VIF - Overview & Volume Flashcards
Give an overview for VIF, and it’s relations.
- Volume = Load x sets x reps
- When speaking irrespectively of intensity, volume can be thought of as total reps
- Intensity =
- Frequency =
How is Volume, Intensity, and Frequency interelated?
Volume, intensity, and frequency are interrelated.
- If you increase intensity (BP 3x10 of 100 lbs to BP 3x10 of 110 lbs is an increase of 90 lbs in total volume)
- If you increase volume, whether through sets, reps, weight, it increases workload and depending on your Fitness it can get to a point of overreaching and even worse, over training.
- If you increase intensity but keep the same training volume, this can increase the difficulty of the workout, due to fatigue (CNS fatigue specially, and muscular fatigue as well) which can make it difficult to continue with that load thereby decreasing total volume of the workout. It could also affect ability to recover and produce force again. Balance is key
- If you increase Volume too much it might be necessary to split the workouts into multiple days, thereby influencing frequency.
- If you increase a day, you increase frequency and need to adjust reps and sets (volume) for those days.
What are the VIF recommendations?
How is Training Volume calculated?
Training volume = Load(weight for weights, tension for bands, etc.) x sets x reps
What is strength specific to?
Strength is specific to both the movement (squat, bench, etc.) and rep range (1-5, 6-12, 13-20, etc.)
- The more time you get moving loads with a specific exercise and a specific rep range, the stronger you will get on that specific exercise, in that specific rep range, with that specific load.
What factors affect your strength?
- Muscle mass, neurological adaptation and familiarity with movement (skill acquisition).
- Volume is important to total workload and practice you have in a movement.
Hypertrohpy Specificity
Hypertrophy is primarily related to the total work performed and is less specific to intensity range or movement performed. Our muscles grow using various exercises and various repetition ranges and loads.
What is relation between Strength, Hypertrophy, Volume?
- There is a linear relation between strength, hypertrophy and volume.
- However, there is rate of diminishing returns.
- Simply adding more volume, to a point, will result in proportional increases in strength or hypertrophy. If volume continues to increase overreaching can occur and then overtraining.
- The more advanced you are the more difficult it is to achieve gains, the training will become more complex.
- The amount of volume you can workout with will increase as your fitness increases over time.
What is Fitness?
The physical capability that we have achieved as a result of training. As we continue to actively train, it improves gradually over time.
What is Fatigue?
A result of training. It is generated in proportion to the workload and the intensity of the workload performed. It is also generated based on how fatigue resistant you are. Fatigue resistance, or workload capacity, increases over time as you adapt to greater and greater training stresses.
What is Performance?
FITNESS minus FATIGUE. Now, other external factors also affect performance, like when the gym is too hot, using equipment that you are unfamiliar with, or when you are mentally affected by other stresses or distractions not related to training. Therefore, you cannot completely isolate your performance to the balance of fitness and fatigue, but their relationship is one of the largest components determining performance.
What is the Fitness-Fatigue Model?
It is the relationship in which training affects fatigue (How tired/damaged your body is), your performance (How much you can lift in spite of fatigue), and your fitness (How much you can lift at your best, so no residual fatigue.)
“before training there is a small level of residual fatigue from the previous training sessions. Post training, fitness increases due to the training effect, but fatigue increases also, masking the positive effect on performance. After some recovery time, fatigue drops to baseline and the increase to performance is apparent (shown by the increase in size of the yellow performance bar overall.)”
What is the relation between performance and fatigue?
After lifting you acquire fatigue, the more fatigued you are, the worse performance you will have. They have an inverse relation.
How does fatigue (in training) affect fitness?
Fatigue and fitness have a linear relation, the fitness gained is proportional to the fatigue acquired *up until it reaches the maximum threshold, which means that doing more work will create more fatigue without increasing fitness, and if it’s pushed too far recovery times required will decrease fitness levels due to performance levels being so low and taking too long to recover*
“With each training session both fitness and fatigue go up, but then as the latter dissipates this will prompt a rise in performance.”
“When residual fatigue surpasses your increases in fitness, performance will be negatively affected - you won’t be able to train as hard or as heavy.”
What is functional over reaching?
“When residual fatigue surpasses your increases in fitness, performance will be negatively affected - you won’t be able to train as hard or as heavy.”
“if you let the fatigue dissipate with planned lower stress days or weeks that are incorporated into a periodized plan (often called deloads), performance comes back, and returns to a level that you perhaps couldn’t have achieved”
Explain the process of functional over reaching
“It’s worth pointing out, that there are always normal fluctuations in training performance, and in fact training in a “fatigued state” is not necessarily a bad thing. Depending on training age, the time frame of your goals, your workload capacity, and the structure of your training, training in a fatigued state may be a normal occurrence. However, at some point, dictated by the periodization strategy being employed, performance should be seen to eventually improve.”
“At a certain point training volume is increased - the trainee is attempting to push the envelope and increase their rate of progress - which causes fitness and fatigue to go up sharply. Performance starts to decrease because the residual fatigue is outpacing the increases in fitness.”
“The trainee notices the decrease in performance, however the trainee knows that a period of functional overreaching can help push them to new levels of fitness over the longer term, so they decide to not taper volume at this time.”
“At the point of the grey dotted line, the trainee guesses that any further continuation of the current level of training volume will be harmful to long-term progress. Either grudgingly or strategically, training volume is tapered to let fatigue dissipate before fitness levels are affected.”
“Fitness levels are maintained with the reduced volume, residual fatigue dissipates, performance reaches a new level, PRs are had, and there is much rejoicing.”
Explain the process of non-functional over reaching
“Up until the first dotted line we have the same scenario as in the overreaching explanation.”
“the trainee decides to not decrease volume.”
“The increasing fatigue causes a faster drop in performance. It is not possible to train in a manner that is sufficient to sustain training adaptations, and fitness goes down.”
“The trainee realizes their mistake and tapers training volume considerably at the point of the second dotted line. But it takes a considerable time before fatigue dissipates, performance comes back, and training can be resumed to a level that will start to improve fitness.”
What are the Volume recommendations?
