This is why Alan is one of the GOATs of fitness content creators. He revisits previously held beliefs that are no longer useful and contextualizes them for a new audience. The dude is humble and has integrity.
Do you give every content creator a verbal BJ in the comments? I've been watching his videos for a while too, but I don't feel the need to verbally fellate him in the comments.
At almost 70 (!!!!) I find your videos so motivating. And I'm glad you added that your advice applies to dumbbells, too, because that's where I'm at. Working my way to the barbell! Thanks!
Don't think of the barbell as superior, it's just a different tool. In some cases it's worse than dumbbells as it fixes your joints in place, which can be a bad idea.
When I turned 70 (I am now over 80) - I found that i needed a little more rest between sets AND that is also when I Bought some 1 KG and 2.5 KG Olympic weights as well. If you find that you cannot at 5KG (Which is 11 pounds) - these may be more possible
This is a total coincidence. After i injured myself last year i've decided to do exactly what you said. Using the same weight till i felt comfortable enough and then go up. I've stopped counting sessions or being stresses cos "its taking too long" and.. it works, to my surprise, it works. It's a slow process, it might be frustrating at times, but i believe it's safer, smarter end overall more effective. And out of the blue you drop a video saying this very thing. I always thought you were one of the smartest guys around in the business but damn, this made me smile. Thanks brother, keep it up. We need more people like you. Cheers
I watched an old YT from Jordan and Austin and something clicked. Some people can push intensity and producing enough stimulus to add weight consistently. For others like myself, intensity just doesn’t work for very long and we do better with more volume with smaller, less frequent jumps. This seems to line up well with my choices of sports- I couldn’t run fast for 100m to save my life, but as distance increased I became a contender as a competitor. I got fed up with pushing the intensity and failing - it started to make training very stale and I began dreading each session. I’ve changed my training to 5x5 at a set weight until I find it getting easier then adding weight across-I think your idea of adding weight in to the last set initially is a good way to add intensity gradually so I’m going to do that.
I'm like you. Try doing AMRAP on your last sets. Don't let 5 stop you - last week I accidently hit 13 at rpe10. I will now add weight to my whole working set.
My general guideline has been to do a weight at least three times in my desired rep range. Perceived effort has always been hard for me because I work a physical job and have wildly different energy levels when I lift depending on how hard the day was. I had recently been thinking about increasing that to 5-8 times before increasing because I've been feeling a bit beat up lately.
This was so helpful. I’m a post menopausal lifter and I injured myself recently on a percentage based program because I pushed too hard, determined to lift what was prescribed in the program. My body simply doesn’t respond like it used to and I felt very encouraged by your advice on how to approach adding weight.
Yeah don't do that. Lift what is hard, abd increase the weight when it gets less hard. It took him a while to come around to that point but he got there. Also, give yourself enough time to recover. Programs designed for younger lifters usually don't provide enough recovery time.
Setting a repetition range makes dealing with RIR/RPe a lot easier. Example: 4 sets of 8-12 reps, 2RIR. You just can't fail shooting for a RIR goal if you have the freedom to choose when exactly to end the set
I’ve thought about this but this makes it more complicated to apply rpe, ill say youll need te feel fairly confident in your rpe assessment to use this method
@@daniel1RM I use the bar speed to determine RIR. Bar speed can be seen and thus "measured" better than a feeling of something being heavy. Considering the person is lifting the concentric part of the movement with all the speed they can at the moment
Just add 5 lbs. Shoooo Wee Changing the term progressive overloading to progressive loading would be a great change to exercise ideology. I'm sure this would keep people participating more in resistance training without them having the looming darkness of not making specified overload resistances in their program.
This is great information Alan and feel so glad I found you and the program. I started with the bar and 100lbs and now can deadlift and squat over 200lbs and getting closer to 300lbs in these lifts. My press is still weaker but getting there.
This is my own personal rundown: Novice: 5lb per session Intermediate: 5lb every other session Late Intermediate: 5lb per week Advanced: 5lb every 2 weeks or less frequently All assuming it's a 3x/week full body routine For certain movements like The Press, the number is 2.5lb instead of fahve If the frequency in one tier stops working, move to the next tier I like thinking of it this way since it's agnostic to vague or unreliable metrics like RPE, RIR, percentages, absolute weight on the bar, relative strength compared to bodyweight, months or years of training experience, etc. It's also more resilient to inconsistent training. Not much to think about, just: If you stop being able to add weight that often, add it less often
Effort comes before weight. This was really helpful. Thank you! I've been adding 5 pounds to the bar every workout, which has been great, but I ran into a few problems here and there. I'm going to apply this new philosophy now. Thank you again!
I've done the same back loading for adding reps to successive sets on rep progression programs. For instance in a 4 X 12-15 progression, Don't do 15 on any of the earlier sets until I've accomplished 15 on the last set. Then go for 14, 14, 15, 15. Etc. This works well and doesn't beat me up. Thanks Alan.
It's so vague for me and different dependant on a sleep the night before or even if you have a worse day at work. I add whenever I just feel that I can do more. I can only DL 320 and bench 205 so I guess most people don't care about how I do it anyway, but I got a 3 minute rest period right now so here we are.
one of the things that elevated my gym sessions was learning how to get to failure. I used to be extremely scared of going anywhere close to failure. the first sign of my muscles getting fatigued and I would call the set, and thinking back I was probably 5ish reps away from any "useful"/"grindy" reps (so way more than 5 reps away from absolute failure). not only that, I was also increasing weight very cowardly. it felt like I was spinning wheels... cause I was. after watching several useful channels like natural hypertrophy, geoffrey verity schofield, basement bodybuilding and such, I felt like I wasn't pushing myself hard enough in my sets. so I started to amrap my first working weight. whether it was 8-12 or 4-8, I would take that first set past the top end. seeing as how I was sandbagging previously, I kept getting 2 to 3 reps above the top end and from there I increased weight like a manic, 10 to 20 kg jumps depending on movement. I've come to a point where I now can't do that, and so I don't amrap my first set anymore... but I do still shoot for the top end. and in some sessions where I'm jumping up to a new weight, I have hit the top end of the rep range in the first set. obviously cause I'm not prepared my rep drop off is more drastic, but my god is it a good ego itch to smash a new weight jump. it takes me about 2 to 3 sessions to fill out the rep range. (for anyone wondering I don't do sets across, I let rep degradation happen...so 3x8-12 would end at 12 10 8 not 12 12 12) edit: 1 more thing. be comfortable with repeating weights, reps, and sessions. this is something I do when I have filled out a rep range, but the effort in the last two or even all the sets was way too high that I am not comfortable that increasing weights is the variable I should increase. so like Alan says around 16:00 I repeat the same weight with the same reps and sets so that the RIR is decreased in that next session and then I'm confident to increase weight
Thanks Alan for talking about this subject. I will give your progression strategy a try in my future workouts. I also love this fireside chat style of video. I hope you continue to do them.
@@iambanana272o for it! I'm running a program inspired by the one prescribed by NH and I've never seen such gains in my life! I'm not an advanced lifter by any mean but I've practiced resistance training, on and off, for 20 years and to me, nothing works better that the evolving rep range loading approach advocated by Natural Hypertrophy.
This is great information and I continue to appreciate seeing how Alan has grown wiser and more mature over the years, in addition to becoming more knowledgeable. Yet, I can’t help but wonder how long he has felt trapped in a prison of his own making with that outro gimmick. 😂
Thank you, Alan. I've watched you intelligently ask the question in the old SS video, and I've seen them laugh at the mere suggestion. After a year of SS, my complaint has to do with constantly hurtling into insanity with a weight first approach. Never fully close to being accomplished @a given weight before the inevitable failed attempt and reset strategy. Additionally, I believe there's validity in the idea of not being on point one day, wrecking a progression, both on the bar and in the mental game. This is why I continue to listen to you as a balance against SS, and I must say, You bring receipts. Thank you, Sir, for all that you contribute to the open minds that work hard at working hard! Keep up the good work!
The last 4 minutes of this video is solid gold. Now that the weight has become heavy for me, I'll be modifying how and when I add weight. Always looking ways to train smarter and safer, this video was a great find! Thank you Alan!
Quality stuff Alan. This is the type of content myself and I'm sure, many others love to see. It felt like I sat down with a personal trainer and got exactly the info I was looking for. Thank you sir. 👍
I wish this guy could coach me 😁 I love this explanation and although in familiar with some of this information, Alan always seems to make it very understandable and achievable at the same time. Also a great reminder that I need to focus more to help hit my goals, thanks for all the info Alan 🤘🤘
You would not regret it. I am fortunate to have trained with Alan and he really helped me with correct technique for deadlift and squat. Plus he has the most awesome gym for hard core lifting! Most gyms have one maybe two squat racks and no deadlifting platforms. Untamed Strength has everything you could imagine in a serious iron gym.
You're a god damn sage wizard of fitness. The sheer wisdom that you communicate to us is god tier. A huge amount of my success in the gym as a "non traditional" individual with significant health issues has been due to you. I use to feel like i wasn't really a man if i wasn't making it to 350 by the 3rd month of novice training like basically all programs aimed at young men teach. I tried to do 5 lbs a week every week and injured myself over and over again until i quit, over and over again. Eventually i just gave up on and program and went as slowly as my body required but it still felt wrong since i could never fit into a program. A lot of the things in this video are things i had to learn myself since nobody was talking about it, but I'm so glad you've made this. Not only does it validate the effort I've put in to this point, but some other younger person in my previous position might be able to learn these things without all the injuries i went through. Your content is amazing and you are an immesurably valuable individual to have in this community. Thank you
I used to follow a Guru's Gospel for long and I kept getting injured. I got confused and I quit. Years later, I tried alternative workouts with great success. My bad for being so naïve. Now I'm older, I have learnt from my mistakes.
I’ve been watching fitness content from a good bit of the fitness community for almost a decade now and this is definitely one of the best videos I’ve seen 🤙🏼
Some useful & relevant points here. I can relate to some of these methods used. As an example i would aim to get 3 Sets of 6 reps (minimum) with 101kg on Flat Bench, 1st set, i get 6 with 2 RIR, then 6 & 7 reps on 3rd set, the next time I do the same workout, I might do 7, 7, & 6. The goal is to get 3 smooth sets of 8 before I add on 1 or 2kg. Very little straining & no bouncing the bar or raising my buttocks of the bench to get numbers.
I actually injured my back recently due to just blindly keep adding weight to the bar, simply because i could move the bar. After that i had to realize my bracing sucks and i have to get better at it. From that moment on i reduced the weight significantly and worked on my bracing. Now if i can't keep my body very tight and braced with a weight, i do not lift that weight. Simple as that. Because bracing is a bit tricky aswell. If you are not barcing properly you wont really notice it instantly in the mirror. You will probably do things like hyperextend your back during squats and deadlifts which will look like ok form in the mirror. This is a recipe for injury.
Starting Strength was solid for me. For like 9 months to a year. Great way to get going. But i think we wll agree that it won't last forever. Hence rhe "starting" part.
Love the advice to increase weight on the last set first! I have gotten stuck many times with less reps in my last set because I increase weight. Especially with dumbbells, where going up can mean a 5-10% jump
I'm learning this at the moment. Exercises would just feel more difficult over time as I added weight and I never felt comfortable with or fully in control of the barbell . Now I'm sticking with the same weight but gradually making it more difficult as it feels easier through pauses and slowing the tempo and then adding weight. I'm using RIR and once I focused on that rather than the weight it helped me to listen to how my body is responding more and stop beating my self up by forcing myself to lift more than I'm ready for just for the sake of progression.
The explanation of weight first versus effort was a really simple way of explaining. I will remember that. I always struggle to explain the concept of getting stronger and then the weight on the bar matching your adaptations.
Have only been lifting for 2 years and knew this made sense inherently but have never heard it explained so well. I tried programmes like 5/3/1 and just couldn't get the linear progression to continue like I wanted. Since the start of 2023, I have focused on picking a weight, pushing as hard as I can with intensity until I am comfortable with that weight before increasing the load and I have never seen gains as good as this. Granted, I'm still new but intensity is definitely something I'm prioritising over the objective number on the bar. Well done at explaining that Alan, you make great content.
Oooh I needed that! It like a switch in thinking: instead of feeling like I'm stuck at a certain weight because I fail or see my form getting sloppy when I increase, I should focus on the effort and assessing whether that's changing. I've been stuck at certain weights but also don't feel comfortable just adding weight because I'm mostly scared of my form being shite and injuring myself. Instead of beating myself up I should focus more on what you said.
Fatigue from work affects my reps alot up and down depending on how much I was running around that day. It was really worrying me seeing my bench "degress", not hitting the same reps I did last week. Turns out I wasn't getting weaker I was just tired from lifting and carrying things all day. Once it dawned on me I stopped panicking about constant improvement, I just go to the gym and lift in and around my working weight depending on how tired I am. It's fun now and not stressful.
All of this reminds me of Dan John's Easy Strength program - pick a weight where you're not struggling, do two sets of five reps. When they feel light, increase the weight. Apparently it's lead to good gains for most people who try it.
Step loading is what ive heard this type off training called , this is how i train , im not a great responder to training and i find this works wonders for me , for example say i start at around 70 % 1rm weight do 3 sets 5 reps then slowly over say 3 to 6 months add reps and sets till i reach around 5 or 6 sets × 10 reps then work down the sets and reps while adding weight till down to 5x3 reps or even 3x3 , deload and rinse repeat with more starting weight
This is valuable stuff here. On the strength side of course we have SS that encourages 5lbs a workout , but from a hypertrophy perspective DC training and similar programmes so heavily emphasise beating the logbook. This mentality, unchecked, can lead to tempo and form degradation to where yes, you are lifting more weight, but it isnt necessarily indicative of getting bigger and stronger. Really owning a given weight at a given rep range before progressing can in and of itself be a method of progression.
Im gonna try this Alan. You have brilliantly addressed a problem many of us have had who have done starting strength, the problem of hitting the brick wall and getting stuck. It makes sense to let recovery and adaptations to catch up while still stimulating the muscle before adding weight. Thank you very much for posting this
NLP is easy. If u hit the brick wall early your not doing the program correctly. Eat sleep and recovery . Sometimes an extra minute makes a world of difference . Try smaller weight increases such as 2.5 vs 5 lbs. if all those things are done and still hitting a wall then it is time to modify the sets and reps ….the devil is in the details of programming . Frankly the greatest obstacle to weight training and failing are the following ….improper sleep , diet, recovery between sets and over ambitious programming .
This is pretty much the story of my training life. From what Rippetoe says is the blessed holy truth of strength training, to what Wendler says is one good method, to what I feel like I need to do in order to progress and not break in half, which is sort of "5/3/1/12+-/". I did add weight every week like clockwork, and suddenly one day I was weaker. The past few weeks had been a grind, but I've managed to adapt all the way up until that point, it blew my mind that I could go backwards without warning. It's quite a learning experience, going HARDER THAN LAST TIME (in high voice) isn't sustainable. Learned how to wave load, step load, deload, and pick up on cues from the body, and never force it. I'm not a machine.
Love the breakdown. Haven't been lifting for long, but through trial and error I've come up with my own formula. I have a slightly different way of doing things than "normal convention" - mainly out of the fact that I get so fed up with lifting the same weight for every "working" set. I use the following steps/rules for myself with primary lifts that utilize multiple muscle groups (isolated muscles are treated a little differently): First set - roughly 50% of max - for somewhere in between 15 and 20 reps. Each set after then sees a weight increase from the prior set - jumps of either 5 or 10 pounds per set depending on my strength level with the exercise. Rep goal is to match the prior set, or as close to it. I do this until I can no longer reach 8 reps. Oh - and I only give myself 30-45 seconds between sets. Then, it's on to the next exercise. Being relatively new to lifting, I very quickly got tired of the tried and tested warmup, working set splits with each exercise and started to feel jaded about going to lift. As for progression - if I can get to 15 with reasonable form on any given exercise, then in my next session my starting set is at what had previously been set 2 and I follow the same ladder. I've seen more climbs in what I can lift with good form on my harder sets using this method - and since I get more enjoyment out of being able to lift more weight safely and with good technique than I do from any potential aesthetic look, it's a win-win for me. I do seem to be gaining strength quicker than I was under a more "traditional" format and that was my goal from lifting ... to be able to be better at things that I need to take care of. Lift this, move that, work on this, cut that tree, etc.
This is great presentation. For me RPE was hard to gauge at first and is not so linear. The easy , medium, is a great intro. Human beings are not linear. I have had days where my usual RPE 8 feels like a 6 and added more weight and then there are days where just don't have it mentally and the RPE 8 is a lower weight than usual.
hi alan. i just discovered you. been binge watching your videos since. i really appreciate this video as a beginner. i learned so much. thank u! also, im a fellow ex-long hair dude. just wanna say your flow was majestic af.
I'm 42 and embarked on my Starting Strength journey about 3 months ago. I have to say, what I've learned to do is very similar to what you prescribe. I don't so much pay attention to RIR. I just do my three sets of 5, but on the last set, I do a plus set. If I'm giving max effort (which I always do on my last set) then it's at least questionable if not doubtful that I could actually get another rep. So, that's my working weight. Next session, I do the same. When I'm hitting 6 or 7 reps my last set, then it's time to add 5 pounds. If I feel like I'm kinda stuck at a certain weight, I'll start adding a 4th set for that exercise...or I'll take an extra day of rest (depending on what my joints are telling me would best serve me). I'm a small guy, built with a frame and proportions very similar to Bruce Lee. I'm 5'7" and when I was like 20 years old and 7-8% body fat, I weighed around 135. I now weigh about 175, but I'd say close to 15 lbs of that is vodka and cottage cheese around the middle. Started with squats at 165 and now at 180. OHP was at 90 and now 100. Bench started at 135 and is now 160, and DL started at 185 and is now 260. These are not my 1RM, btw. At my age and without a spotter, I'm not trying to go for maxes. Those are my workset weights at 5 reps. Nothing to write home about, but I've definitely made progress and am feeling stronger and super motivated. Also been adding chins/pull-ups and/or cable rows to every session.
My methods are unorthodox af. I work within my means. I’m a firm believer in the concept of showing up is more important than maximum efficiency. I’ve been exploring high volume, low intensity. I have a 62lb kettlebell to work with. I’ve been doing 10 sets of 10 sumo deadlifts with this weight every day for over a year. I’ve also incorporated some “bro splits”/body building stuff every other day consisting of : Chest and Heavy Back Day Light Leg Day Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, Forearm Day Heavy Leg and Light Back Day For those days I have dumbbells sets from 1lbs up to 30lbs, Indian Clubs, Resistance bands and a sandbag Part of this journey has been rehabbing my back and some other issues with joints and other health issues and fighting some demons I’m saving up for a proper barbell. My goals are mainly to have sturdiness, strength and endurance. I often will also “grease the groove” and try to just lift train randomly in between my normal routine. I like to do 10-50 reps at a time with at least 4 working sets. I’m surely a weakling in the power lifting community but I’m well on my way and I’m building off a foundation of 10x10 daily minimum. My methods are born from lack of motivation and discipline and desire for a consistent regimen. I had trouble staying on track so I decided a daily routine was right. Other daily metrics include 3 miles per day walked and 3000+ calories burned daily. Eventually I want to add to my daily minimum. I’m interested in your opinion of Pavel Tsatsouline and the concept of high intensity days every other day placed on top of a daily minimum. I agree with the concept of go until it feels too easy. Also I experiment with drop sets and mixing up weights and techniques and splitting things up. Example: 1 set shoulders straight into 1 set biceps then triceps, forearms, repeat x4 etc
Thank you for this video. After watching I realized that this whole time I was accidentally doing everything right! I have grown a lot since the start of my journey, makes sense!
I am a simple man, RIR0 to RIR1 (RPE9-10), ideally I want to hit a point where I can complete the last rep but I definitely will hit momentary muscle failure on the next rep or the rep after, that range. Once I start hitting a large amount of reps on the third set at RIR1 I'll up weight (a lot of reps is something in the range of 7-10 reps, I tend to target 3-6, anything outside that range is just being conservative with slapping more weight on). Once I can do 3 good sets at relatively high volume I know for a *fact* that I can add more weight, but I also use fairly chunky weight increases because I cannot be arsed to add tiny granular increases more regularly so my loading tends to increase in 5 or 10kg increments.
I just like make the beginner start with the bar alone, add 2.5lbs per traning (I own the 1.25lbs plates). They'll keep at that until they get to a point where they're indeed getting close to perceived faillure. And in order to provide good training sessions, I'll add 4~6 isolated exercises for different muscle groups. I usually have the compounds for around 3x8 and the isolated going for 3x15. Usually in a month I'll be able to access how well the beginner is progressing and I'll be able to give proper strenght and growth stimulum. In most cases I found out people are satisfied not really training for strenght after acchieving an personal goal (like the 1plate overhead, 2 bench, 3 squat, 4 DL that many do). But even for those, they'll have learned other stuff and many have ended up enjoying a bodybuilding focused workout. So I end up keeping the student for a longer time, giving me more profit and him a longer and healthier experience. Of course, each person is their own, there will be multiple different cases that require special attention and if you're in doubt and searching videos to find what to do, just save some money and hire a coach for a couple of weeks, I guarantee you that if you have a professional on your side for 2 weeks, the knowledge gained will follow you for at least 3 months, where I recommend doing it again as you grow in your "lifting carrer", I also suggest going for different coaches, this way you absorb more knowledge from different people.
I've been thinking about this for a couple of months now, really glad that this video popped up in my feed! Great tips that will have me restructuring my workouts! 😎
I start with 3x8. When I can do 3x10 then I up the weight and fall back to 3x8. I've also done 3x8 but added weight on the last set if I feel good, as you said. Either method is appropriate. Your body will tell you when it's ok, otherwise you'll get hurt and then you know you pushed it too far. As you get older your progression will also slow down. Enjoy the journey more than the destination.
I’ve done both the +5lbs and RPE. I now exclusively do RPE. Especially with upper body lifts, it’s just not feasible to add 5 or 2.5 or 1.25 ever week. I routinely have to do the same weight 2 or 3 weeks in a row before it matches the effort. A straight linear progression often results in adding weight too quickly and missing it or getting injured.
I simply add weight when I exceed my chosen rep range . For example, if I am doing what I call my "strength protocol" (3 to 6 reps), when I reach 6 reps, I increase the weight. If I can't go 3 reps, I reduce the weight. Sometimes, I add weight (simply 5 lbs) multiple times a session. More often, I'll reduce the weight multiple times typically, on the 4th or 5th set .
This reminds me of something that Pavel Tsatsouline once said. Paraphrasing: "pick a weight, do it for 5 reps, then repeat it until it feels easy - then increase the weight."
Excellent information as always. I started using RPE on the Free Strongman Program by barbell medicine, and that is my favorite way to train. It's sort of evaluating you best from day to day and I have made more strength gains than percentage. Thanks for being such a good resource Alan!!!
This matches up a lot more with my intuitions about progressing in strength training before I heard that I HAD to put 5-10 pounds on the bar as per Rippetoe's teachings. I'm still a very inexperienced novice though so I should probably aim for something close to that linear progression given adequate sleep and nutrition.
My approach for accessory exercises has always been using the same weight but changing the parameters like so: 3 x 8, 4 x 8, 3 x 10, 5 x 4 x 10, 5 x 10, 3 x 12 then up the weight and back down to 3 x 8. I only move to the next level we I can confidently hit all the reps, sometimes I stay in a rage for several weeks other times just the first session using the "new" range, I also don't shy away from going back a step if needed. Accessory lifts don't need to be that complicated they are only there to help me increase the weight on my main lifts which I do use percentage base programming for because it works best for me, I've done RPE training before but it just becomes too comfortable to me and I feel like I cheat myself out of a good workout sometimes, even though RPE is meant to make you get the most out of the any given day it does allow you to get lazy. I've hit PR's before after a long day at work when I didn't even want to go to the gym purely because my spreadsheet said that is what I needed to hit that day. Back-off work and accessory work should be more chill and flexible.
I do the "own the weight" philosophy. Especially with deadlift. I do a rep pyramid that stays at 8 goes to one, my max, then back down to 8. And before I go up on my max, I go up on my beginning and ending weight. Once that feels good then I try to go up ten pounds on the max rep. Once that feels good I add 5/3 rep sets in between the 6/4/2 rep sets. I have had lower back and hip issues/pain since highschool and this has worked tremendously well for me. I don't know if it is working out scar tissue or what, but doing the own the weight stuff is great for people like me with pre existing joint issues and unstable areas of the body because it makes you have to double down on form. Then you get to go a little bit harder with power.
As a beginner who had pretty rough imbalances on sides and rather weak, I loved how it worked out for me at home. Initially I had just a 10 kg barbell and I could get pretty decent pump with just feeling out how the squat goes, trying to figure out when the muscles I desired lit up and if my motoric patterns were going correctly, if I was compensating or leaning to some direction or doing wiggles and whatnot. Same for deadlift. Kinda how you can get muscles hurting just from flexing. That activity already had some effects, but then I managed to buy some plates and I didn't care how much I could lift maximally, I just increased with the minimum increase I had access to every week. The first weeks I could have lifted more, but surprisingly enough it was also somewhat difficult to do sets of 10-12 on 20-30 kg or so. Similar to how you can get kinda fatigued from bodyweight squats alone. And the weights started to grow and I didn't feel like I was wrecked and needed deloading because of the calm pace. I probably added 5-10 kg per week and I also experienced new feelings. Like how the first rep starts to feel heavier instead of just the last reps burning, I started to learn my limits on what I can lift despite it feeling very heavy (previously I had no experience in lifting heavy things so relatively heavy felt pretty heavy in my head, then I learned that even if it feels very heavy, after practice of technique and progressing, I can actually lift that very heavy feeling thing no problem). It was an eye opener on ability and effort. Now I can do sets of 6-8 on a bar that feels like I should be flat on the floor when I shoulder it. I'm pretty happy how it worked out, slow start and all. Eventually I reached the point where I had to deload and couldn't do equal reps on the next weight or more reps on the same weight. Another thing I liked to do was that touch set where I did the warmups and went 5-10 kg above my actual set for 2-4 reps to see how heavy it feels and getting the neurological stimulus to new heavier weights before doing the actual training. In a sense prepping for the next week. In the end I liked all kinds of training methods, RIR was particularly practical. I loved the idea of percentage based training, but I hated it on practice. Why? Because calculating relative intensity and real intensity gave so impractical weights to load. Like 72, 77, 78, 83, 87, 88, 91, 96 kg. Tell me it's not dumb and cumbersome to load weights like that. I much rather do 5 kg increases, at least you can find those 2,5 kg chips somewhere in the gym. Hunting for 1,25 kg chips or god forbid trying to load something like 83 or 91 kg. The way I started gave confidence, gave consistency, gave different experiences, helped with my mobility and left me with a technique that I haven't had to correct with bigger weights either.
You know, I've developed some bad thought patterns without really realising it. I'm an intermediate lifter these days and I have started thinking things like "Don't waste your bulk - gotta do the sets and reps at the weight, regardless of RPE." and "If I don't train hard enough, I'll just get fat without making good gains". It's like I've unlearned some great lessons that got me to this point in the first place. Many of them came from you. "Diet induces growth. Training guides that growth". In the end, the best gains you'll make in a bulk are at a sustainable level of effort. Going too hard one week will just make future workouts worse. As long as the calories aren't too low, it's fine if performance wasn't as good as you hoped. I maintain a solid 300 surplus. All is well. A workout is just a utilisation of your current strength at a given RPE and set count. As long as you do that and you train all your muscles, the gains will be made. If strength keeps declining, but diet and sleep are good, you're probably training too hard. It's hard to LOSE strength if you're lifting at all and in a surplus (with reasonable food). 16 reps @ RPE 8 with weight I've once done 20+ reps with just as easily is a good workout, because last time, I did sets of 15. (5x16 chest-supported db rows with 32 kg/70.5 lb dumbbells, if you're interested)
Yeah Alan learned this hard way recently deadlifting. Just went too heavy, also did squats that day. Now I subscribe to the "double progressing" method. I work with a weight until I can do 8 reps and it feels like RPE 8. Next time I'll add weight and I better be able to pull that new weight 5 reps clean or it was too big of a jump. Basically trying to find the right "step" between moderate and hard weight
Lots of great advice in here. I think a visual representation of alot of the information would be beneficial to alot of viewers. That being said. My go to method for determining when I want to increase weight is whenever I can successfully complete 3 sets of 5 reps. So if I am deadlifting 335, once I get 3x5 I will do one extra week of 335 for 3x5 and then if I can show myself that I still have the strength I will move up to 345 (I'm only able to increment by 10lbs). I will do 3 AMRAP sets to set my baseline and work from there. Usually my first session at the new weight looks something like 4/3/2. Every now and again after a new weight jump I will test my 1RM to see where I'm at. Of course things don't always work out perfectly like this, but this IS my general strategy for increasing strength for myself. I think above all else, whatever people decide to do, they must be consistent about their strategy and their efforts.
My programming is usually 3 sets of 5. Adding 5 lb worked, but with squats, at about 1.5 times body weight, it started stalling. Now I'll stay at the same weight and try to get a slower eccentric, etc., before adding weight. Etiquette dictates that I can't be failing to the point of dumping the bar every week, so I have learned to rack the bar if rep 3 or 4 is too slow or awkward. Then stay at the same weight next week. Age 40, btw.
Going for some sort of RPE goal is probably good enough for quite a while. Sometimes you are strong as f, sometimes you aren't. First set may also be heavy and stop at 8 reps, your second set may be 10 reps, and the third may be 8 reps again. Push yourself and add weight then you often enough hit or exceed your rep goals.
Wow! Really good video Alan! I have watched many vids over the years, and done different programs related to rpe, progressive overload and such, but this is really the first time I have understood the concept of the effort coming first, and the weight second. Love this!
Alan you’ve inspired me to get back lifting after years out of the game. I’m lifting heavier and smarter than I ever have before. Thanks man for all you do, changing lives with this content!
I discovered Starting Strength as a beginner lifter and if I could have my time over I'd still do the SS programme but only for the first few months. Those first 2 to 3 months of adding 5lb to the bar were great. After that, it just wasn't working for me and I wasted another 6 or 8 weeks trying to flog the dead horse. Eventually I picked tried a couple of other programmes for specific lifts, messing about with reps and sets and progress started again. Oher's mileage may vary but I think the SS method of don't think about it, add 5lb and nut up is great until it isn't anymore.
This is why Alan is one of the GOATs of fitness content creators. He revisits previously held beliefs that are no longer useful and contextualizes them for a new audience. The dude is humble and has integrity.
💪💯🙌
Do you give every content creator a verbal BJ in the comments? I've been watching his videos for a while too, but I don't feel the need to verbally fellate him in the comments.
Totally agree-well put. I could listen to Alan talk about this stuff all day.
@@jd9119do you mention blowjobs every time you see a comment praising a content creator?
what was the ending though? why?
Can see the natural hypertrophy vibes rubbing off
OG NH when he recorded in the garage with all the equipment in the back
He has that effect
It's cracking me up. He's doing the same hand motions and talking with the same cadence. Definitely a well executed nod to NH.
All this needed was a “ELLO YOUCHUBE” at the start
Came to the comments to make this exact comment. First he starts bodybuilding, now he’s delivering training lectures based off notes on scrap paper.
At almost 70 (!!!!) I find your videos so motivating. And I'm glad you added that your advice applies to dumbbells, too, because that's where I'm at. Working my way to the barbell! Thanks!
I wanna be like you at 70 you should be very proud of yourself
You keeping kick ass mister!
Don't think of the barbell as superior, it's just a different tool. In some cases it's worse than dumbbells as it fixes your joints in place, which can be a bad idea.
Keep it up chief!
When I turned 70 (I am now over 80) - I found that i needed a little more rest between sets AND that is also when I Bought some 1 KG and 2.5 KG Olympic weights as well. If you find that you cannot at 5KG (Which is 11 pounds) - these may be more possible
This is a total coincidence. After i injured myself last year i've decided to do exactly what you said. Using the same weight till i felt comfortable enough and then go up. I've stopped counting sessions or being stresses cos "its taking too long" and.. it works, to my surprise, it works. It's a slow process, it might be frustrating at times, but i believe it's safer, smarter end overall more effective.
And out of the blue you drop a video saying this very thing.
I always thought you were one of the smartest guys around in the business but damn, this made me smile.
Thanks brother, keep it up. We need more people like you.
Cheers
I watched an old YT from Jordan and Austin and something clicked. Some people can push intensity and producing enough stimulus to add weight consistently. For others like myself, intensity just doesn’t work for very long and we do better with more volume with smaller, less frequent jumps. This seems to line up well with my choices of sports- I couldn’t run fast for 100m to save my life, but as distance increased I became a contender as a competitor. I got fed up with pushing the intensity and failing - it started to make training very stale and I began dreading each session. I’ve changed my training to 5x5 at a set weight until I find it getting easier then adding weight across-I think your idea of adding weight in to the last set initially is a good way to add intensity gradually so I’m going to do that.
I'm like you. Try doing AMRAP on your last sets. Don't let 5 stop you - last week I accidently hit 13 at rpe10. I will now add weight to my whole working set.
@@urgamecshk funnily enough I’ve just programmed that for my dumbbell sitting shoulder press. 16K x 6 14K x 12 12K AMRAP
@@nockianlifter661 what's a K
@@urgamecshk Kilogram (lazy version of Si unit).
For those who don’t know:
1 Kilogram (Kilo) = 2.2 Pounds
My general guideline has been to do a weight at least three times in my desired rep range. Perceived effort has always been hard for me because I work a physical job and have wildly different energy levels when I lift depending on how hard the day was. I had recently been thinking about increasing that to 5-8 times before increasing because I've been feeling a bit beat up lately.
I Totally feel u on that one. I also have a Physical and yeah depending on how hard my work day was it translates to the gym
This was so helpful. I’m a post menopausal lifter and I injured myself recently on a percentage based program because I pushed too hard, determined to lift what was prescribed in the program. My body simply doesn’t respond like it used to and I felt very encouraged by your advice on how to approach adding weight.
Yeah don't do that. Lift what is hard, abd increase the weight when it gets less hard. It took him a while to come around to that point but he got there. Also, give yourself enough time to recover. Programs designed for younger lifters usually don't provide enough recovery time.
Setting a repetition range makes dealing with RIR/RPe a lot easier. Example: 4 sets of 8-12 reps, 2RIR. You just can't fail shooting for a RIR goal if you have the freedom to choose when exactly to end the set
I’ve thought about this but this makes it more complicated to apply rpe, ill say youll need te feel fairly confident in your rpe assessment to use this method
@@daniel1RM I use the bar speed to determine RIR. Bar speed can be seen and thus "measured" better than a feeling of something being heavy. Considering the person is lifting the concentric part of the movement with all the speed they can at the moment
Really enjoyed this.Track effort first, weight second.
I think this is why i like greyskull of all the lps because the amrap autoregulates the perceived difficulty
Just add 5 lbs. Shoooo Wee
Changing the term progressive overloading to progressive loading would be a great change to exercise ideology. I'm sure this would keep people participating more in resistance training without them having the looming darkness of not making specified overload resistances in their program.
This is great information Alan and feel so glad I found you and the program. I started with the bar and 100lbs and now can deadlift and squat over 200lbs and getting closer to 300lbs in these lifts. My press is still weaker but getting there.
This is my own personal rundown:
Novice: 5lb per session
Intermediate: 5lb every other session
Late Intermediate: 5lb per week
Advanced: 5lb every 2 weeks or less frequently
All assuming it's a 3x/week full body routine
For certain movements like The Press, the number is 2.5lb instead of fahve
If the frequency in one tier stops working, move to the next tier
I like thinking of it this way since it's agnostic to vague or unreliable metrics like RPE, RIR, percentages, absolute weight on the bar, relative strength compared to bodyweight, months or years of training experience, etc. It's also more resilient to inconsistent training. Not much to think about, just: If you stop being able to add weight that often, add it less often
Coach Greg's "HARDER THAN THE LAST TIME" still haunts my dreams till this day...
Effort comes before weight. This was really helpful. Thank you! I've been adding 5 pounds to the bar every workout, which has been great, but I ran into a few problems here and there. I'm going to apply this new philosophy now. Thank you again!
I've done the same back loading for adding reps to successive sets on rep progression programs. For instance in a 4 X 12-15 progression, Don't do 15 on any of the earlier sets until I've accomplished 15 on the last set. Then go for 14, 14, 15, 15. Etc. This works well and doesn't beat me up. Thanks Alan.
Alan, this is one of the best discussions on increasing weight I've ever seen on YT - thank you!
It's so vague for me and different dependant on a sleep the night before or even if you have a worse day at work. I add whenever I just feel that I can do more. I can only DL 320 and bench 205 so I guess most people don't care about how I do it anyway, but I got a 3 minute rest period right now so here we are.
Such a good point about needing weight for technique. Nothing teaches you the most efficient way to move than something heavy.
Great way of thinking about this - "master the weight"... I am definitely taking this to the gym. S/F brother.
one of the things that elevated my gym sessions was learning how to get to failure. I used to be extremely scared of going anywhere close to failure. the first sign of my muscles getting fatigued and I would call the set, and thinking back I was probably 5ish reps away from any "useful"/"grindy" reps (so way more than 5 reps away from absolute failure).
not only that, I was also increasing weight very cowardly. it felt like I was spinning wheels... cause I was.
after watching several useful channels like natural hypertrophy, geoffrey verity schofield, basement bodybuilding and such, I felt like I wasn't pushing myself hard enough in my sets.
so I started to amrap my first working weight. whether it was 8-12 or 4-8, I would take that first set past the top end. seeing as how I was sandbagging previously, I kept getting 2 to 3 reps above the top end and from there I increased weight like a manic, 10 to 20 kg jumps depending on movement.
I've come to a point where I now can't do that, and so I don't amrap my first set anymore... but I do still shoot for the top end. and in some sessions where I'm jumping up to a new weight, I have hit the top end of the rep range in the first set. obviously cause I'm not prepared my rep drop off is more drastic, but my god is it a good ego itch to smash a new weight jump. it takes me about 2 to 3 sessions to fill out the rep range. (for anyone wondering I don't do sets across, I let rep degradation happen...so 3x8-12 would end at 12 10 8 not 12 12 12)
edit: 1 more thing. be comfortable with repeating weights, reps, and sessions. this is something I do when I have filled out a rep range, but the effort in the last two or even all the sets was way too high that I am not comfortable that increasing weights is the variable I should increase. so like Alan says around 16:00 I repeat the same weight with the same reps and sets so that the RIR is decreased in that next session and then I'm confident to increase weight
Thanks Alan for talking about this subject. I will give your progression strategy a try in my future workouts. I also love this fireside chat style of video. I hope you continue to do them.
The home gym is sick sir!
Wow, your hypertrophy program is working like a charm!
Thought exactly the same goddamn i want me some of that
@@iambanana272o for it! I'm running a program inspired by the one prescribed by NH and I've never seen such gains in my life! I'm not an advanced lifter by any mean but I've practiced resistance training, on and off, for 20 years and to me, nothing works better that the evolving rep range loading approach advocated by Natural Hypertrophy.
Yes i'm constantly programming that for clients, it's so great
This is great information and I continue to appreciate seeing how Alan has grown wiser and more mature over the years, in addition to becoming more knowledgeable. Yet, I can’t help but wonder how long he has felt trapped in a prison of his own making with that outro gimmick. 😂
Thank you, Alan. I've watched you intelligently ask the question in the old SS video, and I've seen them laugh at the mere suggestion.
After a year of SS, my complaint has to do with constantly hurtling into insanity with a weight first approach. Never fully close to being accomplished @a given weight before the inevitable failed attempt and reset strategy.
Additionally, I believe there's validity in the idea of not being on point one day, wrecking a progression, both on the bar and in the mental game.
This is why I continue to listen to you as a balance against SS, and I must say, You bring receipts. Thank you, Sir, for all that you contribute to the open minds that work hard at working hard! Keep up the good work!
For an older lifter this is gold!!
Thank you for the re-enforcing the message.
The last 4 minutes of this video is solid gold. Now that the weight has become heavy for me, I'll be modifying how and when I add weight.
Always looking ways to train smarter and safer, this video was a great find!
Thank you Alan!
Quality stuff Alan. This is the type of content myself and I'm sure, many others love to see. It felt like I sat down with a personal trainer and got exactly the info I was looking for. Thank you sir. 👍
I struggle pushing myself too hard and getting injured or burnt out. This is the approach I need for consistency 💪🏻
I wish this guy could coach me 😁 I love this explanation and although in familiar with some of this information, Alan always seems to make it very understandable and achievable at the same time. Also a great reminder that I need to focus more to help hit my goals, thanks for all the info Alan 🤘🤘
You would not regret it. I am fortunate to have trained with Alan and he really helped me with correct technique for deadlift and squat. Plus he has the most awesome gym for hard core lifting! Most gyms have one maybe two squat racks and no deadlifting platforms. Untamed Strength has everything you could imagine in a serious iron gym.
Was considering visiting Sacramento also, visiting all the SacBoy gyms.
You're a god damn sage wizard of fitness. The sheer wisdom that you communicate to us is god tier. A huge amount of my success in the gym as a "non traditional" individual with significant health issues has been due to you. I use to feel like i wasn't really a man if i wasn't making it to 350 by the 3rd month of novice training like basically all programs aimed at young men teach. I tried to do 5 lbs a week every week and injured myself over and over again until i quit, over and over again. Eventually i just gave up on and program and went as slowly as my body required but it still felt wrong since i could never fit into a program. A lot of the things in this video are things i had to learn myself since nobody was talking about it, but I'm so glad you've made this. Not only does it validate the effort I've put in to this point, but some other younger person in my previous position might be able to learn these things without all the injuries i went through. Your content is amazing and you are an immesurably valuable individual to have in this community. Thank you
I used to follow a Guru's Gospel for long and I kept getting injured. I got confused and I quit. Years later, I tried alternative workouts with great success. My bad for being so naïve. Now I'm older, I have learnt from my mistakes.
I’ve been watching fitness content from a good bit of the fitness community for almost a decade now and this is definitely one of the best videos I’ve seen 🤙🏼
Some useful & relevant points here. I can relate to some of these methods used. As an example i would aim to get 3 Sets of 6 reps (minimum) with 101kg on Flat Bench, 1st set, i get 6 with 2 RIR, then 6 & 7 reps on 3rd set, the next time I do the same workout, I might do 7, 7, & 6. The goal is to get 3 smooth sets of 8 before I add on 1 or 2kg. Very little straining & no bouncing the bar or raising my buttocks of the bench to get numbers.
You've always been one of my go-to guys from the very beginning of my fitness journey, Alan Thrall.
I actually injured my back recently due to just blindly keep adding weight to the bar, simply because i could move the bar. After that i had to realize my bracing sucks and i have to get better at it. From that moment on i reduced the weight significantly and worked on my bracing.
Now if i can't keep my body very tight and braced with a weight, i do not lift that weight. Simple as that. Because bracing is a bit tricky aswell. If you are not barcing properly you wont really notice it instantly in the mirror. You will probably do things like hyperextend your back during squats and deadlifts which will look like ok form in the mirror. This is a recipe for injury.
Starting Strength was solid for me. For like 9 months to a year. Great way to get going. But i think we wll agree that it won't last forever. Hence rhe "starting" part.
Everything works when you’re starting
Love the advice to increase weight on the last set first! I have gotten stuck many times with less reps in my last set because I increase weight. Especially with dumbbells, where going up can mean a 5-10% jump
I'm learning this at the moment. Exercises would just feel more difficult over time as I added weight and I never felt comfortable with or fully in control of the barbell . Now I'm sticking with the same weight but gradually making it more difficult as it feels easier through pauses and slowing the tempo and then adding weight. I'm using RIR and once I focused on that rather than the weight it helped me to listen to how my body is responding more and stop beating my self up by forcing myself to lift more than I'm ready for just for the sake of progression.
The explanation of weight first versus effort was a really simple way of explaining. I will remember that. I always struggle to explain the concept of getting stronger and then the weight on the bar matching your adaptations.
Have only been lifting for 2 years and knew this made sense inherently but have never heard it explained so well. I tried programmes like 5/3/1 and just couldn't get the linear progression to continue like I wanted. Since the start of 2023, I have focused on picking a weight, pushing as hard as I can with intensity until I am comfortable with that weight before increasing the load and I have never seen gains as good as this. Granted, I'm still new but intensity is definitely something I'm prioritising over the objective number on the bar. Well done at explaining that Alan, you make great content.
Oooh I needed that! It like a switch in thinking: instead of feeling like I'm stuck at a certain weight because I fail or see my form getting sloppy when I increase, I should focus on the effort and assessing whether that's changing. I've been stuck at certain weights but also don't feel comfortable just adding weight because I'm mostly scared of my form being shite and injuring myself. Instead of beating myself up I should focus more on what you said.
Thank you! I'm 41 been lifting since my teens. Basically heard it all and ignored most of it. This however is amazing!
Coach ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤is pure cosmic energy
Fatigue from work affects my reps alot up and down depending on how much I was running around that day. It was really worrying me seeing my bench "degress", not hitting the same reps I did last week.
Turns out I wasn't getting weaker I was just tired from lifting and carrying things all day. Once it dawned on me I stopped panicking about constant improvement, I just go to the gym and lift in and around my working weight depending on how tired I am. It's fun now and not stressful.
ru jacked yet
All of this reminds me of Dan John's Easy Strength program - pick a weight where you're not struggling, do two sets of five reps. When they feel light, increase the weight. Apparently it's lead to good gains for most people who try it.
Step loading is what ive heard this type off training called , this is how i train , im not a great responder to training and i find this works wonders for me , for example say i start at around 70 % 1rm weight do 3 sets 5 reps then slowly over say 3 to 6 months add reps and sets till i reach around 5 or 6 sets × 10 reps then work down the sets and reps while adding weight till down to 5x3 reps or even 3x3 , deload and rinse repeat with more starting weight
Bro, the answer that you gave in this video... I have been doing it for the past couple years haha
I'm glad to hear that I'm doing it ok
This is valuable stuff here. On the strength side of course we have SS that encourages 5lbs a workout , but from a hypertrophy perspective DC training and similar programmes so heavily emphasise beating the logbook. This mentality, unchecked, can lead to tempo and form degradation to where yes, you are lifting more weight, but it isnt necessarily indicative of getting bigger and stronger.
Really owning a given weight at a given rep range before progressing can in and of itself be a method of progression.
Im gonna try this Alan. You have brilliantly addressed a problem many of us have had who have done starting strength, the problem of hitting the brick wall and getting stuck. It makes sense to let recovery and adaptations to catch up while still stimulating the muscle before adding weight. Thank you very much for posting this
NLP is easy. If u hit the brick wall early your not doing the program correctly. Eat sleep and recovery . Sometimes an extra minute makes a world of difference . Try smaller weight increases such as 2.5 vs 5 lbs. if all those things are done and still hitting a wall then it is time to modify the sets and reps ….the devil is in the details of programming . Frankly the greatest obstacle to weight training and failing are the following ….improper sleep , diet, recovery between sets and over ambitious programming .
Dude, you just have a way of perfectly articulating ideas that have been itching me for a while. Thanks for that!
This is pretty much the story of my training life. From what Rippetoe says is the blessed holy truth of strength training, to what Wendler says is one good method, to what I feel like I need to do in order to progress and not break in half, which is sort of "5/3/1/12+-/".
I did add weight every week like clockwork, and suddenly one day I was weaker. The past few weeks had been a grind, but I've managed to adapt all the way up until that point, it blew my mind that I could go backwards without warning. It's quite a learning experience, going HARDER THAN LAST TIME (in high voice) isn't sustainable. Learned how to wave load, step load, deload, and pick up on cues from the body, and never force it. I'm not a machine.
Love the breakdown. Haven't been lifting for long, but through trial and error I've come up with my own formula.
I have a slightly different way of doing things than "normal convention" - mainly out of the fact that I get so fed up with lifting the same weight for every "working" set.
I use the following steps/rules for myself with primary lifts that utilize multiple muscle groups (isolated muscles are treated a little differently):
First set - roughly 50% of max - for somewhere in between 15 and 20 reps.
Each set after then sees a weight increase from the prior set - jumps of either 5 or 10 pounds per set depending on my strength level with the exercise. Rep goal is to match the prior set, or as close to it.
I do this until I can no longer reach 8 reps.
Oh - and I only give myself 30-45 seconds between sets.
Then, it's on to the next exercise.
Being relatively new to lifting, I very quickly got tired of the tried and tested warmup, working set splits with each exercise and started to feel jaded about going to lift.
As for progression - if I can get to 15 with reasonable form on any given exercise, then in my next session my starting set is at what had previously been set 2 and I follow the same ladder.
I've seen more climbs in what I can lift with good form on my harder sets using this method - and since I get more enjoyment out of being able to lift more weight safely and with good technique than I do from any potential aesthetic look, it's a win-win for me. I do seem to be gaining strength quicker than I was under a more "traditional" format and that was my goal from lifting ... to be able to be better at things that I need to take care of. Lift this, move that, work on this, cut that tree, etc.
This is great presentation. For me RPE was hard to gauge at first and is not so linear. The easy , medium, is a great intro. Human beings are not linear. I have had days where my usual RPE 8 feels like a 6 and added more weight and then there are days where just don't have it mentally and the RPE 8 is a lower weight than usual.
hi alan. i just discovered you. been binge watching your videos since. i really appreciate this video as a beginner. i learned so much. thank u! also, im a fellow ex-long hair dude. just wanna say your flow was majestic af.
I'm 42 and embarked on my Starting Strength journey about 3 months ago. I have to say, what I've learned to do is very similar to what you prescribe. I don't so much pay attention to RIR. I just do my three sets of 5, but on the last set, I do a plus set. If I'm giving max effort (which I always do on my last set) then it's at least questionable if not doubtful that I could actually get another rep. So, that's my working weight. Next session, I do the same. When I'm hitting 6 or 7 reps my last set, then it's time to add 5 pounds. If I feel like I'm kinda stuck at a certain weight, I'll start adding a 4th set for that exercise...or I'll take an extra day of rest (depending on what my joints are telling me would best serve me). I'm a small guy, built with a frame and proportions very similar to Bruce Lee. I'm 5'7" and when I was like 20 years old and 7-8% body fat, I weighed around 135. I now weigh about 175, but I'd say close to 15 lbs of that is vodka and cottage cheese around the middle. Started with squats at 165 and now at 180. OHP was at 90 and now 100. Bench started at 135 and is now 160, and DL started at 185 and is now 260. These are not my 1RM, btw. At my age and without a spotter, I'm not trying to go for maxes. Those are my workset weights at 5 reps. Nothing to write home about, but I've definitely made progress and am feeling stronger and super motivated. Also been adding chins/pull-ups and/or cable rows to every session.
My methods are unorthodox af.
I work within my means. I’m a firm believer in the concept of showing up is more important than maximum efficiency. I’ve been exploring high volume, low intensity. I have a 62lb kettlebell to work with. I’ve been doing 10 sets of 10 sumo deadlifts with this weight every day for over a year. I’ve also incorporated some “bro splits”/body building stuff every other day consisting of :
Chest and Heavy Back Day
Light Leg Day
Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, Forearm Day
Heavy Leg and Light Back Day
For those days I have dumbbells sets from 1lbs up to 30lbs, Indian Clubs, Resistance bands and a sandbag
Part of this journey has been rehabbing my back and some other issues with joints and other health issues and fighting some demons
I’m saving up for a proper barbell.
My goals are mainly to have sturdiness, strength and endurance. I often will also “grease the groove” and try to just lift train randomly in between my normal routine. I like to do 10-50 reps at a time with at least 4 working sets. I’m surely a weakling in the power lifting community but I’m well on my way and I’m building off a foundation of 10x10 daily minimum.
My methods are born from lack of motivation and discipline and desire for a consistent regimen. I had trouble staying on track so I decided a daily routine was right. Other daily metrics include 3 miles per day walked and 3000+ calories burned daily.
Eventually I want to add to my daily minimum.
I’m interested in your opinion of Pavel Tsatsouline and the concept of high intensity days every other day placed on top of a daily minimum.
I agree with the concept of go until it feels too easy. Also I experiment with drop sets and mixing up weights and techniques and splitting things up. Example: 1 set shoulders straight into 1 set biceps then triceps, forearms, repeat x4 etc
Thank you for this video. After watching I realized that this whole time I was accidentally doing everything right! I have grown a lot since the start of my journey, makes sense!
I am a simple man, RIR0 to RIR1 (RPE9-10), ideally I want to hit a point where I can complete the last rep but I definitely will hit momentary muscle failure on the next rep or the rep after, that range. Once I start hitting a large amount of reps on the third set at RIR1 I'll up weight (a lot of reps is something in the range of 7-10 reps, I tend to target 3-6, anything outside that range is just being conservative with slapping more weight on). Once I can do 3 good sets at relatively high volume I know for a *fact* that I can add more weight, but I also use fairly chunky weight increases because I cannot be arsed to add tiny granular increases more regularly so my loading tends to increase in 5 or 10kg increments.
I just like make the beginner start with the bar alone, add 2.5lbs per traning (I own the 1.25lbs plates). They'll keep at that until they get to a point where they're indeed getting close to perceived faillure. And in order to provide good training sessions, I'll add 4~6 isolated exercises for different muscle groups. I usually have the compounds for around 3x8 and the isolated going for 3x15.
Usually in a month I'll be able to access how well the beginner is progressing and I'll be able to give proper strenght and growth stimulum.
In most cases I found out people are satisfied not really training for strenght after acchieving an personal goal (like the 1plate overhead, 2 bench, 3 squat, 4 DL that many do). But even for those, they'll have learned other stuff and many have ended up enjoying a bodybuilding focused workout. So I end up keeping the student for a longer time, giving me more profit and him a longer and healthier experience.
Of course, each person is their own, there will be multiple different cases that require special attention and if you're in doubt and searching videos to find what to do, just save some money and hire a coach for a couple of weeks, I guarantee you that if you have a professional on your side for 2 weeks, the knowledge gained will follow you for at least 3 months, where I recommend doing it again as you grow in your "lifting carrer", I also suggest going for different coaches, this way you absorb more knowledge from different people.
I've been thinking about this for a couple of months now, really glad that this video popped up in my feed! Great tips that will have me restructuring my workouts! 😎
I start with 3x8. When I can do 3x10 then I up the weight and fall back to 3x8. I've also done 3x8 but added weight on the last set if I feel good, as you said. Either method is appropriate. Your body will tell you when it's ok, otherwise you'll get hurt and then you know you pushed it too far. As you get older your progression will also slow down. Enjoy the journey more than the destination.
Bro, my head just exploded! What a great take and perspective for viewing progress! Really looking forward to implementing this.
I’ve done both the +5lbs and RPE. I now exclusively do RPE. Especially with upper body lifts, it’s just not feasible to add 5 or 2.5 or 1.25 ever week. I routinely have to do the same weight 2 or 3 weeks in a row before it matches the effort. A straight linear progression often results in adding weight too quickly and missing it or getting injured.
I simply add weight when I exceed my chosen rep range .
For example, if I am doing what I call my "strength protocol" (3 to 6 reps), when I reach 6 reps, I increase the weight. If I can't go 3 reps, I reduce the weight.
Sometimes, I add weight (simply 5 lbs) multiple times a session. More often, I'll reduce the weight multiple times typically, on the 4th or 5th set .
This reminds me of something that Pavel Tsatsouline once said. Paraphrasing: "pick a weight, do it for 5 reps, then repeat it until it feels easy - then increase the weight."
This is why you're videos us in my top 3
Really smart, your advice is getting wiser as you get older. Thanks for all you do.
Excellent video brother
Excellent information as always. I started using RPE on the Free Strongman Program by barbell medicine, and that is my favorite way to train. It's sort of evaluating you best from day to day and I have made more strength gains than percentage.
Thanks for being such a good resource Alan!!!
For people wondering, GVS means Geoffrey Verity Schofield, another one of the natty bodybuilding youtubers. Def worth checking out.
This video has solved tons of problems, thank you sir
This matches up a lot more with my intuitions about progressing in strength training before I heard that I HAD to put 5-10 pounds on the bar as per Rippetoe's teachings. I'm still a very inexperienced novice though so I should probably aim for something close to that linear progression given adequate sleep and nutrition.
Focus on rep ranges. I like 5-7 reps for bench. If I can do 8, that means it't time to add weight. For squats I like a little higher reps, maybe 8-10.
Some of the best advice I have ever heard.
My approach for accessory exercises has always been using the same weight but changing the parameters like so: 3 x 8, 4 x 8, 3 x 10, 5 x 4 x 10, 5 x 10, 3 x 12 then up the weight and back down to 3 x 8. I only move to the next level we I can confidently hit all the reps, sometimes I stay in a rage for several weeks other times just the first session using the "new" range, I also don't shy away from going back a step if needed. Accessory lifts don't need to be that complicated they are only there to help me increase the weight on my main lifts which I do use percentage base programming for because it works best for me, I've done RPE training before but it just becomes too comfortable to me and I feel like I cheat myself out of a good workout sometimes, even though RPE is meant to make you get the most out of the any given day it does allow you to get lazy. I've hit PR's before after a long day at work when I didn't even want to go to the gym purely because my spreadsheet said that is what I needed to hit that day. Back-off work and accessory work should be more chill and flexible.
I do the "own the weight" philosophy. Especially with deadlift. I do a rep pyramid that stays at 8 goes to one, my max, then back down to 8. And before I go up on my max, I go up on my beginning and ending weight. Once that feels good then I try to go up ten pounds on the max rep. Once that feels good I add 5/3 rep sets in between the 6/4/2 rep sets.
I have had lower back and hip issues/pain since highschool and this has worked tremendously well for me. I don't know if it is working out scar tissue or what, but doing the own the weight stuff is great for people like me with pre existing joint issues and unstable areas of the body because it makes you have to double down on form. Then you get to go a little bit harder with power.
like a breath of fresh air on the first spring day! learned a lot thank you for still doing this !!
As a beginner who had pretty rough imbalances on sides and rather weak, I loved how it worked out for me at home. Initially I had just a 10 kg barbell and I could get pretty decent pump with just feeling out how the squat goes, trying to figure out when the muscles I desired lit up and if my motoric patterns were going correctly, if I was compensating or leaning to some direction or doing wiggles and whatnot. Same for deadlift. Kinda how you can get muscles hurting just from flexing. That activity already had some effects, but then I managed to buy some plates and I didn't care how much I could lift maximally, I just increased with the minimum increase I had access to every week. The first weeks I could have lifted more, but surprisingly enough it was also somewhat difficult to do sets of 10-12 on 20-30 kg or so. Similar to how you can get kinda fatigued from bodyweight squats alone. And the weights started to grow and I didn't feel like I was wrecked and needed deloading because of the calm pace. I probably added 5-10 kg per week and I also experienced new feelings. Like how the first rep starts to feel heavier instead of just the last reps burning, I started to learn my limits on what I can lift despite it feeling very heavy (previously I had no experience in lifting heavy things so relatively heavy felt pretty heavy in my head, then I learned that even if it feels very heavy, after practice of technique and progressing, I can actually lift that very heavy feeling thing no problem). It was an eye opener on ability and effort. Now I can do sets of 6-8 on a bar that feels like I should be flat on the floor when I shoulder it. I'm pretty happy how it worked out, slow start and all. Eventually I reached the point where I had to deload and couldn't do equal reps on the next weight or more reps on the same weight. Another thing I liked to do was that touch set where I did the warmups and went 5-10 kg above my actual set for 2-4 reps to see how heavy it feels and getting the neurological stimulus to new heavier weights before doing the actual training. In a sense prepping for the next week.
In the end I liked all kinds of training methods, RIR was particularly practical. I loved the idea of percentage based training, but I hated it on practice. Why? Because calculating relative intensity and real intensity gave so impractical weights to load. Like 72, 77, 78, 83, 87, 88, 91, 96 kg. Tell me it's not dumb and cumbersome to load weights like that. I much rather do 5 kg increases, at least you can find those 2,5 kg chips somewhere in the gym. Hunting for 1,25 kg chips or god forbid trying to load something like 83 or 91 kg.
The way I started gave confidence, gave consistency, gave different experiences, helped with my mobility and left me with a technique that I haven't had to correct with bigger weights either.
Furiously takes notes
Thank you Mr. Thrall. Hope you and the family are doing well.
You know, I've developed some bad thought patterns without really realising it. I'm an intermediate lifter these days and I have started thinking things like "Don't waste your bulk - gotta do the sets and reps at the weight, regardless of RPE." and "If I don't train hard enough, I'll just get fat without making good gains". It's like I've unlearned some great lessons that got me to this point in the first place. Many of them came from you. "Diet induces growth. Training guides that growth". In the end, the best gains you'll make in a bulk are at a sustainable level of effort. Going too hard one week will just make future workouts worse. As long as the calories aren't too low, it's fine if performance wasn't as good as you hoped. I maintain a solid 300 surplus. All is well. A workout is just a utilisation of your current strength at a given RPE and set count. As long as you do that and you train all your muscles, the gains will be made. If strength keeps declining, but diet and sleep are good, you're probably training too hard. It's hard to LOSE strength if you're lifting at all and in a surplus (with reasonable food). 16 reps @ RPE 8 with weight I've once done 20+ reps with just as easily is a good workout, because last time, I did sets of 15. (5x16 chest-supported db rows with 32 kg/70.5 lb dumbbells, if you're interested)
Invaluable information from years of wisdom and put concisely , exactly what I needed to hear. Thanks Alan.
Brother - give me the bottom line up front. The last nugget was the best bit of the whole video.
That’s just a genius idea
I would say as often as possible without compromising form
Yeah Alan learned this hard way recently deadlifting. Just went too heavy, also did squats that day. Now I subscribe to the "double progressing" method. I work with a weight until I can do 8 reps and it feels like RPE 8. Next time I'll add weight and I better be able to pull that new weight 5 reps clean or it was too big of a jump. Basically trying to find the right "step" between moderate and hard weight
Great video, I struggle with this, thanks
TAC-TILE feedback 👌
This video resolved so many of my doubts. Thank you very much sir.
Lots of great advice in here. I think a visual representation of alot of the information would be beneficial to alot of viewers.
That being said. My go to method for determining when I want to increase weight is whenever I can successfully complete 3 sets of 5 reps. So if I am deadlifting 335, once I get 3x5 I will do one extra week of 335 for 3x5 and then if I can show myself that I still have the strength I will move up to 345 (I'm only able to increment by 10lbs). I will do 3 AMRAP sets to set my baseline and work from there. Usually my first session at the new weight looks something like 4/3/2. Every now and again after a new weight jump I will test my 1RM to see where I'm at.
Of course things don't always work out perfectly like this, but this IS my general strategy for increasing strength for myself.
I think above all else, whatever people decide to do, they must be consistent about their strategy and their efforts.
My programming is usually 3 sets of 5. Adding 5 lb worked, but with squats, at about 1.5 times body weight, it started stalling. Now I'll stay at the same weight and try to get a slower eccentric, etc., before adding weight. Etiquette dictates that I can't be failing to the point of dumping the bar every week, so I have learned to rack the bar if rep 3 or 4 is too slow or awkward. Then stay at the same weight next week. Age 40, btw.
Going for some sort of RPE goal is probably good enough for quite a while. Sometimes you are strong as f, sometimes you aren't. First set may also be heavy and stop at 8 reps, your second set may be 10 reps, and the third may be 8 reps again. Push yourself and add weight then you often enough hit or exceed your rep goals.
Wow! Really good video Alan! I have watched many vids over the years, and done different programs related to rpe, progressive overload and such, but this is really the first time I have understood the concept of the effort coming first, and the weight second. Love this!
Thank you Alan.
Great advice about using RPE-RIR scale during resistance training
I haven't watched him in 2 years. He looks so different without his beard and long hair
Alan you’ve inspired me to get back lifting after years out of the game. I’m lifting heavier and smarter than I ever have before. Thanks man for all you do, changing lives with this content!
I discovered Starting Strength as a beginner lifter and if I could have my time over I'd still do the SS programme but only for the first few months. Those first 2 to 3 months of adding 5lb to the bar were great. After that, it just wasn't working for me and I wasted another 6 or 8 weeks trying to flog the dead horse. Eventually I picked tried a couple of other programmes for specific lifts, messing about with reps and sets and progress started again. Oher's mileage may vary but I think the SS method of don't think about it, add 5lb and nut up is great until it isn't anymore.
Hey Alan, just wanted to say cheers. This is exactly the video I needed today, and there's a good helping of wisdom in it.
My sense of SS and 5x5 is that they both work well for some individuals, particularly newbs and younger athletes (
Thank you Alan!!! ❤