VIF - Intensity Flashcards
Give a brief description of Intensity in terms of the VIF relation, and the reason for it’s placement on the pyramid.
Intensity
What is intensity?
“Either the intensity of load or the intensity of effort; how much you are lifting (often defined as an RM or percentage of 1RM) or how near to your maximal effort that load is (often defined as an RPE score)”
What is SAID?
“Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands”
What are the 3 major factors that optimize strength?
- Muscle Mass (And Other Structural Adaptations) *Size of the muscles being used*
- Neuromuscular Adaptations (% of muscle fibers recruited in that given muscle)
- Motor Patters/ Skills (Are you incorporating the right muscles in the movement?)
How does muscles mass affect strength?
“A larger cross-sectional area and more mass means we have more muscle fibers to contract and we can move heavier loads. More muscle mass typically means more strength relative to when you had less muscle mass. There are also other structural changes to include adaptations to the non-contractile elements of muscle, connective tissue and changes in pennation angle that can effect strength.”
How does neurological system affect strength?
The amount (%) of muscle fibers we can recruit in a movement
“It is the neurological system that recruits and activates our muscles and allows us to express strength. Neuromuscular adaptations to heavier loading allows contractions to be more forceful and efficient. This means that we can use more of the full potential of our existing muscle mass.”
How do motor patterns (skill) influence strength?
“Strength is not just a quality of the body but also a skill, meaning that you need to get better at the movement that you want to be stronger at. We need specificity for the velocity and the load, and the recruitment patterns that you need to use to move those heavy loads. How strong you can be in the squat, for example, is affected by how familiar you are with the movement.”
Given the same volume, how does rep range affect strength and muscle gain?
The same amount of hypertrophy occurs, however due to training specifity, lower rep training will increase strength in those reps, and higher rep training will increase strength in the other reps. EX. (With the same ending volume) 120 lbs of 5x5 of squats vs 100 lbs of 3x10 of squats. Same amount of hypertrophy, higher 1RM with with 120 lbs.
“…if you want to get good at lifting heavy things you have to lift heavy things.”
What are the pros of high intensity, high frequency, low volume training?
- Very specific approach
- Should result in more consistency in max effort attempts
- Increased mental toughness when it comes to max attempts
- Better ability to recover from high intensity lifting
- Theoretically increased 1RM strength
What are the disadvantages of high intensity low volume training?
- High intensity approaches necessitate lower volumes per session due to the time and energy cost of using such a high intensity.
- The volume load performed in an hour using this approach pales in comparison to an approach using higher repetitions and moderate loads.
- Higher intensity means higher fatigue
- Regular training to failure (which a 1RM is just barely short of) can result in a state indicative of overtraining and performing the same volume of training, but using 3RM versus 10RM loads exclusively may result in more joint pain and injury
- many people struggle to hold form at very high loads, and since strength is a skill, if you struggle with form at maximal loads, you may not be ingraining the best motor patterns.
When can high intensity, high frequency, low volume be best for?
“It likely should not be performed for extended periods, and might only be appropriate for overreaching blocks or in an intensification phase of competition preparation.”
“Gonzalez-Badillo also performed a study on intensity. In this study, they once again examined young, healthy, well-trained competitive male weightlifters performing the back squat, snatch, clean and jerk and accessory lifts for 10 weeks. This time, the three groups performed the same total repetitions over this period, however each group performed a different proportion of their reps in the 90-100% of 1RM zone. One group performed 46, another 93, and the final group 184 of their total repetitions in the 90-100% of 1RM loading zone. Interestingly enough, the middle group increased their strength the most [18]. The take home message is that while an extremely specific, high frequency, high load approach can work and will likely make you stronger, it may not make you stronger than a more moderate approach”
What did the Campos and Colleagues study show?
Showed that with equated volume, 3-5 repetition maximum (RM) loads and 9-11RM loads produced the same amount of hypertrophy, but 20-28RM loads produced less muscle growth.
What did the study by Schoenfeld show?
“A group doing 20-35RM sets performed three times the total repetitions and twice the volume load as a group doing 8-12RM sets, but achieved the same level of muscle growth.”
What is an effective rep?
Short - Try to do sets where your intensity doesn’t drop under 70% for the rep range. If super setting, or APS this also means that you should do the majority of the load in the set at 20 reps and under. See Campos and Schoenfield studies.
“it will only be the last few reps where we are actually causing enough fatigue and therefore additional fiber recruitment to e ectively train our muscles to a point where they might have to adapt, and get bigger.”
‘The total volume of work that provides a training stimulus to fibers is what largely determines hypertrophy with all other things equal.” That is, assuming adequate intensity (>70% in trained subjects).
The example he used to illustrate the above conclusion was: “let’s say you do a set of 5 to failure with 85% of 1RM, with that load you are probably getting a training effect from rep 1. So, that’s roughly 4.25 arbitrary units of effective volume (.85x5). However, if you were to do a set of 10 to failure with 75% 1RM, maybe only the last 7 reps provide a training effect. So that’s roughly 6 units of effective volume (.75x.7).”’
What are the pros of high rep light load training?
“including some high repetition training may be more effective for overall growth as it could theoretically be more effective for training slow fatiguing muscle fibers”
What is the table for reps per percentage of 1RM?
“This can be calculated based on an estimated 1RM from performing an AMRAP set (as many reps as possible), or it can be based on an actual 1RM test.”
“The downsides to this system are that it’s not appropriate to do a 1RM on all movements - a bicep curl for example or a lateral raise. Additionally, depending on the person, (and especially at percentages of 1RM below 90%), one person may be able to do a very different number of repetitions at a similar percentage of 1RM compared to another [21]. Some people will be able to do 8 reps at 80% of their one rep max, other people will be able to do 8 reps at only 70% of their one rep max.”
What is RPE?
“RPE (rating of perceived exertion) scale based on repetitions in reserve (RIR)”
“Essentially, RPE when using this scale is based on how close to failure you get at the conclusion of each set. You simply do your sets and choose how close to failure you wish to get. A 10RPE would be at failure (or rather, no additional load or reps could have been performed), a 9RPE would be one rep left, an 8RPE would be two. Combining a rep range or rep target with an RPE target to prescribe load can be used on its own, or used in combination with RM or % 1RM so that the lifter knows how much stress they should be experiencing, versus what is prescribed. Sometimes when you are in a fatigued state, you may under perform. For example, let’s say your performance was slightly suppressed due to residual fatigue, but you had 5 reps at 85% of 1RM programmed. Feeling great, you might finish this set with 1 RIR (a 9 RPE). However, in a fatigued state, this might end up being to failure or you might even miss the final rep. To avoid this, you can prescribe not only “5 reps at 85% 1RM”, but also a 9 RPE as a reference to allow the lifter to adjust the load as needed to match the intended stress.”
