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Volume Cycle questions

dfanelli83

Level 2 Valued Member
40 y.o. male, 5'11", 200lbs with 20+ years of training.
Conservative numbers I could do any day of the week:
  • Deadlift 365
  • Press 32kg x8
  • Pullups x 8
  • Pushups x 25
  • KB Fr. Squat 24kg/32kg x 8-10
I consider myself pretty strong, but my volume tolerance/work capacity is one of my weaker points.

I'm thinking of switching for a while to focus on a "Volume Progression" instead of always trying to increase load/intensity. This is partially due to my limited options for increasing load on certain movements, as well as wanting on to work that different quality.

My overall plan was to keep doing something like Easy Strength a few times a week to maintain my strength while gradually stepping up my weekly volume on a few selected movements. I may de-load, step back, and repeat this a few times then go into more of a density cycle, or just maintenance.

I came across Mark Wildman's videos where he lays out a method that looks pretty good:


This looks like a good starting place, but wanted to run a few questions by the community.

  1. Any issues with doing this for both KB press and pushups in the same cycle? I was thinking this shouldn't be an issue as long as I account for the combined volume (I'll obviously have less capacity than if I do just one of them)
  2. Continuing on from that, is there a concern with balancing out work between push and pull? The pullups will be there, but will be much less volume. I could do weighted carries and/or facepulls for extra pull volume without impacting recover much.
  3. For squat, I want to be conservative because my legs struggle with volume tolerance, but can't decide if I should work on KB offset front squat, goblet squat, or TB deadlift? I'm leaning toward the KB offset front squat because that is the one I think I'm worst at :)
Any other pointers?
 
This is what I came up with as a starting point. I'll give it a try for a while and see how it goes.

3-4 times a week (likely starting with 3 times)

1a. TB Deadlift (3x3) or Ring Gliding Leg Curl (3x5)
1b. Press (32kg) or Pullups - 10 total reps

2a. Press (24kg) 4 reps EMOM starting at 8 minutes --> progress until 15 minutes
2b. Squat (35/53) 6 reps EMOM starting at 8 minutes --> progress until 15 minutes

3. Assisted Pullups EMOM 4-5 reps EMOM starting at 8 minutes --> progress until 15 minutes

4. Pushups 8-10 reps EMOM starting at 8 minutes --> progress until 15 minutes
------------
(Optional - same day or different days)
Weighted Carries (ex: suitcase carries) x 5-10 minutes
OR
Ring Facepulls (50-100 reps)


Notes:
  1. In the beginning I'll likely just do M,W,F for this, and just do easy strength plus a walk/ruck on the other days, with 1 day off completely.
  2. Depending how it goes, I might move to every other day with the occasional 2 days off.
  3. As this is now, the shortest workouts would be about 40 minutes and the longest would be about 75 minutes. I may stagger the progressions between the exercises that aren't supersetted. (ex: In the beginning, I wont progress Pullups/Pushups, keeping them at 8 minutes each until the Press and Squat are up around 12 minutes. This would keep most of the workouts around 40-50 minutes.
  4. Will try it out and adjust as needed. Goal should be to wave the volume up and down over time. Should never grind or miss a rep.
  5. After reaching the target time/sets on an exercise, I'll drop back down to the minimum sets and either increase load, or keep the load the same and add reps per set.
 
This may not be what you’re looking for but maybe you could go minimalist and try bringing up your deadlift to 400 and at the same time run a clean and press program with the 32’s. You will still work the same muscles the pull up, push up and KB front squat work. Just offering a suggestion hope it’s not too stupid. Success to whatever you do.

dfanelli83 said:
40 y.o. male, 5'11", 200lbs with 20+ years of training.
Conservative numbers I could do any day of the week:
  • Deadlift 365
  • Press 32kg x8
  • Pullups x 8
  • Pushups x 25
  • KB Fr. Squat 24kg/32kg x 8-10
Click to expand...
 
I built a Soviet style volume calculator in this thread. Might help you figure out what to do for the number of lift progressions

The System; Soviet Periodization

I learn better with books and doing than seminars. In my experience they give you the feeling that you learned things but when you leave and try to apply it you find holes in your knowledge that prevent you from implementing it. A well written book you can go back to for reference. A seminar is...
www.strongfirst.com

Else you could just add sets or reps and do a double progression ala reg park 5x5.

I would encourage you to work some different rep ranges other than triples and fives if you haven’t done that in a while. Either by programming them or by adding amrap sets.
 
Your push ups look small considering your personal weight and you have 8 reps of the KB32 press. I weigh 255 pounds and about a month ago I did 30 push ups which I don't normally do but I did a really hard KB32 press for 1 rep.
This is not a criticism of your performance, I just wondered.
 
silveraw said:
I built a Soviet style volume calculator in this thread. Might help you figure out what to do for the number of lift progressions

The System; Soviet Periodization

I learn better with books and doing than seminars. In my experience they give you the feeling that you learned things but when you leave and try to apply it you find holes in your knowledge that prevent you from implementing it. A well written book you can go back to for reference. A seminar is...
www.strongfirst.com

Else you could just add sets or reps and do a double progression ala reg park 5x5.

I would encourage you to work some different rep ranges other than triples and fives if you haven’t done that in a while. Either by programming them or by adding amrap sets.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this, I'll review the calculator. As for rep ranges, this is exactly my plan. I plan on doing the EMOMs with sets of 2-8 depending on the move and the load. And I plan on putting in a timed test at some point (ie: As many pushups in 2 minutes or 5 minutes)
 
Dydo said:
Your push ups look small considering your personal weight and you have 8 reps of the KB32 press. I weigh 255 pounds and about a month ago I did 30 push ups which I don't normally do but I did a really hard KB32 press for 1 rep.
This is not a criticism of your performance, I just wondered.
Click to expand...
I probably am not very efficient on pushups because I always try to milk them for as much as possible. I imagine if I pumped them out as fast as possible I could get 30-40. And, I've been training them secondary to my press for the most part. Also, my endurance is not very good. I can do 15-18 good pushups with a +40 lb backpack, but only 25 with BW.
 
Bill Lets said:
This may not be what you’re looking for but maybe you could go minimalist and try bringing up your deadlift to 400 and at the same time run a clean and press program with the 32’s. You will still work the same muscles the pull up, push up and KB front squat work. Just offering a suggestion hope it’s not too stupid. Success to whatever you do.
Click to expand...
Hey not a bad suggestion, but I'm not really interested in increasing my deadlift at the moment. I just train it easy strength staying in the 275-315 range usually, once in a while i'll go up to 365 for 1-3. My all time best when I was training with a barbell in the gym was 505, and a while back I did 405 for like 12 reps. But now, I'm being more conservative with my training and wanting to focus on my weaknesses.

If anything, I'd like to keep deadlifting and gradually bring it up with low volume (ie: 3x3) but get to where I can do 365 1-2x a week done "easy".

As for the press, I decided to start this program with the 24kg which is a little light for me, but done for volume is hard. This way I can milk that weight out for 4-6 weeks before moving up to the 32kg for volume. I'll still do the 32kg in this cycle 1-2x per week (2-3-5) just to maintain that strength. Once I get to where I can run these volume cycles with the 32kg and outgrow that then I'll need to think about getting a heavier bell.
 
So I did the first workout and overall it went well, but I made a few changes on the fly (with some lessons learned).

1a)Peterson Stepup (3x5) -- This is something I have been working on just to keep my knee/hip stability in check
1b)Ring Gliding Leg Curl (3x5) -- same comment

2a)Press (24kg) 5 reps EMOM x 8 minutes -- I probably should have gone with 4, but I made it through with my shoulders burning
2b)KB offset Front Squat (35/53) 6 reps EMOM x 8 minutes -- This wasn't that hard considering these are pretty new to me. Mainly shoulders burning here, but for now, I think this is good.

3)Ring pullups assisted with feet on ground 5 reps EMOM x 5 minutes -- I decided on this variation rather than BW pullups just to be conservative and give myself time to build up to handling the volume on pulling.
4)Pushups 8 reps EMOM x 5 minutes -- For these last two exercises I decided to cut down from 8 minutes to 5. I think I'll keep these down to 5 minutes for now, but progress the reps per set instead of adding sets. So next time, the pullups will be 6 per set, and the pushups 10 per set. This will slow down the rate the overall volume builds up and also keep the workouts from getting too long.


Overall, I liked it. With the easy strength at the beginning and "off days" I have enough flexibility to still build/maintain some strength or hit areas neglected here. Not sure that I'll progress the EMOM x 8 minute sets all the way to 15 minutes. We'll have to see.
 
I don't think my body would respond well to the program you put together. After AXE came out, I tried doing it for all kinds of lifts and basically wound up doing the progression scheme in that video. I did it as an One Lift A Day program and had fantastic results.
Where you're doing Easy Strength, I included easy reps of the other day's exercises in the warm-up.

Using your exercises, it would look like this:

Monday - deadlifts
Tuesday - press
Wednesday - pull-ups
Thursday - push-ups
Friday - squats

Might be something to consider.
 
3letterslong said:
I don't think my body would respond well to the program you put together. After AXE came out, I tried doing it for all kinds of lifts and basically wound up doing the progression scheme in that video. I did it as an One Lift A Day program and had fantastic results.
Where you're doing Easy Strength, I included easy reps of the other day's exercises in the warm-up.

Using your exercises, it would look like this:

Monday - deadlifts
Tuesday - press
Wednesday - pull-ups
Thursday - push-ups
Friday - squats

Might be something to consider.
Click to expand...
This is something I have considered, but I definitely want to try to keep this higher frequency. If I end up not being able to handle the volume and the frequency I'm likely going to wave the volume or slow the rate of progression (ie: Only progress sets every other workout)

For example, if I CAN handle the volume the Press / Squat portion would go like this from workout to workout.
8 min, 9 min, 10 min, 11 min, 12 min = 50 sets in 5 workouts, 50% increase to 12 sets in 5 workouts

If I CANT handle this, it would go like this.
8 min, 10 min, 6min, 11 min, 7 min = 42 sets in 5 workouts, 50% increase to 12 sets in 6 workouts.

Option B almost looks better all around, but I'll have to see how the volume is tolerated. In theory, it gets me to the higher volume workouts "easier" but I'm also missing out on the middle volume workouts.
 
dfanelli83 said:
This is something I have considered, but I definitely want to try to keep this higher frequency. If I end up not being able to handle the volume and the frequency I'm likely going to wave the volume or slow the rate of progression (ie: Only progress sets every other workout)

For example, if I CAN handle the volume the Press / Squat portion would go like this from workout to workout.
8 min, 9 min, 10 min, 11 min, 12 min = 50 sets in 5 workouts, 50% increase to 12 sets in 5 workouts

If I CANT handle this, it would go like this.
8 min, 10 min, 6min, 11 min, 7 min = 42 sets in 5 workouts, 50% increase to 12 sets in 6 workouts.

Option B almost looks better all around, but I'll have to see how the volume is tolerated. In theory, it gets me to the higher volume workouts "easier" but I'm also missing out on the middle volume workouts.
Click to expand...

When I was doing a workout like yours, I found there were too many exercises for me to build up volume with EMOM (which is why I went to OLAD). To build volume on a bunch of exercises while hitting them more frequently, I had to use Mark Reifkind's Triple Threat Progression (very similar to Mark Wildman's progression), which goes like this:

1. Test max reps then take 30-50% of that. Let's say I can do 10 reps, so I'd start with 3 sets of 4.
2. Start at 3 sets of 4 reps. Over time, add sets until I'm doing 5 sets of 4.
3. Start adding reps until I've worked up to 5 sets of 10, which was formerly my rep max.
4. Retest and start over.

This worked really well for me when I wanted to hit 5+ exercises with a higher frequency.
 
Thinking about this a bit more and while I want to continue to try what I have laid out for at least 1-2 cycles, I have some options with varying the load (either an A/B alternate within the cycle, or alternating each cycle).

For squats, with the equipment I have, I can do low handle trap bar deadlifts. I'd probably start with 225 for sets of 3 and follow the same progression up to 12-15 minutes.

For press, I always have the 32kg bell which I'd probably do the same thing with sets of 3.

Also, I could even hit both loads within each workout if I wanted. This is similar to what was mentioned in one of the programs above. But for example, I could do low handle TB deadlifts for about 6-10 minutes first, and then move to KB front squats for an additional 6-10 minutes.

Again though, I'll save these complexities for when I feel I need them.
 
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