Understanding Work Capacity

How to Improve and Increase Your Work Capacity for Better, More Consistent Gains in Size and Strength

     There are several problems that I see in modern-day training and among modern lifters.  I probably rail against them quite a bit in my writings, but that’s only because I want to see lifters get better and achieve their training goals.  One of the major issues in today’s training world is that gym-goers think a workout or training program is “good” if it produces fatigue, makes them tired, or leaves them exhausted at the end of a training session.  That might be good, at times, and is even necessary periodically for increasing one’s work capacity, the very thing that we’re going to discuss here.  Because another major problem is that modern lifters—both strength athletes and bodybuilders—rarely increase their work capacity, or their ability to handle greater and greater workloads in their training.  Without the ability to handle heavier, more voluminous workloads, gains will be hard to come by or will eventually grind to a halt altogether.

     The issue usually lies in the kind of training that is popular these days, especially among modern bodybuilders.  Bodybuilding training, as well, has largely influenced the average trainee.  Most bodybuilders these days follow multi-split routines where they train individual muscles, or just a couple of muscle groups, at each session and then wait for as long as a week before training that (or those) muscle(s) again.  Even when the training program does produce gains in size and strength, there is still one problem: the lifter is always sore after the workouts because his work capacity is poor.  This isn’t really a problem for the lifter who uses performance-enhancement drugs.  But for the natural bodybuilder, it can become a major impediment to their gains.  Without the ability to handle a high workload, the lifter is limited in the training programs that he can utilize, diminishing the variety of routines at his disposal.  A lifter with a good work capacity, however, can train with multi-bodypart splits, along with full-body workouts and other high-frequency training (HFT) programs.  A modern bodybuilder might cry foul at all of this.  They might say that, since they’re not athletes, they don’t need a strong work capacity—that stuff is just for powerlifters, Olympic weightlifters, or just athletes in general.  I say not so fast.  As Scott Abel once wrote: a natural bodybuilder doesn’t need to outlift other lifters, but he does need to be capable of out-training them.  And a strong work capacity that can handle high workloads in each training session is able to do just that.

     Once lifters do understand the need for a good work capacity, however, they often don’t understand the how of increasing their workload.  Many times, they simply increase the number of workouts or they train with the same number of sessions each week but increase the sets per exercise at each workout or they add more movements to their sessions.  Sometimes these options work, but typically it just leads to burnout or overtraining.  The lifter then just returns to his prior workouts without making any gains.  Or learning anything from his training misadventures.

     In this essay, we will look at some better options for increasing your work capacity and how to go about doing so in a more methodical, systematic manner that leads to long-term results and a work capacity that can handle some big workloads in training.  If you’re a natural lifter, in particular, then pay attention.  You’ll learn the keys to reaching your full potential in your training.

     In the past, before the advent of PEDs and definitely before the age of overinformation where one has so much training “knowledge” at his fingertips that he doesn’t really know what to do, old-school lifters, by and large, all followed the same template.  And it was a template that allowed them to make consistent gains for years on end and allowed them to build work capacities that could handle an incredible amount of work in their sessions.

     Old-school bodybuilders began their training journeys by starting with full-body workouts done 3 days per week.  They used a handful of lifts and a limited number of sets per exercise, often just one work set per movement.  Slowly, over the months and then years, they added sets, and then exercises, until, after several years, they were doing long workouts that might have lasted hours.  Then and only then, they switched over to a 2-way split program, still training each muscle group 3 days per week but training 6 days weekly.  If you’ve ever looked at the training routine of a bodybuilder from the silver or golden eras, and wondered how in the heck they could handle that much training, this is the reason.  It’s why silver era bodybuilders such as Marvin Eder, Chuck Ahrens, Lou Degni, and Dominic Juliani could train for 3 to 4 hours per workout, 6 days a week!  Modern gym-goers read about their legendary workouts and just think it’s all fake and fabricated, and say “no way!”  They don’t comprehend the years of training done beforehand that allowed them to handle that kind of workload.  It can still be done.  Modern lifters often just lack the patience to follow the process.

     To give you an example, here is what a couple years of training might look like for a lifter following a Bill Starr-style heavy-light-medium program.  This is almost exactly the workouts I used to become an “elite” powerlifter.  This is not the only way to go about increasing your work capacity.  You might opt for full-body programs other than Starr’s to start with, but it gives you a good idea of what it is that I’m writing about here.  After a few weeks of using a basic “break-in” program—assuming you haven’t done full-body, 3 days per week programs beforehand—you would settle on something such as this for the first few months of training:

Heavy Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps

Bench presses – 5 sets of 5 reps

Deadlifts – 5 sets of 5 reps

Barbell Curls – 3 sets of 8 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps

Overhead Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps

Good Mornings – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab Work

Medium Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps

Incline Bench Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps

Power Cleans – 5 sets of 5 reps

Dumbbell Curls – 3 sets of 12 reps

Ab work

     After a few months of training, and assuming significant gains in strength have occurred, the program might then look something like this:

Heavy Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Bench presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Deadlifts – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Barbell Curls – 5 sets of 8 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps

Overhead Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Good Mornings – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab Work

Medium Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Incline Bench Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Power Cleans – 8 sets of 5 reps

Dumbbell Curls – 5 sets of 12 reps

Ab work

     After a few more months of training, the template would then proceed to something such as this:

Heavy Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Walking lunges – 4 sets of 10 reps

Bench presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Dips – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deadlifts – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Barbell Curls – 5 sets of 8 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Overhead Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Good Mornings – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab Work

Medium Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Front Squats – 4 sets of 10 reps

Incline Bench Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Power Cleans – 8 sets of 5 reps

Dumbbell Curls – 5 sets of 12 reps

Ab work

     And, once again, after a few more months of training, the template would then proceed to something like this:

Heavy Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Walking lunges – 4 sets of 10 reps

Bench presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Dips – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deadlifts – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Chins – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of max reps

Barbell Curls – 5 sets of 8 reps

Skull crushers – 5 sets of 8 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Bulgarian “split” squats – 4 sets of 12 reps (each leg)

Overhead Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Seated behind-the-neck presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Power Snatches – 5 sets of 3 reps

Good Mornings – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab Work

Medium Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Front Squats – 4 sets of 10 reps

Incline Bench Presses – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deficit deadlifts – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Power Cleans – 8 sets of 5 reps

Dumbbell Curls – 5 sets of 12 reps

Ab work

     Finally, after a few more months, you will once again need to increase the amount of work you’re performing.  At this point, your workouts might now look something such as this:

Heavy Day:

Squats – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Walking lunges – 4 sets of 10 reps

Bench presses – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Dips – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deadlifts – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Chins – 7 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of max reps

Barbell Curls – 5 sets of 8 reps

Skull crushers – 5 sets of 8 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Bulgarian “split” squats – 6 sets of 12 reps (each leg)

Overhead Presses – 8 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Seated behind-the-neck presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Power Snatches – 8 sets of 3 reps

Good Mornings – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab Work

Medium Day:

Squats – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Front Squats – 4 sets of 10 reps

Incline Bench Presses – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deficit deadlifts – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Power Cleans – 8 sets of 5 reps

Dumbbell Curls – 7 sets of 12 reps

Ab work

     To be honest, at this point, you could train with this amount of volume for a very long time.  Most lifters, however, will once again need to increase their work capacity.  The workout above could take around 2 hours on heavy and medium days—maybe more, depending on rest time between sets and exercises—and so it’s not practical for most lifters to add even more sets or another exercise or two to the mix.  At this point, it’s best to add another light day.  If you trained before on, say, Monday (heavy), Wednesday (light), and Friday (medium), you would now add another light day on Saturday.  Your training would now look like this:  

Heavy Day:

Squats – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Walking lunges – 4 sets of 10 reps

Bench presses – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Dips – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deadlifts – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Weighted Chins – 7 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of max reps

Barbell Curls – 5 sets of 8 reps

Skull crushers – 5 sets of 8 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Squats – 5 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Bulgarian “split” squats – 6 sets of 12 reps (each leg)

Overhead Presses – 8 sets of 5 reps, 2 sets of 8 reps

Seated behind-the-neck presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Power Snatches – 8 sets of 3 reps

Good Morning squats – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab Work

Medium Day:

Squats – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Front Squats – 4 sets of 10 reps

Incline Bench Presses – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Flat Dumbbell Bench Presses – 4 sets of 8 reps

Deficit deadlifts – 8 sets of 5 reps, 4 sets of 8 reps

Power Cleans – 8 sets of 5 reps

Dumbbell Curls – 7 sets of 12 reps

Ab work

Light Day:

Overhead squats – 5 sets of 5 reps

Clean and Jerks – 8 sets of 3 reps

Good Mornings – 5 sets of 5 reps

Ab work

     A similar template could be applied to any full-body program.  A lifter seeking hypertrophy more than strength might use higher reps or even more sets at a lower “intensity.”  Intensity, in that case, being percentage of their one-rep maximum, not how “hard” they are training.  Instead of rotating between heavy, light, and medium sessions, a lifter might also opt for the “everything moderate” approach, such as what I outlined in my Full Body Big & Strong program.  But whatever “method” is used, the steady progression in workload would remain the same.

     One thing not included above—but it’s important, so pay attention—is the inclusion of periodic “de-load” weeks or phases.  At each template progression, the lifter should periodically throw in some “active recovery” weeks, instead of just allowing the inclusion of “light” and “medium” sessions to “take care” of adequate recovery and recuperation.  For more on what that might look like, see my prior article Overtrain to Gain.  Also, another couple articles that would help to clear up any confusion you might have would be Understanding Light Day Training and Heavy/Light/Medium Training: Workouts and Programming.  Both of those articles also contain links to other articles that may help with any further clarification that you need.

     Okay, what about bodybuilders who use multi-split programs—and want to continue to do so—and lifters who train with split routines?  What are some better ways for them to program their workouts so they can increase their work capacity and, therefore, their total workloads?

     As mentioned earlier, the most popular routines nowadays are ones that rely on multi-bodypart splits.  And, also as mentioned, it’s not that these programs are necessarily “bad” but the bodybuilders who use them eventually reach the limit in what the regimens can produce for gains.  The easiest thing to do is to start using a heavy/light workout rotation.  If you train on a 3, 4, or even 5-way split and take multiple days off between workouts, training all-out at each session, go to a 3-on, 1-off schedule but rotate between “heavy” and “light.”  Heavy and light, in this case, doesn’t mean the amount of weight that you use in the workouts, but the total workload.  If you utilize a heavy/light program where, say, the heavy day involves 4 sets of 6 reps on each movement and the light day involves 4 sets of 15 reps, the light day will actually be “heavier” as far as workload is concerned.  Let’s say that you do 4x6 on the bench press with 225 pounds.  Your workload for that lift will be 5,400 pounds.  If you then do 4x15 with 150 pounds, your workload is 9,000 pounds.  That’s quite a significant increase in workload and the reason that the routine leads to stagnation, even if it works initially.

     A better method is to do the exact same exercises, sets, and reps at each session but simply drop the amount of weight used for each workout.  On the light day, I suggest using 80% of the poundage used on the heavy day.

     Also, don’t “kill it” at each session.  Instead of doing 15 to 20 sets per muscle group, drop down to 8 to 10 per bodypart at each workout.  A good “powerbuilding” routine might look like this:

Push Day:

Bench presses: 5x5

Incline dumbbell bench presses: 5x8

Military presses: 5x5

Seated behind-the-neck presses: 4x8

Skull crushers: 4x8

Cable pushdowns: 4x10

Pull Day:

Weighted chins: 5x5

One-arm dumbbell rows: 5x8 (each arm)

Barbell curls: 4x5

Cable curls: 4x10

Leg Day:

Squats: 5x5

Front squats: 4x8

RDLs: 5x8

Standing calf raises: 4x12

     If you used 275 pounds for 5x5 on squats and 205 pounds for front squats on the heavy session, you would use 220 and 165 pounds for the two lifts at the light session, for example.  If you’re sore at first during the light workouts, that’s fine.  Once you’ve adapted to the training, you won’t be, and you’ll start increasing your work capacity at that point.  This kind of training is the key to increasing your work capacity.

     You can also use a heavy-light-medium system with the 3-on, 1-off split.  So, instead of rotating between 100% and 80%, you could rotate between 100/80/90%, in that order.  And, as you adapt to the training, you should start increasing the volume of each workout.  I think it’s best, at least at first, to add sets to each movement as opposed to additional exercises.  At first, again, add the additional sets to the heavy sessions.  Eventually, they can be added to the light days.  So, you might go to 6x5, then 7x5, then 8x5 on the squats over a course of several workouts but keep the rest of the leg day session the same.  Then you would add sets to the front squats and RDLs.

     Another way to increase work capacity is to keep the sessions the same but simply increase the frequency of training.  Old-school bodybuilding writer George Turner preferred this method.  In his Full-Body Blast program, he suggested starting with a FB workout every 3 days.  So, you’d train on Monday then Thursday then Sunday, and so on.  After a few weeks, you’d move to a 3-days-a-week schedule, such as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Eventually, you would just train every-other-day, not taking off the 2 days on the weekends.  After a year or so of training in such a manner, you would then transition to a 2-way split model, training half of your body on one day and the other half the next, and training however many days in a row you wanted until you, intuitively, felt as if you needed a day off.

     There are many ways that lifters can go about increasing his workload and, therefore, increasing his work capacity.  I’ve touched on several ways here, though there are more.  I have written about this concept in several different essays scattered throughout the blog.  If you’re interested in learning more, I’d suggest simply searching for “work capacity” in the search bar at the top of the blog.  You should find plenty.

     If you haven’t thought about the importance of a “good” work capacity before, I hope this article has opened your eyes to its necessity.  If you want to reach your full potential, increasing your work capacity is a must.

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     As always, if you have any comments or questions about increasing your work capacity, then leave them in the “comments” section below.  You can also send me an email if you prefer private correspondence or have any personal questions you need answered.