Quick RPE question and a long Volume question regarding Progressive loading

[Tenebris]

Hello Good DoctorzZz,

first I just wanna say how great you guys are, how much I appreciate all the content You put out there, it’s pretty awesome ngl.

now, I have 2 questions, I hope I can communicate this right since my head is spinning from all the info that is put out there and since english isn’t my first language.

Question 1: if only interested in training (getting big & stronk, not caring about 1RM and competing) is it okay to use only RPE 6 and 7? Will I be missing out on any potential benefits of RPE 8 and 9?

Question 2: this volume question is related to progressive LOADING;), I’ll try and explain myself here and ask the question at the end, since I know that nobody knows the best number of sets an individual should do

Let’s say I start training, and on Monday I do Overhead Press 4 reps @ RPE 6 x 1 set which would be 50kg, and 4 reps @ RPE 7 x 3 sets wich would be 52.5kg, and those 3 sets at RPE 7 gave me enough stimulus to drive adaption.
Next Monday, I repeat the same rep/set scheme and now 52.5kg is an RPE 6, and 55kg is the new RPE 7, which means adaptation from last week made me stronger

I repeat the process until one Monday, the weights stay the same, so same RPE 7 as week the before (I know this isn’t necessarily bad, but I guess it is some kind of an indicator of less adaptation in a beginner?)
So to achieve new adaptions I would increase the stimulus, which means I would add 1 additional setto RPE 7 and again repeat the process week to week until one Monday it stops working again. So we add an extra set again… I guess?
I know it isn’t possible to add sets forever, at one point the fatigue will become too high and the effects of training will be ‘negative’, meaning we wouldn’t get adaptations.

So my 2nd question is, what do? I can change reps from 4 to 6, sure, I could add variation, sure, but what about the volume, should I keep it the same for the rest of my life? Let’s say I got up to 4 reps @ RPE 7 for 6 sets, this was the last time I saw positive effects (“because 7 sets was too fatiguing”), and now I wanna use the 6 rep range instead of 4 reps (just to change things a bit), should I lower the sets at first so like 6 reps @ RPE 7 x 3 sets and then continue the process ‘above’ until I reach 6 reps @ RPE 7 x 6 sets? Only this time it will be with 6 reps so it’s more total volume (more stimulus???).
I guess from here you can just bounce from 4 reps to 6 reps and vice versa, or try 3, 5 or 7 reps?, or even add sets to RPE 6 instead of RPE 7?

Are any of these good strategies? Am I thinking the right way? If there even is such a thing as the “right way”.

I just hope I was clear enough with what I am trying to ask, there is so much material/info/garbage/nuance out there, it’s hard to get everything sorted in your head. And no one wants to use their ‘resources’ and train in a way that won’t make them progress.

Thank you in advance!

[Jordan_Feigenbaum]

Tenebris,

Thanks for the kind words. I’ll try and answer your questions as best as I can.

1. It’s very difficult - if not impossible- to predict what you’re going to need long-term in order to realize your full potential as a lifter. Is it possible that you could do this without any set, ever going to RPE 8 or higher? Sure, though I kind of doubt it. Some of this doubt is based in theory, e.g. it seems some skills for max strength are only developed/best-developed by high intensity work. Additionally, it seems unlikely that you’d be able to go your entire career without ever doing a set @ 8 or above. Finally, I don’t think there’d be an advantage here either.

2. Demonstration of a fitness adaptation is performance. Your performance potential on a given day is influenced by many factors in addition to the balance between fitness adaptations and fatigue such as environment, mood, etc.

So, I don’t think any changes are necessary because you weren’t able to increase load in 1-week. This would also be true if the weights went down. If this trend persisted over time then sure, you could modify the program in many different ways. We have nearly half a few podcasts on this.

To directly answer your question, I would not add weight and change the rep scheme, as this is just shifting the goal posts. Adding more volume may be the solution, but I kind of doubt it in this case.

-Jordan