Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:31 Autoregulation
01:28 AVT – Autoregulatory volume training
04:50 Benchmark and volume sets
07:50 Recap
Transcript:
Many people program their sets along the lines of 3 sets of 10 with 12 rep max, or 5 sets of 5 with 80% of their 1 rep max. That is a mistake because people differ in how difficult it is to achieve these things. I remember when I started the 5×5 programs I could not do all 5 sets of 5 reps because I just have very bad work capacity. I suffer a lot of fatigue in every individual set, whereas other people not so much. Women in particular tend to have much higher work capacity, and they might be able to do 7 or even 8 sets of 5 at 80% of their 1 rep max. A better way to program your sets is to use autoregulation.
Autoregulation has become a cool buzzword in evidence based fitness, and partly for good reason. Multiple studies have shown that autoregulated training programs result in faster strength development than programs that are not autoregulated, that have, for example, fixed weights times repetitions like 3 sets of 10 at 12 rep max. But what does autoregulation actually mean? True autoregulation is a form of programing that automatically regulates a certain process. You can think of autoregulation as a rule set or a system rather than a fixed prescription. The term autoregulation has become very diluted, though, and some people use it for any type of process with any subjective decision making. Originally, though, the term cybernetic periodization was used for this and autoregulation strictly means a process that actually autoregulates itself. Now, I’m not going to go into a debate on semantics and theory, rather I just want to give you my favorite way to implement autoregulation that I think is highly effective. This method is called Autoregulatory Volume Training, or AVT for short.
The first part of autoregulatory volume training is that we autoregulate the training intensity and how many reps you do by setting a percentage of your 1 RM and then doing as many reps as possible, or going as close to failure as you want, you can leave 2 reps in reserve, or whatever you want. Why do we use a percentage of your 1 RM? Because a 2019 systematic review found that training programs that use a percentage of 1 RM instead of a repetition maximum way to set the training intensity and how many reps you’re going to do that on average do better strength gains. Now, a notable limitation of this review is that they did not control for proximity to failure and total volume. So I would take these findings with a grain of salt, but there is some other research showing that people respond better to loading ranges that they are genetically more gifted at. One study, for example, found that people with the ACE-2 genotype, which is better suited for endurance training and higher repetitions, actually gained more strength at 12 to 15 RM loads than with 8 to 12 RM loads. Normally, people gain more strength when they go heavier. The higher the training intensity, the lower the reps, the greater the strength gains because you have higher levels of muscular activation per set and strength gains generally follow levels of muscle activity.
So we can make a tentative hypothesis that people that are, for example, super fast twitch in their muscle fibers, they have very fast twitch muscle fibers, mostly type-II fibers that have low capillary muscle density, and other genetic factors that make them very suited for lower repetition ranges, they might also perform better and make better gains with lower rep targets than people that do very high repetitions. And it’s certainly my experience and that of most coaches in research, that’s people that are genetically very suited for endurance training, they just don’t do as well in strength training and people that are genetically suited for sprinting and very explosive sports, they will never become the best marathon runner. People also like to do things that they are genetically good at. So if you’re very good at higher reps then I think it makes some sense to do higher repetitions and if you’re very good at lower repetitions, like you’re relatively stronger at lower reps, then at higher repetitions, if you increase the weight, then you don’t lose so many reps, then I think it makes sense to train a bit more in those rep ranges. And by setting your training intensity as a percentage of your 1 RM you autoregulate this process.
So if you’re genetically very good at high repetitions and I give you 80% of your 1 RM, you might be able to do 12 repetitions, which in this case means that I would give you a rep target of 12. If, however, you are genetically very good at lower repetitions, but not so good at higher repetitions, maybe you can only get 5 repetitions with 80% of your 1 RM. In that case your rep target here becomes 5. A nice thing about this method is that it also autoregulates for personal preference. Some people really hate doing high repetitions, especially for exercises like squats or front squats, whereas other people don’t. And if you give these people that really hate high reps, say 70% of 1 RM with their squats, they might only go up to 8 or 10 repetitions and then just call it quits. In that case, you probably also don’t want to go higher in repetitions because they’re just going to be super poorly motivated, it’s going to turn into cardio for them, perhaps, and that indirectly will probably also hurt their gains compared to training with a rep range that they are more comfortable with. Now the evidence behind this method being truly superior, physiologically speaking, is not very strong, but in practice I think it’s one of those things where it might have positive effects and it’s very unlikely to have any negative effects. If, however, you don’t want to use percentages of 1 RM, but you just want to set that rep target directly, though, that’s perfectly fine. That can also certainly work.
After you have found your rep targets for an exercise we get to the second part of autoregulatory volume training and that’s the Benchmark set followed by the Volume sets. So for autoregulatory volume training you always have two parts: You have the benchmark set and you have the volume sets. So if you have, say, 4 sets that you’re going to do, then set number 1 is your benchmark set, set number 1 is always the benchmark, and then the remaining sets, 2, 3, 4, they are your volume sets. Why do you do this? Because the first set is the most reliable to track your progression. The first set is going to determine whether you progressed or not and it’s going to determine things like whether you do a reactive deload, whether you want to do a plateau breaker, and in general it’s going to inform you whether you are progressing or not.
It’s important to use the first set if you are not strictly monitoring your rest intervals, and I think you shouldn’t be monitoring your rest intervals because most people really hate it and it’s not necessary. You could also autoregulate your rest intervals. That’s a topic for another video, but I like to autoregulate pretty much everything that I can because people generally really prefer it and it also, again, makes sure that people that don’t need as much rest don’t rest as long, whereas people that need more rest typically automatically rest a bit longer. The problem is if you don’t measure your rest intervals, you don’t do them with a timer, with your phone or whatever, then you don’t know if you’re doing, say, 5 sets of 5, if you’re actually getting stronger or if you’re just resting longer. And if you read the forums on 5×5 forums sometimes you’ll see people saying that the workouts now take an hour. What do I do? Well, in that case, you probably haven’t really progressed, or you have at least massively inflated your own progress, essentially faked your own progress because maybe you didn’t get stronger, it’s just that you’re now doing 5 true 5 rep maxes instead of 80% of your 1 RM. So you’re just resting longer rather than actually getting stronger. And that’s why measuring the first set as your benchmark sets is very useful.
In the first set you are not yet fatigued so there’s no confounding effect of the other sets. What you do in the later sets, I call those the volume sets, you focus a little bit more on technique and a little bit less on maximum performance. You should definitely train hard and in all sets focus on your technique, but mentally you know there’s always a bit of a trade off. In the remaining sets, if you focus more on technique, for one that’s good for the maintenance of technique, because if you’re always focusing on maximum repetition, so you have to hit a certain rep target, most people find that their technique starts slipping and the other benefit of not setting rep targets for your volume sets is that this is where true autoregulation comes in. If your first set was really brutal and took a lot out of you, then you’re going to do fewer repetitions in the later sets. And that’s fine. That other regulates your level of fatigue. Whereas, if your first set was very easy, say we got you a rep target of 8, you got 8 repetitions and you feel like: “I could maybe even have done 9 this particular workout.”, then your automatically going to do more repetitions in the later sets because you are less fatigued.
So the volume sets, by not having fixed rep targets, they autoregulate the level of fatigue after your benchmark set and this method, thereby, essentially gives you the best of both worlds in the sense of having very reliable progression measurement and being able to implement progressive overload in a very consistent, reliable fashion in the benchmark set, set number 1 and then using the volume sets to autoregulate your level of fatigue and get a high level of volume in and still also pay good attention to your technique so that you don’t start slipping in that regard to just lift heavier weights. So to recap, this is how autoregulatory volume training works.
Step 1: You auto regulate your rep targets for every exercise in your program by setting a percentage of 1 RM. So if your 1 RM was a 100 kilos and you said, say 80% of 1 RM – that’s the intensity that you want to lift at, and however many reps you can get at that weight – that becomes your rep target. And that autoregulates the number of reps that you’re going to do based on what you are genetically strong at, higher versus lower rep ranges. So let’s say it’s 80 kilos, that’s 80% of your 1 RM and you can do 9 repetitions with that? Okay, then you rep target becomes 9 for that exercise. You do this for every exercise in your program and that gives you your rep targets. You’re going to consistently try to hit these rep targets with progressively more weight – – progressive overload.
Step 2: You measure your progress based on only the first set of every exercise. This is your benchmark set. This is when you are not yet fatigued, there is no confounding effect of your rest intervals, therefore, you use this set as your benchmark, your measure of whether you are progressing or not. That’s 9 repetitions in your first set with a given weight, that is your North Star, that is where you want to go and you want to get that rep target with progressively more weight. If that is what you are achieving, then you are progressing well on the program. You probably don’t need to change anything. If you are not progressing then you need to update something in the program. This gives you a very clear rule to see whether you are progressing or not and whether you have to update your program.
Step 3: You autoregulate the number of reps you do in remaining sets by not setting clear rep targets for these sets and also by not having clear rest intervals. Rather, you do your next set when you feel ready to perform maximally again. This is how your autoregulate your rest interval. And then you do as many reps as you can, or however hard you want to train with good exercise technique and let the reps fall where they may. If your first shot was very easy, you will do more reps. If your first shot was very difficult, you do fewer reps. This autoregulates the level of fatigue across sessions, thereby allowing you to normally progress steadily over time. And it’s just a nice, practical way to train because you don’t have to log as much, you don’t have to monitor your rest intervals, and mentally it also frees up some mental energy to focus more on technique rather than being pushed every single set to focus on an absolute maximum number of repetitions. This is really not necessary if size is your main goal.
If strength is your main goal you probably do want to focus on maximum performance, but in that case your technique should be aligned so that maximum performance and good technique go hand in hand. If you’re new to ultra regulation this method may sound complicated with a lot of theory but it’s really a very easy, practical way to train. In fact, many advanced lifters intuitively gravitate towards training like this. But if you’re not training like this yet, give autoregulatory volume training a try and let me know how it goes in the comments. If you like this type of evidence based fitness content, I’d be honored if you like and subscribe.
