-: All right, so this is just some principles,
take home points, for different populations.
So the beginners, progressions will be faster.
Using more rep progressions may be beneficial
for learning new movement patterns.
It might just be every rep you do,
you get to practice the exercise.
So when you're learning technique, reps are good.
Until you get to the point where you're doing
so high reps that they're training
where they're getting more compensation.
So up to a point, you may choose to add reps
because it works for improving their skill.
And not so much adding load, but also in beginners
you may be able to add load and reps at the same time,
depending on how much of a beginner they are.
You can use larger steps.
Essentially, step progression,
which we may or may not go into more detail.
Step progression is basically just this process
of adding reps,
and then you add load to bring the reps down
and then you add reps,
and then you add load to bring the reps down.
Here, instead of saying it has to be a step,
instead of steps, what would we call this?
It's not steps. It's like hopscotch
but like trying to stay in the middle.
It's not quite steps.
Traditional step is you add rep, rep,
until you get to the ceiling of your rep range
and then you add load to bring you back down
to the bottom rep range.
So it's like reps, reps, reps, step, load,
reps, reps, reps, reps, load,
reps, reps, reps, load.
I'm more of a stay in the middle, stay in the middle,
stay in the middle, stay in the middle.
It's the same principle
but instead of climbing to the top and going to the bottom,
I'm just trying to stay in the middle the whole time.
But if you were using step progression,
for beginners, you could maybe instead of saying,
I'm only gonna progress two reps
and then bring it back down,
you might give them a bigger rep range,
four reps or something to work with.
In super beginners, you might be able to progress weight
and reps at the same time or need to in some cases.
In some cases you might have to add weight
so that they only progress in one or two reps.
How many of you guys have trained somebody
that has not been training at all before?
And what happens within the first couple weeks
to the weights that they can use?
I mean, sometimes they'll move 30%,
down the stack of a machine or something like that.
At that point in time,
do whatever you gotta do to keep it from getting crazy.
For intermediate,
this is potentially the group that needs the
most flexibility for optimal progression, I think.
Because they still get decent progression
which means that it's possible that they can be
ready for more than you thought they were.
But also sometimes they might not be ready
for what you thought they were.
In terms of the aiming for the middle approach that I like,
this is probably the most applicable group is
for the intermediates there.
Rep range and step methods for them
will need to be a little bit tighter than for beginners.
Meaning that as you become more advanced
having more consistency in your stimulus
and less chaos is likely gonna be better.
You want your variety to be planned variety,
not just random chaos that happens to happen.
And you should seek consistent progression
but to a lesser magnitude and more consistent,
more consistent in the way they progress
than a beginner that might just randomly jump
30 pounds on an exercise or etcetera.
As we get into advanced people
in advanced people, I actually find
that their progressions tend to be more predictable
but they're smaller in magnitude.
That means it's very predictable that
in X amount of weeks
you're gonna be able to move up five pounds.
But what becomes complicated is how to approach
the week one to week five.
Because, if we're not gonna go up in five pounds
until those five weeks, what do we do?
How do we figure that out?
Are we using partials
or what are we just waiting until
the RAR gets so high
that we then try to add that load.
And that's something that you see
in very, very advanced people
where they're making very, very slow progression.
So, beginners make obnoxious amount
of improvement week to week.
Intermediates, you should still be able
to make week to week progress.
And in advanced people, you may have to start looking
at your progression model as a every other
or every third week type of thing.
And one of the things that I'll do for this is,
sometimes I don't know if you ever use this Brian,
whereas I will have like a, A and a B week.
I find these really valuable.
Basically it's two weeks
before they hit the exact same program or whatever
they could even have the same movements.
So on Monday one week they squat
and on Monday the next week they squat
but like the rep ranges or whatever.
So basically their progression
that they make is based off of two weeks prior.
So it basically just makes it easier for you
to manage progression over a longer time,
when those progressions are coming a little bit slower.
So that basically is what the second point is,
is you may need to use strategies to micro progress.
Whether that is using really small weight increments,
or finding some training variable
of adding a partial or something like that.
I did this on my dumbbell presses.
I think the last time through.
Basically once I got up to like the 150s
and there's nowhere to go,
I'm only gonna be progressing in reps.
Rather than just waiting until I could progress
to a full rep.
I actually would monitor the quality
of that last rep and look at its speed
and its technique and how much compensation there was.
And when it got to a point, I was like, all right
now I'm gonna do that last full rep.
And I'm gonna incorporate a little bit of a partial.
I wasn't ready to progress a whole extra rep at 150 pounds.
But because the last rep now got to a point where I'm like,
cool that rep was now clean enough
that now I'm gonna add a partial.
And so instead of jumping a whole rep in one week
what I did is I went to a partial
and then the following week
then I got the, the full rep.
Finding ways to do micro progressions
and stuff like that can be valuable ways to do it.
Obviously that stuff is...
Some of those things you would have to apply using
the method I do where you have a zero RAR thing at the end.
'Cause how do you manage a partial
with a two reps in reserve approach?
I find that having that top set is very valuable
in these advanced people, because then you can play
with these little minutia progressions,
of like, well, this time, what I did is
when they were doing the presses is
I just gave little tappy tap, taparoo.
And that was the extra resistance.
Not literally
but that's essentially what it's the equivalent of.
So today I'm not gonna wipe the dust off
of the dumbbells before you use them.
Don't tell Stacy.
And then the last point on here is,
it will be the most sensitive to over progressing
or progressing too fast, the advanced group.
Basically if you're already at the top,
and then you over progress
and then you end up having to regress.
Now it's kind of a mess trying to figure out that next week.
Because when you have somebody that's already
at their potential, they don't have a big buffer
between their maximum performance
and just soul crushing stress.
That's a small-like line,
of wet paper bag between those two points.
Your tolerance between those two is
you're really trying not to push through that bag.
Which you agree there wet paper towel.
And not even a Bounty, generic, like Amazon brand.
Progressing for performance goals.
The rep range in the variables
are gonna be more constrained to align
for the performance goal.
If these guys are preparing for a power lifting meet,
sets of 20 and jumping up in rep ranges
and stuff, probably not near as applicable,
they're gonna have to do something that is relative.
Same thing if you have another sport where
maybe they have to do things dynamically or whatever,
well, tempo is off the board.
You get another sport where we're really focusing
on a certain amount of conditioning and work capacity.
I might have to do things with rest intervals
or reps or whatnot that are gonna limit my ability
to do certain progressions.
You may have progressive change in variables
move closer to performance demands over time.
How many of you guys have worked
with performance based athletes at some point in time?
So further away from competition
their training can be vastly more different
than the qualities that they need to express in their sport
but the closer you get to their sport
the more the metabolic demand
and the neurological demand of those exercises
needs to match what they express in sport.
So your progressions, the way you progress, may depend
on where you are in their off season or in season.
This is a very, very important point, I think
especially 'cause, what's the first rule when
you're working with an athlete, the very first rule
it's the same for doctors.
-: [Audience Member 1] Can't get 'em hurt.
-: [Audience Member 2] Do no harm.
-: Can't get 'em hurt, do no harm.
When you're working with athletes,
especially people that make a living off
of their ability to express their strength and performance.
It's probably more important that you manage their quality
of work than that you're constantly trying
to make sure they're always hitting a new PR.
Because achieving the progression is not worth the cost
of increased potential risk of injury
or decreased performance on game day.
So you're gonna be constrained
and need to emphasize quality over quantity.
So that means that the exercise selection
and the RAR goals that you use
may have to be vastly different
than somebody that's training for hypertrophy.
If you have somebody with a performance goal
and there need to be more of their movements
are quote unquote functional,
but they're just more open chain type movements.
You might not be training a bunch
of super isolated, bias stabilized,
controlled movements where we can afford to go nuts
on failure training and fatigue training
because it's still safe.
They may be doing more movements where you wanna keep
that RAR a little bit higher.
And then you're just gonna have to draw that line
of your technique breakdown,
the thresholds for that is lower.
And also we're choosing exercises
that don't allow us to push into the same degree of fatigue.
So it's really a quality based program.
And at that point in time,
you may choose to be like,
yeah not gonna chance the progression here.
'Cause if they've gotten the adaptation
and they've gotten stronger, that's awesome.
But if you remember the little bell curve
what I'd say is, for hypertrophy athlete
you might occasionally end up pushing
to the far portion of that bell curve.
Kind of getting into, we're past optimal stimulus
and we're dipping into that recovery,
so that you kind of know where that window is
of what people can tolerate.
With performance athletes, at certain times,
especially in season,
you may be actually dabbling with
how little can I get away with?
And they still actually are performing
and feeling well, et cetera.
You might be biasing
towards the other end of things.
When we're looking at physique goals
you have the most flexibility.
Back in the Poliquin days, I did a program design course
and they went through all of these nuances
for different types of athletes or whatever.
I'm never gonna train a Bob slider, but who cares?
Let's look at the case study for that, etcetera.
And then when it comes to hypertrophy training,
like no nuance, no, like,
Hey here's the secret methods or whatever,
it was just crush.
Like that's what you do.
You just fuck people up.
That's how you get to hypertrophy.
You just find a way to train really fricking hard
and just drive people into the ground.
Obviously it's more nuance than that
but there is also a little bit of just, yeah.
Crush. It's volume of stimulus.
You just gotta find a way to get it.
If it's seven reps or nine reps or five reps
probably isn't gonna be the thing that's make
somebody gain no muscle or lots of muscle.
There's an optimal in there somewhere,
but you probably can get away more with being a little
off of optimal in hypertrophy than you can anywhere else.
Because the adaptation
and the improvement that we're looking for is so general.
We have multiple sensors for mechanical tension.
We have Myofibrillar hypertrophy
and we have Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
And nutrition is such a huge part of that.
And genetics and drugs are probably more of a part
of hypertrophy results
than any other sport performance thing in the world.
When you're looking at this thing
it's just more important to figure out for that person
how do I find a way to get the work done?
And then if we're looking for optimal
it's how do I find a way to get that work done
more efficiently.
And for longevity how do I find a way to get that work done
safer and more efficiently.
How becomes less important
than just finding a way to drive stimulus.
That staying in the middle thing works really good there
because it's like, yeah, we could choose reps,
we could choose weight, we could choose tempo.
Maybe the step loading thing can expand
out a little bit, depending on the exercise.
Total stimulus is more important than a single set.
Meaning that, if you fuck up your RAR on one set,
likely you're not trying to ace the motor pattern per se
as much as you are trying to drive the stimulus
that you might be able to make that up with the volume
that you're doing either in another set
or in another exercise.
There's just so many ways to basically win back points
that you might lose by not being super efficient
in one aspect of your programming.
When it comes to hypertrophy,
this is probably the one where it's the most
important to be looking at the total stimulus.
When you're doing performance based stuff
you might have be like, hey, this lift needs to progress
and it needs to progress like this
and hypertrophy is just more.
It's some way somehow more
we did like, oh, this one didn't, but this one more, right.
So the same approach for nutrition, more.
And then with hypertrophy training
your progressions can get complicated.
If you start using some
of the advanced methods that we talked about,
like that you guys went through today
like cluster sets and drop sets,
rest pause sets, and all these type of techniques.
But these are all ways
of not necessarily just getting more physiologically
but also getting more out of people psychologically
that I think when it comes to every other sport
there's a place that they express the training.
There's a competition or there's a field
or there's something.
So their training has the purpose of,
well I grind through this to do this thing.
For hypertrophy, the sport is the grind.
So a lot of times these advanced techniques are the ways
of game-ifying the sport
and that you're making the training fun
and interesting and presenting new challenges with that.
So while it does get complicated
it also affords you the opportunity to keep people motivated
and find like nuance and novelty in their training
that won't just benefit them physiologically
but also psychologically as well.
Because I mean, for hypertrophy if there is a competition,
it's a pageant and it's a subjective pageant.
They don't measure the bicep.
Like on the stage
they don't measure your body fat on the stage, et cetera.
So if you weren't born with the best looking physique
there's not much you can do.
So if you get the ball in the hoop or you take the ball
and you cross the line or whatever the hell other sport
it is like, there's a tangible way to win.
And there's a way that you can strategize,
and there's a way that you can assess.
When it comes to physique sports,
all of that drastically decreases
and where I would say other sports, the competition is like
it really fuels and drives people
and physique sports the competition aspect actually tends to
psychologically ruin people.
For most people that either don't want to compete
or that even in the ones that do compete
the more that we can make the training,
the more that we can make the grind,
psychologically beneficial, fun, enjoyable and novel.
Then I think the better those athletes end up being mentally
as well.
'Cause if the only thing they get out of their training
is whether or not they win the little plastic trophy.
And that's like, okay now I have self worth
because I paid $300 to enter this competition where
I won this $17 piece of plastic.
Yeah, it's not very- it's not very good especially
because like only one person wins that thing.
Try not to rant on that too much more.
Managing progression when you're in a deficit.
The focus becomes about maintaining stimulus sometimes
rather than just increasing it.
So sometimes it's just about mitigating loss.
Just depends on the degree of the deficit.
So it's gonna be similar to hypertrophy goals.
In terms of that, the totality
of stimulus becomes important, 'cause it's like, well
if you're in a fat loss phase, it's not
like you need one exercise and that's gonna be
the exercise that saves your muscle mass
or whatever it is.
It's really just about
are you getting enough stimulus in that tissue
and in your body to achieve both the metabolic
and the muscle saving stimulus that you need.
Efficiency here, it's gonna be a tool.
This is where I said, Brian's gonna get
into my slide when he was talking about like, well
maybe you wanna be efficient
or maybe you don't want to be efficient.
It depends on what you're trying to do.
So you could be intentionally inefficient to
increase volume of work.
If you were using that to drive the body composition change.
And to drive the metabolic adaptations.
But once somebody's in a deficit where that now
becomes too much of a stress burden,
then we actually would be like,
no, being super efficient is what they need
to manage fatigue to stimulus ratio.
At that point in time their diet is so low
as they need the most muscle retaining stimulus
in the least volume of work possible.
It just depends on how much you are driving
that body composition change from training stimulus
versus nutritional deficit.
And where they happen to be on there
and which approach you may take.
And in general, if somebody has a huge amount of body fat
to lose, you're gonna be able to get away a lot more
with using more training stimulus.
But when people get super lean,
they don't need any reps that don't really count.
They need naps.