Question for you guys who train mostly for hypertrophy

[MacBody96]

What progression method do you use on your main lifts and isolations? As hypertrophy is an very easy given adaptation, has me thinking that it dont really matter as long you are increasing reps/weight when things get to easy and you fall out of that overload threshold (0-4 rir)

What progression method seems to make most sense for hypertrophy? Do you guys also log rir? How do you guys progress your training for hypertrophy?

[MyEgoProblem]

It's not all I do or the only way to do it. This one is the simplest tbh.

*Rpe capped Auto regulated double progression*

I arbitrarily pick a 4~ rep range between 6-20. (know data suggests 3-30 but preference)
Probably 8-12 or 10-15

I work up to a weight around rpe8 and repeat the weight for however many sets I have that day spread over the week.

Log it all.

Come in the next session, assume Ive made progress and aim to have more weight or reps. But I'll only know by the last ramp up sets for weight and by the first work set for reps.

I'm not trying to force weight on the bar, or over reach and add reps. Basically So long as all my Work is in my specified ranges it's gonna be fine.

I'll run this for a block, pivot and start over with the same or different reps & variations

Tldr. Pick lifts, pick a range, aim for 2rir. Hang around that zone.
gains come organically.

[Heisman2]

The above is all good info.

For isolations assuming you do them after compounds progression becomes tricky as when you go up on the compounds then you will have more fatigue going into the isolation movements. Thus you can do the same weight week after week with similar RPE but still be making progress. I view isolations as a good way to target muscles in ways that aren't hit by the compounds rather than movements I need to specifically try to progress with. Examples:

- Leg extensions will put a lot of force on your quads in the fully extended position (this doesn't happen with squats/leg presses)
- Leg curls will work the knee flexion function of the hamstring (squats and the various deadlifts don't do this)
- Lying tricep extensions will allow you to work the long head of the triceps when it is most lengthened (bench presses/dips won't allow this)
- Seated incline curls or low cable curls (facing away from the pulley) will allow you to work the biceps in the fully stretched position (pullups/rows do not allow this)
- Etc

So I just rotate isolation movements to target different things and while I do try to lift more weight/reps over time I mostly go by feel. So I'll push myself hard on isolation sets, potentially to RIR 0, but I keep the set count for them fairly low and don't push them enough to detract my recovery for the main compound lifts in the next session.

[MyEgoProblem]

snip...

Very familiar way of doing single joint stuff!
Approved/10

I like to do myos 15/5*5 for that stuff much of the time.

Work up to a top set of 15~@9/1rir
Take 5 breaths
Do 5 reos
Repeat until you have done 5*5 rest pause sets or stop if you can't get 5reps

[George2100]

I literally just ramp up to a top set of 6-12 reps and keep adding weight or reps every session. Been keeping it simple forever

[RapidFail]

I finish each exercise with an AMRAP set. What this looks like for a compound exercise, is I will go until I have a slow/grindy rep with good form and I either don't know if I can do another, or I know I can't do another. For isolation exercises, more often I will push to form failure, where I will try and fail to get another clean rep.

For example, yesterday I was doing front squats. I want most of my sets to be about 2 RIR, so when doing sets of 9, I'm targeting 11 reps in my AMRAP set. It looked like this:

9 x 47.5kg (~4 RIR)
9 x 47.5kg (~3 RIR)
9 x 47.5kg (~2 RIR)
11 x 47.5kg (AMRAP)

So I'm confident that I had at least 2 RIR for my earlier sets, so I can progress to 50kg next week.

[sooby]

one thing I did with isolation movements (more so just fun experimentation) was just to increase the weight of it each week, and see how many reps I could get (first two sets RPE 8-9, last set RPE 9-10). By default, you are auto-regulating because you are increasing the weight.

For example what I would do with barbell curls, pick a weight you can do around 15-20 reps with

Week 1: 60 lbs - 17, 13, 11 reps
Week 2: 65 lbs - 12, 9, 8 reps
Week 3: 70 lbs - 8, 6, 5 reps

Since I went below 20 total reps, I took a deload with this movement for a week then went back to 55 lbs and see how many reps in total I could get with 60 lbs. Say I got 50 reps (20, 16, 14), then whatever I've been doing is working. Basically repeat in an infinite loop until you get less than 20 reps total at a given weight. However, I usually don't stick with the same isolation movement for more than 8-10 weeks. I'll just switch it out of boredom, maybe I just stalled hard, dealing with some nagging aches, etc. Can run this for about 2-3 cycles for a particular exercise.

Pick appropriate weight increments. For example going from 400 lbs to a 405 lb leg increase is probably too small. I guess you could just amrap that out if you really wanted to but kinda defeats the purpose. I'd go for closer to a 10% increase in weight.

There's a lot of ways to skin it

[blue9steel]

In my current meso design week one I try to hit 3 RIR, each additional week I try to match or beat reps, if reps get too far out of the rep range I'm shooting for I'll increase weight, in the last week of the meso I try to hit roughly 0 RIR. After deload I pick the weights for the next meso that will keep me in the appropriate rep range, this usually means an increase. I use 1RM estimates to get a rough guess, then adjust based on personal experience. So in summary it's basically auto-regulated step-loading.

[MacBody96]

So basically for pure hypertrophy goals it wont matter much whatever progression method or periodization you use, as long you check the boxes of having enough volume, training with 1-3 rir to make sure your training is overloading, and progress when possible to keep you in that overloading zone (1-4 rir)

I like the rep match progression by Mike Israetel, where you progress rir each week by matching the reps from last week with a little bit more weight or same weight but more reps, anyone tried this?

[BeginnerGainz]

I literally just ramp up to a top set of 6-12 reps and keep adding weight or reps every session. Been keeping it simple forever

This is what I do. That top set for me is pretty damn close to failure.

[paulinkansas]

Same weight each week. I shoot for the same number the next week. If that last rep seems easy I shoot for another. I start at 12 reps and go to 20. Then drop back down to 12 and add weight. Lower reps hurt my joints, I'm not young. Last week I had to use toilet water for my morning coffee because of frozen pipes.

[Animal2692]

I'm still progressing workout to workout so what I do is pick a rep range such as 5-8 (which I like the most). I do double progression at 9-10 RPE where I build up to 8 reps, add weight, drop down to 5. If I start feeling like it's becoming a grind to add reps or weight, I'll hold the same weight and reps for about 2 sessions or so (doing full body 3x a week) and then go right back to going balls to the wall again. Maintaining the same weight and reps is still going to be a high enough RPE to continually progress. Instead of adding reps and weight, the RPE just drops and then I'm right back to adding reps and weight again -easily-.

Hypertrophy alone is extremely forgiving because the rep ranges don't matter as much. There's really two types of strength: 1RM strength and long term progressive strength. With hypertrophy, you're looking for long term strength gains in pretty much any rep range which is why I don't care about 1RM strength much since squatting 4 plates for say 5 reps 2 years later is already strong in itself.

[blue9steel]

I like the rep match progression by Mike Israetel, where you progress rir each week by matching the reps from last week with a little bit more weight or same weight but more reps, anyone tried this?

That's exactly what I do now. I try pretty hard to make sure I'm properly detecting RIR 3 on the first week of the mesocycle, after that it's just match or beat. Seems to be producing good gains and it's conceptually easy to do so I like it.

[Animal2692]

I literally just ramp up to a top set of 6-12 reps and keep adding weight or reps every session. Been keeping it simple forever

Just curious here. With that approach, your weekly volume in hard sets, must be very low no? If you're ramping sets, the previous are mostly warm ups.

[BeginnerGainz]

Just curious here. With that approach, your weekly volume in hard sets, must be very low no? If you're ramping sets, the previous are mostly warm ups.

A hard set is a set close to failure, within 2-3 reps. Doesn’t matter if it’s a set of 4-6, 8-10, 12-15, or whatever.

[Animal2692]

A hard set is a set close to failure, within 2-3 reps. Doesn’t matter if it’s a set of 4-6, 8-10, 12-15, or whatever.

Right but when I think ramping sets with a top set, I think that the top set is close to failure and the rest are well, far from it.

[MacBody96]

Anyone else here that follows volume ramping like Mike Israetel recommends, how do you like it?

[Filmbuff81]

Anyone else here that follows volume ramping like Mike Israetel recommends, how do you like it?

I think it’s a solid way to do things provided you don’t overdo it and just add sets arbitrarily.

I’ve been working with Sam Okunola for nearly 12 weeks(he coaches for RP too)

And my mesocycles have been very productive.

I used the physique templates in the past, but after reading the RP hypertrophy book and some other videos and articles, it’s a system that definitely needs pure auto regulation.

I’ve been on a pretty hard cut the entire time and have made pretty stellar gains during the entire time.

So we’ve kept the actual sets per week static so far, but we’ve ramped the RIR every week for 5 weeks then a deload, rinse repeat.

I’m venturing into a resensitization phase in a week where we’re dropping sets before heading back into another hypertrophy block.

I think the physique templates are a good gateway into the training provided you’re honest within their rating system.

[blue9steel]

Anyone else here that follows volume ramping like Mike Israetel recommends, how do you like it?

I've added volume ramping to my mesocycle design and I feel like it's working well for me. One of the big advantages is that the most volume I can handle is more than the sustained amount of volume I could handle on a static number of sets design. I feel like I'm doing a better job of both progressive overload and fatigue management this way.

[WolfRose7]

Anyone else here that follows volume ramping like Mike Israetel recommends, how do you like it?

I dislike it,

I find starting lower and finishing very high both unnecessary, and feel like set volume for the dev block is more productive and less noisy.

Not to say it doesn't work, but to me it doesn't offer anything, and has some negatives.

[Animal2692]

I dislike it,

I find starting lower and finishing very high both unnecessary, and feel like set volume for the dev block is more productive and less noisy.

Not to say it doesn't work, but to me it doesn't offer anything, and has some negatives.

This is funny because I was just skimming forums on dynamic double progression and found you responding in this one thread in 2019 where it seemed like you were for volume ramping.

https://ibb.co/SByjDpF

I know it was a while ago and things change so I'm guessing you tried it for a good bit and came to the conclusion you didn't like it?

[Filmbuff81]

I dislike it,

I find starting lower and finishing very high both unnecessary, and feel like set volume for the dev block is more productive and less noisy.

Not to say it doesn't work, but to me it doesn't offer anything, and has some negatives.

I think the biggest issue is that for sample purposes they would have articles going from 10-20 sets over the course of a meso cycle, when really in practice that shouldn’t happen.

Plus the set volume is a moving target depending on your diet.

Being on a cut if I was ramping the volume I might add 1-3 sets over the course of the meso.

Maybe in a mass 2-5?

So I don’t think that’s an absurd amount.

Especially since it’s entirely auto-regulated and you might even drop sets at times.

It’s one reason I always mention that if someone wants to try this sort of training they need to be 100% honest and not just add sets because they think “more sets good”.

[anonymous]

Progress is measured from the first set of 15-20

Subsequent sets are done fatigued with intentionally submax loads for volume

i.e. last push workout

Hammer chest 4 plates x 15
Wait 2 mins

Drop to 3 plates for 5 sets of 8 reps with minimal rest

Hammer wide, whatever weight was already on it for 3 x sets of 50 reps "myo reps"

Hammer shoulder press 1 set of 15 with 3 plates

Drop to 2 plates for 5 sets of 8 with minimal rest

Laterals and pushdowns for lots of sets of squeeze reps, didn't count reps or sets

It's not real progess I must add, as I was much stronger in my 30s, but these are general strength targets I feel I need to maintain before hitting pure squeeze and flex work

[Filmbuff81]

Progress is measured from the first set of 15-20

Subsequent sets are done fatigued with intentionally submax loads for volume

i.e. last push workout

Hammer chest 4 plates x 15
Wait 2 mins

Drop to 3 plates for 5 sets of 8 reps with minimal rest

Hammer wide, whatever weight was already on it for 3 x sets of 50 reps "myo reps"

Hammer shoulder press 1 set of 15 with 3 plates

Drop to 2 plates for 5 sets of 8 with minimal rest

Laterals and pushdowns for lots of sets of squeeze reps, didn't count reps or sets

It's not real progess I must add, as I was much stronger in my 30s, but these are general strength targets I feel I need to maintain before hitting pure squeeze and flex work

What was your purpose for posting this

[WolfRose7]

This is funny because I was just skimming forums on dynamic double progression and found you responding in this one thread in 2019 where it seemed like you were for volume ramping.

https://ibb.co/SByjDpF

I know it was a while ago and things change so I'm guessing you tried it for a good bit and came to the conclusion you didn't like it?

Yeah just more experience and exposure to different methodologies.
I don't think it's terrible or anything, I just don't think it ever wins the pro-neg balancing act

[WolfRose7]

I think the biggest issue is that for sample purposes they would have articles going from 10-20 sets over the course of a meso cycle, when really in practice that shouldn’t happen.

Plus the set volume is a moving target depending on your diet.

Being on a cut if I was ramping the volume I might add 1-3 sets over the course of the meso.

Maybe in a mass 2-5?

So I don’t think that’s an absurd amount.

Especially since it’s entirely auto-regulated and you might even drop sets at times.

It’s one reason I always mention that if someone wants to try this sort of training they need to be 100% honest and not just add sets because they think “more sets good”.

Certainly the way to go about it if you do try it

[tbonestake]

When the weight I’m using feels light I add more weight. Usually when I can do 15+ reps depending on the exercise