Okay, so you’ve been going to the
gym for at least a couple months now, or have a more familiar knowledge and
comfort with weight training. You’ve made great beginner gains, and can
confidently perform all the major compound exercises with excellent form. You
have some muscular imbalances and inflexibilities. You are acquiring better
motor control under fatigue and have a respect for heavier weights. You want to
take your training to the next level, but are unsure where to go from here. The
steps below will be more or less applicable to anyone in any stage of their
weightlifting career, so consider reading on.
Step One – assess your current
state. Celebrate success with how far you’ve come, and identify where you want
to go from here.
Step Two – Identify imbalances,
muscular deficiencies, and weaknesses. These will help you shape your workout
plan to address these and develop a much more well-rounded physique.
Step Three – Outline your new
training goals, and get more specific about the strategy to get there.
Step Four – commit to results.
You’ve identified where you want to go, you’ve identified the road blocks, and
you’ve created a new plan of action. Now you must execute
These steps are pretty basic, but
should be referred to often when you find yourself spinning your wheels, or
think about changing your workout routine. The absolute most important variable
here is consistency. Being consistent with your routine when you have a goal
set is the key to success.
Moving forward with this, it may be
time you start increasing the amount of training days or types of training
sessions. You may want to experiment with four or five resistance training
sessions per week, and/ or starting to incorporate a cardio regimen. Be aware
of your recovery during this additional training phases. A lot of people tend
to waste a lot of time in the gym doing useless exercises that contribute
little to no real training effect. I am talking about doing 30 minutes of cable
curls, dumbbell flies, and leg extensions. While these are not necessarily
‘bad’ exercises, the training impact is negligible. Follow the 80/20 rule
whenever you are in the gym. 20% of your exercises will require 80% of your
effort. This ties back to the compound movements that are the foundation of any
successful training program. Each day go into the gym and bust your ass on one
of these exercises, then supplement with additional movements.
That being said – continue
structuring your training days around these exercises in this format, but you
may begin to experiment with more advanced rep/ set ranges. Altering rest times
and incorporating super sets/ drop sets/ and circuits. Keep in mind that you
are not doing this willy nilly – you have a strategy in mind and are working
towards a specific goal. You can no longer rely on basic linear progression to
make progress, which means you cannot simply add weight each workout and get
stronger. You will have to take advantage of principles such as training
intensity, periodization and supercompensation. Training intensity will mean
the ‘zone’ you are working out in based on your capable strength, or 1RM (1
repetition maximum). More on this later. For periodization and
supercompensation, what this means is it will take you typically more than just
one workout to make progress – you might have three or four of the same
sessions before you can increase weight in an exercise. An easy way to
accomplish this is structuring your workouts to increase the amount of weight,
reps, or sets (not all of these variables, but select one or two) over a two or
three week period, take an easy workout on the third or fourth week, and then
try to set some sort of personal record on that next week back.
Drawing back on the concept of
training intensity, most progress occurs in the 70-90% range for nearly all
athletes in all levels of training. This has been true empirically since the
beginning of sports science. Intensities right around 75% is a perfect training
zone for the average individual, as for most people they will be able to lift
75% of their 1RM for 8-10 reps. They may increase weight into the 80% zone one
week, then 85% the next week, while decreasing reps each set. This is the most
basic three week progression – Week 1 @ 75%, Week 2 @ 80%, and Week 3 @ 85%.
Week 4 will be your deload, usually around 60% or less, and Week 5 you might go
for a new 1RM to see how much stronger you are, or you might go for some other
rep range PR such as a 3RM, 5RM, 8RM, or even 20RM. Increasing 1RM is the
easiest way to gage progress. They may also choose to simply stay at 75% and
increase total volume, which is the total amount of reps they lift in a
particular exercise or workout. This is an easy way to build capacity, which is
also another gage of progress.
Hopefully I haven’t lost you.
In terms of how to apply all of
these concepts, it is simple. Track all of your lifts for a given week. How
much did you lift on each exercise? Did you maintain a constant tempo, or did
form breakdown? At which point was this? Did you fail any reps? Where in the
workout? Which exercises were hardest? When you go in the next workout the
following week, look at what you did in the week or weeks prior. Aim for an
additional set here, 5 or 10 more pounds there, maybe try a variation of an
exercise. Add some sort of extra work in there. Don’t be afraid to start mixing
up rep ranges either and attacking heavier weights. Do this in an ascending
order, meaning you might do the heaviest and lowest rep work at the start of
the workout, and slowly increase the amount of reps per set as the exercises
change and the workout goes on. This will accomplish two things – allowing you
to lift heavier weight, duh. And fatiguing different types of muscle fibers
which allow for more hypertrophy (muscle growth) and fat loss. Do this for
several weeks, building building building, then back off for a week. Come back
fresh and destroy some weights!
You will essentially be able to
follow a plan like this indefinitely, as you continue to track and measure
progress, determining what works for you, and understanding the why and how.
Keep your goals in mind, continue to assess yourself, and be consistent. Your
plan is the bridge between your current state and what you hope to achieve.
Discipline is the engine in the vehicle on that path, your willpower is the
fuel in that vehicle and your nutrition determines the acceleration. Get all
these components together and you have yourself a Ferrari.
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