Spreading the same training volume over a longer period

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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Hi everyone,

I have several years of strength training and powerlifting training experience, but over time my focus has shifted somewhat. More conditioning for health combined with other real-life priorities mean I’m increasingly looking for ways to make my strength training more time-efficient.

My current program works well, and I don’t have any particular complaints about the results. (I seem to get stronger, duh…)
However, the individual training sessions are starting to feel a bit too long for my current lifestyle. (75-90 min)

One idea I’ve been considering is changing from 3 training days with 4 exercises each to 4 training days with 3 exercises each. I would still only want to train 3 days per week, though, meaning that the training schedule would be rolling rather than tied to a fixed Mo/We/Fr training week.

In other words, I would essentially be spreading the same amount of training over a longer period, while keeping individual sessions shorter.

My main question is: What would you expect the impact of this change to be on long-term strength progression?I’d be particularly interested in hearing about your experiences or any relevant evidence regarding how much training volume needs to be accumulated within a given timeframe to maintain a sufficient stimulus for progression. Of course, this is highly individual etc.

My current thinking is that the amount of volume I’m doing seems to be sufficient for progress, so I’m wondering how much I can stretch the time over which that volume is accumulated before the effective training stimulus becomes too low.

Ideally, I’d simply see slightly slower progression, which, over the long term, might not make much of a practical difference anyway. The worst-case scenario, as I see it, would be that spreading the training out this way reduces my training frequency or volume per calendar week to the point where I can no longer make meaningful progress.

Of course, I could just give it a try and see what happens – and I probably will at some point. Still, I’d really value your thoughts and experiences on this, as I do regarding other topics as well.

Thanks in advance!

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Howdy,

Thanks for the question. My feeling is that training frequency is mostly just a tool to distribute training load, When you hold the total training load steady and spread it across more or fewer sessions (or vice versa), the frequency itself doesn’t change the result much. In your case, going the small decrease in training load over the course of months and years probably isn’t going to change much, mainly because the training load hasn’t gone down a lot.

The way I think about it is that there’s a threshold of training load that we need to be above to see progress. You need enough stimulus to drive an adaptation, and as long as you’re over that line you keep progressing, but drop under it and I think progression gets hard to detect. For example, we might not be able to pick up an improvement in VO2max or 1RM strength if the training does not cross that threshold. Whether that’s because the improvement is happening very slowly, so much so that the size of the improvement cannot be detected with current techniques, or because the training isn’t enough to drive the adaptation at all, is an open question. I tend to favor the latter for most adaptations, even though I do think all exercise is generally helpful.

That all being said, I do not think the problem here is your volume per se’, it’s the duration of the sessions. I think you could likely increase training load by using some different time strategies, e.g. superset agonist-antagonist or alternate-peripheral exercises, pick exercises that require minimum setup changes from one exercise to the other (e.g. squat to press, deadlift to rows, etc.), and keeping rest periods to 2-4 minutes tops.

Still, I think your approach here is fine if you want. One thing I’m curious about, since it changes the picture: how much conditioning are you doing on top of the lifting now?

-Jordan

Further reading:

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It’s always interesting to hear your more experienced and nuanced takes on these topics, so thanks a lot for the detailed reply, Jordan!

Your point about whether the training stimulus is sufficient to drive an adaptation made me think about the importance of effort in this sport. I’d consider myself a fairly experienced trainee, and with that comes the realization that progress requires effort. Sometimes, though — like when I start wondering how to make my weekly training sessions even shorter — the balance between convenience (or laziness, if I’m being honest) and willingness to put in the work gets a little out of whack.

Time management during training sessions isn’t a new topic for me, and I’ve been a fan of supersets for quite a while. That said, I’ve definitely neglected this aspect over the past few months, so your reminder was particularly helpful.

During yesterday’s session, I was motivated to optimize things in this regard and decided to keep track of a few timestamps:

  • Completed warm-ups & squat top single: 12 min total
  • Completed all five squat back-off sets (no supersets): 32 min total
  • Completed all five RDL sets (supersetted with pin bench once everything was set up): 46 min total
  • Completed all five pin bench sets (supersetted with cable rows once everything was set up): 53 min total
  • Completed all three cable row sets: 54 min total

Looking at those numbers, finishing four exercises with 3–6 work sets each in under an hour is actually pretty impressive, I think!

Of course, this was on the faster end of things. When motivation is low or fatigue is high, I might take a more leisurely approach, and that’s perfectly fine. I just need to keep my expectations realistic.

As you pointed out, cutting training volume to save time could be a mixed blessing. Maybe I’ll experiment with spreading my current volume over a longer training cycle when life gets particularly busy. For now, though, I think I’ll stick with my current program and focus on making my sessions more efficient. Choosing exercises that require minimal setup changes is definitely another good suggestion that I’ll remember when setting up my next training block.

Thanks again for helping put things into perspective!

As for my conditioning volume, I manage to get at least 150 minutes of Zone 2 work in most weeks, spread across several days. My usual routine looks like this:

  • 15 minutes on the Rogue Echo Bike after each of my three powerlifting sessions
  • One dedicated 45–60-minute Echo Bike session on an off-day
  • One 45–60-minute running session on another off-day

Running still feels pretty challenging, and keeping my heart rate relatively low isn’t easy yet, but I’m making progress. I also really enjoy being able to run, even though I’m a powerlifter at heart.

Interestingly, some of my best squat sessions over the past few months have been the day after running for an hour. I wouldn’t necessarily draw any conclusions from that, but it was a pleasant surprise!

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