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[PatrickDB]

Tim Henrique agrees, he also has tables.

Interesting. Where are these tables?

[PatrickDB]

Relating to the discussion above, I haven't done any reading or research on this, but how does an intensity-weighted tonnage sound to you guys?
[equation]IWT = weight \times reps \times \%1RM \quad (1)[/equation]
Which can also be represented as
[equation]IWT = 1RM \times reps \times \%1RM^2 \quad (2)[/equation]
This factors in the fact that lower intensities are less stressful for a given number of reps. For example, why 5 sets of 5 with just the bar as warmup isn't meaningful volume. Equation (2) has a [math]\%1RM^2[/math] term, that effectively gives more weight to higher intensities, which I think follows with what people experience of higher intensities are more fatiguing.
Note that this does ignore how the volume is distributed, ie 5 x 3 @ 80% vs 3 x 5 @ 80%.

Normalizing so 1 RM = 1, let's assess the bench hypertrophy and strength days using this idea.

Hypertrophy: 31*(.7)^2 + 15*(.6)^2 = 20.59

Strength: 15*.8^2 = 9.6.

Not looking good.

I need to look up what Nuckols thinks the shape of the regression curve should be for this. Then I could use Hanley's hypertrophy and strength day values to get a formula.

ETA: fixed calculation

[JonA]

I think the tables and INOL are more representative of training for traditional reps/sets where reps > sets. Eg, 3x5 rather than 5x3.

Using more sets with less reps definitely changes the fatigue factor, because you aren't dipping so far into your resources within a set. INOL probably needs some other factor in the denominator to account for that.

Example, for hypertrophy bench, it was 31 reps, but with descending reps to specifically avoid the grinding that may have occurred if it was 6x5 rather than 3x5, 4x4.

A few weeks ago, I switched from a 5x5 bench volume to an 8x3 and it dramatically improved my recovery.

@Hanley, what's the protocal for increasing e1RM? Just see how we feel at the end of the week and bump it up 5lbs?

[Chebass88]

...
It's a quick and easy method to consider the volume and intensity of a workout, nothing more, nothing less.

I have been using it an Prilepin's chart for some months to check my programming and have to say, it seems to check out. One heavy workout will not wreck you, but a succession of them will. Prilepin effectively let's you leave one or two in the tank by choosing reps per set and limits your total work. Hristov allows you to plan a week. If I could only stick to it and stop going over 90% too often, I might feel better.

Anyway, it's merely a metric and Hristov made no claims about it being correct in every case.

This is how I've been using it as well. I have not used it to plan a training cycle yet, but I'm tracking it so I can observe trends and learn from it. It is an index, and indices aren't intended for quantitative measurement.

[Hanley]

@Hanley, what's the protocal for increasing e1RM? Just see how we feel at the end of the week and bump it up 5lbs?

I'm hoping a very obvious protocol using this sort of programming jumps out at me.

That has not happened yet.

If everyone had a bar speed device, it'd be a piece of cake.

I thought about RPEs, but RPE validity @ less than 7 is shittier than pulling an e1rm out of one's ass.

I was thinking about doing a hydrid amrap RPE test on Fridays. That's still on the table.

In the meantime, for peeps on a 1-week cycle, I think the arbitrary 5# increase to e1rm is the best load progression strategy (maybe 2.5# increase for upper).

I'm also reviewing workout-session notes and video to help with load progression (my eye's a bit out of practice judging bar speed, but it'll improve). For instance, a few folks had ALL their hypertrophy session work UNDER @6...so I suggested adding 5# across the board on all sets.

[AaronM]

Yeah, I'm anticipating the bench hypertrophy session to be a breeze today. When I was benching 3x/week my mid-week session was 72% 5x8@RPE8 on all sets.

[Mkgillman]

I didn’t even guess at the RPE for the hypertrophy day in my notes because it was less than 7. At that point I don’t even bother logging RPE because it’s a guess, at best. I had assumed that the idea was for the reps to be fast with shorter rest periods to maximize swole.

[damufunman]

Normalizing so 1 RM = 1, let's assess the bench hypertrophy and strength days using this idea.

Hypertrophy: 31*(.7)^2 + 15*.6 = 24.19

Strength: 15*.8^2 = 9.6.

Not looking good.

I need to look up what Nuckols thinks the shape of the regression curve should be for this. Then I could use Hanley's hypertrophy and strength day values to get a formula.

Hypertrophy calc is off...
Didn't square the .6 (not much of a difference) but you also added an extra 15 reps with the 15*.6 (I'm seeing hypertrophy day as 5x3 then 4x4 at 70%, no backoffs at 60%...) which changes it to just 31*(.7)^2 = 15.19, I would say more reasonable, though possibly still a bit high.

In any case, I was looking at this as more of a more appropriate volume equivalent than just total reps or even straight tonnage, not as a complete picture.

[damufunman]

I didn’t even guess at the RPE for the hypertrophy day in my notes because it was less than 7. At that point I don’t even bother logging RPE because it’s a guess, at best. I had assumed that the idea was for the reps to be fast with shorter rest periods to maximize swole.

Same here. And the power days as well for that matter. A double at 85% is @6.5 for the standard table. Which for me is hard to judge.

[augeleven]

In the meantime, for peeps on a 1-week cycle, I think the arbitrary 5# increase to e1rm is the best load progression strategy (maybe 2.5# increase for upper).

I'm one of those people who can't help clinging to their status of novice or early intermediate when previous training history contradicts that.

That being said, would it make sense to increase the load by 5/2.5 weekly until 70% becomes 75% and then ratcheting the training max up a bit and starting again? Maybe with some set/rep variance to keep ye olde intraset fatigue low?

[PatrickDB]

Hypertrophy calc is off...
Didn't square the .6 (not much of a difference) but you also added an extra 15 reps with the 15*.6 (I'm seeing hypertrophy day as 5x3 then 4x4 at 70%, no backoffs at 60%...) which changes it to just 31*(.7)^2 = 15.19, I would say more reasonable, though possibly still a bit high.

In any case, I was looking at this as more of a more appropriate volume equivalent than just total reps or even straight tonnage, not as a complete picture.

Oh, whoops, yeah. Edited to fix that. I still get about 20. So still off by about a factor of 2.

The 15 reps are close grip bench AMRAP.

This is how I've been using it as well. I have not used it to plan a training cycle yet, but I'm tracking it so I can observe trends and learn from it. It is an index, and indices aren't intended for quantitative measurement.

Of course they are! That's why they're numbers and not, like, colors or feelings.

[PatrickDB]

Yeah, I'm anticipating the bench hypertrophy session to be a breeze today. When I was benching 3x/week my mid-week session was 72% 5x8@RPE8 on all sets.

I also found the benching to be easier, or at least faster in terms of bar speed, than the squatting.

The squat and deadlift sets at least felt like "work," even though they were probably RPE ~6 or less (where here I use RPE as in "reps left with good form," not "gun to my head").

My bench sets were just easy. On the first set of 4 I think the bar almost left my hand. Someone watching me commented, "Wow, that was really fast." I was making no special effort to increase bar speed.

This may be due to me overestimating squat/DL e1RM slightly, so I wonder if others had the same experience?

[PatrickDB]

@Hanley, two questions.

What are you thinking the intensity for the CGBP should be? 65%? Or is this something that's going to need to be tailored to each lifter to get 12-15 reps, since the CGBP/GP ratio varies a lot?

Can you give me 48-hour recoverable volume equivalents, in total reps, for 65%, 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, and 90%? Assume the sets are done at RPE 8 or less, and the lifter is an average intermediate, late 20s to early 30s male, average genetics, good but not great recovery. If the numbers would be different for pressing and posterior chain work, split the difference (unless they're really different, in which case ... wtf?).

I'm going to fit a formula to them after I figure out the right functional form. This thread has triggered me.

[omaniphil]

Yeah, I'm anticipating the bench hypertrophy session to be a breeze today. When I was benching 3x/week my mid-week session was 72% 5x8@RPE8 on all sets.

I also found the benching to be easier, or at least faster in terms of bar speed, than the squatting.

The squat and deadlift sets at least felt like "work," even though they were probably RPE ~6 or less (where here I use RPE as in "reps left with good form," not "gun to my head").

My bench sets were just easy. On the first set of 4 I think the bar almost left my hand. Someone watching me commented, "Wow, that was really fast." I was making no special effort to increase bar speed.

This may be due to me overestimating squat/DL e1RM slightly, so I wonder if others had the same experience?

I had the same experience. I just tested my 1RM two weeks ago, and so based percentages off of those. My Bench sets yesterday felt like warmups, and while the squats and deadlifts were still in the RPE 6-7 range, they at least felt like work. Is it possible that the RPE to percentage correlation can be different for upper body vs lower body?

[PatrickDB]

In the meantime, for peeps on a 1-week cycle, I think the arbitrary 5# increase to e1rm is the best load progression strategy (maybe 2.5# increase for upper).

For us I'm wondering if it's best to just do the arbitrary increases (5 for lower, 2.5 for upper/wk) and just test at the end of the 4 week block via AMRAP (to 9.5/10 RPE) at 80%ish.

There doesn't seem to be a huge need to test in between, since I could probably complete the week 4 workout right now. I'd need longer rests and it would be grindy, but I could probably do it. But the flip side of this is that there should be a test at the end, because if I just repeat the microcycle four times, how do I know how much stronger I got? Merely completing it isn't enough to say anything, given I could do it right now, and I don't want to fiddle with trying to remember whether it was easier or harder than the workouts four weeks ago.

The only issue I have with this is that AMRAP squats and deadlifts seem stupid because you can always get an extra rep or two by taking a long intraset rest and letting loose with shitty form. And these extra reps will tremendously skew the e1RM calculation.

Another idea: the CGBP AMRAP basically serves as an upper body test anyway. If the weight is increasing and the number of AMRAP reps is staying the same, you're getting stronger!

[omaniphil]

Of course, it could all just be psychological. I'm used to grinding at higher percentages on Bench Press and Press, and so anything that doesn't feel tough doesn't feel like work. I'll trust the system and see where this leads.

[PatrickDB]

I had the same experience. I just tested my 1RM two weeks ago, and so based percentages off of those. My Bench sets yesterday felt like warmups, and while the squats and deadlifts were still in the RPE 6-7 range, they at least felt like work. Is it possible that the RPE to percentage correlation can be different for upper body vs lower body?

Yeah I'm definitely wondering this. I also wonder how much of this is just a perception thing due to the pressing muscles being more fast twitch.

But I probably could've comfortably cranked 8-10 on the last bench set. Not so on the squats or deadlifts.

[AaronM]

I can push RPE8 in my bench for a lot of sets, even at higher reps (6-8 rep range). I can't do that on my squat and deadlift without really long rest periods.

My bench 1RM is 225, though my training max for % was 240 my last cycle. So 157.5 was stupid easy today. I dropped my rest times to 90s, and the last set of 4 was less than RPE 4. The kicker is to figure out how much weight I can increase on the hypertrophy day, and not interfere with the next session 48 hours later. 2 months ago I could hit 72% for 5x8 on my bench, but 48 hours later I wasn't 100% recovered.

EDIT - I hit 18 reps for my CGBP AMRAP. Is 60% of my bench 1RM too low?

[MWY]

Yeah, I'm anticipating the bench hypertrophy session to be a breeze today. When I was benching 3x/week my mid-week session was 72% 5x8@RPE8 on all sets.

I also found the benching to be easier, or at least faster in terms of bar speed, than the squatting.

The squat and deadlift sets at least felt like "work," even though they were probably RPE ~6 or less (where here I use RPE as in "reps left with good form," not "gun to my head").

My bench sets were just easy. On the first set of 4 I think the bar almost left my hand. Someone watching me commented, "Wow, that was really fast." I was making no special effort to increase bar speed.

This may be due to me overestimating squat/DL e1RM slightly, so I wonder if others had the same experience?

My sets on bench yesterday started around 7 and finished around 8, but I think that's because I was keeping my rest intervals really short, like 2~ minutes, and didn't rest longer than it took to put the weight on the bar and redo my wrist wraps between warmups. The Squats were harder, but still easily in the RPE8 range at the end. I think my E1RM may have been a bit inflated for the Squat, but I've noticed in previous training blocks that I'm really bad at 5s compared to 4s or triples, especially on Squat. Maybe conditioning (i.e. lack thereof) related.

Deadlifts on the other hand were really easy. 5 triples and the last one was maybe RPE6. Got the whole deadlift session, warmup sets included, done in less than 15 minutes.

[michael]

Can you give me 48-hour recoverable volume equivalents, in total reps, for 65%, 70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, and 90%?

I copied these from a thread in Egypt. I think they were starting points.

30 reps @70%
25 reps @75%
15ish @80%
5-8 @85%