Of all the biases that inflict the human brain, I must be genetically predisposed against the Status Quo bias. I thrive on change and get bored fairly easily. This was an asset in my long professional career as I was employed by a company whose name was literally about change.
When I decided I’d train for a triathlon many years ago, I was an experienced runner from my Army days, but I was a novice cyclist and a complete neophyte swimmer. But I selected a training program designed for advanced athletes because it had so many variations and techniques that I couldn’t get bored.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much variation required for hypertrophy training so I’m left with tinkering how I organize my training split as the only real opportunity to ward off the tedium. I wrote about the elusive perfect split before, and I’m still looking for it. I will create a split that looks great on paper, try it out for what seems like a reasonable amount of time, and find issues with it. I tinker some more and try again, only to find myself thinking about a better way.
Most recently, I stripped my training down to the bare bones of ideal lifts and went to a straight Legs, Pull, Press twice per week split. It was elegant in its simplicity and would allow easy increases in load as I adapted to the stimulus. I stuck with it for an entire week. I just find a “Leg Day” sub-optimal as it’s too fatiguing for me and I start dreading it, which likely impacts my performance.
Today, I started a new split which keeps all the same lifts, but, similar to my old triathlon training, I’ve added in some variations to keep it from getting boring (I hope). I use a DUP style arrangement so I can do two different loading parameters, one heavy and one light, for each of the major compound lifts.
The biggest change is in my volume and frequency scheme, as I’ve broken down my body into Advanced, Intermediate and Novice muscle groups. Allow me to elaborate. After a decade of Powerlifting training, I think it’s safe to say the muscle groups primarily involved; pecs and front delts, quads, and triceps, would be “advanced,” i.e. they’ve developed more than some of the other groups that get less stimulus from typical Powerlifting training. These “advanced” muscles may require more stimulus to keep them growing, so a higher volume would likely be beneficial. Spreading this increased volume over more training sessions to avoid doing too much in any one session is also advisable.
The muscle groups that don’t get as much attention in Powerlifting training; for example hamstrings, lats, biceps, lateral delts and calves, I’ve moved into the “intermediate” category. Last but not least, the muscles I’ve neglected most over the years: upper traps, abs, neck, and rear delts I’ve labeled “novice.”
With that piece outlined, I set volume and frequency for each group, training the advanced muscles with more sets more often, the intermediate ones as you might guess, in the middle range, and the novice groups with less volume and frequency. The result is a tapestry of lifting that provides a complex weave of combinations and variations that may not only be effective, but may allow me to ward off the inevitable boredom that comes from my insatiable need to change something. If you’ve ever seen Jamie Lewis’ Destroy the Opposition Powerlifting programs, they resemble those in organization. If you haven’t, the book is a fun read with a lot of the history of Powerlifting, the different techniques used by some of the greats in all the lifts, and his programming ideas at the end.
The experiment began yesterday with a heavy Squat session, a light Overhead Press session, and then Flies, Triceps Extensions and Calf Raises. Heavy Bench Press is on tap for tomorrow, along with Lateral Raises, Triceps Pressdown, Leg Extensions and Ab work.I know myself well enough to have labeled the split “experimental” on my spreadsheet.
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