Programming and Periodizing Reps
-: One of the reasons that time under significant tension
is so important is it has the greatest impact
on what the metabolic demand is.
So like significance is gonna change,
depending on the stimulus and the goal
that you're going for.
So like there's a different amount of significance,
first, from neurological training versus hypertrophy
versus say metabolic training in terms of the amount
of intensity that every rep needs to have, right?
So it very strongly correlates to metabolic demand,
and that's important because when we look at,
how fast you need to change things
and how fast you adapt to things,
metabolic adaptations happen the fastest,
and therefore, need to be changed the most often.
So you need to be accounting for the actual effect
of the reps and sets that you're having,
not just the time, but the actual,
what is the stimulus?
And how much of a stimulus is that happening?
What is the quality of that?
Then I can say, all right,
how long can I do this before I need to do a change?
And then when I do a change, does it change this?
Right, have I changed the metabolic demand?
Have I switched it enough that now,
I'm going to be getting a different style adaptation?
Or I'm going to be de-loading
from that metabolic stress that I was given?
Because like I said, the most often over-trained system
I see, especially in people that are doing fitness
for the sake of fitness, for body composition,
or because they like training or bodybuilding,
hypertrophy or whatever.
Not necessarily sports but for actual fitness,
they all tend to be over-training,
they're doing metabolic training that's too similar
too often too long, not periodizing it appropriately
and they're over-training those particular systems.
If we look at rep schemes, in general, you know,
we go from simple to complex over time in terms
of the types of rep schemes that we use
and that's most common for metabolic purposes,
meaning that when it comes to high intensity,
like if you're doing singles, how do you make a complex
rep scheme out of singles?
There are some advanced training methods for neurological
training, but there are many, many more advanced rep schemes
when you look at the metabolic side.
So in general, people need to progress towards
more complexity more so in the metabolic style training
than they do in other types of training.
A lot of times, if they're progressing in complexity
with their metabolic work, they can keep their
neurological work fairly simple
until they're getting relatively advanced.
It's lower over time.
Like the changes like in complexity need to happen
slower and lower for strength and performance-based stuff
simply because usually here, what you're looking at
is just starting to do higher and higher intensity work.
So when somebody starts training, like eight reps
might be intensity-based work for them because
they're very untrained and then they're working
to doing sixes and they're working to do fives and fours
and threes and twos and whatever and then maybe
eventually then it's like okay, now we're gonna
incorporate like some wave training or some descending
rep methods or whatever it may be.
You know, some contrast training.
There are complex rep schemes we can use
for neurological stuff, but there tends to be
a longer path to where you get to the point
where you need that to continue making progress
where when we look at metabolic training
when we have lots, you tend to have more exercises,
the workout's more dense and overall,
we're trying to maintain that high time
under significant tension.
We're trying to maintain that for a long enough
period of time you get those metabolic demands.
You end up having to get a little bit more creative
to continue taxing the body with both enough
intensity to be energy-demanding, but not so much
to be neurologically demanding and long enough
you burn through enough fuel that you get those
metabolic adaptations.
If you do go too advanced to soon though,
in either of these cases, in metabolic or neurological
or the hypertrophy in between, if you go too advanced
to soon, it does not mean faster results.
It's like switching to the most advanced metabolic
program will not help somebody burn fat faster
or get metabolic adaptations faster.
In fact, what's gonna happen is the workout's
gonna be too complex for the amount on the execution
standpoint, on a neurological standpoint,
and it's gonna take you longer to write.
It's gonna be more complicated for you to figure out
how to match all the exercises to them, whatever.
It's a lose lose for everybody.
They're gonna get worse results and you may,
some people do this out of the sake of entertainment.
They use complex rep schemes
for the sake of entertaining their client.
Find a better way to do it.
Find a better way to coach.
Find ways to include intensifiers
or have a specific exercise or have a specific
aspect of your workout that is really
gonna fulfill that need.
Don't botch the entire benefit of the training session
by simply programming around oh we're gonna do
the super advanced method because you're gonna
think it's cool and it's gonna be fun.
Well, okay.
Fun is cool, but getting results,
that's also fun over time right?
So you want these people to see progress over time
and enjoy that process,
not just enjoy the individual session.
Your coaching, your personal application to them
should make them enjoy the individual sessions
and then maybe fulfill their needs with
a specific type of movements, exercises
or you know, some type of finisher, whatever it may be
to add that kind of like that fun component
where you put in like a sporty type exercise,
whatever it may be.
But you don't sacrifice the stimulus or the quality
of the program by simply making it more advanced
than they need 'cause they will get less results.
If we look at programming, let me just kind of generalize it
in terms of when should I have high reps,
when should I have low reps.
It tends to be the lower reps, okay,
early in the workout.
So we're gonna start low and then if I do have
higher reps, they'll be coming towards
the end of the workout so I may start a workout doing
sixes and by the end, I may be doing 10s or 12s.
When you're doing neurological training,
there's going to be less of a gap from the beginning
to the end of the workout.
When you're doing metabolic style training,
there may be a large gap between the reps
you started at the beginning versus
the reps that you're using at the end.
Like you could be starting at sixes and end at 20s.
You know or you could be starting at single sets
like straight sets of whatever, like sixes
and you could you know, you could end doing
like super sets, trisets or whatever.
Like tens and tens or six 12, 25s, whatever it may be.
Lots of variation within a single workout
when we're doing metabolic training
if you need that kind of complexity.
Higher reps later in the workout.
Like I said, we wanna make sure we match the reps
to what we need.
So that includes, already, for some, muscles
are going to need lower reps.
Muscles are going to need a little bit higher reps
because of their fiber typing and muscle architecture,
their mechanics or function.
Are they accelerators, decelerators, stabilizers?
What are my variables in there right?
Okay I'm gonna pick tempos, the exercise
and its resistance profile.
If this exercise has more tension because
it's got a more mass-resistant profile
or if it's a higher intensity thing because I'm using
an x or an a tempo on the concentric,
well then I may decrease the amount of reps
that I'm using because I've added intensity.
So the significance in that time under significant
tension would be higher.
So therefore, the number of reps, the time portion
can go down for these same total effect, if you will, right?
So if I use lower reps, those are gonna be
it for complex exercises.
So the most complex thing like the Olympic lifts,
but a squat for example is a complex exercise.
When we look at neurological complexity,
again we'll get into this in detail in course two,
but the more joints, the more muscle, the bigger
the range in motion, those all add complexity, right?
The faster the movement, the more complexity.
So I want to use lower reps with more complex things
because my nervous system is needed to deal
with the complexity of that movement and therefore,
it is going to fatigue sooner so I want to make sure
I stick with a rep range that I can maintain
that neurological function.
Otherwise, I'm gonna learn to be a good cheater
and I'm gonna expose myself to injury.
I'm also gonna want to use lower reps
if I'm emphasizing the eccentric,
whether that's with extra time or I've changed
the mechanics or added some sort of accommodating resistance
like eccentric hooks or have someone have a trainer
or a coach, whatever you're applying extra resistance
to the eccentric or de-loading the concentric.
Any time I'm doing that, I will also work
on lower reps, right?
It doesn't mean it needs to be lowest,
but comparatively, I'm gonna be on
the lower rep side when I'm focusing on those.
Those are gonna tend to be longer reps as well.
To continue this on, you'll see that the resistance
profile is a big one as well.
So the more constant tension I have, it basically matches.
So it's hard throughout the entire range in motion.
Well, then I don't need as many reps because
I'm doing more work for every rep
versus if I have an exercise where it's overloaded
in the small portion of the range.
So say like I did the dumbbell lateral raise
and I'm doing it slow, well it's only hard
at the top so I might do more reps because
it's a lot of work here, but it's not much more work here
so every rep is like a half, right?
Not a whole rep.
It's only really like half, right?
So if I pick an exercise where it's hard the entire way
so instead of the dumbbell lateral raise,
let's say I did the cable and the cable is providing
some resistance this way so it was hard the entire rep,
I would technically get the same benefit both
metabolically and neurologically in terms of
the amount of significance in those of that set
with fewer reps.
I would need six to the 10 of the other one
to get the same metabolic demand.
So when you look at those type of things,
like all sets, all exercises are not created equal.
All reps are not created equal.
It depends on the quality of what's going on.
Not as significant as this,
but if we were to compare the two extremes,
exercise load in the stretch position
versus exercise load in the short position
because in the stretch position,
there's tension on that tissue like whether
I want it to be or not most of time,
unless I've gone way outside of my active range
and that tends to be in the, we'll say in a position
where there's more mechanical damage,
without getting into too much detail,
if I fully shorten my bicep ham, I'm squeezing it,
I'm not creating a lot of mechanical damage there
as opposed to if it's loaded and it's kind of
sitting in that stretched position.
So in general, when I'm overloading the stretch position,
those exercises can be trained a little bit lower rep
than the ones that tend to focus on the short position.
Not as big of an impact as this, but still
a consideration to make.
So if you were comparing an exercise to target everywhere,
lowest reps and exercises to target lengthen somewhere
in the middle, then exercises to target short
could be somewhat can be somewhat higher.
Now this doesn't mean that you train all exercises
to have a match resistance profile for four reps or less.
That's not what I'm trying to say.
What I'm saying is comparatively within the same workout,
so say you're working in the hypertrophic range
of eight to 12, you might have this exercise at eight,
you might have this exercise at 10
and then you might have the exercise that loads
the short position at 12 reps to get relatively
and equal stimulus from all three
of those types of loading patterns.
So we're just talking about balancing out
the quality to get the same significant amount
of stimulus from these different loading patterns.