variables

The human body is amazing and very resilient. No matter what challenge is thrown its way the human body will adapt to it. This is how the system works, the body is stressed, the body doesnt like that stress so it does whatever it needs to do to so the next time its stressed in the same way its less stressful. Now that the same activity is no longer as stressful, it will not elicit the same response. This is why newbies to lifting make gains more quickly than somebody who has been under the bar for quite some time, they arent as used to the stress. So thats the nature of beast, stress your body and your body will adapt to it, over time the adaptations become smaller as the stress diminishes, eventually leading to a plateau. To put plateaus off we must stay ahead of our adaptations and make said activity continue to be stressful.

This is also known as the overload principle, Vladimir Zatsiorsky and William Kraemer say this of overload-"To bring about positive changes in an athlete's state, an exercise overload must be applied. A training adaptation takes place only if the magnitude of the training load is above the habitual level."

That brings me to my topic, how do you manipulate variables to achieve overload? How do you make tomorrow, next week, next month, next macrocycle, harder than this one? What variable to manipulate to make your workout progressive depends on your goal. Some answers are obvious such as getting stronger, well one obvious variable to manipulate is weight make the next workout heavier. manipulating other variables will elicit other responses.

Volume, how would you manipulate that? more sets? more reps? more exercises in the workout?

Time, this is a fun one to manipulate- longer workouts? (might be counterproductive?), time your set; make yourself last x amount of time, shorter sets; make yourself maintain volume in less and less time or do more reps in the same amount of time

Tempo, slow down the eccentric, speed up the concentric, pause in between to minimize the effect of the stretch-shortening cycle forcing your body recruit more muscle fibers and rely less on stored energy, move a submaximal load as fast as possible.

All these are ideas to play with and I am certain i did not cover all possible variables, adding instability is another variable to play with, I just wanted to get ball rolling here. Lets avoid plateau's, train intelligently and manipulate what we can and want. Let's create a specific stress to produce specific adaptations.

Jorge Unigarro

prilepin's table

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MAN

Alexender Prilepin was the soviet olympic lifting coach in the U.S.S.R. from 1975-1985. Prior to that, he studied the practices of Olympic lifters in attempt to figure out how many repetitions per set, and what should the total training value should be for optimal power development. The chart to my left is what he came up with.

EXPLANATION OF CHART

First thing is how to read this chart. The columns from left to right are percentage/reps per set/the optimal amount of total reps/ and the range of total reps.

So if you are lifting at 55%-65% of your 1 rep max, you should do 3 to 6 reps per set for a total of 18 to 30 reps, with the best results coming at 24 total reps.

Reading the chart across, you can gather that 70%-80% of 1rm is done for 3 to 6 reps per set. The total range being12-24 reps, with an optimal total rep goal of 18.

80%-90% of 1rm, 2-4 reps per set for a total range of 10-20 reps with an optimal total of 15.

90+% of 1rm, 1-2 reps per set for a total range of no more than 10 with an optimal total of 4.

An example of how to use this chart could be at 85% of your 1rm you attempt 5 sets of 3 reps. falls in perfectly with the ideal total reps. The possibilities are pretty varied, giving you many different approaches, even within the same percentages, to avoid plateauing, if programmed properly.

WHY?

Well, I always thought your 75% of 1rm was approximately your 10rm? not necessarily a true statement, 75% of your squat will give you different rep maxes than 75% of your bench, different body parts have different make-up of different muscle types. Charles Poliquin said in his article "manipulating reps for gains in size and strength" for the may 02, 2005 edition of tmuscle.com (look it up lots of gems in that one) "if an athlete performs his 12rm (the amount of weight he can lift 12 times) in the bench press, he may only be working at 70% of maximum, but at 12rm in the leg curl he may only be working at 57% of maximum.

The extreme is even more remarkable when you consider certain lower body movements that imply a high stretch-shortening cycle component, such as leg presses. Many athletes can do 65 reps on the leg press while using a weight that is 70% of their maximum!"

So why do so few reps if you can do so much more? Coach Matthew Gary of Supreme Sports Performance and Training in Rockville Maryland said on youtube (look up prilepin's table) "if training from 80-90 if you're use anything less than 2 its not enough of stress on the body and central nervous system and get a response and when you go past 4 and get into 5, 6 and so on, its too much of a stress on the nervous system, thats when fatigue sets in and in all likelyhood your form is starting to break and when your form breaks you just need to shut it down. thats when you start reinforcing a negative motor pattern and thats not good. you're really opening yourself up to injury and the risk of injury increases exponentially. thats not to say you're incapable of performing more repetitions". Matthew Gary coaches multiple world and national champion powerlifters, so he knows a thing or two.

"Training to failure slows your results, say Spanish researchers. They found that lifters who performed each set of a workout until they couldnt complete a repetition had smaller gains in strength than those who left a bit in reserve."-actually found this in Men's Health with a Mike Robertson quote (if you dont know who he is google him, buy his dvd's. whatever, learn from what he says, very smart guy.)

So, now you know just because you CAN push your 80% for more than reps than what your online certification suggests, it does not mean you should. Especially if strength is the goal The Spanish, Soviets, and Americans agree leave a little in the tank for next time. i personally use prilepins table with my program design, and 60% of the time it works everytime.