Hey,
I know this is all made up, but when setting a fixed amount of volume for a movement pattern (push, pull, squat, hinge), would you sooner increase the volume of a lift if it wasn’t improving or simply change the formulation?
For example, let’s say I was hinging 3x/week: DL, RDL, Trap bar DL, 5 sets each, 4-8 reps, 6-8 RPE. If RDL & DL were increasing but the trap bar was stagnant, what could be the list of reasons why this is the case?
Also, since there’s a range of intensities that work for hypertrophy, if I wanted to use the same exercises above purely for ‘hinge muscle’ growth, but didn’t care about increasing specific strength in any of them so changed the formulation to 5 sets, 4-30 reps, 6-8 RPE, would it matter that some of the lifts aren’t moving up as long as I’m doing the work?
Hope you had a good time in Paris!
Kweng
Hey Kweng,
There’s some more information needed to troubleshoot, e.g. how long has something been stagnant (>3-4 weeks may be a problem), how someone is choosing the load, the spot in the training day (if it’s last, it may not be something to worry about), and how the rest of the training is going? In your case, I suspect trap bar DL are the end of a training day, maybe done without a typical warm up, and/or a technique issue. These could all be contributory. If trap bar DL performance is very important, I’d want more exposure than 1x/wk and I’d want to do it fresh. If it’s not, perhaps the trap bar training is transferring well to other lifts without too much fatigue, and we shouldn’t rock the boat…
I don’t think that adding weights or reps, e.g. strength improvement, is tied well enough to hypertrophy to use it as a metric for training efficacy to a program. I don’t think that training setup would be my preference, but understand it was mostly as a thought experiment.
-Jordan