High-Set, Low-Rep Training Plans

Some Detailed Training Plans for High-Set, Low-Rep Workout Programs

     Two of my most popular recent articles are the ones on high-set, low-rep training variations.  If you’re interested, and haven’t read them, here are the links: Part One, Part Two.  After writing my recent article on specific training plans for using the 3 to 5 method, I thought it might be a good idea to write this article on detailed training plans for multiple sets of low reps.  If you’re interested in using high-set, low-rep workouts but aren’t exactly sure how you should program your sessions, then here’s your answer.

     In this article, I will lay out exactly what to do in your workouts.  No thinking required.

     I have long believed that the best workouts for building a combination of both muscle mass and serious strength is high-set, low-rep training.  It works because, to quote Pavel Tsatsouline, “if you get a pump with heavy weights, you’ll get stronger and bigger.”  High-set, low-rep training does just that.  You can head to the gym right now and crank out a lot of high-rep sets and you’ll definitely get a pump.  But that kind of pump is not necessarily indicative of producing muscle growth.  Get a pump with the workouts here and I can guarantee you’ll get bigger, not to mention a heck of a lot stronger.

     Despite its efficacy, one word of caution.  These workouts are not for outright beginners.  If you’re just starting out on your mass-building journey, get on a 3 days a week, whole body workout routine (I have plenty of full-body workouts here on the blog).  If, however, you have a sound base of training and, perhaps, 6 months of training minimum then these workouts will work well.

     Another way of lifting that I’m fond of is high-frequency training (HFT).  However, these workouts are not meant to be used with HFT.  You’re going to have to take enough rest in between workouts in order to recover, repair, and grow bigger and stronger after your sessions.  The workout plans here fit the mold of high-volume, high-intensity, and (relatively) low-frequency training.  Because of that, you need to be on a specific training schedule.

     You have a few options when doing these workouts, depending on the number of lifts that you want to train at the same time.  This training, by the way, focuses on movements over muscles.  Instead of focusing on “muscle groups” you will focus on “lifts”.  Here are a few training schedules that would work well.

Program Option #1:

     The first option is to train with a 3-way split, using a 2-on, 1-off, 1-on, 1-off schedule.  It works like this:

Day One: Upper Body Press

Horizontal pressing movement.  For your first lift of the day, you can select either weighted dips or some kind of bench press—barbell, dumbbell, flat, incline, floor press, board press, etc.  Whatever lift you select, stick with it throughout the training cycle.  The same thing goes for all other movements.

Vertical pressing movement.  You can do military presses, seated rack presses, push presses, or dumbbell presses, one-arm or two-arm, seated or standing.

Day Two: Lower Body

Squatting movement.  Barbell back squats, front squats, barbell hack squats, bottom-position squats or even dumbbell or kettlebell squats, assuming you have access to heavy enough ‘bells.

Lower body pulling movement.  Any kind of deadlift works well here—conventional, sumo, or deficit of either kind.  You can also do power cleans, power snatches, or high pulls.

Day Three: OFF

Day Four: Upper Body Pull and Curl

Upper body pulling movement.  For your first lift of your last training day, select either a chinning or rowing movement.  Weighted chins of all types will work or any kind of row, barbell or dumbbell.

Curling movement.  I have two words: barbell curls.  But feel free to do EZ curl bar curls or dumbbell curls if you wish.

Day Five: OFF

Day Six: Repeat Training Cycle

Program Option #2:

     Your second option will work well if you only want to get strong on 3 or 4 movements.  A powerlifter, for example, could only train the 3 powerlifts using the following option.  Since you’ll be utilizing less lifts, you will train with a simple 2-way split.  You will use a 1-on, 1-off, 1-on, 2-off schedule.  It works like this:

Day One: Upper Body

Horizontal or vertical pressing movement.  Select just one of these so that you can recover better.  You can do an overhead pressing movement or some kind of bench pressing movement.  Just pick a lift that you really want to get stronger at.  A powerlifter can just do the bench press on this day and not use anything else, though an upper body pull might help your bench number.

Upper body pulling movement.  Just as with the first training option, select some sort of row or chin.  If you want, you can also substitute this for a curling movement.

Day Two: OFF

Day Three: Lower Body

Squatting movement

Lower body pulling movement.  Train this day the same as day two of the first training option.  Again, if you’re a powerlifter, you can just squat and deadlift here.

Day Four: OFF

Day Five: OFF

Day Six: Repeat Training Cycle

Program Option #3:

     Your 3rd option is to train on a “full-body split” routine 3 days per week.  The first week, you would do workout “A” on Monday and Friday and workout “B” on Wednesday, for example.  The 2nd week, you would reverse the sequence, doing “B” on M,F and “A” on W.  Here is what each workout would look like:

Workout A:

Squatting movement.  As with the other two plans, pick any squatting movement you wish.

Horizontal pressing movement.  Again, any bench press or a weighted dip here.

Upper body pulling movement

Workout B:

Lower body pulling movement.  Again, any deadlift or quick lift.

Vertical pressing movement

Curling movement

The Training Plans

     Now, let’s look at the actual training plans.  On whatever plan you select, follow it for each of your lifts (at least to start; more on this later).  Having written that, however, if you just want to get strong on two or three lifts, you could do one of these plans for the lift of the day that you are attempting to improve and then do a basic 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps on the other lifts.  So, a powerlifter, for example, might, using the 2nd option above, do bench presses with one of the plans on day one and then do an exercise for his lats, his front delts, and his triceps (all muscles that help the bench) for 3x5.  Then, on his day three workout, he would use one of the training plans for his squat and deadlift.  He could follow that up with a light movement for his lower back—reverse hypers, for instance—and an exercise for his abdominals, since a strong “core” is essential for both a strong squat and deadlift.

Plan #1

     This is a good plan to start with.  When I typically recommend doing 8x5, I suggest using a weight for all 8 sets that you would utilize for one completely all-out set of 10 reps.  You stick with that weight at each workout until you get 8 sets of 5 reps or until you can do 8x5 with ease, and then you add weight and repeat.

     Instead of doing 8 sets with your 10-rep max, start this plan with 80-85% of your 5-rep max.  So, if on squats you have a 5-rep max of 275 pounds, you would use between 220 and 230 pounds at your first session.  When in doubt, always start with a lighter weight.  This will ensure that you get all of your reps on every single set.  As the training cycle progresses, it will naturally get harder and harder.  This way, you can also do the training cycle for longer, allowing your body to adjust to the volume and intensity—intensity being a % of your one-rep maximum, not how “hard” you are training.

     Using our hypothetical squatter who has a 5-rep max of 275 in his squats, his squat training cycle would look like this:

Workout 1: 220x8x5 (sets/reps)

Workout 2: 225x8x4

Workout 3: 230x8x3

Workout 4: 225x8x5

Workout 5: 230x8x4

Workout 6: 235x8x3

Workout 7: 230x8x5

Workout 8: 235x8x4

Workout 9: 240x8x3

     After 9 workouts, or 3 cycles of 5/4/3 reps, at the 10th session, train with a de-load “active recovery” workout.  You can do this for two workouts on each lift or just one.  After that, you can start the cycle over again, now using the weight used in workout 8 for your next 8x5 session.  You can also test your strength after a couple of active recovery sessions by working up to a max triple, double, or single—or, at the least, a near max by working up to 95% of your max weight.

Plan #2

     You can also reverse the order of plan #1, starting with your heaviest week of 3 reps and working backwards.  In this case, simply enough, the plan would look like this:

Workout 1: 230x8x3

Workout 2: 225x8x4

Workout 3: 220x8x5

Workout 4: 235x8x3

Workout 5: 230x8x4

Workout 6: 225x8x5

Workout 7: 240x8x3

Workout 8: 235x8x4

Workout 9: 230x8x5

     All of the other “rules” from plan #1 remain the same.

Plan #3

     You can also follow the same format as the first two plans but decrease the reps.  Since the reps, and therefore the workload, will be decreased, you need to increase the sets.  Instead of doing 8 sets, you will do 10 here.  You can also increase the set count to 12 per lift, though I would start with 10 sets unless you’ve already done this kind of training before and know that your body could use the increase in sets.

     For this plan, you will need to know your 3-rep max on your lifts.  Our hypothetical squatter who can do 5 reps with 275 might have a 3-rep max, for example, of 295.  Use 80-85% of your 3-rep max to begin the session.  So, our hypothetical squatter would start this plan with between 235 and 250 pounds on that lift.  Again, when in doubt, choose a lighter weight, not a heavier one.  The plan looks like this:

Workout 1: 240x10x3

Workout 2: 245x10x2

Workout 3: 250x10x1

Workout 4: 245x10x3

Workout 5: 250x10x2

Workout 6: 255x10x1

Workout 7: 250x10x3

Workout 8: 255x10x2

Workout 9: 260x10x1

     One of the interesting things about this program is that the doubles workout is easier than the triples session and the singles workout is easier than the doubles one.  The total workload—weight x sets x reps—decreases quite a bit at each session, allowing you to adapt to it with relative ease.

     As with the first two plans, you will want to do one or two active recovery sessions for each lift after 3 workout cycles (or 9 workouts).  After that, continue with it for another 9 workouts or test your strength to see how you are progressing before beginning it again.

     Once more, you can also reverse the plan by starting with singles at the 1st session, then the doubles at the next, followed by the triples.

Plan #4

     This plan has you using the same weight over the course of several sessions, similar to the “Hepburn method” of doubles and triples.  Use 90% of your 5-rep max for each lift to begin with.  With that number in mind, the plan works like this:

Workout 1: 1x5,7x4

Workout 2: 2x5,6x4

Workout 3: 3x5,5x4

Workout 4: 4x5,4x4

Workout 5: 5x5,3x4

Workout 6: 6x5,2x4

Workout 7: 7x5,1x4

Workout 8: 8x5

     At the next session, add weight and repeat the process.  You can also do this program with triples and doubles or doubles and singles, but follow the same process.

Plan #5

     This plan follows the same process as #4 but instead of decreasing the reps on the subsequent sets, you decrease the weight.  It would work like this:

Workout 1: 85%x1x5, 80%x7x5

Workout 2: 85%x2x5, 80%x6x5

Workout 3: 85%x3x5, 80%x5x5

Workout 4: 85%x4x5, 80%x4x5

Workout 5: 85%x5x5, 80%x3x5

Workout 6: 85%x6x5, 80%x2x5

Workout 7: 85%x7x5, 80%x1x5

Workout 8: 85%x8x5

     Again, add weight at the next session and repeat the process, adding 5 to 10 pounds to each lift.  And again, when in doubt on adding weight, add less not more.  Also, you might start your training by adding 10 pounds to your lifts, and as you progress over the coming weeks, add only 5 pounds toward the end of a training cycle.  The key to this kind of training is to coax strength gains, not force them.  But, at the same time, if you think you can handle a heavier weight, then go for it.

Plan #6

     In this program, you let your reps stay the same over the workouts, but the sets and weights oscillate.  This one works by moving forward, retreating, and then moving forward once more.

     You will start the first session by using 80% of your rep-max.  You can do this with 5s, triples, or doubles.  You can even do it with singles if you wish, but for most that is too many consecutive workouts at too high of an intensity.  Though you will get stronger that way, you also risk decreasing your speed.  That’s the reason that methods such as Westside Barbell rely on a dynamic effort day of training.  For the sake of clarity, I will use triples here.

     Use a weight that is 80% of your max triple to begin with.  Using our hypothetical squatter with a max triple of 295, his sessions would look like this on his squats:

Workout 1: 235x10x3

Workout 2: 240x9x3

Workout 3: 245x8x3

Workout 4: 230x7x3 (This is your “light” workout to allow you to continue to get stronger with greater ease as the program continues.)

Workout 5: 240x10x3

Workout 6: 245x9x3

Workout 7: 250x8x3

Workout 8: 235x7x3 (light day)

Workout 9: 245x10x3

Workout 10: 250x9x3

Workout 11: 255x8x3

Workout 12: 240x7x3 (light day)

     At the 13th workout, you can add weight and continue with the same process.  Our hypothetical squatter would now do 250x10x3 at the next session.  You can also test your max strength by working up to a max (or near max) triple, double, or single at each of your sessions.

Plan #7

     This plan will use rep ladders as I discussed in the 2nd part of my recent high-set, low-rep training articles.  At the first session, you will do 2 rep ladders of 1 to 5 reps using the same weight.  So, the first set will be 1 rep, the 2nd will be 2 reps, the 3rd will be 3 reps, the 4th will be 4 reps, and the 5th will be 5 reps.  Repeat again for for a total of 2 ladders.  The next workout will also have two ladders, but the first at a heavier weight and the 2nd ladder at the same weight used in the previous workout.  Typically, when I suggest this program, I recommend starting with 90% of your 5-rep max.  Here, since you will eventually do workouts that are more than 90%, you will start with 85% of your 5-rep max.  Our hypothetical squatter with a max set of 5 reps at 275 would start with 235 on this plan.  The plan looks like this:

Workout 1: 235 x 2 ladders x 1-5 reps (10 sets total)

Workout 2: 240 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps, 235 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps

Workout 3: 240 x 2 ladders x 1-5 reps

Workout 4: 245 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps, 240 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps

Workout 5: 245 x 2 ladders x 1-5 reps

Workout 6: 250 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps, 245 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps

Workout 7: 250 x 2 ladders x 1-5 reps

Workout 8: 255 x 1 ladders x 1-5 reps, 250 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps

Workout 9: 255 x 2 ladders x 1-5 reps

Workout 10: 260 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps, 255 x 1 ladder x 1-5 reps

Workout 11: 260 x 2 ladders x 1-5 reps

     By the 11th workout, our lifter is now at 95% of his original 5-rep max.  At this point, you should do 1 or 2 active recovery workouts.  You can now test your strength if you wish, or you can increase the weight and continue with the same process.  Our hypothetical squatter would now go to 265 for 1 ladder and 260 for another one, before doing 265 for 2 ladders in the workout after, and so forth.

Plan #8

     For our final training plan of this article, you will do 5 ladders of 1, 2, and 3 reps using the same weight on each ladder.  This one is a good plan after you have done a training cycle of one of the other plans, since you will start with a higher “intensity” from the outset.  Start with 90% of your 3-rep max for the 1st session.  So, our hypothetical squatter with a 295 pound 3-rep max, would start the training cycle with 265 pounds at the first training session.  His plan for that lift would look like this:

Workout 1: 265 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3 reps

Workout 2: 270 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 3: 275 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 4: 250 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3.  Since you move up to your starting max for a triple at the 3rd workout, every 4th session will be a de-load workout.

Workout 5: 270 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 6: 275 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 7: 280 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 8: 255 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 9: 275 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 10: 280 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 11: 285 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 12: 260 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

     After your 12th session, you can test your strength with a near-max or max triple, double, or single.  You can also continue the training for another 3 sessions.  By that point, the program will probably have run its course.  If you find it hard to complete all 5 ladders in the heaviest workouts, you can also decrease the number of ladders as your weights progress.  In that case, your training cycle might look like this:

Workout 1: 265 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3 reps

Workout 2: 270 x 4 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 3: 275 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 4: 250 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 5: 270 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 6: 275 x 4 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 7: 280 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 8: 255 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 9: 275 x 5 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 10: 280 x 4 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 11: 285 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Workout 12: 260 x 3 ladders of 1-2-3

Final Thoughts

     For your first training cycle, I would use the same training plan on each of your lifts.  At the next training cycle, you can switch to a completely different plan and use it for each of your lifts, or you can do a different training plan for each lift.  A powerlifter, for example, might find that sets of 5 reps work best for his squat and bench press, but triples or less work best for his deadlift.  So, he might do plan #5 for his bench press, plan #7 for his squats, and plan #8 for his deadlifts.  Mixing it up in this manner also keeps your training interesting and keeps you motivated at the gym.  Some lifters thrive on monotony, however, and might want to always do the same training plan for each of his lifts.  Another lifter who thrives off change—for his mind as much as his body—might do better with different plans for different lifts.

     Instead of changing plans for each lift, you can also use a specific training plan for each day.  So, a lifter who decides to use Program Option #1 might do plan #1 for his upper body press day, plan #2 for his lower body day, and plan #3 for his upper body pull and curl day.

     Use whatever you think will work best for you.  The key is consistency in the training, so pick a plan that you’re most likely to stick with throughout a training cycle.  Remember, consistency is the key for continuous gains.  These training plans will only work if you are consistent and make it to the gym for each training session.  However, if you find that you need an extra day off here or there, or if life gets in the way and you miss a session, don’t sweat it.  A missed session here or there won’t hurt you as long as it doesn’t become a habit.

     As always, if you have any comments or questions about any of the training plans, leave them in the “comments” section below or shoot me an email for a private correspondence.

     If you’re interested in even more mass and power workouts, then consider purchasing one of my books.  My book Ultimate Mass and Power, for example, is packed with various workouts and training plans.  For information on all of my books currently available, click on THIS link.