I am 18 years old, 5’9" 170lbs, 31.5" waist, best lifts: squat-305lbs@rpe8, BP-265lbs@RPE10, DL-420lbs@RPE8
The way I generally train is by repeating a training week until I plateau (I call it a plateau if my E1RM doesn’t increase for two weeks). When I plateau I either add sets to the training week or I run a pivot week (less fatiguing week w/ different exercise selection from what I will run after the pivot).
In theory I would also run a pivot week when the session RPE and session duration is getting a bit much. However, I don’t really have a great way of knowing when the internal load is high enough that the detraining from a pivot week is justified by the reduced injury risk. Is this a reasonable use of a pivot week? Is there a strategy I could use to know when I should use a pivot week for this purpose?
I’m not sure if my strategy for adding sets to break plateaus is sustainable. I suspect I will eventually plateau for months and I shouldn’t just add sets every two weeks when this happens (or should I?). Is there a better way for me to define plateau?
A possibly silly idea I have been contemplating is a strategy to preemptively add sets before I plateau (silly b/c: why mess with something that’s working). The idea is to monitor internal load (via sessionRPE) and determine if adding sets would meaningfully increase injury risk, if not, then add sets. Will adding sets when I am already responding to the current dose of training and internal load isn’t high actually reduce risk of plateaus? Can internal load be adequately quantified to determine if now is a good time to add sets, if yes, how?
Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this nonsense and respond.
I don’t think you detrain much on a pivot week and I don’t think there’s any alteration of injury risk either way. I think using a pivot week to transition to a new training block is a reasonable strategy.
I think this is a reasonable definition for plateau and over the long term, you’re going to need to train more…sure. That said, I wouldn’t expect you to need to add sets every 2 weeks necessarily. find something that works, run that until it stops, repeat.
I probably wouldn’t unless you’re working up to a level of training volume you need to make progress. Most can get away with a fixed training stimulus and see results for a period of time.
I would like to build on this with a few more questions.
Is thas definition for plateau still worthwhile if there is a non training related culprit (being in a cut, under sleeping, maybe being old, maybe being female) likely contributing to a plateau? Basically if you were training someone would any of those factors make you allow a plateau to go on for longer before adding sets, or do those factors just make people more resistant to training which means they need a greater dose of training?
If the primary goal of training is muscular hypertrophy, does it still make sense to define a plateau in muscular hypertrophy by strength not increasing? I think strength may be a decent enough proxy for hypertrophy but I’m curious if other metrics (body part circumferences, body weight, body fat percentage readings) may be significantly useful for getting a more accurate idea of how one is responding to a training stimulus.
Is it true that higher internal load is strongly correlated with an increased risk of injury? Is session RPE (or session RPE x session duration) an adequate measurement of internal load to quantify injury risk? If the answer is yes to the two previous questions how can I take advantage of this to reduce injury risk (I think you’ve said session RPE shouldn’t consistently be 10 but is there more to it)?
I think the definition for plateau is fine, despite their being different causes. That said, I don’t think being a woman means individuals will respond less robustly to training based on present evidence.
I think that some metric of your strength should be improving, though it’s unlikely to manifest in movements you’re already very trained in. In other words, powerlifters expecting to PR their deadlift in a hypertrophy phase are probably going to be disappointed, but you might PR your DB incline bench.
Yes. sRPE is one measure of internal load, yes. We’ve talked about this extensively with respect to making sure the current load is not too much greater than the previous load, e.g. the AWCR. Here’s one resource on it:
