TRAINING INTENSITY
Let’s start with obvious here: you have to lift weights to build muscle tissue. Simply moving your body against the force of gravity isn’t going to cut it in terms of hypertrophic (muscle building) stimulus; it may have when you were a toddler learning to walk because that was “hard work” then … it isn’t now.
That leads me into the next, maybe less obvious point: you have to lift “heavy” weight to build muscle tissue …
Now, “heavy” is a relative term but the same point applies to everyone – your training has to be “hard”. If you bicep curl a pencil 1,000 times it’s not going to do much in terms of biceps growth. Why? Because it’s too light, it’s too easy. That’s not to say that you have to be lifting as much weight as you physically can every time you step foot in the gym. Studies show that you can build pretty much the same amount of muscle if you lift 30% or 80% of your 1RM (1 rep max). What matters more so is the “intensity” of your sets. Or your approximation to muscular failure, if you will.
I’m sure many of you are thinking it; what about volume? And to that we say, yes, volume is (very) important, but it's arguably only so if the volume that you are performing meets a minimum “intensity threshold”, i.e. approximation to failure.
So how do we measure/monitor/control this?
Well, there are a few different approaches:
First Approach
Test your absolute maximal exertion, whether that be for 1 repetition or 10 (etc) and then take a percentage of that rep max to ensure you are using an adequate load to achieve a target intensity. This is an awesome strategy that usually ensures you are working within a close enough approximation to failure but there is a downfall.
Percentages of rep maxes are more intense for some people than they are others. For example, the research has shown us that ON AVERAGE we can perform the following number of reps at the corresponding %’s:
However, some people could perform 15+ reps with their 70% 1RM, 10+ with 80% 1RM, etc. So, it’s a solid programming approach to utilize, but it may not be for everyone.
Second Approach
The next strategy is using an autoregulated gauge of “how hard” you are working per set.
This is called “RPE” – Rating of Perceived Exertion.
There are a few different scales but the “simplest” one is a 1 to 10 rating with 10 being an all-out/maximal exertion (like a 1RM) and 1 being beyond easy. For our purpose of “adequate training intensity” we would, most of the time, want to be aiming for an RPE of no less than 7. That may be a tad difficult to grasp unless you’ve used it before which is why we also like to describe RPE’s counterpart; “RIR”
“RIR” stands for Reps in Reserve and can be thought of as the inverse of RPE. In laymen’s terms, it’s how many reps away from failure you are. As was already stated, an RPE 10 is a maximal exertion which means you are AT failure and have ZERO reps in reserve. An RPE 9 could be described as very close to failure but still able to do 1 more rep; 1 RIR.
See the relationship?
RIR as a gauge seems to make a little more sense logically and thus is more often utilized in application. In these terms, for adequate intensity, we would want to leave no more than 3-4 RIR on a set to set basis. Granted, there are numerous studies aiming to define an actual “cut off” for how close we must be to failure in order for our training volume to be effective and there has yet to be a definitive answer.
That being said, from personal experience in my own training, my client’s programming, and my interpretation of the scientific literature, you’re just not going to get much adaption from the work that you are doing if you are significantly far away from failure during your sets.
So whether you choose to base your working loads off a % of your 1 rep max, you decide to keep reppin out the dumbbells until it feels like a ~ 7/8 RPE, or you aim to stop your set with one rep left in the tank, if you are taking your lifts to a close approximation to failure, you’re checking off the intensity box needed to provide an adequate stimulus to get bigger and stronger.
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Happy lifting (with intensity), friends 🤙🏽
With brain gains and good vibes - Coach John