Who doesn’t love a good cliché? Here’s one: more isn’t better. Better is better.
This certainly applies when it comes to training volume. Defined as sets multiplied by reps, volume is a gross measure of the overall work you perform during a given period of training, typically an individual training session.
After intensity (weight on the bar, measured relative to your 1-rep max), volume is perhaps the most important training variable to manage when trying to get big and strong. After a certain point, you can’t just keep adding weight to the bar every workout or even every week or month. At that point, most lifters find they need to increase the overall amount of work they do by gradually adding volume.
But how much work is enough? That’s the million-dollar question. Another cliché…
Autoregulation (adjusting the difficulty of your training based on how you’re feeling on a given day) comes naturally when it comes to intensity. Feel great? Load it up heavy! Feel shitty? Go a little lighter. Simple enough.
However, most lifters seem to pick somewhat arbitrary set-and-rep schemes, keeping the volume fixed regardless of how they feel. I approached my own training and the training of my clients like this for a long time as well.
Once I discovered you can autoregulate volume, I felt like a caveman who had discovered fire. It seemed like my entire life had changed and suddenly I could accomplish so many things I couldn’t before. I had this realization when I listened to Mike Tuchscherer of Reactive Training Systems talk about setting constraints around how much volume to assign. “Listening to your body” shouldn’t just dictate how much weight you put on the bar, but also how many sets you do overall and when to pack it in and move on to the next thing.
Today, I’ll discuss three strategies I use to help autoregulate volume and determine how much work is enough.
The “Either/Or” Method
The most common way I autoregulate volume is to select a predetermined number of sets and reps, but assign an RPE threshold (read more about RPE here) that would instruct the lifter to stop and move on to the next exercise once they reach it. For example:
Top Set: Work up to 1×3 @ 9 RPE
Backdown sets: Sets of 3 @ 90% of top set for 5 sets or until you reach 9 RPE again, whichever comes first
So the lifter has a maximum number of backdown sets they can perform, but if they get tired and the RPE increases to a certain degree of difficulty before they complete all the sets, they stop and move on.
This approach preserves the quality of work a lifter performs. Just like a rough day can make weights feel heavier than normal, a rough day can also make it tough to get through a lot of working sets without technique falling apart. At a certain point, more volume is no longer productive and the “Either/Or” method makes it OK to call it a day.
Fatigue Drop + One More Set
Fatigue drops refer to how much weight a lifter takes off the bar in order to keep doing working sets while preserving the quality of work. This is commonly used with a top set/backdown set approach, which I use all the time with the majority of my lifters who are beyond the novice stage of training.
Because powerlifting is a 1-rep max sport, it makes sense to focus on your heavy lifts first, and then do your backdown volume. Fairly logical. And because lifting really heavy makes you tired, it also reasons that a strong person wouldn’t be able to do a lot of sets at a very heavy weight, hence the utility of fatigue drops.
In the previous example, we use a 10 percent fatigue drop because the backdown sets are performed at 90 percent of the top set. A 5 percent fatigue drop would be at 95 percent of the top set, and so on. I typically prescribe backdown sets at a 5-10 percent fatigue drop. Any less of a drop is typically too heavy relative to the top set, and any more than a 10 percent drop is often too light to deliver a potent training stimulus.
The Fatigue Drop + One More Set approach is very similar to the previous one, but gives the lifter one more set at a lighter weight if they hit a certain RPE. For example:
Top Set: Work up to 1×5 @ 8 RPE
Backdown sets: 4×5 @ 95% of top set (if you hit 9 RPE before 4 sets, drop to 90% of top set and do 1 more set of 5)
Basically, if the backdown sets get really hard before you hit the maximum number of sets, drop the weight and do one more good set.
I like this approach for lifters to tend to overestimate their RPEs and/or bail on their backdown sets early. This way, they at least get one more quality set in before they close up shop.
RPE Cap with Timed Rest Periods
This method keeps the total number of sets open ended and caps the overall volume once the lifter reaches a certain RPE. The lifter adheres to strict rest periods between sets. For example:
Top Set: Work up to 1×4 @ 9 RPE
Backdown sets: Sets of 4 @ 90% of top set with 2 minutes rest until you hit 9 RPE again
The logic behind timing rest periods is to prevent a lifter from resting an inordinate amount of time between sets to allow them to keep working. Sure, it’s impressive to get 20 backdown sets at the same RPE, but not if you have to rest 10 minutes between each set and your entire workout is longer than a Lord of the Rings movie.
This was actually the first way I started experimenting with autoregulating volume, and it’s a doozy. Timed rest periods are the stuff of nightmares when it comes to powerlifters. I know lifters who could eat a 3-course meal or smoke a whole pack of cigarettes during their rest periods. Putting them on the clock gets them out of their comfort zone real quick.
I like this method for building sport-specific work capacity. In other words, powerlifters don’t need endurance in the sense of a marathon runner or Tour De France cyclist, but they do need to be able to repeat high-intensity efforts over and over without losing technique or force production. Powerlifters may find themselves at a competition with an alarmingly short amount of time to warm up. If you don’t have the engine to bang out warm-up sets with short rest, you’ll be gassed once you get on the platform. I’ve competed in meets with only 8-10 lifters per flight, resulting in about 6-8 minutes between attempts. That’s not a lot considering how much most powerlifters sit around between sets. Spending some time training against the clock helps tremendously in these situations.
Pump Up (or Down?) the Volume
As you can see, autoregulation isn’t just about RPE and weight on the bar. It’s important to learn how to listen to your body when it comes to backdown work and overall training volume. Quality is almost always more important than quantity when it comes to strength training. These three strategies can help you hit the nail on the head when it comes to the right amount of work on a given day.
What a thorough article. Nice job
Thanks for reading!