reps at 0–3 RIR; autoregulated double
progression; primarily non-specific, low-demand exercises.
Length
2–4 weeks, 2 weeks if the volume and load phase lasted 10–12 weeks, 3 weeks if 13–15 weeks,
4 weeks if 16+ weeks. Decrease the back-off set and secondary lift volume weekly.
WHEN PROGRESS PLATEAUS
Finally, you’ll need to consider what to do when progress plateaus. Remember, the first step is determining if you’re actually plateaued, which starts
with having realistic expectations for progression based on your training
status, as shown in the following table.
TABLE 7.14. TRAINING STATUS DEFINITION AND
ESTIMATED AVERAGE RATES OF PROGRESS
Novice
Able to add load and/or reps each time a lift is repeated in the same week or from week
to week. This phase can last for years but may be as short as 6 months with consistent,
progressive training, sufficient recovery, and effort.
Intermediate
Progress slows. You might add reps in the 10–20 rep range week to week, or add load in lower
rep ranges month to month. With appropriate training, most reach this stage by year 1 and
may remain here through years 4–5. Many never progress past it.
Advanced
Gains are much slower. You may add a rep or two in the 10–20 rep range month to month, or
make small increases in reps or load in lower rep ranges over longer timeframes. Progress
becomes increasingly difficult as you approach your muscular potential. Most lifters never
reach this phase.
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With this understanding, you can then use the plateau flowchart to assess
the potential cause and remedy for plateaus you encounter. Finally, remember the utility of reactive deloads based on weekly self-assessments shown
below the flowchart, and you’ve got all the tools needed to keep the program on track.
FIGURE
ASSESSINGAND
AND RESPONDING
RESPONDING TOTO
PLATEAUS
FIGURE
7.1.7.1.
ASSESSING
PLATEAUS
WHEN UNSURE ABOUT HOW TO PROGRESS - FLOWCHART
ARE YOU PLATEAUED?
(Not making gym progress appropriate to your training status.)
NO
Don’t change anything.
YES
Is the answer "no" to any of the following?
Sleeping 7+ hours? Not in an energy deficit?
Protein 0.7g/Ib+ (1.6g/kg+)? Neither over or under estimating RPE?
Training muscles/lifts min 2x/week (strength goals)?
Is exercise selection, ROM, and tempo appropriate
and consistent?
NO, I'VE TAKEN CARE OF ALL OF THOSE.
YES
Fix that, run another mesocycle, reassess.
Ok, are you recovering?
Dreading the gym? Sleep quality worse than normal?
Load/reps actually decreasing? Life stress seems worse than normal?
Aches and pains feel worse than normal?
If no to all, or all but 1 question: yes, you're likely recovering.
If yes to 2 or more: no, you are likely not.
NO
YES
Temporarily reduce volume. Take a light week.
If that improved performance then great.
If you quickly fatigue again and stall then that probably
means you need more than just a deload or taper but should
consider doing less volume or organizing it differently
to manage fatigue.
It may be time to increase
your training dose.
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TABLE 7.15.
SELF ASSESSMENT AFTER COMPLETING A WEEK OF TRAINING
AND DAYS OFF
Y/N?
Dreading the gym?
Sleep worse than normal?
Loads or reps at the same load decreasing from last training cycle?
Stress worse than normal?
Aches and pain worse than normal?
Yes to 0-1 questions: carry on
Yes to 2+ questions: consider a deload
STEP 4: EXERCISE SELECTION
Now that you know what you’ll be doing in the long, mid, and short term,
it’s time to match exercises with the RIRs/RPEs, repetition ranges, and sets
you’ve planned. As a reminder, the principles of exercise selection are summarized here in the table from Level 4.
TABLE 7.16. SUMMARY OF EXERCISE SELECTION RECOMMENDATIONS
Strength
Use your main lifts to achieve the target volume for those lifts unless you have a low tolerance for
their total volume. In that case, select variations with high carryover based on your biomechanics,
injury history, technical needs, and/or sticking points. For hypertrophy work, choose less
fatiguing, higher-rep exercises that are quicker to set up and perform.
Hypertrophy
Following the principles of feasibility and ensuring the target muscle is both trained and
challenged at long lengths, choose 1–3 lifts for each of the six core movement patterns. Include:
• An incline press.
• An elbow-flared row plus a shoulder-extension–dominant row.
• At least one isolation exercise each for the quads, hamstrings, biceps, triceps, middle delts,
and calves.
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For hypertrophy and secondary strength exercise selection, slot in lifts to
meet your weekly muscle group volume targets. Remember the fractional
set counting method:
• For hypertrophy, sets count as 1 for primary muscle groups and 0.5 for
secondary muscle groups.
• For strength, sets of the main lift count as 1 for that lift, and all other lifts
that train any of the same muscles count as 0.5.
Remember, this is a tracking tool, not a literal representation of stimulus.
Some exercises will be more or less effective for growing certain muscles, or
will transfer more or less to a given lift. The list below will help you choose
exercises and track volume.
TABLE 7.17. HYPERTROPHY: EXERCISES AND MUSCLE GROUPS TRAINED
Movement Pattern
Primary Muscle Groups
Secondary Muscle Groups
Squat
(all variations, leg press, single leg variants, etc.)
Quads, Glutes
Erectors (if free weights)
Hip Hinge
(deadlift variations, good morning, back ext)
Glutes, Hams, Erectors
Scapular Retractors
Vertical Pull (chins, lat pull)
Lats, Scapular Depressors
Rear Delts, Bis
Vertical Push (OHP variations)
Anterior Delts
Triceps, Middle Delts
Horizontal Pull (row variations)
Lats, Scapular Retractors
Rear Delts, Bis, Middle Delts
(face pull)
Horizontal Push
(flat, incline, decline variants)
Chest, Anterior Delts
Tris, Middle Delts (incline)
Horizontal Hip Extension
(hip thrust, glute bridge, etc.)
Glutes
Hams
Pull Over (DB, BB, cable, machine)
Lats
Chest, Rear Delts, Tris
(secondary, only long head)
Upright Row (DB, BB, cable)
Scapular Elevators, Middle
Delts
Rear Delts, Bis
Fly (cable, DB, machine)
Chest, Anterior Delts
N/A
Isolation Exercises
Target muscle
N/A
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STEPS 5 AND 6: REST PERIODS AND TEMPO
At this stage, there’s not much left to finalize. Ensure your rest periods are
appropriate for your goals on each lift, and that your tempos align with the
intended training effect. Consider whether you can incorporate antagonist-paired sets, peripheral-paired sets, drop sets, or rest-pause techniques
to save time. Use them only with suitable exercise combinations and if your
cardiorespiratory fitness allows.
Congratulations, you’ve now built a fully customized program aligned with
The Pyramid! We’ll wrap up with the final sections, which cover warming up
and guidance for dual athletes — those who compete in both strength and
physique sports.
WARMING UP
The purposes of a warm-up are to prepare you for the training to come, potentially enhancing performance, and hopefully reducing injury risk. One of
the primary mechanisms by which a warm-up achieves this is by raising body
temperature, which has beneficial physiological effects that include increasing muscle blood flow and oxygen availability, and also increasing the speed
and sensitivity of the neuromuscular system [1].
DOES STRETCHING HAVE A ROLE?
While stretching to enhance flexibility is traditionally performed as a part of
a warm-up [1], static stretching to the point where flexibility increases acutely prior to training can reduce strength and power [2]. This makes sense if
you think about it: making a muscle tendon unit more compliant and forcing
it to “relax” so that it elongates, intuitively conflicts with the goal of making
it contract forcefully. Some have argued that this short-term performance
drop may be worth it if stretching reduces injury risk, but while warm-ups
in general (including stretching of any type) reduce injury risk [3], a 2025
meta-analysis of 15 trials with over 9,000 participants found no independent
effect of stretching alone [4]
On the other hand, ‘dynamic’ stretching warm-ups (active bodyweight
stretching drills) can actually slightly increase muscular performance [2].
However, static stretching may be useful in cases where you want a targeted
improvement in flexibility for a specific joint prior to training that is challenging to achieve with a dynamic warm-up. For example, if tight calves prevent
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a full ROM squat without rising onto the toes or causing an early “butt wink,”
static calf stretching has a clear application.
Fortunately, the data also indicates that combining static and dynamic
stretching in warm-up routines, if dynamic stretching is performed last, also
improves performance [2]. This approach is especially useful for athletes
with high mobility demands, such as weightlifters, where greater depth in
the snatch or clean & jerk allows heavier lifts, or powerlifters who need extra
ROM to achieve pain-free bar positioning (e.g., tight pecs or shoulders in
the low-bar squat, or tight triceps/forearms in the clean-grip front squat). In
each case, static and/or dynamic stretching prior to training may be appropriate. So long as stretching concludes with a dynamic approach, there will
be no harm and likely a small benefit.
In practice:
• If you need flexibility in a muscle you aren’t training (e.g., pecs and delts
during low-bar squats), static stretch freely, as its reduced contractile
force won’t matter.
• If you need flexibility in a muscle you are training:
• If the ROM requirement is minor, brief static stretching (<60 s) not taken to discomfort is fine, but it won’t meaningfully increase flexibility.
• For greater needs, follow static stretching with dynamic stretching, or use
an extended, lift-specific warm-up, gradually increasing ROM each rep.
• Foam rolling for ~60 s with moderate pressure can also increase ROM
and, like dynamic stretching, may slightly boost performance [5].
Thus, you can do static stretching, dynamic stretching, or foam rolling in a
warm-up, so long as it doesn’t conclude with long-duration static stretching, to get beneficial effects on performance and slightly reduce injury risk.
Ultimately, however, stretching (of any type) is only necessary if you have
specific mobility requirements that lifting itself doesn’t address.
Lifting as Stretching
Lifting itself improves ROM. Full-ROM lifting is essentially loaded dynamic
stretching. A 2023 meta-analysis of 55 studies involving 2,756 participants
found no significant difference in ROM improvements between resistance
training and stretching [6]. Ironically, or perhaps obviously, in most cases,
lifting through a full ROM is all you need to maintain or develop it. The key is
to perform warm-up sets with gradually increasing loads until you reach the
desired ROM, rather than jumping straight into heavy sets before mobility is
sufficient (which can lead to compensation at other joints).
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There are, however, situations where lifting isn’t ideal for improving ROM. In
certain lifts, especially for those with limited mobility, performing the movement at all, even with light loads, may be impossible. This is common in
weightlifting variations like cleans, snatches, overhead squats, front squats
with a clean grip, or squat jerks, where the bar cannot be kept over the
center of mass without adequate mobility. Even if a lifter can move the weight
while out of position, doing so is counterproductive, as it ingrains poor technique in these skill-dependent lifts. In such cases, static stretching, dynamic
stretching, dowel-based dynamic warm-ups, foam rolling, or a combination
of these strategies may be needed before warm-up sets.
Finally, in competition (e.g., weightlifting or powerlifting meets), foam rolling, static stretching, and certain dynamic stretches may be preferable to
lifting as a way to improve ROM. This can reduce the number of warm-up
sets needed, helping preserve maximal strength and minimize fatigue.
OPTIMIZING YOUR WARM-UP FOR PERFORMANCE
Again, the main mechanism by which a warm-up improves performance (and
potentially reduces injury risk) is physiological changes directly and indirectly related to raising body temperature (both core and tissue-specific
temperature). Traditionally, this has meant doing a general warm-up (e.g.,
light jogging or cycling) followed by a sport-specific warm-up (e.g., dynamic stretching and warm-up sets). In reality, this sequence is only necessary if
it’s what it takes to get warm.
Dynamic stretching alone has been shown to consistently improve performance when it lasts ~7–10 minutes [2], likely because it’s enough to raise
temperature. If you warm up slowly or train in a cold environment, adding
5–10 minutes of low-intensity aerobic activity beforehand can help.
A dynamic warm-up consists of bodyweight, active-movement drills that
move joints through their range, gradually increasing ROM and force. If you
skip the general aerobic warm-up, make sure your dynamic warm-up is fullbody and takes 7–10 minutes.
For strength and physique athletes, the “sport-specific” portion of the warmup is your warm-up sets. Perform more warm-up sets on the first exercises
for each muscle group. Then, a single warm-up set is often all that’s needed
for subsequent free weight exercises for that muscle to familiarize the movement, and on machines, you may not need any more warm-up sets. Again,
your warm-up could conceivably consist of only these sport-specific warmup sets with no general or dynamic warm-up. This, however, depends on the
person, the time of day they train, their climate, gym environment, presence
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or lack of DOMS, and personal preference. Consider that sessions are generally organized with multijoint, free weight exercises first, and even warm-up
sets are loaded, so sport-specific warm-up sets can get you warmer more
quickly than dynamic stretching. Thus, if you perform your warm-ups with
intent (increasing ROM and concentric speed as you go), it’s often enough
to get the job done.
Research supports specific warm-ups for lifting, though the effects are
mixed. Some studies find no improvement [7, 8, 9], while others show slight
gains in velocity, total work, or reps to failure, with the most consistent benefit occurring after 1–2 warm-up sets with a moderate load (60–80% of the
working weight) [10, 11].
Another related concept is post-activation performance enhancement
(PAPE), which refers to the acute improvement in sprint, jump, or resistance
training performance 5–15 minutes after a heavy set (e.g., squats for several
reps at ≥80% 1RM). A 2025 systematic review by Botton [12] summarized
the effects of PAPE on subsequent repetitions to failure in the squat, bench
press, and leg press. They reported enhancement in six of nine included
studies, with reps to failure improved by ~1–7 when an effect was observed.
However, in most studies, the improvement was only ~1–2 reps.
Taking a broader look at athletic task performance after PAPE, Xu and colleagues [13] concluded that PAPE can lead to small performance improvements in their 2025 meta-analysis of 62 studies with a collective 1039 participants. However, they noted the effects likely overlap, at least in part, with
warm-ups broadly.
The underlying mechanisms behind PAPE are still being investigated, but
PAPE may improve performance independent of a warm-up effect by enhancing neuromuscular, metabolic, or energy conditions in muscle, or psychological readiness, ultimately enhancing force production [13, 14]. Protocols that
most consistently enhance resistance training back-off set performance consist of 1–2 sets of 1–3 reps with ~85-90% of 1RM [12]. The good news is that
the singles performed in the Strength Progression System fit this bill, likely
providing a slight boost to subsequent sets.
Considering all of this context, the Warm-up Summary Guidelines table provides a sample warm-up to perform before training. Feel free to personalize
it as the goal is to increase core temperature and prepare muscles for high
forces in the ROM needed, making certain components optional per your individual physiology, preferences, and training environment.
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TABLE 7.18. WARM-UP SUMMARY GUIDELINES
Warm-Up Component
Description
General
Optional – 5 minutes of light aerobic activity.
Dynamic
Optional – 3–5-minute (7–10 minutes without general warm-up) of active
stretching drills; gradually increase ROM and force.
Specific for ≤6-Repetition Sets
Ascending sets with percentage of target working weight with 1–2-minute rest between:
5–10 reps ≤40% (Optional with a general or dynamic warmup)
3–5 reps ~60%
1–3 reps ~80%
1 rep 90%
Specific for ≥6-Repetition Sets
Ascending sets with percentage of target working weight with 1–2-minute rest between:
5–10 reps 40% (Optional with a general or dynamic warm-up)
4–6 reps ~60%
2–4 reps ~80%
1–2 reps 85–90% (Optional PAPE, use %1RM, not target weight)
DUAL ATHLETES
Some athletes compete in both strength and physique sports, sometimes
simultaneously in the same season, but more often in separate phases. Some
bodybuilders compete in strength sports in the offseason to maintain competitive drive, encourage progression, and have the bounds of an appropriate weight class to prevent excessive fat gain. Some strength athletes compete in bodybuilding shows after a weight cut to a weight class that requires
them to be very lean. Further, some athletes equally enjoy and compete in
both sports without a primary focus. Finally, many non-competitors are simply interested in getting big and strong.
NON-COMPETITIVE “POWERBUILDERS”
Some argue that training for strength and hypertrophy at the same time
dilutes your efforts, producing a poor overall stimulus-to-fatigue ratio. They
claim this slows progress and ultimately caps your potential in both. While
this isn’t entirely false, it’s almost never a concern for non-competitors and is
only relevant to those already approaching their peak potential.
Non-competitors interested in getting bigger and stronger — which describes most lifters — rarely push the limits of the training they can recover
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from regularly (nor should they). Thus, any theoretical inefficiency remains
theoretical. Likewise, most non-competitors never get close enough to their
peak potential for this theoretical inefficiency to become the bottleneck to
future progress. In the majority of cases, logistics and life are the bottlenecks
that hold people back.
More often, non-competitors simply aren’t concerned about surpassing these
bottlenecks to become advanced. Most lifters comfortably settle as lifelong
late-stage intermediates, and there is nothing wrong with this. There are
no objective benefits for health, (non-strength) sport performance, or general fitness from being at 80% versus 99% of your peak strength potential.
Likewise, to anyone who is not a bodybuilding aficionado, or outside of the
bodybuilding-centric or adjacent social media bubble, they will be equally
impressed (and likely more attracted to) your physique at 80% peak muscularity at a moderately lean, yet healthy and sustainable body fat, than at 99%
peak muscularity ripped to shreds.
Many lifters never set the goal to completely fill their strength or hypertrophy genetic cup to the brim in the first place. Even for those who do,
their priorities shift as they age and mature. Before most non-competitors
become advanced, they shift their goals to be more health-oriented, or the
value proposition of gaining 5 lb on their squat or 1 lb of muscle after a year
of training as hard as they can is no longer worthwhile.
For these non-competitors who think of themselves as “powerbuilders,”
there’s no need to read further. Simply follow our strength training guidelines, using the higher end of the non-specific volumes and the lower end of
the main-lift volumes. The rest of this section is aimed at dual athletes, those
who love both strength and physique sports and want the most effective
approach to competing in both.
FOR THE PHYSIQUE ATHLETE WHO COMPETES
IN STRENGTH SPORT
If you are primarily a physique athlete, but you enjoy competing in strength
sport during the offseason, or perhaps in a lighter weight class on the way to
dieting down for your shows, your default training approach should be the
Hypertrophy Progression System with some minor additions.
When in bodybuilding-focused phases (either offseason or prep) with no
meet within the next 3–4 months, simply add 1–2 singles per week on the
main lifts for your chosen strength sport. Start some sessions by working up
to a single in the 5–8 RPE range to maintain proficiency.
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If your limb proportions, height, and injury resilience allow you to handle
a higher main-lift volume without recovery issues, you can incorporate main
lifts or close variations directly into your hypertrophy work:
• Powerlifters: Squat, bench press, and/or deadlift, or close variations (highbar squat, close-grip bench press, RDL) in the 4–8 rep range.
• Weightlifters: Front squats, OHP, clean pulls, and snatch-grip deadlifts
with controlled eccentrics in the 4–8 rep range.
• Strongmen/women: Squat variations, OHP variations, conventional deadlifts, and walking lunges, while opting for higher repetitions as appropriate based on the events they want these lifts to transfer to.
However, if you’re not well-suited for long hypertrophy phases with these demanding lifts, stick to the main-lift singles and wait until you’re 3–4 months
out from a meet to shift toward more specific strength work.
At that point, switch to the Strength Progression System with modifications:
• Keep hypertrophy work for all muscle groups when selecting secondary
lifts (e.g., a powerlifting bodybuilder would still include direct biceps, middle/rear delt, and calf work; a weightlifting or strongman/woman bodybuilder would still include chest work).
• The volume phase can be shortened or skipped if you’ve been doing hypertrophy work on main lifts or high-transfer variations; in that case, start
with the load phase.
• If your bodybuilding training only includes singles, you should probably
include a shortened version of the volume phase that has more secondary
exercises that provide transfer to your main lifts.
Outside of prep, you can run the peak phase as written, as even without hypertrophy work, as any small size loss will be quickly regained.
However, if your meet occurs during contest prep, maintain the secondary
lift volume of the strength phase into the peak phase, keeping in low-volume
hypertrophy work for all muscles as you are more prone to muscle loss in
prep. You will likely need to reduce the main lift single and back-off set frequency and volume to accommodate this for recovery since you’re dieting.
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FOR THE STRENGTH ATHLETE WHO COMPETES
IN PHYSIQUE SPORT
If you primarily compete in strength sport, but you occasionally compete in
physique shows after the process of dieting for a weight class, your default
training should be the Strength Progression System with minor modifications.
As explained in the For the Physique Athlete Who Competes in Strength
Sport section, include some hypertrophy work for all muscle groups, not
just those that contribute to your competition lifts, in volume phases and
strength phases.
When you have no meets planned in the next 3–4 months and are dieting for
a physique contest, shift to the Hypertrophy Progression System with several
added main-lift singles. This keeps your technical proficiency sharp while focusing the bulk of your training on hypertrophy. Even in a calorie deficit, you
can often make muscle gains in certain muscle groups with a lower training
status, despite being in a dieting phase.
FOR THE TRUE DUAL ATHLETE
If you place equal importance on both strength and physique competition,
your approach will shift based on which event is on the horizon.
When you are in the offseason from physique sport and actively competing
in strength sport, follow the recommendations outlined in For the Strength
Athlete Who Competes in Physique Sport.
Once you are three to six months out from starting bodybuilding contest
prep — and especially if you have a meet scheduled during prep — switch to
the recommendations in For the Physique Athlete Who Competes in Strength
Sport. This ensures you maintain strength while prioritizing physique goals
and managing the recovery demands of dieting.
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REFERENCES
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Bunn, P.D.S., Sodré, R.D.S., Matos, M.I., et al. Effects of prevention programmes on injury
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Afonso, J., Martins, R., Thapa, R.K., Lohmann, L.H., Andrade, R., Behm, D., et al. How
effective is stretching for injury prevention? A large-scale systematic review with meta-analysis. OSF Preprints, 2025.
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Konrad, A., Tilp, M., Nakamura, M. A Comparison of the Effects of Foam Rolling and
Stretching on Physical Performance. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Front
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Alizadeh, S., Daneshjoo, A., Zahiri, A., et al. Resistance Training Induces Improvements
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Ribeiro, A.S., Romanzini, M., Schoenfeld, B.J., Souza, M.F., Avelar, A., Cyrino, E.S. Effect
of different warm-up procedures on the performance of resistance training exercises.
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Lisboa, F., Kassiano, W., Stavinski, N., et al. Effects of static stretching and specific
warm-up on the repetition performance in upper- and lower-limb exercises in resistance-trained older women. Aging Clin Exp Res, 2024. 37(1): p. 14.
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Enes, A., Mohan, A., Pinero, A., et al. Warming up to improved performance? Effects of
different specific warm-up protocols on neuromuscular performance in trained individuals. SportRxiv, 2025.
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Ribeiro, B., Pereira, A., Neves, P.P., et al. The Role of Specific Warm-up during Bench
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Viveiros, L., Gioia, K., Nasser, I., et al. High-load and low-volume warm-up increases
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Botton, C.E., Gama, M.C., Oliveira, C.B., de Oliveira, F.D., Brusco, C.M. Post-activation
performance enhancement, is this strategy recommended to increase the strength
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Xu, K., Blazevich, A.J., Boullosa, D., et al. Optimizing Post-activation Performance Enhancement in Athletic Tasks: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis for Prescription
Variables and Research Methods. Sports Med, 2025. 55(4): p. 977–1008.
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Blazevich, A.J., Babault, N. Post-activation Potentiation Versus Post-activation Performance Enhancement in Humans: Historical Perspective, Underlying Mechanisms, and
Current Issues. Front Physiol, 2019. 10: p. 1359.
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FINAL WORDS
First and foremost, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to you, the reader. The
fact that you have journeyed with us through this entire book is something we don’t
take lightly.
Our mission with these books has always been to provide more than just a list of
“optimal” methods. We’ve seen firsthand, in our own lives and in the lives of those
we’ve coached, how psychologically and physiologically challenging the path can
be. That experience taught us that the real value of this information lies in giving
you the tools to navigate your own frustrations, failures, and mental hang-ups. This
is about empowering you to proceed toward your goals with a process that is both
successful and sustainable, minimizing the negative outcomes that can so often accompany a dedicated pursuit of physical excellence and mental mastery.
This mission feels more important now than ever. We live in an era of unprecedented access to information, but also misinformation. The importance of the ability to
build critical thinking skills — to learn how to learn, and to differentiate nuanced
science from appealing pseudoscience — is at an all-time high. We hope that the
principles in this book have not only provided you with a clear, hierarchical understanding of what truly matters but also equipped you with a more nuanced, evidence-based perspective that rejects black-and-white thinking.
Our paths to this point have been anything but linear, spanning continents and
career changes we never could have predicted. Along the way, we’ve held onto a
few key principles that have guided us, and we feel they may be relevant for you
as well. First, be honest; your word is your bond, and a reputation is fragile. People
will forgive mistakes, but rarely dishonesty. Second, surround yourself with people
smarter than you. The humility to listen and learn from them will pay dividends far
beyond what you can achieve on your own. Finally, be a giver, not a taker. In a world
full of takers, being consistently helpful and expecting nothing in return will lead to
friendships and opportunities that last a lifetime.
Now that you have invested so deeply in your own education, we encourage you to
pay it forward. It is people like you — those with a passion for science-based learning and an open mind — who will become the role models and leaders for others.
You now have a large responsibility, and we are confident you can handle it. We ask
only that you pass on your knowledge in a way that is respectful and empowering,
helping your friends, family, clients, or fellow athletes when they ask for it, rather
than offering unsolicited advice.
We are incredibly proud of what these books have become, thanks in large part to
the unique contributions of our team. From Eric’s deep well of knowledge, Andy’s
ability to build bridges and simplify the complex, and Andrea’s skill in weaving it all
into a coherent narrative, this has been a true collaborative effort.
Once again, thank you for allowing us to be a part of your journey. We wish you all
the best.
Sincerely,
Eric, Andy, and Andrea
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Eric Helms, CSCS, AccredSpNut,
WNBF Pro is an active researcher
at the Auckland University of Technology’s SPRINZ sport science institute in New Zealand, where he
did his PhD in Sport and Exercise
and a second masters, and where
he now studies strength and physique sport and nutrition science.
He publishes extensively in peer-reviewed journals and is a sought-after
educator in evidence-based bodybuilding
and powerlifting, having co-founded the MASS
Research Review. Alongside his academic work and
writing, Eric is a part-time coach and the science officer for Team 3DMJ, having helped novices all the way to multiple open-world champion powerlifters
and pro natural physique champions.
He’s an actively competing natural pro bodybuilder and strength
athlete whose ability to bridge
research with real-world practice has made him a leading
voice in the fitness, nutrition,
and strength communities.
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Andy Morgan is a nutrition and training coach,
author, and founder of two leading online
coaching businesses:
RippedBody.com,
serving an international English-speaking audience,
AthleteBody.jp, widely regarded as Japan’s most trusted evidence-based fitness resource.
Originally from Birmingham in the UK, Andy
has spent most of his adult life in Japan.
Frustrated by years of falling for the scams of
the fitness industry, he began blogging in 2011
to share honest, practical guidance in both English
and Japanese. What started as a personal mission has
since grown into a global impact:
RippedBody.com now
reaches over 50,000 monthly readers, and he and his team have coached
more than 2,000 busy recreational trainees.
Through
AthleteBody.jp, he pioneered online physique coaching in Japan, with a primary focus on competitive bodybuilders and physique athletes. The site has also introduced evidence-based fitness to a wide Japanese audience through translations and publications of cornerstone works
such as Starting Strength and The Muscle and Strength Pyramid books. In
2024, the platform further expanded its reach by launching the Japanese
edition of the nutrition logging app, MacroFactor.
Andy’s mission across both platforms remains the same: to cut through the
noise of the fitness industry and prove that with real food, serious lifting, and
consistency, transformative results are possible.
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Andrea Valdez is a lifelong athlete,
coach, and content creator. She
competed in gymnastics, strength,
and physique sports and trained
athletes in multiple disciplines
for over a decade. She has a M.S.
in Exercise Physiology from the
University of Oklahoma and was a
coach, podcast host, and operations
director with 3D Muscle Journey since
2015, where she currently leads the content team. In this role, she helps to produce
actionable, evidence-based yet real-world, applied courses for the drug-free lifting community.
You can find more of Eric and Andrea’s work at 3D Muscle Journey (coaching and courses for competitive bodybuilders,
3dmusclejourney.com)
and Eric’s work, as well as his colleagues and fellow reviewers at MASS (a
monthly research review,
massresearchreview.com), who provided peer
review of this book.
You can find more of Andy’s work at Ripped Body (evidence-based coaching for recreational trainees,
rippedbody.com).
Andrea, Eric,
and Andy in London
2016, shortly after
the first editions
were published.
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