Hello everyone,
This morning I was listening to one of your latest episode of your podcast , probably #173, and I heard Austin saying he is currently training at a much lower RPE than he did in the past.
A lower RPE obviously allows to tolerate higher training volumes without accumulating too much fatigue; and in particular he said the benefit, from a training stimulus point of view, of going from RPE 7 to RPE 9 is marginal, whereas accumulated fatigue increases exponentially; finally he said (if I’m not mistaken) that his current backoff/accessory work is performed at RPE 6.
I would like to know if this is the case, that Austin is training at such RPE, and if this is something that he has been experimenting on himself only or if it’s a training strategy he has been adopting for his/your clients as well.
I’m asking this out of curiosity, and wondering if high volume + low RPE (6-7) could be a viable training strategy for everyone (on average), from a strength and hypertrophy point of view, for non specific training blocks (e.g. without singles), instead of a more “traditional” training block with sets at higher RPE (8) and less volume.
P.S. I’m aware this last question may be too general, but I believe you are going to be helpful nevertheless.
I am not training exclusively at that low RPE. I regularly perform heavy singles / doubles at high intensities, but the majority of the rest of my training volume is performed at these lower intensities/RPE targets. I have used this both with myself and with many clients. We also created the low fatigue template based on these ideas and wrote the accompanying text that explains the details.
I’m asking this out of curiosity, and wondering if high volume + low RPE (6-7) could be a viable training strategy for everyone (on average), from a strength and hypertrophy point of view, for non specific training blocks (e.g. without singles), instead of a more “traditional” training block with sets at higher RPE (8) and less volume.
Given the wide individual variation in training response to a given program, there is no single programming approach that I would be confident saying is appropriate for everyone. The only way to find out what you respond better or worse to is through long-term trial and error.