Quesion: I planned on using this rule: “5 awesome reps with 95% = progress Training Max”. If the reps are consistently awesome, how would someone know when to stay or add weight? While I love that in theory, I’m not confident how to apply this.
This is an awesome question/response and I've spent the better part of the past 7 days trying to think of the best way to explain. I say this because it's easy for me to see it, recognize it - but it's hard to put into words or to put a "number" value on something. For example, the "5 awesome reps at 95% (or your TM)" was my attempt to quantify it. But "5 awesome reps" leaves a lot to the reader/lifter. So first let's say this: if you don't know if the 5 reps you did are awesome, they weren't. If there is ANY QUESTION - it wasn't. At all. One of my favorite quotes of all time is "When there is a doubt, there is no doubt." I can't think of a better way of summing it up.
However - even then people can get overzealous. And let's address the issue of repeating cycles or lightening the TM (lower the weights).
1. After you drive your strength to a certain point - it's going to take a LOT LONGER to get stronger than 3-4 weeks. So plateauing isn't a problem or issue nor does it mean you are doing something wrong.
2. The problem with most people and plateauing at a certain TM is simple - they remain at too heavy of a TM, repeat the cycles and are massively rundown. When you plateau at a TM, it should be AWESOME reps/sets. Not grinders. And not weights that give you a 50/50 shot of having a solid workout that day. Imagine climbing a mountain and you want to reach the top. It's best to camp out/rest up WELL BEFORE you hit a wall; and then resume the ascent the next day. The next day you are more fresh, less worn out and have time to eat/set up camp/get to bed well before it's too dark or cold. You hike another 2-3 hours and the next day you are exhausted. You are setting up your tent in the dark and are too cold/tired to even prepare your meal for the night.
And let's say it a very tall mountain - many times you have to stay at that camp for awhile to let your body adjust to the altitude. You might WANT to begin hiking again but your body is simply not ready.
Maybe that's not the perfect analogy but I think you get what I mean.
3. It's not an attack on your work ethic or your manhood to repeat cycles (or back up). In fact, if you do have to lighten your TM, I'd recommend staying at that lighter TM for one cycle longer than you think. So once you hit a huge wall, back up and stay there. Let your body recover. Let your assistance build the muscle. Let the bar speed be awesome; have AMAZING training days. Over and over again.
4. It's hard to understand, even for me. We all know the progressive overload model; and every single strength program, by default, is progressive overload. The issue is that everyone sees progressive overload happening in 24 hours or a week. Again, once you get to a certain point, the progression is going to happen over several months or even longer. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD OF TRAINING.
But the idea of repeating cycles/weights, even for me, flies in the face of everything I THOUGHT was true. Even if everything I experienced told me differently. Because I was too stupid to accept reality. You don't need to increase all the time - you need to do, what you did, even better. I hope that makes sense.
Do what you do - just do it better. Do it faster. Crisper. More controlled. Fast but stoic.
Drive the assistance during this time; you can recover much easier from pushing assistance work (and it allows you to also change movements/reps and not be beholden to a set/rep progression.)
If in doubt, there is no doubt.
I told this story on the London Football Training Log but it bears repeating. We have a junior athlete whose Trap Bar DL weights the last 10 months or more hover around 225/245/265. Just over and over again. 3-4 sets of 5 reps. One final set up to 15 reps. All reps have to be done by our trap bar standards.
We had a 315lbs Trap Bar contest a couple weeks ago and he did 315 for 24 reps (or 25 - I can't remember.) How is this possible? According to lifter logic - he could never, ever, EVER lift more than 275lbs. But he did. And that is NOT a "one-off". We had 7 kids do the 315 contest and only 2 of them have done a "work set" of over 300lbs. The vast majority of them fall between 225lbs and 275lbs.
Juliet and Rhodes have all seen the same thing in their athletes. I've seen it my own training. In short - do awesome reps, build muscle and let the training do the work.
Building Strength and the Training Max
