Adequate has come to mean maximal to me over the years. If you first look at the response side of the equation,more than at the stimulus side,the only way to have a maximal response there is to have a maximal stimulus here. Maximal response means maximal recovery from the stimulus too. As soon as the stimulus becomes sub max in any of its parameters,then it emerges the need to fill the gap with timing of the next stim,recovery means,tempo,and similar.
Volume then can only be dictated by the ability of the system to engage in and dis-engage from maximal input/output situations.
The CFTS model you mention is where I moved from originally. Charlie’s MU Involvement is a most precious tool (on the stim side),but it hardly applies when truly max training is implemented,as it all becomes a systemic activity at all times (on the response side).
In addition, it’s important to note that a single episode of sub-max stimuli can, on the whole (due to the systemic environment), equate to a max stimuli when coupled with other stimuli (ergo Charlie’s glass of water/CNS capacity analogy)
This leads us to the response end of things because the degree to which CNS capacity is taxed per unit of time is proportional (to what precise degree I’m not sure) to response
I never remember Charlie ever saying that two or more submax stimuli equated to a max stimuli in terms of adaption. Quite the opposite, as his aversion to intensive tempo attests. While he did say, and I would absolutely agree it does equate in terms of accumulated fatigue and the need for recovery, you can’t get what equates to a 100% max effort stimulus using multiple sub-max stimulus, especially if we’re equating sub-max to be <85%…I believe that goes for sprinting or weights.
While I fully respect your views on your own training, 2-3 reps at 70% is hardly even a warmup for a max strength set. Most of the good RM charts I’ve seen and used put 70% at a 12RM. While it may serve your situation, it does not begin to qualify for max strength training, even for novices. In fact, I can’t imagine any true benefits from such a set unless it was done explosively to train RFD.
I do recall him saying that. Again the session total is the key not the individual elements. He explained it via tempo, a single 75% rep is sub max and the session remains that way if you do a regular tempo session but cut the recovery in 1/2 (or more) and the session’s intensity increases and it can become a high intensity one.
Pakewi I understand most of your post and will think about it more.
If I had to guess on the percentage of total reps done in the range you are describing we might be close to 15% but my guess it’s below that particularly since you are talking about >85% of a 1rm, I believe. I do agree that some work, at some point, needs to be very near or at maximal levels for that set-rep range however I pick my battles and am sure to only do this when I’ve accounted for that with a drop (ala vertical integration) in intensity and volume of the sprints and mb throws/jumps
If I were to do so more frequently it would come at a cost to the other training elements from my experience. I will, by week 11 of the fall have the athletes work up to 95-100% of their 3 x 3 best and many can go beyond this and we let them do it. However, the weeks leading up to this are sub-maximal efforts with increasing int. over those weeks. There are peaks in intensities for sets/reps in weeks 3, 7and 11-classic three week intensification schemes with unload weeks in 4 and 8. Week 7 goes up to about 90-95% of the best for 3 x 5.
My belief in the submaximal loading principles comes from discussions with Stone, viewing their programs and workouts but over time and most importantly through my athlete’s training and my own.
Regarding the leaving of multiple reps left, for sure I subscribe to this but more reps should be left earlier in the block and fewer as the weeks go by within the block. Typically the intro. micro, for example, done around 80% of the set-rep best has about 4-5 (for 3 x 5) reps left in set one and 4 reps left in set 3 in the way I’ve done it previously. So during the block as percentages rise, as expected, the number of reps left drops.
I could be wrong but I don’t think he’s using that loading for a max. strength stimulus in the comp. phase (especially late) as that work’s probably already been done weeks prior. Probably using more in a maintenance realm.
I was talking about maintenance. I base my conclusions on what twhite, rb34, pioneer have told me. They have trained themselves and numerous athletes and have come to similar conclusions here. As did CF and as does Pfaff.
Who has told you this?
You will never ever get strong if you don’t grind through at least some reps. I think people are afraid to train hard these days due to basing their preparation on fragile elite sprinters who are running less than 10 seconds
There is a big difference between CNS intensity accumulation leading to the need for recovery, and high intensity stimulus designed to bring about an adaption. Your 75% reps, in any volume, will not produce the same stimilus that a 95-100% Max V session or a 90-95% Speed End would. It might require the same recovery time, even more, but it will not provide the stimulus required to acquire the desired adaption. If Charlie ever wrote that multiple Extensive Tempo reps/sessions would accomplish the same adaptions as a 90-95% Speed End. or a 95-100% Max V session, I’ve never seen it. And there would be a lot of sub 10-11sec marathoners out there.
The same can be said in the gym. The whole TUT and Total Tonnage myths not withstanding, if you want a positive adaption in terms of increasing your strength, you will need to 1) perform an adequate number of reps/sets at near maximal intensity and/or 2) perform an adequate number of reps/sets at a submaximal intensity, preferably over 75%, using sets that bring you fairly close to failure (within 1-3 reps).
The key phrase in this thread is Max Strength Phase, i.e. Increasing Max Strength. Even as a maintenance phase, I don’t believe 2-3 @ 75% would accomplish much. Some sprinters don’t lift at all during comp, but that doesn’t make no lifting the best way to increase max strength.
@ Pioneer. I agree that it may not take a large percentage of reps in near-max intensity range, but it takes some, or you will need to push harder in terms of the number of reps left in the bank. And again, I’m talking about a true Max Strength phase, not maintenance or comp phases.
Yes and we do that just not all that frequently. In week 11 in the plan I wrote of earlier, the athletes will be at or surpass prior set-rep bests I just find you can’t do this every block nor for sure every week or the other elements will be greatly compromised in terms of output. Week 7 in the fall we push close to these limits but have a rep or two left each set.
I don’t have it in front of me and was speaking from memory, but I remember the title being very simple, something like Weightlifting Program Design, and it was an NSCA article.
Weightlifting: Program Design
National Strength and Conditioning Association
Volume 28, Number 2, pages 10-17
I don’t see that table or those particular numbers in that article though I could have just missed it. I asked Dr. Stone and he does not recognize it either.
Pioneer, I don’t know where the hell I got those numbers or what I was thinking when I wrote that. When you made your second post, I decided I would look over all of my Stone articles but first glanced back at my post, and couldn’t believe what I had written. Not only does Dr. Stone NOT suggest these at as Max Strength sessions, I don’t know anyone on the planet who does. Look at my own ideas about reps/session in the same post, obviously nothing close to that table, and I’m sure the intensities that I would prescribe are higher than those that Stone would use.
The sentence below the table is how I meant to characterize Stone’s max strength work…
During the actual bread and butter max strength phases of his periodization plans, there is a lot (>15%) of all reps in the >85% range.
I think if you look at the second, higher intensity table, which is what I would call the main strength mesocycle, you can sum up the reps on the heavy days and about 15%, and maybe more, are in excess of 85%, which is what I wrote. The numbers from the table not only don’t reflect that, they don’t reflect any max strength phase from anyone with any sanity.
As far as the table, the only thing I can think is that I sometimes will copy and paste a table from something else then change the numbers etc. to fit the topic, but obviously that table didn’t get finished and I didn’t read what I wrote. What would 25 reps @ 95-100% be, 25 sets of 1? That’s crazy. And who could pretend that 40 reps at >90% is doable? That was a good catch, but I’m amazed that I didn’t catch it, and neither did anyone else until now. My bad.
Star61, when I read that table originally, it did not look like anything I had seen from Stone (so I asked around) and looked far too intense to be realistic. I knew if it was his, there is no way it could be for anything more than sets/reps-maybe a 3 x 5 best and not from a 1rm. I asked three grad. students (one of which has just graduated) and they did not recognize the table as his either. I should have just checked with Dr. Stone in the first place.
If someone could even complete workouts in some of those ranges, which is doubtful, I don’t know if they could walk for a few weeks. With some sessions like those, maybe someone would just go ahead and schedule surgery first then go do the workout-some sort of emergency room procedure would likely be necessary.
No problem, I’ve inadvertently put up incorrect information on forums myself.
Agreed. After thinking about it for a while (I usually am very careful with my posts) I believe I had intended to actually make a chart like the one I just created below that shows what percentage of reps were greater than 90%, 85 and 80% for a 12week mesocycle. After beginning to add up all the reps, I either got distracted or bored and posted without updating the table with the correct information. And it was never intended to be for a session, it was for a 12 week mesocycle per the article. A point I was trying to make, and mentioned in other posts, is that it is critical to include some percentage of reps at higher intensities…you can’t leave them out even though they represent an smaller % of the total reps. Even Stone, who I do not consider to be a proponent of very high intensity lifting, includes quite a bit of moderately heavy to heavy reps.
Looking at Monday, the heavy day in Table 4, , which is what I consider to be the significant workout during that mesocycle, it would have looked something like…
30reps @ >90% 17.5% of all heavy day reps over 90% (included 89% in group)
60reps @ >85% 35.0% of all heavy day reps over 85% (didn’t include 83% in group)
165reps @ >80% 96.5% of all heavy day reps over 80%
6reps @ <80% 3.5% of all heavy day reps under 80%
Total 171reps
Please don’t hold to exact numbers because its late and as before, this is tedious, because to get this data you had to devide the mass lifted each workout into the workout volume load to get reps, and then add up all over 90%, all over 85% etc.
A mistake I think some athletes, including sprinters, make is looking at someone’s program, like Stone’s, which is a two day a week schedule, then modify it to suit there needs and either squat (or bench etc.) only one day a week, cutting volume in half, or making both days look like Thursday, the light day, spending most of their reps in the 75% range. I see some of that in the posts above. In my opnion, you can’t cut the high intensity day out of a max strength program any more than you can cut out the >95% speed days from a 100m training program, just because it represents a smaller total volume of the distance ran. To me, cutting out the high intensity day and doing only the low intensity loads is like running tempo 3-4 time per week and rarely, if ever, sprinting at near Max V. As I stated above, you can tax the CNS fully with submaximal loading (high volume of light weights or tempo running), but you will not force the same adaption that you will by doing a lower volume of near maximal training (near maximal weights or MaxV sprinting). You need that high intensity loading, even if it represents a smaller fraction of the entire load than the lower intensty stuff.