General Fitness

Team Sustain: Sport of Fitness: MAX Weights Method - Part 4

Team Sustain: Sport of Fitness: MAX Weights Method - Part 4

In the 5/3/2/1 method, we start with loads just under 5RM and attempt to add 2-3% more weight every set, performing 1 fewer repetitions every set until you achieve a new 1RM. This progression has the advantage of teaching the skill of expressing your true maximum in a 4-week block.  We cannot go from a block of performing 3-5reps per set (MAX Weight PART 3) and expect to perform well in a 1RM until we have allowed the body to recruit higher-threshold fibres.  Therefore, we will slowly increase the percentages of each set from week-to-week with the aim of increasing your 1RMs by 2-3% in 5 weeks from now.

Team Sustain - Sport of Fitness: The maximum weights method - Part 2

Team Sustain - Sport of Fitness: The maximum weights method - Part 2

The Patient Lifter 6 x [2-4] Method - with this training system, we start off with a weight that we can handle comfortably for six sets of just two repetitions.  Depending on your neurological efficiency, that will translate into about 80 to 87% of your 1RM.  The goal is to increase your strength SLOWLY over time so that you can handle that same wight for six sets of 4 repetitions.  

The reason The Patient Lifter's Method works is that the load increases only when the trainee can complete all sets of 4 repetitions with the starting weight of 6 sets of 2 repetitions.  The system works using what is called the law of repeated efforts because the nervous system is forced to accept the loads as being normal.