Physique programming considerations, pt. 1
How do you develop your clients’ physiques without pushing them to the point of burnout?
We’ve broken down some recommendations for volume, intensity and frequency on the road to hypertrophy.
Progressive overload
Progressive overload is one of the main methods of exposing muscles to greater stimulus over time. This triggers the body’s physiological adaptive responses, in other words, the muscle will gain size and strength to meet the growing demands. This growth is called hypertrophy.
If you do a workout and complete all your sets and reps while getting within the necessary proximity to failure, then you would have achieved a sufficient stimulus to drive hypertrophy.
However, if you do the exact same workout (same sets, reps, weights) the following week, you will not be providing your body with a greater stimulus than the previous week. This is because your body has gone through the necessary adaptations to withstand and deal with that stimulus. Repeating the bout would essentially be a lower stimulus than the week before, and even lower the week after that, and so on. A lower stimulus means little to no gains.
Continue that same process week in, week out and you can see how people get to a point where they plateau.
Progressive overload is best achieved by gradual increases in volume, intensity, frequency or time. Here’s a breakdown:
Volume
Volume is the total number of reps multiplied by the weight used.
For example, increasing the number of reps in a set over a program:
Week 1: 10 reps
Week 2: 11 reps
Or increasing the number of sets over a program:
Week 1: 3 sets
Week 4: 4 sets
Intensity
Intensity is the amount of load, expressed as a percentage relative to a single, maximum effort rep.
For example, increasing load session to session:
Week 1: 100 kg
Week 2: 102.5 kg
Or decreasing the RIR over a program:
Week 1: 4 RIR
Week 2: 3 RIR
Frequency
Frequency is how often a person trains in a period of time, say, a week.
For example, increasing the frequency of training:
Week 1: 3 sessions per week
Week 4: 4 sessions per week
Rest interval duration
This is the time in between sets of the same exercise or between different exercises.
For example, shortening the rest time between sets or exercises :
Week 1: 75 seconds rest
Week 4: 60 seconds rest
Keep in mind, driving too much overload too soon can potentially hinder the long term progress of the athlete. We should only decrease rest periods to a reasonable extent, based on their ability of the client as well as the purpose of the exercise or program. Otherwise. too little rest can cause burnout, injury, fatigue and other issues that will only hinder progress.
A well-constructed, well thought out program will take into account the overload method/s chosen, and the fatigue and recovery demand of the client.
Load (% of 1RM) & rep ranges
Theoretically, it makes sense to use a wide variety of loadings for maximum muscle growth. This is due to muscle fibre recruitment characteristics.
There are two primary types of muscle fibres:
Fast-twitch fibres (FTF): More responsive for moderate to heavier loads
Slow-twitch fibres (STF): More responsive for moderate to lighter loads
This means that in most cases, moderate to lighter loads are useful for increasing volume load over time (total reps x kg lifted), while heavy loads are typically better for improving strength.
Strength and muscle growth rely on each other
Muscle size relies heavily on proximity to concentric failure, volume, and progressive increases in intensity over time. Greater strength allows that volume to be performed using heavier loads, accruing more volume load. This is why it makes sense for a physique athlete to have periodic mesocycles of strength in their training, especially beginner and intermediates.
Rep range considerations
Heavy load (3-5RM): For this training, muscle fibre shortening speed is slow and motor unit recruitment is high, regardless of the amount of peripheral fatigue that is present. Each rep will have a high hypertrophic value but takes more sets to get the same volume load as moderate to lighter loads. Training to failure is unnecessary, highly fatiguing and can be dangerous.
Moderate to light loads (6-30RM): A level of peripheral fatigue is needed to achieve sufficient levels of motor unit recruitment and slow muscle fibre shortening speed. This can be achieved by performing loads very close to muscular failure. It may be necessary to reach total momentary failure in order to stimulate muscle growth.
Proximity to failure
Muscular failure is referred to as “the point during a set when you cannot perform the concentric phase of a given movement, through a predetermined range of motion with a load”. In other words, the point when your muscles give out and can’t complete a given movement. So proximity to failure is “How many reps away from muscle failure are you?”
It is often necessary to work close to failure to achieve the right stimulation to create hypertrophy.
Evidence suggests working with 0–4 RIR is the sweet spot to drive a hypertrophy stimulus, dependent on load. When working with heavier loadings (80% 1RM and above), training to failure doesn’t seem to be necessary compared to doing lighter loads (30% 1RM). It may be advisable to get closer to concentric failure as the % 1RM load decreases.
Training to failure also has its place. It can provide the stimulus needed for advanced lifters to break through plateaus. Even so, it’s best carried out in short microcycles, and in safe environments/exercises to avoid excessive fatigue accumulation or injury.
