When to lift heavier?

TRAINING BREAKDOWN

“Your interpretation of exertion is your best coach”

By Emma O’Toole

Hello,

Today’s training breakdown is the linchpin of progression. It’s a concept that I honestly attribute to making your stronger and improving your cycling and running performance.

The odd thing is it has absolutely nothing to do with exercise selection, sets, reps, tempo or anything. It’s all about your interpretation of exertion, and the good news is it is something that you can adopt today and take with you into your next strength session by reading on and actioning the advice below.

Let’s begin with the why.

In order to build strength we need to challenge our muscles, connective tissue, and bones. Incrementally challenging yourself in the weight room is the most important stimulus for building muscle and strength.

Our strength will be capped if we do not incrementally challenge ourselves with new stimulus when we are ready to progress. You do not get stronger from lifting the same amount of weight in every workout, just as you won’t get faster from always running at the same pace or always riding at the same power. The key thing here is incremental increases when we are ready to progress.

This is where a lot of us can go wrong, constantly attempting to lift heavier week on week, but consider this example…

Because last week you ran 8 minute miles for 10km, this week you now need to run 7:55 min miles over 10km and the following week you need to do 7:45 min miles.

That seems silly, right? … impossible to keep making that sort of progress week on week…. a recipe for injury… 5 seconds doesn’t sound like much to those outside of our community, but we know that those 5 seconds are hard to reach and sustain, this can come out in all sorts of ways, from overstriding to try to reach the target pace, to blowing up after 8km. So why do we expect the same from our strength sessions?

We need a structured approach to lifting heavier.

First up, the 2-for-2 rule:

What is the 2-for-2 rule?

The ability to perform two or more repetitions over your assigned repetition goal, in your last set, for two consecutive workouts. If this is satisfied, then weight should be added to that exercise in your next training session. (Baechle et al, 2008)

For example, your strength session involves:

• 3 sets of 8 goblet squats using 16KG.

If, in your 3rd set, you can perform 10 goblet squats using 16KG over two consecutive workouts with good form and technique, then that is a strong indicator that you need to increase the weight you are using.

The theory of this is that by doing consecutive workout performances with an extra 2 reps in the last set, we can help prevent premature overload by making sure it was not a fluke in that last set or that you were having a really great day.

Let’s see this in action:

John is in his off-season working on hypertrophy, he is cycling for 8 hours a week. His sets and reps for the split squat exercise are shown below.

This is John’s workout for the split squat exercise:

When should John progress? - Using the 2-for-2 rule:

Workout 1:

Workout 2:

In both workouts 1 and 2, John has increased from 10 reps to 12 with great technique and form whilst using the same weight in his split squats. John has done this over 2 consecutive workouts. Therefore, it is indicative that John should incrementally increase his load for this exercise.

Now, where this can come a little unstuck in the endurance world is that our weight choices are not so linear week to week. We may increase/decrease weights each week depending on our endurance training.

Enter: REPS IN RESERVE

What is Reps in Reserve, (RIR)?

A subjective measuring scale to identify how many more repetitions you could perform before technical failure.

Reps in Reserve is a fantastic way to measure the intensity of your lifts by describing how many more repetitions you could perform before technical failure. It helps guide us with our weight choices and determine the intensity of our sessions, (see below scale).

You are asking yourself: “How many more repetitions could I perform with good technique using this weight?”

For example: 3 reps in reserve would be you choosing a weight where you could perform 3 more repetitions of a given exercise with solid technique and form.

In practice, this is how the load could be different depending on our targeted Reps in Reserve:

Reps in reserve is closely linked to the rate of perceived exertion scale, (RPE) and used to avoid technical failure and the impact that this can have on our endurance training.

Further to this, because it is a subjective way to measure intensity, it takes into consideration external factors that may affect your training, eg. sleep, nutrition, stress etc. 

The risk of using the 2-for-2 rule is that we become chained to a weight choice which remains fixed week to week. This choice does not factor in our running/cycling training and this could risk us pushing too hard, or too little in our strength sessions. Think how you would vary your power output on your next ride following a race/big event, you likely wouldn’t be targeting threshold power.

How to know when to increase the weight of an exercise?

When we are no longer getting the targeted Reps in Reserve score from the weight that we are using for 2 weeks running. For example, if performing a Romanian Deadlift with 65KG used to leave you with 3 reps in the tank (3 RIR), but has now left you with 4 reps in the reserve over the previous 2 weeks and your endurance training has largely remained the same, this is likely the time to increase the weight you are lifting.

How much weight to increase by?

Short answer, not a lot! We’re not searching for big changes here, it is recommended to gradually increase the weight by 0.5-2KG.

Going back to John, in his next workout, Workout 3, he will increase the weight used to 2× 9KG dumbbells therefore adding 2KG extra in comparison to his previous workouts. His workout should therefore look like this:

Reps in Reserve is a fantastic way to ensure continual and incremental progress with your strength training.

Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions on this.

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_References:

_{Baechle T, Earle R, Wathen D. Resistance Training. In: Baechle T, Earle R, editors. Essentials of strength training and conditioning. Human Kinetics; Champaign: 2008. pp. 381–412.}