If you are like most people I see in gyms who are seeking to increase muscle mass you will have done so by attempting to increase load in a linear manner. In other words you will have put a little more weight on the bar (or attempted to) every week and waited for your body to grow.
That’s all well in good to an extent but if you have stuck with this for more than about 6 weeks you will have watched as progress slowed dramatically or even screeched to a halt. At this point your local bodybuilding guru will have told you to “switch up” your exercises and then begin again to add a little weight each week once again. And that readers is popular bodybuilding training in a nutshell.
The only factors taken in to account by most trainees are: 
How many sets performed per exercise. (This is usually a constant).
How many reps performed per set. (This changes sometimes in a random manner, or according to fatigue levels).
The weight on the bar. (most trainees try to increase this all the time).
The exercises performed. (This typically changes when progress halts).
Now, lets have a look at what other factors might come in to play if trainees took the blinkers off:
Total volume of work.
Rest periods between sets.
The density of work. i.e. how many lifts at what % of a maximum divided by the time taken to perform the lifts including rest periods.
The speed of the movements performed, including the amortization phase, concentric phase, and eccentric phase.
The order in which exercises are performed.
Frequency of training the same muscle groups / movements.
There are many others, I merely intend to show that in attempting to treat the load and exercise choice as the only variables in bodybuilding training is inadequate as it prevents maximal levels of hypertrophy and encourages staleness. Taking other factors in to account and training them sequentially will lead to much greater progress over time than merely attempting to increase the load in a linear fashion.
To give an example of how looking at other factors can increase hypertrophy envisage the following situation. If you can do 6 sets of 6 squats with 315lbs with 5 minute rest periods between sets but you work up over time to 6 sets of 6 with 45 second rests, you will get bigger, despite having done no more TOTAL work. You will not have increased the volume of your workload, or the weight on the bar, but I can guarantee you will be bigger.
My thinking is “Why don’t bodybuilders apply this concept over the long term too?” “Why do bodybuilders focus on increases in weight while ignoring all other factors responsible for growth?” “How about using volume and density as the key measures of progress at an advanced level instead of load?”
The Need For Volume
The average number of reps per year with the elite weightlifters has increased EVERY Olympic cycle without fail, from 5000 – 6000 lifts per year in the 1960′s to 19000 – 22000 in the mid 80′s to up to 30,000 per year now. 30,000 lifts per year is around 85 lifts per day.
Most of these lifts are singles, doubles or triples. Now consider that these are WORKING lifts typically above 85% of competition maximums – warm ups are not counted – that’s a pretty high workload. Around 55 sets a day. Every day.
Now, a bodybuilder is not going to work at such a high intensity as a Weightlifter (intensity is a % of a maximum lift, NOT how “hard” you work). A bodybuilder will usually train at 55 – 85% of a maximum lift for greater repetitions than a Weightlifter would utilise.Neither would a bodybuilder be able to train as often as a Weightlifter.
Training for neural factors (Weightlifting) allows for 24 – 48 hr rests, bodybuilding requires 48 – 72hrs between training the same muscle group to allow for recovery and tissue healing. That’s 48 – 72 hours, not 7 – 10 days as some people seem to think!
I will digress a little here to discuss frequency of training. I am convinced that the vast majority of people who say they can’t train a lift or body part more than once every 7 – 10 days are simply not in sufficient condition.
That is to say that they are leaving so long between sessions that they never actually adapt to their training so they find that when they do train they are extremely sore afterwards and feel “wiped out” for days.
These guys need to work on their work capacity and increase their training frequency till they adapt to training instead of taking a holiday between sessions! Anyway, back to the program.
We all know training increases testosterone levels, and is generally “anabolic”. We all know training for more than about 45 mins to an hour leads to a drop in testosterone also, so our objectives should include training as often as possible for a given total load with each session lasting 45 mins to an hour.
Considering not many of you live / work in a gym you will probably be limited to training once a day for up to 6 days per week. The program is split in to three microcycles (short phases) each lasting 2 weeks. Assuming you are following the training frequency recommendations I made above this will mean training a given body part or movement 4 – 6 times per phase.
All sets are between 5 and 12 reps. All weights are 55 – 85% of your 1 rep maximum for each movement. The total number of sets will be determined by the time limits prescribed. For example in Phase the first workout will last 45 mins and have rest periods of 2 minutes between sets.
A set will typically last up to 1 minute, so each set + rest period will take 3 minutes. Therefore you will perform 15 total sets in Phase 1 workouts in order to get done in 45 minutes or less. This entails using 3 – 5 exercises for 3 – 5 sets each per body part.
PHASE 1
In Phase 1 no attempt will be made to increase load or total volume. You will NOT add weight to the bar. You will NOT add reps to any set. Instead you will reduce rest times between sets by 15 – 30 seconds each session, aiming to get your rests down to 45 seconds by the end of the 2 weeks.
In order to accomplish this you will have to start with loads that enable you to complete each set quite easily. At no point in Phase 1 should you go anywhere failure or miss any reps. By the end of Phase 1 workout duration will be around 27 minutes, assuming you obtain your goal of 45 seconds rest between sets.
PHASE 1 – Summary
2 weeks duration.
3 – 5 sets each of 3 – 5 exercises.
Increase Density with fixed load / volume.
Same weights, same reps, same sets, less rest.
Start with rest of around 2 minutes.
Aim for 45 second rests by the end of first phase.
PHASE 2
In Phase 2 you will add 2 – 3 sets to each movement, still with a fixed load. Keep rest periods at 45 seconds. This increase in volume will bring your workout time up to around 50 minutes to 1 hour. By this point fatigue may cause you to miss reps and reach failure on later sets, this is ok. You must attempt to get as many reps as possible on all sets if you can not reach the scheduled number of reps due to fatigue.
PHASE 2 – Summary
Increase Volume by 2 – 3 sets per exercise.
Allow an increase in workout time to 1 hour max.
Keep rest periods as low as they were at the end of phase 1. If you can’t reach your target reps on the extra sets, do as many reps as you can in each set.
PHASE 3
In Phase 3 you will increase load for as long as you can while maintaining the number of sets performed and rest periods. Add weight to the bar at every workout until you are working to failure on every set and not making your scheduled reps on any set. This may take several weeks.
Phase 3 – Summary
Add Weight! Keep rest periods and volume the same for as long as possible. Go to failure whenever necessary.
Well, there you have it. A six week (or more!) mesocycle alternating density, volume and load increases in two week microcycles without changing exercises. Why push load all the time as the only means of increasing hypertrophy?
Train hard and be strong,
- Mick hart.
Founder of mick hart training systems and
the no bull collection magazine.
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