If you feel stuck with your training, this post will help you break through plateaus and keep seeing progress.
When you first start strength training, anything works for six weeks.
Without changing up your volume and intensity throughout the year, you can easily get stuck.
Someone who consistently keeps the same set rep scheme is eventually going to stop seeing progress.
Integrating different phases of training will help you avoid the dreadful plateau.
When you first start training, beginning with our deload or active recovery phase is a smart way to dive in.
Deload consists of 3 sets of 8 reps on your main lifts (bench press, squat, and deadlift/hinge variations)
Set 1 is at 55% of your Max Effort.
Set 2 is at 65% of your Max Effort.
Set 3 is at 75% of your Max Effort.
To figure out what your max effort is, use our 5 rep max calculator.
After the deload/active recovery phase, you will go into a muscular endurance phase.
This consists of 3 sets with an increase in volume.
Set 1 is 15 reps at 55%.
Set 2 is 12 reps at 65%.
Set 3 is 8 reps at 75%.
You have already prepared your body for the intensity and now you are going to apply more stress by increasing in volume.
After 4 weeks in the muscular endurance phase, you will move into the hypertrophy phase.
During hypertrophy, you will now have added a 4th set on your main lifts.
Set 1 is 10 reps at 55%.
Set 2 is 8 reps at 65%.
Set 3 is 6 reps at 75%.
Set 4 is 4 reps at 85%.
Volume decreases as intensity increases.
You will start to feel and see a lot of strength gains during this phase.
4 weeks after hypertrophy training, you will put your body to the ultimate strength test with the maximal strength phase.
During the max strength phase, you will keep performing 4 sets on your main lifts.
However, you will have a 3rd and 4th set where the reps change.
The reps that go with the correct percentages in this phase are:
5 Reps at 75%.
3 Reps at 85%.
2 Reps at 92.5%.
If it’s your bench and deadlift day, you will bench 5, 3, 2, 3 with the set percentages listed above and deadlift 5, 3, 3, 5 with the set percentages listed above.
You will then flip and perform the heavy 2 rep on deadlift instead of bench press the next day you perform those main lifts.
Therefore, you will never lift the heavy set of 2 on all main lifts in one day AND you will never perform the heavy set of 2 on the same main lift twice in one week.
With the preparation of the previous phases leading up to this significant decrease in volume and increase in intensity, you’ll be hitting personal records.
After training at such a high intensity in the max strength phase, your body needs a reset with the deload/active recovery phase.
Without deloading, your body is at high risk of injury.
As fun as setting personal records can be, staying at a high intensity all the time, all year round is going to give you a run for your money and you will see regression instead of progression.
Everyone needs to recover.
You will rinse and repeat everything you’ve been doing the last 4 months.
After another cycle through all these training phases, if you feel you can increase your heavy 2 in the max strength phase, it’s probably time to retest your max efforts.
Updating your max effort is important to make sure you are pushing your main lifts at their true, intended percentages.
Now that you have the secret sauce to training, you can successfully break through plateaus and keep progressing with these phases and set rep schemes.
