-: So now we've looked at the effective reps theory
and we've discussed mechanical tension
and how that is gonna relate towards stimulus.
And we've kinda started to discuss
this proximity to failure, intensity, RPE discussion.
And what you're probably thinking of is,
well we started off talking about these tonnage calculations
and that's probably not going to align with stimulus
if I'm using kinda that effective reps
or mechanical tension based theory
of how much stimulus am I getting out of an individual rep
an individual set or my overall workout program, et cetera.
And that's essentially what we're gonna try
and go through here is kinda illustrate some of the things
that are gonna affect our volume of stimulus.
So we'll break down why tonnage doesn't equal this,
but in the end we'll reflect on
what usage of tonnage there is.
So just start off tonnage doesn't tell us
the volume of the stimulus,
because it doesn't distinguish between
which volume is being done in an effective rep range
versus what's not being done in an effective rep range.
So it's just calculating pounds moved
regardless of proximity to failure.
And if we're focusing on mechanical tangent,
we know that those are the reps that are gonna count.
So it doesn't matter if we move a lot of load.
If we never are moving load under the conditions
where we're getting high amounts of tension
at those local muscle fibers.
So in that instance,
you could do a high volume of just like work.
You could expend an energy,
move a lot of tonnage,
but get low stimulus
if you were training at too low of an intensity,
too low of an RPE
or too high of an IRR et cetera.
And then progression in stimulus.
So like when we're looking at progressing
from workout to workout,
tonnage is gonna be a valuable number to look at,
but increasing in tonnage again
is not necessarily gonna mean that we increased in stimulus
because we need to make sure that
the thing that we are moving
is the things that are gonna be affecting
the effective reps or the mechanical tension.
We wanna make sure we're getting an adequate stimulus still
not just doing more work for the sake of more work.
So this is where,
when we start to look at these individual variables,
that you will see that making the correct decision
is gonna help you progress towards a stimulus
rather than just adding work.
So let's start with our first illustration here.
Where we're gonna look at a couple different scenarios
of progression and how they may not equal
the same type of tonnage increase,
but these would all be relative increase
in managing stimulus as we progress
from a workout to workout session to session.
So if we start over here and we say our baseline
is this top row here,
where we're doing six reps at 180 pounds
that if we use a rep max calculator,
So if we were to use the formulas that we get to use to say,
what would your one RM be for this?
That calculates out to 216.
And what I'm doing right now,
and we're gonna talk more about this
throughout the next couple of units
is that rep max does not have to be used
as just calculating one rep max.
Well here we're using it as a proxy for intensity.
So at this what I'm gonna say is that qualifies us
at about a eight RPE.
So if we use this as a kinda tangible calculation
and just kinda roll with me,
'cause we're gonna get into more details
with this a little bit later,
but we're using that as a proxy
to kinda help us standardize
how close to fatigue are we getting
by actually using the sets and reps?
We have our subjective number which is RPE,
and then this is giving us a tangible number.
So we kinda have two qualifiers for the effort
or the amount of effective reps per se that would be
in the six reps at 180 pounds.
And then we have that tonnage.
So now we look at ways that we could make a progression
from six times 180.
One of those progressions
would be to bump up to five or in 590
would be able to pump up to 190.
590 would be a pretty decent progression too.
But going from 180 to 190.
So we're adding 10 pounds to the bar.
But let's say in the process of doing that
in the real world,
we lost a rep.
So now we did five times 190.
Now if we actually look at
how we would kinda tangibly calculate,
what does that the equivalent to
in terms of a rep max scale?
It would actually say that our intensity went up
would suggest that we made a progression,
an effort in terms of that.
So it would mean that that was a progression,
even though we lost a rep,
which then by the tonnage math is going to say,
we actually regressed.
We went from 1080 to 950 on the tonnage scale.
So this would be listed as a regression
if we were using tonnage as our only metric
for tracking volume.
But if we factored in relative intensity,
it's still gonna say it's a progression.
And in the real world what that's probably gonna go for
is if you were this person that could do 216 for six
and you were to do five times 190.
What you probably would notice is that the RPE
of that five times 190 would be slightly higher
than the six times 180.
We're basing this stuff of principles.
All of these numbers and stuff.
As we start to go through the examples,
understand the people that are gonna function
on an individual scale between their strength and capacity
and et cetera,
in terms of how much of improvement is gonna affect an RPE
or the rep max equation is not necessarily perfect,
but it gives us a target baseline.
'Cause some people will progress
toward the lower end of a rep max calculator
and other people progress towards a higher end
in terms of being able to handle a higher amount of reps
for a given intensity versus another person.
But the general principle is that if by that factor
by that equation of estimating intensity we are progressing
that should give us a better idea
than just tonnage in some of these instances.
Now if we were just to simply add reps,
well tonnage goes up as well.
So in that case if we were to standardize the intensity
with my proxy of using a rep max formula,
it's saying okay adding a rep at 180 in this case
from an intensity perspective
is near identical to going up 10 pounds,
but losing a rep.
Both of those end up at about the same intensity equivalent,
but one is a greater progression in tonnage.
So that means essentially,
to get about the same amount of stimulus in this scenario.
One is coming with a little bit more work volume
than the other.
That may or may not be something that you want.
And that's where you kinda gotta to look at.
What is the progression that I'm working in,
because you could say like okay you wanna get the stimulus
by doing the least amount of work possible.
And so then you might say,
"I'm gonna try and progress in that load."
But there is a diminishing returns on progressing and load.
You may say, "I wanna expend a little bit more energy."
maybe body positioning is part of the goal,
maybe focusing on some of those metabolic factors
is part of the goal.
So you want the tonnage to come up with the intensity.
And so then you would for the seventh rep
instead of going up and load.
So you could progress in whatever direction that you want
with both of these case scenarios.
And another option here,
it's just a smaller progression in load.
That shows like if I just stayed at six reps,
but I used a more manageable increase in load,
I went up to just 185 that would put me
in a similar a similar baseline.
So part of these decisions that you're gonna make,
are gonna be what direction you wanna go in.
And also if you kinda think of the window
that you wanna work in with your progression,
say maybe you wanna stay in a particular rep range window
or whatever it may be
is that you can strategize these to be one progressing
in the direction that you want,
but also leaving room.
So say that my goal here was
I wanted to stay between six and seven reps.
If from this scenario,
I know that if I progressed to seven reps,
then the next progression I would have to make
would be in load which made them drop me back down.
Or maybe I wanted to stay between five and six or whatever,
which and then I would progress the load
and get down to the five reps.
And then what I would do the following week
is maybe try and get that load for six reps
and then progress in load the following week from there.
So there's a lot of different strategies.
You just have to decide kinda
what the direction you wanna go in
in terms of intensity and tonnage and rep range, et cetera.
As we go through these examples you're gonna see it.
There's lots of ways to fine tune a progression
towards the goal that you want
and choose a progression that makes sense
based off of not just this individual set,
but that exercise all of the sets as a whole,
that workout as a whole, your week, your mezzo cycle,
all of these things you can start to have small changes
that become part of a bigger longterm plan
or longterm progression.
So in this next table down here,
we're looking at increasing reps to the same intensity RPE
and that's gonna result in a greater increase in tonnage,
decreasing reps and adding load decreases the tonnage.
So we're just looking at the same example,
but I wanted to show you that it's gonna,
if we increase the reps from,
we're working in a relatively low rep scenario
and we work in a relatively higher rep
and lower weight scenario,
you will see that the difference between these
in terms of tonnage decreases as we get
into the higher rep range, lower weight range,
but the pattern stays the same.
The jump in the greater amount of load
caused the drop in tonnage because we lost the reps,
but here we had to drop two reps
and whereas up here you had to drop one rep.
And that just takes us back to the principle that
the thing that is the smallest in this case here,
reps are relatively low.
Changing that is gonna have a big impact
on that tonnage equation.
As the reps get higher than changing
like going up one or down one
isn't as big of a part of the equation,
because it's a smaller fraction
of the total number of reps that you're doing.
So this principle remains,
but the magnitude that it impacts is gonna be dependent on
how many reps you're doing
and how much load you're doing, et cetera.
So if you're doing,
like if you're really strong
and you're doing a ton of load,
well then you're gonna be able to make
those weight progressions and have a smaller change.
If you're doing really high reps,
you're gonna be able to make a rep progression
it's smaller change,
and then vice versa.
The lower the reps et cetera,
or the lower the loads, the bigger the difference
those are gonna become.
As you start to manipulate those,
because the changes that you make
are simply a bigger percentage change
of that total equation.
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