Weight Training 7: All The Lifts, All The Time

Previously: One / Two / Three / Four / Five / Six

Let's switch things up and talk about my training before it actually takes place.

I want to rethink my long-term training strategy, but that will require a fair amount of reading and planning.

In the meantime, and with the gym reopening, I want to get back into powerlifting training. The approach I want to try this time is practicing every lift (bench, squat, deadlift) every workout, thrice a week.

There's a twist, I would work in different rep ranges during each workout:

  1. Squat 3x, Bench Press 6x, Deadlift 12x
  2. Deadlift 3x, Squat 6x, Bench Press 12x
  3. Bench Press 3x, Deadlift 6x, Squat 12x

I've actually been told after this was written but not yet published that this is an existing training programmation concept: Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP).

There are a number of reasons I want to try this approach:

(1) That's not enough deadlift and bench, and in a sense too much squat, because all these trainings were in the same rep range — at the end of that period, that was one heavy set of 3 followed by two lighter sets of 3.

(2) The guy with the biggest bench press I met (not sure about the exact number, but he casually benched 160kg for a couple reps) told me he got there by benching every workout. Clearly it works for some people.

(3) It's difficult to explain, but anyone that has lifted seriously knows that squat your max for 3 reps feels very different than squatting your max for 12 reps. The difficulty and challenges are not the in same place. The hope is that the aspect that are most stimulated when working in that rep range will improve and carry over to the other rep ranges.

That being said, the approach also comes with risks, most notably the risk of increased fatigue because of the increased volume. To tackle this, I've made multiple resolutions:

(4) Some will argue that beginners should also stay shy of failure, which is fair enough I suppose. I actually have no idea if there is a definitive word on this.

... all the while cutting.

This might not be optimal in order to make strength gains, but should be fine as long as I don't overtrain.

The rationale is that the strength stuff is fun, and interesting to investigate, but I don't attach much value to reaching particular strength milestone. On the other hand, I do attach some value to getting to a leaner body composition.

I have some more meditations on this, but I will have to wait for another post!