Strength Training Methods. Part 3.

We should never plan failure, but we should always accept it when it happens and act accordingly.

If you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2, I highly recommend you do so as many of the ideas here are closely related to the ones in the previous parts.

Exercise Selection

As per previously established rep ranges, here’s how I think we should select our exercises.

1. 1–2 reps @ RPE 6 (85–83% of 1RM) — competitive lifts (SBD for powerlifting). There is really no point in exposing ourselves to anything else at these intensities or higher. We need to practice these lifts for the simple reason of specificity. What possible gain could we get doing heavy singles or doubles on lifts that we do not compete in?
2. 3–4 reps @ RPE 7 (83–81% of 1RM) — competitive lifts and some very close variations. That’s because we can’t grow on heavy single or doubles (well, sort of), we need some hypertrophic stimulus. In this regard, 3–4 reps are better than 1–2. We also lose some specificity so a close variation of our main lift can be used to reduce unnecessary stress to connective tissue or fix glaring form issues.
3. 5–6 reps @ RPE 8 (81–79% of 1RM) — close variations and even competitive lifts if maximal hypertrophy is of concern. And since we are still at RPE 8, this is a good line to stop at for heavy compounds (think, various squats, deadlifts).
4. 7–11 reps @ RPE 9 (79–71% of 1RM) — purely for hypertrophic work on “easier” or isolation exercises. This is a very bodybuilding-esque style of training. We push it to the near limit in hopes to produce muscle growth as the primary outcome and strength as the secondary. And since this is such a large rep range, we can freely select what fits us better or use it as a double progression system.
5. 12+ reps @ RPE 10 — I didn’t mention this in Part 1 (but shown in the chart), because I do not believe we should program RPE 10 at all. Especially if we are using inter-session auto-regulation instead of intra-session. By this I mean, that RPE 10 will happen on its own due to our mistakes in programming, recovery, and load selection (again, check out Part 1). This is fine. It’s how it’s supposed to be.

By this I mean, that RPE 10 will happen on its own due to our mistakes in programming, recovery, and load selection.

Real-Life Examples

I will use my own training logs to show how I implement all of the methods I described.

Wide Grip Seated Row (left) and Weighed Pullups (right)

These two exercises had very clean progressions so it’s easy to illustrate what I mean by following your RPEs. First is the Wide Grip Seated Row. I just recently introduced this exercise into my workout which shows — I had no clue what weights I’m capable of using and I was also cautious about DOMS. Few workouts in, and I can clearly feel my newly found strength adaptions. In response to RPE, I keep raising the weights. I also try to catch my first set at RPE 8. This determines the number of reps I will be doing for the remaining two.

A small but very important detail! If we are not doing RPE 10 and have sufficient rest between sets, the performance drop set-to-set will be negligible. Maybe 0–1 reps. If we keep this in mind and we are not sure whether we are up to par with the new weight, we can help ourselves by dynamically adjusting reps on the first set. We still need to stay in the bounds of 7 to 11 reps though. And we should only do this when we are adjusting the weight, not on every workout. That’s because it would be another “excuse” we can use to lower our intensity when we don’t feel motivated enough.

As for the Pullups, the progression is even clearer. Reach RPE 8 on the last set — increase the weight. I don’t do rep changes here because, in all honesty, I prefer lower reps in all of my training and only do higher reps if I’m forced to (not enough weight stack, achy joints, etc).

Competition Deadlift.

(My rep scheme here is weird but it’s another topic altogether, so just know, I do 4/2/3/1+ reps on my main lifts)

Now here where it gets messy and where all my rules come into play. As you can see, I had 2 weeks of good deadlifts and RPE was going down. Then I tried increasing the weights and failed miserably on Week 3 (05–26). According to what I wrote before, that means stopping the exercise. So, I did. The next week I didn’t try to adjust anything, and here and behold, I finished all of the sets. With high RPEs, but again, that’s fine. That means, I’m really pushing myself. Latest week? Not only did I improve my RPE’s, but I could also do an extra rep on the last set with one left in the tank. Was that extra rep necessary? No. But I have technical issues at high intensity, so whenever I can, I take the opportunity to do more. Even if it’s suboptimal.

In fact, this is where I think breaking the rules is acceptable. That’s because I see the utility in doing higher RPE when I need to resolve technical issues. This is a very specific problem I have and it disproportionately raises RPE, even though all math says otherwise. You can clearly see this with my latest deadlift session (and even some of the previous ones). 1st set — super easy. 2nd set — meh. 3rd set — better. 4th set — meh. That’s all because I f*ck up my setup and it only happens on extremely high intensity. If that’s the case, I need to keep practicing until I can have a consistent setup before the lift with those high loads.

All in all, I can describe my approach to auto-regulation (and training in general) in two words: stubborn flexibility. It’s important to allow yourself to adjust your training variables, but it’s also equally important to make sure you don’t need to do it very often and when you do, it’s never the “easy way out”.

Next Up: Session/weekly volume and more!