A lot of people post their routines on here, but one thing they don't often include is how they plan on increasing their weights over time, which is pretty much the most important aspect of training, even for BBing. So I thought I'd make a list of all the methods of upping weights I could think of and people can add more of they have some.
1. Increase weight; maintain volume (including set/rep scheme).
eg, Progressive 5x5. You start out relatively light, perhaps 70%1RM, and add some weight each workout until (hopefully) you beat your previous best 5x5 weight (maybe at 85%1RM- hopefully an old 1RM by now). Then you go back down and start again.
2. Increase weight; decrease volume.
eg, Start off doing 3x8; after a few workouts you drop to 3x5, then 3x3. Then you might start again or peak for a max. Or take Bill Starr's program- you start off with 5x5 (on the principle of 1), then reduce the volume to 3x3 and carry on going up (again as in 1).
3. Increase weight; maintain volume (but decrease reps per set).
eg, Kyle Coleman's Hypertrophy program of Fortified Iron that seems very popular (and rightly so)- you start off doing 3x12, then 3x10, 3x8, 5x5, 6x4, 8x3. Volume drops a bit to begin with but the last 4 weeks are almost exactly the same.
In both 2 and 3 I think the drop in reps (whether you maintain the volume or not) is beneficial because it provides a kind of built-in recuperation period (maybe just one workout) and guards against plateauing. The volume is more important in Kyle's routine cos it's specifically for hypertrophy. Dropping from 5x5 to 3x3 in Starr's is a good idea for strength cos you get a week to recover (and in reality it could be more depending on how easy you find the 3x3) after the heavy volume of 5x5 before pushing on towards really heavy weights.
4 (a) Maintain weight; increase volume by adding reps
eg, You aim to get 3x8 (or 5x5) at a given weight by adding reps each workout until you get there, then increase the weight. This seems to be probably the most popular choice, which I think is a shame because I think it's one of the least effective- being the one where you're most likely to come up against a wall by blasting away each week at the same weight. Physically and psychologically there isn't a lot of variety or much built-in "rest" and IMO you can quickly end up on a plateau trying desperately but unsuccessfully to grind out those last couple of reps.
4 (b) Maintain weight; increase volume by adding sets
eg, 3x5, 4x5, 5x5, 6x5
People don't often do this but it seems to me a very good idea, especially for strength. I think it'd be a good mantra for strength training that if you think you can do another couple of reps in a set, then do another set instead (Jonnymills excepted, obviously ). Chad Waterbury includes this in one of his routines as I remember.
4 (c) Maintain weight; increase volume by adding reps/set
eg 3x3, 4x3, 5x3// 3x4, 4x4, 5x4// 3x5, 4x5, 5x5
I used to use this pretty successfully for overhead pressing. The benefit is that by and large you can be fairly confident of getting the next workout's reps in, but you're still making some kind of progress. It might look slow, but it doesn't feel it in my experience. Plus, since after 5 sets of 3 (or it could even be 7-8 sets if you like) you drop to 3 sets of 5, you get a built-in recuperation every so often.
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