Question of Strength 60

My Favorite Methods: A Breakdown Q: What are your absolute favorite training methods? A: I’ve given seminars where I presented 37 different training methods, not including loading schemes. My favorite method? The one that gets you to your goal. The “best” method will vary depending on what you want to achieve. Want strength? Want size? There are different methods for those. Your level of experience will influence which ones will be a good fit. But if you forced me to choose two methods – one for strength and one for growth – I’d choose these: 1. Favorite Strength-Building Method: Clusters Cluster training is my go-to method for rapidly increasing strength. It never fails. Clusters consist of rest periods between all the reps in your set. One set becomes a series of single reps with very short rest periods in between. While you can do clusters with any type of loading and rest intervals, the traditional cluster requires you to use a load of around 90 percent of your 1RM (which is normally your 3RM load) and do four to six reps with that weight. You’d do so by resting anywhere between 10 to 20 seconds between reps depending on the exercise. A set could look like this: Unrack the bar and do rep one Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep two Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep three Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep four Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep five Rack the bar – end of set Why is it so effective? There are several factors that can influence strength gains: You recruit and fatigue the fast-twitch muscle fibers. You develop the capacity to make the fast-twitch fibers “twitch” as fast as possible. This is called a high firing rate. You build muscle mass. You desensitize the Golgi tendon organs (GTO). You become more psychologically comfortable with the lift. Clusters improve all of those! You achieve maximum fast-twitch fiber recruitment when the load on the bar is around 80-82 percent of your maximum at that moment. Sure, you can get there by using lighter weights and using fatigue to increase the relative load of the bar. But by using clusters with 88-90 percent of your max, you’re recruiting all those fast-twitch fibers from the get-go. As a result, you won’t have any reps that simply drain energy. But it’s not enough to recruit the fast-twitch fibers. The real strength gains will come from improving your capacity to use a high firing rate. This is a motor skill. And motor skill acquisition depends not only on the number of reps done with the skill emphasized, but on the ratio of “good” and “bad ” reps. The closer you are to your maximum strength, the higher the firing rate. Firing rate increases the most when you need even more force and you can no longer recruit more fibers. At 90 percent you have a very high firing rate from the start. If you do five cluster reps with 90 percent you’ll get five reps with a very high firing rate and no reps with a low firing rate. From a motor learning standpoint, that’s golden. Now compare that to doing 10 reps with 70 percent. Because of fatigue you’ll still end up with five to six reps where the fast-twitch fibers are maximally recruited and probably three reps with a high firing rate. But you also get five reps with a lower firing rate. From a motor-learning perspective, this is vastly inferior. It’s like trying to play golf and doing 30 great swings, 20 suboptimal ones, and 50 shitty ones. Chances are you won’t improve rapidly. Clusters are also very good at building muscle. Hypertrophy has a lot to do with the number of maximally-effective reps. A maximally-effective rep is a rep where you’re recruiting as many fast-twitch fibers as you can. Since these have the greatest growth potential, it’s all about stimulating them as much as possible. As we just saw, when the load represents 80 percent of the max weight you can lift at that moment, you’ll be recruiting the max number of fast-twitch fibers you can recruit. You can get there by using less weight because each rep fatigues you. As you’re fatiguing, your strength will go down (two to four percent per rep) so the weight on the bar is relatively heavier compared to what you can lift. Here’s an example: Rep Weight on Bar Fatigue Level Relative Weight 1 70% 0% 70% 2 70% 3% 73% 3 70% 6% 76% 4 70% 9% 79% 5 70% 12% 82% 6 70% 15% 85% 7 70% 18% 88% 8 70% 21% 91% 9 70% 24% 94% 10 70% 27% 97% As you can see, by rep five you’d have maximally-effective reps. That gives you six of them in the set. Now let’s look at a cluster set. Because of the rest period you’ll have some recovery, so fatigue is a bit slower. Rep Weight on Bar Fatigue Level Relative Weight 1 90% 0% 90% 2 90% 1.5% 91.5% 3 90% 3% 93% 4 90% 4.5% 94.5% 5 90% 6% 96% 6 90% 7.5% 97.5% Clusters allow you to get as many growth-producing reps as you normally would in a higher-rep set, without having to waste energy doing
Origin: Question of Strength 60