I am 36 year old male who needs more volume in order to get strength gains. In the parlance of strength training, I am a low responder. Its not all that surprising that I am a low responder as the sport that I have played where I probably have the most natural talent is long distance running. Thus I am probably slow twitch oriented when it comes to my muscle fibers. That said I don’t think I am unusual. In the continuum of high responder to low responder, I am probably in the 20% range of the population in terms of being slow twitched/high volume oriented, though if I compared myself to women, I would be fairly close to their middle (say 35%).
Here are some of my thoughts with my experience:
- RPE TRAINING
RPE training systematically factors in whether you are a high or low responder. For example on the bench press right now, I would estimate my one rep max at 280 pounds. Admittedly that max is unteseted, but I pretty confident its close to being accurate. I have done 5 reps at 250 pounds and probably had another 2.5 pounds in me, meaning I could do 5 reps at 252.5 pounds or so. That means I could hit 5 reps at just around 90% of my one rep max. Lets say I wanted to do 3 sets of 5 reps at RPE 7, 8, and 9 respective. For the RPE 7, I would probably choose 235 pounds (meaning I could get 8 reps at that weight if I went all out). And that may be a bit conservative. Probably 237.5 would be a more accurate choice. I would probably go with 240 for RPE 8 and 245 for RPE 9 (7.25 pounds lighter than RPE 10). Thus my RPE 7 set is still at around 84% of my one rep max. For a high responder those percentages would be way too high. So one huge advantage of RPE training is that the system factors in whether you are a high or low responder, where a system based on a percentage of one rep maxes does not factor in whether you are a high vs. low responder.
- Translating Fives into Singles & Peaking
One thing I have heard Jordan say is that its not clear how well improvements in 5 rep maxes translate to increases in 1 rep maxes. For low responders, the correlation should be higher though it still won’t be one to one. Lets compare people in say the 15% and 85% of the populations in terms of how they respond. The person in the 15% can do 5 reps at say 90% of the 1 rep max whereas the person in the 85% can do 5 reps at 80% of their 1 rep max. That is because almost all people are going to have a higher correlation at what their increases or decreases at 90% of the 1 rep max and their 1 rep max than they would at 80%. I think things like heavy singles are still useful for low responders, but in general low responders are probably slightly less in need of heavy singles than low responders and need slightly shorter peaking periods in their programming.
- Volume
If you were doing work based on percentages it seems clear low responders need higher volume to get the same effect, but I am not absolutely convinced that is true with RPE work, IF THE TRAINEE IS ACCURATELY GAUGING THEIR RPE. I capitalized the last part because I have a suspicion that low responders tend to underestimate their RPE. In other words when they have a RPE 7 on their program, they may stop when they have 5 or 6 reps left in the tank rather than 3 reps. That said if low responders actually hit their correct RPE’s, the intensity (say 90% for 5 reps) is high enough that low responders don’t really need extra volume. Low responders by definition need more work than high responders to get the same response, but using the RPE system that extra work is in the form of intensity rather than volume.
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Frequency: I can only go by my experience but I prefer a high frequency (6 times a week). For me lets say I am going to do 90 sets per week. I would rather lift 6 days a week for 15 sets a piece than 3 days for 30 sets a piece. For one thing 30 set workouts take 3 hours! That is a lot of time. Second because I am working at a fairly high intensity when I tried to do a bunch of compound exercises in the same workout the ones I did later started to suffer. I used to Squat, then do a superset of Bench and Chins, then Deadlift, then do a superset of Press and Barbell Rows. My Deadlift suffered because I was tired from Squats, Bench, and Chins. My Press suffered even more since my CNS was completely fried by the time I got to them because of the high intensity I was working at. Since going to 6 days (see my thread on my modified Texas Method Program) my Press and Deadlift have got a lot better just because I am able to do them fresher.
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Hypertrophy: I have never trained for hypertrophy. My instinct is that in strength training, low responders benefit from keeping the volume the same but using increased intensity. This dynamic is already built into the RPE system. The same may be true for hypertrophy, but we also may benefit for using slightly lower RPE in hypertrophy training and increased sets and reps. So instead of 5 x 5 at RPE 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 we may respond better to 5 sets of 8 at RPE 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 or alternatively 8 sets of 5 at RPE 6,6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 because even at RPE 6 at sets of 5 we are going to be working at an intensity level in the 80%+ range.
My stats for people wondering are 36 year old male 5’9 208 pounds (I am definitely fat). I have average arms and legs (my arm span from fingertip to fingertip is almost exactly my height, which is the example often used for the average person). Estimated 1 rep maxes (none of these have been tested): 335 Low Bar Squat, 280 Bench Press, 385 pound Deadlift, 170 pound Press. Have been lifting for 6 to 7 months after a mutliple year lay off from lifting. My previous lifting experience which could be described as bro-lifting involved Bench and overhead press but not squats or deadlifts (I didn’t train lower body as seriously, but I did do leg presses) which is why I think my upperbody strength is better than my lower body strength.