I’m going to answer your question in stages, because it is quite complex and I’ve only got a few more minutes left at the library. I’ll answer your most curious question first;
(By the way, you still haven’t told me if you are a sprinter, bodybuilder, football player or powerlifter or other. It would help a lot if you were to mention that. Then I could answer your other questions with more relevance.)
Ok, there are many examples of people that have massive muscular developement from ‘on the job’ exercize. I’ll give you more examples.
Some guy in Africa had the job of loading barrels of beer on to a truck. His technique required a lot of trapezius strength. Because he’d carry two at a time by his sides. He had massive trapezius muscles. I mean huge.
A guy in a prison yard had one exercize that he did. He did 10 sets of 10 repetitions in the E-Z barbell curl every day at lunch break. He took his time resting between sets, chatted a bit and then with his back to the wall did another set of ten. He was at it for years and had atleast 22inch biceps measurement. (I was not at this prison but saw the photo evidence and was told about his routine.)
Look at the people that were brought up on farms all their childhood and teenage years. They lifted barrells of hay etc… and they eat a lot of protein. They’re also very big.
As for the dock workers, they are not trying to isolate body parts, and no doubt a lot of their movements involve most of the body. Even if they are bracing their arms in the ‘carry’ they are still walking with it. When they load and unload, a lot of the body is being used. This tends to raise testosterone and growth hormone levels and eventually; insulin levels, far more than sitting down in the gym. (rowing machine is exception because you are still using your legs.) In other words, these dock workers and other such types, have a tremendous hormonal outputt over the course of the day, and they’ll sleep the love of a man that’s done a ‘hard days graft’ as they say. That also helps. It is a consistant bodyclock routine, which also helps.
Now you might know why I recomended such exercizes as ‘strongman’ training. (Log press, farmers walk, tire flipping etc…) It’s is total body power without the same diss-placement of mass as barbell and dumbell work. It is also a lot more athletic - with far less ‘sticking points’ than barbell work, which is a major factor in work per unit of time, and therefor; higher hormonal outputt. It is also more fun and agressive than barbell and dumbell work. But barbells offer a conveniant package, so you have to reach a happy medium.
There are too many examples to mention. But what is your goal? Do you want to work on the docks all day? If you are more in to athletics, would you have enough energy left to train on the track or football field? Or are you just interested in hypertrophy?
Most of these workers don’t care about their body composition, and they’ll eat a tonne of food just to get the calories, and they get bigger. An athlete has to care a little more about protein, carbohydrate and fat ratios in their diet, depending on their goal.
Do you know what the world’s best mass building meal is? Fish and chips. A big fat cod in batter, and a bulk load of thick chips covering it, washed down with salt and vinegar and tomato suace. The amount of tasty digestible protein, carb and fat calories from this meal is huge. This is the sort of food your dock workers etc… love to eat. Athletes are much more pedantic and fussy about what they eat (and therefor; sometimes ‘miss’ the boat - no pun intended.)
The high protein and carb take-away meal will help you recover from hurculean workouts, but you would alos put on some fat as well, and would not be the leanest you could be. Do you want that? Nutrition is a massive factor.
Remember that for back thickness, the deadlift is probably the number one exercize.
Go on the rowing machine (boat - oar simulation) at the end of your workout, and use one arm at a time on half the reps. E;g, do lots of right arm pulls, then lots of left arm pulls, a brief rest, and then loads of double arm pulls. Do the same, but much lower volume of reps on the actuall two arm pulley rowing machine, earlier in the work out. Single arm movements can activate a few more motor units per arm, than double arm movements.
But still do the double arm and double leg stuff as well, because that gives a higher hormonal outputt. Some guy on this site was going on about split squats activating more units in the glute and hamstring than double leg squats. Maybe so, but he seemed to forget that double leg movements create a higher hormonal outputt which is also needed for growth. so you have to do both. (By the way - I’m not even recomending squats, I’m just giving an example of a point.)
The fact that you are interested in percentages of intensity (% of one rep max) suggests to me that you have some kind of atheltic asperation, or atleast the idea of ‘peeking’ your performances. Again, it would be helpfull if you were to mention what sport you are interested in. Or maybe you are just training for the sake of it, and just want a great looking physique. Why not, but you need to make it clear which one.
I see nothing wrong with the adding 10% intensity each weak formula, I’ll assume you would drop the total reps per weak down each weak with that.
Remember, the longer the workout, the greater the calorie demand afterwards, so make sure you’ve got some ready when your workout is finished.