Does anyone here work on two rep ranges at the same time?

[36drew]

In theory, couldn't one periodize training while working in two rep ranges at the same time?

i.e. If you did like (volume & load/ reduce volume & more intensity)
Upper 5x5/3x3
Lower 4x12/2x8
Off
Upper 4x12/2x8
Lower 5x5/ 3x3
Off
Off

Would something like this work? Would it be geared a bit more toward size because of the higher rep ranges?

I dunno, the sets and reps are arbitrary and just something I threw out there but it was on my mind.

 

[RipStone]

Yes. What you are getting at is commonly used and it is called the conjugate method. Westside Barbell has made it infamous, but it was orginally used European Eatern-Bloc training methods.

Westside programs train for three goals at once.

1. max effort lifting:
2. dynamic effort lifting
3. repetition effort lifting

 

[Protobuilder]

Yep. It's becoming more common, I think, as people get further away from block-type periodization (or maybe it's called linear periodization). Rather than train, say, "max strength" (1-4 reps) for 3-4 weeks, and then switch to speed or power and do that for a few weeks, you essentially train several qualities at once. It's not uncommon, and I've heard it works very well.

One other variable to consider, and it's a big one, is the %1RM you'll train with week-to-week . . .

 

[d-dub]

I am doing something similiar at the moment.
Day1: Lower Strength - aim for 3-5 rep range on sets
Day2: Upper Strength - aim for 3-5 rep range on sets
off
off
Day5:Full body - Choose Speed or Hypertrophy
off
off

Seems to be working well at the moment.

 

[36drew]

I am doing something similiar at the moment.
Day1: Lower Strength - aim for 3-5 rep range on sets
Day2: Upper Strength - aim for 3-5 rep range on sets
off
off
Day5:Full body - Choose Speed or Hypertrophy
off
off

Seems to be working well at the moment.

Care to give a more detailed breakdown?

 

[blut wump]

In theory, couldn't one periodize training while working in two rep ranges at the same time?

i.e. If you did like (volume & load/ reduce volume & more intensity)
Upper 5x5/3x3
Lower 4x12/2x8
Off
Upper 4x12/2x8
Lower 5x5/ 3x3
Off
Off

Would something like this work? Would it be geared a bit more toward size because of the higher rep ranges?

I dunno, the sets and reps are arbitrary and just something I threw out there but it was on my mind.

With slightly different rep-ranges that's how I used to train, years ago, when I had a training partner. I recently ran a variant of that breakdown which was more along the lines of
squat/posterior chain
chest, shoulders, lats

I think I ploughed on a little too long with this and ran into overreaching but my weights were climbing nicely across the board.

To me this exemplified the difference between a routine and a program. As a routine it works well but I had no program set up around it. As such, when I hit the wall, I was stuffed. It happened a few weeks sooner than expected which was a nuisance.

I was going 5 sets of 3 for 'heavy' and 4 sets of 8 for 'light' and increasing weights each week. I think that next time I try to run something along these lines, it'll be closer to a Westside template.

 

[stormin67]

Have you tried the 100 rep set ? I do it every once in awhile, it's incredible. Use approx. 50% of your 1 rep max. Start your set, when you hit the oint you have to stop, rest for about a min, then continue where you left off. The set is complete when you hit 100 reps. Last time I worked this one chest, I was sore to the bone for about 3 days.

 

[blut wump]

I'd rather use a little more weight and spread it across a few sessions and not be sore to the bone.

 

[stormin67]

It's just me but, I prefer to get the most out of every set. Being somewhat sore lets me know that I accomplished it.

 

[Madcow2]

It's just me but, I prefer to get the most out of every set. Being somewhat sore lets me know that I accomplished it.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but I'd look at little more closely at the correlation between DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) and favorable hypertrophy/strength increase over time. More than anything DOMS is correlated to frequency of stimulus. You get very sore on that occasional 100 rep set, a new exercise, taking a long layoff and starting again, whiplash in a car accident is another good one. Most get reliably albeit mild to moderate soreness training an exercise at 1x per week frequency - increasing frequency to 2-3x per week will yield anything from zero DOMS to barely noticable after a brief acclimation period (and yet there is a lot of science and empirical evidence to back up this frequency as supperior for strength gains as well as hypertrophy - and when I say a lot that basically means everything).

DOMS is not so much about recovery but conditioning. The nervous system tends to be the limiting factor in the application of stimulus and overtraining rather than the muscle. I know that's probably not what you've been reading in bodybuilding magazines or seeing on BBing boards, but I can't control that and can only tell you that those sources more often than not are horrendously ignorant and totally reliant upon drugs to get gains out of very poor stimulus.