There have been a lot of threads lately about HIT vs volume. I wanted to start one dedicated to this sort of in-between approach. While many people would classify this as a volume type style of training, I wanted to show the fundamental difference between the two.
Obviously this is nothing new or ground breaking, as I said earlier I feel like most people tend to gravitate toward this type of approach after some years of training. But I did put a twist on it that I have not seen before. I organized it in a way that will encourage progressive overload but in the BB style rep ranges. As well as paying careful attention to total volume.
WARNING! Not for the mathematically impared
3 rep ranges of ascending pyramid sets, pick one rep range for an excercise to use during your workout.
3x8-12 60%x12 80%x8-12 100%x8-12=(8-12rp max) ( total reps 24-36 )
4x6-9 55%x9 70%x9 85%x6-9 100%x6-9=(6-9rp max) ( total reps 24-36 )
6x4-6 50%x6 60%x6 70%x6 80%x6 90%x4-6 100%x4-6=(4-6rp max) (total reps 24-36)
So let's say your target weight for the workout is squatting 405 for 6-9 reps
Your workout would look like this:
135x5 warm up (if you feel like you need it)
225x9 work set
285x9 work set
345x9 work set
405x6-9 work set
You can also use this to organize your training by 3 week waves, I have found this to work really well actually
Week 1 3x8-12
Week 2 4x6-9
Week 3 6x4-6
I don't use this approach with every single excercise, just the big compound ones that I will use first in a workout.
Too much pussyfooting around. Just keep it simple.
Set 1 at 60% 12 reps warm up
Set 2 at 80% 8 to 12 reps work set
Set 3 at 100% for 8 to 12 reps peak set to near failure
Set 4 rest for no more than 60 secs and go for as many reps as possible to near failure
Set 5 repeat the same as set 4
So the set sequence would look like this 12, 8 to 12, 8 to 12, 6 to 10, 4 to 8
