Weight Training: Avoid Plateaus in Your Training Program for Muscle Building or General Fitness (part 3)
Volume, Intensity and Overload Explained
With the countless ways in which the words volume and intensity are thrown around in the muscle magazines and popular books on weight training and fitness, the lack of consensus on exactly what these terms mean is not surprising. So you had a tough workout- was it high-intensity? or was high- volume? The formal definition of training volume is the overall amount of work that was performed during the workout; take all the sets that you performed and multiply the weights x reps; add these numbers together and you have your overall training volume. Intensity is defined by the percentage of your one-rep max in which the exercises were performed; the higher percentage of one-rep max a set is performed at, the higher the intensity. It should then make sense that there is an intrinsic equilibrium between volume and intensity. If you are performing heavier sets at a greater percentage of your one rep-max, then you will necessarily be doing less repetitions and the overall volume will go down. Like-wise, with a ton of sets and reps we will not be able to train as heavy-volume increases and intensity drops.
The cycling of volume and intensity keeps the gains coming by keeping the CNS off-balance. Our CNS is lazy by nature-the first time we perform and exercise we use the most muscle-each successive time the exercise is performed the CNS “learns” how to contract that muscle more efficiently by the way in which it recruits the muscle fibers to contract. Many strength gains, for this reason, are due to the CNS becoming more efficient, rather than the muscle actually growing. When the CNS becomes more efficient, the same weights, sets, and reps that caused an overload in previous workouts will fail to do so indefinitely. Hence the fundamental rule of overload: In order to keep the gains coming we must either increase the intensity of the stimulus (use progressively heavier weights), or change the stimulus all together by:
The most profound way to change the nature of the training stimulus is to change volume/intensity of the workout- in this way we are ensuring that any adaptations are due to muscular gains rather than a CNS that has learned how to do more work with less fatigue on the muscle. Unfortunately, there is no magical formula to accomplish this, but as a general rule of thumb, workouts should be organized into two phases of training lasting 4-6 weeks. Phase I is the higher volume workout which lasts 4-6 weeks, then after a one-week "break-in" period, begin increasing the weights and intensity while dropping training volume during phase II training. Additionally, within the individual phases of your workout, changes in exercises themselves, rep tempo, angle of execution, etc should be further utilized to keep your body guessing (and gaining). Most any popular training system is compatible with this; during the high-volume phase "German volume" training works extremely well, while any high-intensity protocol such as "heavy duty" or otherwise will work great.
So now you know the "secret" to making muscle building is really just intelligent program design. Think twice before jumping on the latest fad-workout bandwagon or wasting time by trying out the latest workout in a magazine, as described by a pro-bodybuilder. The best training protocol is dynamic and custom-designed to the goals, lifestyle and schedule of the trainee. While many people respond great to a new training program, lack of a planned cycling of volume and intensity to keep the workouts productive leads inevitably to a training plateau. Those who have been and continue to be successful in this game have become expert at manipulating their weight training and fitness workouts to keep the progress coming.
With the countless ways in which the words volume and intensity are thrown around in the muscle magazines and popular books on weight training and fitness, the lack of consensus on exactly what these terms mean is not surprising. So you had a tough workout- was it high-intensity? or was high- volume? The formal definition of training volume is the overall amount of work that was performed during the workout; take all the sets that you performed and multiply the weights x reps; add these numbers together and you have your overall training volume. Intensity is defined by the percentage of your one-rep max in which the exercises were performed; the higher percentage of one-rep max a set is performed at, the higher the intensity. It should then make sense that there is an intrinsic equilibrium between volume and intensity. If you are performing heavier sets at a greater percentage of your one rep-max, then you will necessarily be doing less repetitions and the overall volume will go down. Like-wise, with a ton of sets and reps we will not be able to train as heavy-volume increases and intensity drops.
The cycling of volume and intensity keeps the gains coming by keeping the CNS off-balance. Our CNS is lazy by nature-the first time we perform and exercise we use the most muscle-each successive time the exercise is performed the CNS “learns” how to contract that muscle more efficiently by the way in which it recruits the muscle fibers to contract. Many strength gains, for this reason, are due to the CNS becoming more efficient, rather than the muscle actually growing. When the CNS becomes more efficient, the same weights, sets, and reps that caused an overload in previous workouts will fail to do so indefinitely. Hence the fundamental rule of overload: In order to keep the gains coming we must either increase the intensity of the stimulus (use progressively heavier weights), or change the stimulus all together by:
- implementing different exercises
- changing the angle or rep-tempo of existing exercises
- (most importantly) changing in volume and intensity over time in a planned, systematic manner
The most profound way to change the nature of the training stimulus is to change volume/intensity of the workout- in this way we are ensuring that any adaptations are due to muscular gains rather than a CNS that has learned how to do more work with less fatigue on the muscle. Unfortunately, there is no magical formula to accomplish this, but as a general rule of thumb, workouts should be organized into two phases of training lasting 4-6 weeks. Phase I is the higher volume workout which lasts 4-6 weeks, then after a one-week "break-in" period, begin increasing the weights and intensity while dropping training volume during phase II training. Additionally, within the individual phases of your workout, changes in exercises themselves, rep tempo, angle of execution, etc should be further utilized to keep your body guessing (and gaining). Most any popular training system is compatible with this; during the high-volume phase "German volume" training works extremely well, while any high-intensity protocol such as "heavy duty" or otherwise will work great.
So now you know the "secret" to making muscle building is really just intelligent program design. Think twice before jumping on the latest fad-workout bandwagon or wasting time by trying out the latest workout in a magazine, as described by a pro-bodybuilder. The best training protocol is dynamic and custom-designed to the goals, lifestyle and schedule of the trainee. While many people respond great to a new training program, lack of a planned cycling of volume and intensity to keep the workouts productive leads inevitably to a training plateau. Those who have been and continue to be successful in this game have become expert at manipulating their weight training and fitness workouts to keep the progress coming.
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