High-Frequency Grease-the-Groove Training - The Intuitive Approach

     In my essay “Basic Lifting, Instinctive Training,” I mentioned the approach to training that—in the words of the great Bradley Steiner—the “mature muscle man” should take.  Steiner recommended that the seasoned lifter should know beforehand what exercises he would do in a workout, and what days he would train, but not use a pre-determined number of sets and reps for the workout.  Rather, you should let how you feel once you begin your workout decide what you do in the training session.

     And, in my recent article “Skill Training as Size Building,” I wrote about the training perspective of approaching your lifting sessions as a skill to be developed rather than a “war” to be waged against your muscles—or a “battle” or an “onslaught” or whatever pseudo-military campaign term that modern bodybuilders like to use when discussing muscle-group training.  I also suggested that one of the best ways to do this is to utilize the “90% rule.”  When doing multiple sets on a lift, use a weight that is 90% of a certain rep range—whether it’s 90% of 10 reps, of 5 reps, of triples, et al—and do it frequently.  When you are first starting out, in order to do this, you need to follow a specific program.  So, if this view of training is new to you, you should follow a controlled routine where your lifts, sets, reps, and specific days are on a set schedule.

     In this essay, I want to discuss some various ideas and methods for the seasoned lifter that combines skill training with an instinctive, intuitive approach.  If you enjoy lifting with high-frequency training (HFT) routines or easy strength workouts, and you’ve been around the iron game for a number of years, then this article is for you.  It will also be a good read if you’re a veteran lifter who has trained with more low-frequency methods and you want to see the kind of training that you might utilize if you were to switch over to HFT.

     When training, always keep this Russian maxim in mind: You want to train as heavy as possible, as often as possible, while being as fresh as possible.

     The first thing you need to decide is the lifts that you are going to train.  Are you a powerlifter?  You need to only train the three powerlifts or one of their derivatives.  Are you trying to get “all-around” strong?  Select a handful of core lifts and train those.  A good selection is some kind of squat, an overhead pressing movement, a horizontal pressing movement, a pull, and a curl.  Throw in a loaded carry to the mix and you’re good to go.

     Next, decide roughly how many days you are going to train each lift in a week.  The fewer movements that you do at a time, the more often you should train them.  Once you know the lifts and the days they will be trained, then, on each day that you train a lift, ask yourself this question: Once I’m finished with the session, will I be able to train the lift again on the next prescribed day?  You should, of course, be able to answer yes to the question.  If the answer is I’m not sure, then you are doing too much.  When in doubt—at least, when you first start a new program—do less and not more.

     Okay, let’s now look at how a powerlifter might approach this.  Our hypothetical lifter has decided that he will squat and pull at one workout and bench press at the next, meaning that the most he will train each lift is three times in a week, or every-other-day with the occasional day off.  I recommend squatting and deadlifting on the same day, and bench pressing on the following day.  Since you want to train your squat more than your deadlift, by training them together, you should squat at each workout and deadlift no more than every other session.  You might want to just train the deadlift once every third lower body/back session.  Another option is to train your squat and another pull instead of deadlifting, such as power cleans, power snatches, or high pulls to replace it.

     Even though you are not using pre-determined sets and reps, you should still have a general idea of what the workout will look like.  For your top-end sets, decide if you’re going to use 90% of your 5-rep max, 90% of your 3-rep max, 90% of your 1-rep max or even 90% of your 10-rep max for days when you feel as if you are in need of a lighter session.  You may determine this before the workout or you might wait until you have started training and then get a “feel” for how the lift is going once you begin.

     Back to our hypothetical lifter.  On Monday, he starts his training week by squatting and deadlifting.  He has a 405lb max squat.  He decides to do singles for multiple sets.  He does ramps of 5s, starting with just the Olympic bar.  Then he does 135 for a set of 5 reps.  Then he does 175 for another set of 5 reps, then starts doing triples.  He does a triple with 225 and 275, then he starts doing singles.  He does a single with 315 then another single with 335, then starts doing his multiple sets of singles with 365, 90% of his max for a single.  He does 3 singles with that weight and then, because his last triple feels a little heavier than he would like, he drops back down to 335 and does 2 more singles with it.  He has now done a total of 23 reps for the lift—not counting the 5 reps done with the Olympic bar, which is so light that it doesn’t need to be calculated for workload.  The only time you would do that is if you are doing a really high rep routine.  He decides to stop there so that he can squat again on Wednesday.  One optimal way to approach this method of grease-the-groove training is to decide you will do no more than a certain number of total reps on a lift.  For strong lifters, 20 to 30 reps would probably be good.  If you’re not quite as strong, you might pick somewhere between 15 to 20.  A lifter that can only squat, say, 250 would do well on a program of between 10 and 15 total reps.  The number is primarily due to how many sets you need to do working up to your top weight for the day.

     He now moves on to the deadlift.  He has a max deadlift of 450.  Since he’s warmed up from the squats, he starts his deadlifts with 225 pounds.  He does a set of 5 with it.  He then loads 275 on the bar and does a triple.  He then puts 315 on the bar and starts doing singles.  He does progressively heavier singles with 315, 365, and 385.  He then moves on to multiple singles with 405.  He feels strong on these—stronger than the squats—so he sticks with it for 6 singles.  He then does a brief calculation and realizes he has now performed 17 total reps.  He drops down in weight, back to 315 and does two doubles with that, for a grand total of 21 reps.  Being the iron historian, and fan of Big Jim Williams, that he is, he realizes that 21 reps is probably just right!

     Our hypothetical lifter has moved quite a bit of heavy iron on this day, but not too much, and knows that he will be able to train his lower body again on Wednesday, even if it’s not for the same workload.

Monday workout:

Squats: 135x5, 175x5, 225x3, 275x3, 315x1, 335x1, 365x1,1,1, 335x1,1 (23)

Deadlifts: 225x5, 275x3, 315x1, 365x1, 385x1, 405x1,1,1,1,1,1, 315x2,2 (21)

     On Tuesday, he bench presses and only bench presses.  His bench press max is 275 pounds.  For this day, he starts as he did with the squats, by doing a set of 5 reps with just the Olympic bar.  He then puts 95 pounds on the bar and does another set of 5.  Then, he moves to 135 for a set of 5, followed by progressively heavier triples with 155, 175, and 205 pounds before loading the bar with 225 and beginning his singles.  He does one single with 225, then 5 singles with 245, close enough to 90% of his max, so that he has now done a total of 25 reps on his bench.  He feels really strong on this day, and even though he would like to get in some extra work—he knows he could handle it but not if he’s going to train again on Thursday—so he stops right there.

Tuesday workout:

Bench presses: 95x5, 135x5, 155x3, 175x3, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1,1,1,1,1 (25)

     When he returns to the gym on Wednesday, he decides to just squat and not do any extra pulls.  He had a good deadlift session on Monday, and wants to save his pull strength for his next session later in the week.  He’s also a little sore.  He does the same workout as Monday but stops once he gets to 335 pounds rather than 365.  However, he does 6 singles with 335.  This means that his total number of reps for this workout is 23, the same as the Monday workout but using lighter weight.  SInce he used less weight and he’s going to skip the deadlifts, he knows—because he’s been reading some dude’s blog on the internet that’s always preaching about easy strength, Bill Starr, and the importance of calculating total workload—that his workload will be significantly less than Monday’s session, which can aid in his ability to recover and be prepared for his next session when he will squat and do some sort of pull, even if it’s not deadlifts.

Wednesday workout:

Squats: 135x5, 175x5, 225x3, 275x3, 315x1, 335x1,1,1,1,1,1 (23)

     He’s ready to bench press again on Thursday.  He feels strong on this day, in fact stronger than he thought he would feel because he is a little sore, and repeats the Tuesday workout verbatim.  This surprises him.  However, since he feels good and understands his body well from training in a similar fashion over the past year and a half, he knows it will work.

Thursday workout:

Bench presses: 95x5, 135x5, 155x3, 175x3, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1,1,1,1,1 (25)

     On Friday, he decides to take off.  He had 4 days straight of pretty good workouts, so he decides the day off will be recuperative.  He also decides that he will train on both Saturday and Sunday, and thinks that is a better decision than simply training Friday and Saturday and waiting until Sunday to finally take a day off.

     On Saturday, he makes the decision to do triples instead of singles on squats.  He repeats the 5s and triples from the Monday and Wednesday workout, but then does 3 triples with 315, the same weight that he started using for singles at his previous sessions.  He stops there.  He knows it’s less sets by several but his total reps is now at 25 and since he might squat again on Monday, he knows he has done enough.

     When he’s finished with the squats, he decides he needs to pull again, and since his lower back feels good, he decides to do a deadlift derivative rather than a quick lift such as power cleans.  He deadlifts conventional in competition, so he makes the decision to do some deficit sumo deadlifts.  He’s weak off the floor, so he knows this alternative will help that part of his conventional deadlift.  His max sumo deadlift is around 405 pounds—his max deficit of the same lift would be at least 50 pounds less—so he decides to do singles, working up to no more than 315.  He begins with 225 pounds, doing double ramps of singles—meaning that he does two singles at each weight before progressing.  He does two singles with 225, 250, and 275.  He then completes the session with 5 singles at 315.  For this workout, his total number of reps is only 11.  He knows this is “good” because, assuming he feels up to it, he will do another pull on Monday.

Saturday workout:

Squats: 135x5, 175x5, 225x3, 275x3, 315x3,3,3  (25)

Sumo deficit deadlifts: 225x1,1, 250x1,1, 275x1,1, 315x1,1,1,1,1 (11)

     He returns to the gym on Sunday for his 3rd bench press session of the week.  Since his two previous workouts were relatively high in workload, for him, he decides to do a “medium” workout.  He does triples, and only triples, here.  He does 95 pounds for 3 reps, then 135, 155, and 175, all for sets of 3.  His max weight for the day is 205.  He loads the bar with that and finishes his session with 2 more triples.

Sunday workout:

Bench presses: 95x3, 135x3, 155x3, 175x3, 205x3,3 (18)

     If you were to follow the “all-around” approach mentioned earlier, you might set up a weekly schedule like this:

Monday: squats, overhead presses, power cleans

Tuesday: bench presses, barbell curls, farmer walks

Wednesday: squats, power cleans

Thursday: bench presses, barbell curls

Friday: squats, overhead presses

Saturday: bench presses, farmers walks

Sunday: off

     Simply take a day off at any time that you feel as if you need it and then resume with the schedule, meaning that your one day off might come on a different day from Sunday.  Some weeks you might take 2 or 3 days off, especially if you’ve had a couple weeks straight of 6 days per week.

     If you’re after more hypertrophy as opposed to just strength (in the powerlifting example), then do most of your sets at 90% of your 10-rep max and 90% of your 5-rep max.

     There was a time in powerlifting—or strength training circles in general—when this approach to training was only used by Russian and other Eastern-bloc lifters.  Things have changed, however.  This training is now used even by some of the top Western powerlifters.  Raw world champion Jesus Olivares, from America, for instance, uses a very similar method.  It’s not for the newcomer, but if you have a little time of training under your lifting belt, and you’ve made good gains, enough that you understand how you personally respond to high-frequency workouts, it’s a good system.  In fact, it could be the best.