I found some really good ideas from Thib’s article above. The general premise just seems to be accumulate volume in the 75ish to 85ish percent range. I start my first movement this way and then my secondary exercise will be about the same percent with a lower RPE or a lower percentage. I was just wondering how y’all organize your load and volume. I just wanna keep things fresh while still doing most of my main work in the percentage range most relevant to my goals.
Gains can be made in strength and muscle or both over a large range of percentages. I think the article uses 60% as the low end and that’s consistent from what I do and see from other lifters. I think we are talking more about volume/accumulation blocks than intensity blocks here so…
Keeping in mind every one respond a bit differently and even for the same person different lifts will respond differently I work as low as 50% in deload blocks all the way up to around about 70-75% ish in general to accumulate volume. For deadlift because I pull sumo aka cheat with little ROM volume work is more like 70-85% because I can hit more reps at a given percentage like at 70% can hit 15-20 reps.
I’ve found that the volume I can recover from drops off as I work with heavier weights. At 70% can do a 5x8 and medium day each week but at 80-85% a 4x4 about an RPE point up is fatiguing enough to force a significantly lighter day later in the week.
So higher percentages, more specific to strength, don’t seem to accumulate volume very well for me at least without burning me out. So I end up block periodising volume/accumulation blocks and intensity/strength blocks. Have combined both doing main lift / close variations in a strength block style. Follow it up with appropriate volume movements but can’t accumulate anywhere near as much overall when doing both strength/hypertrophy.
I really like the 1-6 contrast.
You might want to read this article too
For periodization ideas The Undulating Periodization Strength and Size program on Thibarmy is worth checking out as is this post