Frequency progression Increasing
the number of training sessions for a specific movement is the most
effective progression I've ever used for hypertrophy. But the frequency
progression is not for everyone. First, you must have the luxury of
training more often. Second, you've got to understand planes of
movement. For the sake of simplicity, I break down movements
into: upper body pulling and pushing in the horizontal plane, upper
body pulling and pushing in the vertical plane, and a squat or
deadlift. If you don't know which muscles are emphasized in which
movement, this information is probably too advanced for you. But if you
do understand that a wide-grip pull-up primarily trains your lats and
upper back muscles, keep reading. The frequency progression
is not complicated, unless you make it so. If you're struggling with
pull-ups, and if you want a bigger upper back, you should increase the
frequency of pull-ups. If you simply added more volume you'd just
augment your recovery time. Start the first week with three sessions
for pull-ups. The next week add a fourth. The third week add a fifth. The
fourth week increase your pull-up sessions to six. Hold the frequency
of six pull-up sessions per week for the fifth week. On the sixth week,
perform one pull-up session before returning to anywhere between three
and six on the seventh week. Here's how the frequency progression looks
for the pull-up.
Week 1: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Week 2: Monday A.M., P.M., Wednesday, Friday
Week 3: Monday A.M., P.M., Wednesday, Friday A.M., P.M..
Week 4: Monday A.M., P.M., Wednesday A.M., P.M., Friday A.M., P.M..
Week 5: Monday A.M., P.M., Wednesday A.M., P.M., Friday A.M., P.M..
Week 6: Wednesday
Week 7: pick up with your schedule on any week between 1 and 4
If you're struggling with pull-ups, add more sessions of pull-ups. Take
note that I didn't increase the number of training days per week; I
increased the number of total sessions by implementing morning and
evening workouts. I've found that twice-daily workouts work better for
hypertrophy training compared to increasing the frequency to six days
in a row. Each morning and evening workout should be separated by at
least six hours. On week 7, you have a few options. If your
upper back is still lagging you can jump back into training it six
times per week. Just be sure to unload every fourth week and only
perform one training session for the pull-up. The other option is to
revert back to three, four, or five sessions per week. Again, you'll
unload every fourth week. What frequency you use should depend on what
your schedule allows.

Summary Use
the 2% load progression for compound movements, use the rep progression
for single-joint or light movements, and use the frequency progression
for the movements that train your lagging muscles.

Goal 2 — Burn Fat (Metabolic Training) When
training for fat loss you must burn more calories than you consume each
day. This below-maintenance nutritional plan necessitates less
demanding types of progression since you're more likely to overtrain
when you're short on nutrients. Therefore, I recommend progression
methods that don't mandate lifting ever-heavier loads, but instead
force you to increase your metabolism by boosting excess post-exercise
oxygen consumption (EPOC). Before I get to the progressions, let me explain what EPOC is. After
you finish training your body needs more oxygen. When you're training
with weights, or simply running outside, your body uses up a lot of
oxygen. Your body must restore that oxygen debt to maintain
homeostasis. In essence, your body must return to its pre-exercise
state. It does this by replenishing energy sources, re-oxygenating your
blood and restoring circulatory hormones, decreasing body temperature,
and returning ventilation and heart rate to normal. All of
these steps collectively are known as EPOC, and all of these steps take
energy. Therefore, the higher your EPOC, the more calories you'll burn
after exercise. Alwyn Cosgrove refers to this as "afterburn."
Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) Therefore,
when training for fat loss you should implement progression methods
that force your body to use more oxygen. Here are the progressions.

Rest progression Progressively
decreasing your rest periods without changing the load is my favorite
method to boost fat loss. Since you're not increasing the load, your
muscles and joints aren't beat up by the lack of nutrients in your
diet. Instead, you force your energy systems (mainly anaerobic
glycolysis) to work harder. Before I outline how to use the
rest progression, I must revert back to my opening statement about the
importance of selecting the right movements. There's no place for single-joint movements in a fat loss workout! Does
that mean you should never perform any trap raises, external rotations
or other joint integrity exercises? Of course not. If you need to
strengthen your lower traps or rotator cuff, you should include
exercises for them. But this isn't part of your fat loss session per
se, it's an addition after your fat loss training is finished. Beyond
the proper movement selection, the rest progression is pretty simple.
You'll start with a relatively short rest period, say, 60 seconds
between each movement in a circuit, and then decrease the rest periods
in five-second increments each time you repeat the training session.
Here's an example.
Week 1, Workout A 1A) Pull-up
Rest 60 seconds 1B) Dip
Rest 60 seconds 1C) Clean
Rest 60 seconds and repeat
Week 2, Workout A 1A) Pull-up
Rest 55 seconds 1B) Dip
Rest 55 seconds 1C) Clean
Rest 55 seconds and repeat The
first factor you must respect is the initial rest period. If 60 seconds
isn't challenging, the rest periods are too long. In other words, if 60
seconds rest isn't enough to make you sweat and feel a little nauseous,
you're not doing yourself any favors. You must start with an effective
plan if you want the progression to work. If 60 seconds was too long
for your first workout, decrease the rest periods by 10 seconds the
next time you repeat it. From that point, stick to five second rest
progressions.
One sure sign that you're ready to reduce your rest intervals. You
can stick with the rest progression for as long as you're training for
fat loss. I've worked with people who started with 60 second rest
periods, and three total body workouts per week, who progressed to 10
second rest periods with the same movements, loads and reps. They all
lost a substantial amount of body fat by supercharging their EPOC. The
rest
progression really does work wonders for most. By the way, if you do
experience nausea during metabolic training, give BETA-7
a try. It works very well for most people since it reduces proton
accumulation during periods of training where anaerobic glycolysis is
emphasized.

Set progression Adding
an extra set to each lift during a training session is another
effective progression for metabolic training. It's effective because
adding a set is less taxing than increasing the load or adding reps,
but
it's sufficient to boost your work capacity. There are two ways to use
the set progression, depending on how your training sessions are
structured. If
you follow the typical set/rep plan with, say, 5x5 you'll simply add
one set each time you repeat the workout. So if on Monday you did 5x5,
the following Monday you'll do 6x5. The load won't change and neither
will the rest periods. You'll keep adding a set for as long as you keep
experiencing results. If you're new to training, you might be able to
go from 5x5 to 10x5 over the course of five weeks and still get
results. If you're experienced, it's likely that your body
will adapt quicker. In that case, you might want to limit the set
progression to three weeks and start with a higher volume. You could go
from 8x3 to 10x3 over the course of three weeks. There's
another way to use the set progression if you have a target number of
total reps with each lift. Let's say your target number is 25 reps with
a load you could lift fresh for 4 to 6 reps. And let's say on Monday
your sets for the pull-up went as follows:
Set 1: 6 reps
Set 2: 5 reps
Set 3: 5 reps
Set 4: 5 reps
Set 5: 4 reps The following Monday you'll add a sixth set and perform as many reps as possible, so it looks like this:
Set 1: 6 reps
Set 2: 5 reps
Set 3: 5 reps
Set 4: 5 reps
Set 5: 4 reps
Set 6: As many reps as possible Overall,
I like to emphasize the rest progression. For fat loss, three total
body sessions per week is the upper limit for most people. Use the rest
progression on Monday and Friday and use the set progression on
Wednesday. Summary: use the rest progression for two sessions
each week; use the set progression for one workout each week. Stick to
circuits derived of compound movements.

Final Words It
doesn't matter if you're training for hypertrophy or fat loss, you must
have an effective progression plan in place. Use these methods and
you'll always be forcing your body to do more work over time. This
ensures that you're never left spinning your wheels.

Pick up Waterbury's e-book The 10/10 Transformation here. His book Muscle Revolutioncan be purchased here.
Chad
Waterbury is one of the world's leading experts on developing muscle
for the goal of enhancing performance. His novel training methods are
used by athletes, bodybuilders, figure models, and fitness enthusiasts
of all ages and from all walks of life. He has an M.S. in Physiology
from the University of Arizona, and he specializes in the
neurophysiology of human movement and performance. He currently trains,
consults, and lectures around the country.



http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1872366