One of the biggest changes I’ve made to the way that I program over the last couple of years (and even more so in the last few months) has been in the use of Multiple Specific Rep Ranges for all my exercises, within a single session.
I’ve been using this strategy on the main exercises in my clients programming as well as the assistance work.
Before I outline exactly what I’ve been doing, first a bit of context……..
Most of you reading this are familiar with “Sets Across” type of programming. An easy example of sets across would be taking a given weight, say 200 lbs, and performing 5 sets of 5 reps with that weight. Or 4 sets of 8 reps. Or 6 sets of 2 reps. Or whatever. But basically a static weight for all the sets and reps.
This is a very simple way to organize your sets and reps and it’s very effective. I still use it all the time, especially on the main lifts. And especially when working with a pure strength athlete this is still my go to formula. The reason this works so well is because when assigning volume type work for a strength athlete I don’t want him/her taking the work sets to failure. Strength athletes typically do best on programs where the main lifts or their very close variants are repeated fairly frequently during the week, usually a minimum of 2-3 times per week. When frequency is high on a given lift, you can’t train that lift to failure every session.
So when I prescribe an athlete “5 x 5” I assign a load I know can be completed for all 5 sets without any missed reps, form breakdown, or egregious slow down in bar speed.
However, my approach is a bit different when I’m training a physique / hypertrophy oriented client. In this type of programming I favor an approach that brings more of their work sets right up to failure. I don’t actually like to see a lot of missed reps on the big main barbell exercises, but I do often push them right up to the brink. For those of you who use RPE / RIR this would be like RPE 9-10 or RIR 1-0. On smaller exercises (curls, tricep extension, leg extension, leg curl, etc) I don’t hesitate to push them all the way to failure.
But there is a cost to performing sets in this manner. You can typically only do ONE big set like this on a given exercise at a given rep range. Subsequent sets will have significant drop offs in reps. And the fatigue factor of those follow up sets is off the charts.
For instance, if I push a client on a set of Squats to 405 x 6 and that set of 6 is a LIMIT SET (i.e. you could not have performed a 7th rep), there is no way you can come back and do an additional set of 6. So if you planned on 3 sets, your 2nd set might get 3-4 reps and your 3rd set might get only 2-3 reps.
To completely steal a term from Dr. Mike Israetel – the stimulus to fatigue ratio is all off. So while there may be some hypertrophic stimulus from that 2nd and 3rd set…..you are potentially wrecking your recovery for the rest of the week for not much return.
So in this example, a trainee of this strength who was aiming for 3 x 6 might have to use a load of about 365-385.
And this is not necessarily a terrible trade off of load for volume, and I’m not totally against this approach.
However, I do feel like a more advanced trainee who is having to fight and scratch for more muscle mass is better served by taking his sets closer to failure and not always leaving a significant amount of reps in reserve.
But this leaves the question of volume? While I don’t buy into the argument that volume is the primary driver of hypertrophy, we know that there is some minimum threshold of volume that must be met in order to “turn on” the mechanisms within the body that signal a hypertrophic response.
We don’t know where that number is. It’s obviously variable from person to person. And it’s probably variable within the same person over the course of time.
But there is a minimum and there is a maximum. Simply adding more and more sets, more and more days, etc eventually has a detrimental effect on performance and therefore growth.
If adding sets and days is the key to continued growth then how many sets are you going to be doing in your 10th or 20th year of training if you are still trying to grow?
Eventually you hit a cap, if nothing else for practical reasons. So continued progression has to come from another avenue, other than added sets.
So I’m kind of a middle of the road guy when it comes to volume. While I personally respond well to very low doses of volume, I know from having worked with hundreds of clients, that most people need a little bit more than what works for me.
This is where I lean very heavily on the use of back off sets / descending sets for the purposes of adding meaningful volume.
Going back to the example lifter from above that takes a limit set of squats to 405 x 6. We know that after this set at 405 he’s probably not capable of additional meaningful work at 405.
So we back him off to 365 and have him push out a set of maybe 8 reps. Then perhaps we back him down again to 315 and have him push out a set of 10-12 reps. These lighter weight and higher rep back off sets performed in a state of residual fatigue from the top set of 405×6 are extremely powerful stimuli for growth. (Note: these are not “drop sets” performed with no rest. Complete or mostly complete rest periods of 2-5 minutes are used with this approach).
Is this really fucking hard? You bet. But the stimulus to fatigue ratio (again, stealing from Dr. Isratael) is now more favorable to growth and recovery as opposed to grinding out more sets with 405 and losing reps on every subsequent set.
In many instances we might even cut out that middle set at 365 and go from 405 all the way down to 315 or even 275-225 and crank out a set in the 12-20 range.
So now we’ve created a scenario where we can get our per session volume up with just 1-2 higher rep back off sets and we are training closer to that 0-1 RIR / 9-10 RPE zone which I prefer for driving muscle growth on a more advanced trainee. Best of both worlds.
I also like this approach because of the variability in rep ranges. i.e. you are getting stronger across a broader spectrum of rep ranges and this also has some benefits when hypertrophy is the goal.
For a strength and power athlete we’re mainly looking at stimulating growth in the “big” type II muscle fibers or “fast twitch” fibers. These are the fibers that have a high force output but are more susceptible to fatigue. These fibers respond best to high load sets (80-100% 1RM) or lower load sets done with higher than average bar speed (I often use 70-80% 1RM for 5-10 sets of 2-3 reps for power lifters or sport athletes).
But for a physique focused lifter, we want stimulation of all muscle fibers – fast and slow twitch – and this makes training at a variety of rep ranges ideal. Especially for muscles like the quads which tend to have a higher number of slow twitch fibers – higher rep training is generally needed to stimulate those fibers and coax them into growth.
Then there is the issue of Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy which the experts claimed existed for many years…..then it didn’t exist…..and now I guess it exists again. I can’t keep up with the changing positions here, and I don’t have the scientific background to make a definitive claim about whether it’s real or myth but almost any bodybuilder on the planet will attest to the value of training for a massively painful pump to elicit max growth from a muscle. But that’s another debate / topic that I don’t care to expand upon here.
Putting it into practice…….
So here is what I have been doing with my clients rep ranges as of late. I’ve been segmenting exercises into 2-3 rep ranges per session that we try to improve within from week to week, month to month.
We use a combination of adding weight or adding reps at each session within each rep range. Sometimes we’re able to do both but usually we’re aiming for just one or the other.
I’ve experimented with bigger rep ranges (like 5-10) and smaller rep ranges (like 3-6 or 6-9). I really like the latter.
Here is how I set it up.
Lets take the Squat for example. In today’s Quad Focused workout we’re going to start the session with Paused High Bar Squats for 3 work sets.
Set 1 is done for 3-6 reps. Set 2 is done for 6-9 reps. Set 3 is done for 9-12 reps.
For each set we’re pulling weight off the bar. It depends on the lifter, but lets just say we’re deloading by 10% for each set.
As an example………
- So set 1 we hit 405 for 3 reps.
- In set 2 we hit 365 for 6 reps.
- In set 3 we hit 325 for 9 reps.
The next time we hit this exercise we’d aim to increase the reps at each weight as opposed to adding load because we came in at session 1 at the bottom of each rep range.
As a rule we add reps until we hit the top end of the rep range. THEN we add a small amount of load and drop the reps back down.
So the second workout would go like this (in an ideal situation):
- 405 x 4
- 365 x 7
- 325 x 10
Now, we might not be able to make improvement at every rep range every session. That’s okay. As long as some of your sets are trending up, that’s fine, and improvement in one rep range eventually bleeds over into improvement in all the rep ranges.
For the sake of simplicity and illustration let’s fast forward several weeks or months and pretend that we hit the top end of the rep ranges for all 3 sets at a workout:
- 405 x 6
- 365 x 9
- 325 x 12
Now it’s time to bump up the weight and drop the reps back down to the bottom end of the rep range. This can be a nice little “foot off the gas pedal” week even though the weight actually goes up.
- 410 x 3
- 370 x 6
- 330 x 9
Then you start the process of building the reps back up all over again.
Here’s where a lot of you guys aren’t going to like this because a progression system like this cannot be neatly plugged into an Excel Spreadsheet and put on auto-pilot for the next 12 weeks. there is some intuition here and some “in the moment” auto-regulation.
Some rep ranges might go up for several workouts in a row while others kinda hold steady. You might be adding weight to that 3-6 rep range while adding reps to the 9-12 range. Sometimes a rep range doesn’t go up, sometimes you might add weight and not actually drop your reps because the bar is moving so well from one week to the next. That’s fine. You don’t need to hold back. Push and grab rep and weight PRs as often as possible.
The question everyone is mumbling right now is “What happens when I can’t make progress anymore in reps or weight??”
If you fail to make progress (usually 2 sessions in a row)….switch movements.
So if you’ve been doing Paused High Bar Squats, switch to Safety Bar Squats. When those get stuck, switch to Hack Squats. Remember this is Hypertrophy focused training – not power lifting. You aren’t married to 3 exercises.
Some lifters stay with one exercise and milk it for several weeks /months in a row before switching.
I personally prefer to operate in a rotation of 3-4 exercises doing a different movement every week. So I might go week 1 high bar squat, week 2 safety bar squat, week 3 camber bar squat, week 4 hack squat and then back to high bars.
I’m not ultra dependent on frequency of movements to make progress so I’m okay actually hitting a lift 1x/month or so and still making progress.
A few additional helpful notes……..
Frequency
You can’t train this way on the same lift multiple times per week. Don’t try and do this workout on Monday and come back on Wednesday and add weight and reps. Training closer to failure and performing more limit sets per session requires more time in between like sessions. I like a minimum of 72-96 hours perhaps more.
I typically only do this 1x/week per body part, but my split is designed in such a way that a body part is stimulated “indirectly” at a second session during the week when I’m hitting another body part (i.e. chest is hit again when I do triceps with close grips or dips).
You might train the same body part again later in the week (although I like a max frequency of 2x/week) but you need to select a different movement.
So if you do this with high bars on Monday, on Friday you need to do Safety Bar Squats, Hack Squats, etc…something different.
Volume
You might decide (as I have) that you get even better results with just two main work sets. One main heavy work set, and one higher rep back off set – assigned to rep ranges that make sense for that exercise/body part.
This approach is typically associated with a body part type of split. So this generally means 2-3 exercises per body part at a session with 1-3 main work sets per exercise.
So in a Quad focused session you might hit 3 sets of Squats (3-6, 6-9, 9-12) and then a set of Hack Squats (12-15) and a set of Leg Extensions (15-20).
In a very traditional bodybuilder fashion we are starting sessions with heavier compound movements and cascading down towards more isolation type work. You can apply this rep range concept to some or all of your movements.
You might consider this too low volume. It is if you are training submaximally. If you are taking your sets maximally for very close to maximally, it will be plenty. Do a max effort set of 15 Hack Squats and tell me you need more sets.
Training Split…..
There are a variety of ways to do this.
When possible I’ve been having people use the split I outlined in my KSC Method for Power Building Program.
- Chest/Biceps (indirect shoulders)
- Hams, Calves, Abs (indirect quads and back)
- Off
- Shoulders/Triceps (indirect chest)
- Back, Traps (indirect biceps)
- Quads, Calves, Abs (indirect hams)
- Off
Lastly…..
This is not a novice or early intermediate style of training.
This is not a power lifting program.
This cannot be done in a bare bones garage gym with no equipment.
You have to keep meticulous records and make every set count. Look for small weight and rep PRs as often as possible.
You can follow my IG account (@bakerbarbell) and see how I’m applying some of this these concepts to my own training
