Volume sensitivity for older lifters

[Sinai]

Basically for everything & everyone post-novice: WWDWD....What Would Dietmar Wolf Do?

Thanks. Now I have to google, translate, AND interpret a whole bunch of new acronyms.

[John Hanley]

made the graph

This is awesome. You're on fire anymore Gilchest.

[marcf]

Mike Israetel actually is a proponent of block programming, so he does believe that, but even if you don't, technique, muscle size, and nervous system readyness still affect one another even if you try to isolate their effects. Understanding their codependence is useful for programming.

I've heard the argument made that in block programming, you lose the adaptations made from one block go the next (i.e. hypertrophy and work capacity built during a volume block is eventually lost during the strength/intensification phase). But I'm not sure I believe that. If you're still hitting maintenance volume during the strength phase, I don't see why muscle gained during the hypertrophy/accumulation phase would be lost. As far as work capacity, I can see that diminishing during a strength phase, I guess.

[Bryan Dobson]

Mike Israetel actually is a proponent of block programming, so he does believe that, but even if you don't, technique, muscle size, and nervous system readyness still affect one another even if you try to isolate their effects. Understanding their codependence is useful for programming.

I avidly follow him and read his work. Yes there is codependence, a pure hypertrophy block will result in a loss of strength temporarily for example. This is why planned training phases are important to get the desired result. The best adaptions do occur when one quality is worked on at a time, but different qualities deteriorate at different rates. Strength being the slowest to suffer and the understanding of this helps develop the longer view of training per individual athlete.

[Peter Egener]

In my experience at 47yo volume is both necessary but also potentially harmful to progress.

I've read SS, PPST and TBP. All great books and worth reading multiple times. The idea that older guys are sensitive to volume at least rings true to a degree. Being sensitive to volume doesn't mean you don't respond to it like younger guys, though. It seems to be more about balance than a cut and dried conclusion that older people shouldn't do higher volume training. At 47 I certainly don't need too much of a volume reduction, but with conservative calorie surplus (too avoid too much fat gain) it makes recovery trickier. I think older people are more stressed in general so that may impact volume sensitivity more than age itself.

For me, and most people, the variables are many so I just need to be sensitive to how I feel, how I've slept and eaten etc. (food intake and sleep has a huge impact on how I can handle volume).
I don't program 5x5 across or whatever and stick to it rigidly, I just go as far as I think I need to from day to day. One week it might be 5x5 across at near 5RM with long rests between sets, and the next week it might be a ascending set to new 5RM to titrate the volume based on how I am progressing or feeling. Then the following week I might do a top set, and back off for 3. You might say that I cycle volume to my recovery ability for any given week and keep intensity moving forward. Sometime I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong (and all I want to do is sleep for 24 hours). The thing is, by the time you feel drained, its probably too late to titrate anyway, so take all the above with a grain of salt. I have found though, that I still respond better to squatting 3x a week than I do squatting only twice.

But to conclude, I think I still need volume to drive improvement, but I can't handle as much as I could when I was 20 and that I think it is at least as much to do with adult/parent/family/professional stress (and sleep) as it is to do with age per se (not withstanding individual tolerances based on genetics).

[BenM]

Watching this thread with interest, being that I'm also 41 and kinda screwed up the transition from novice to intermediate in all sorts of ways. Some thoughts from my own short experience:

• I might be a special snowflake compared to some guys my age, or maybe not - my sleep is broken and training time is limited due to having a toddler and lots of home duties plus work, whereas most blokes in our age bracket have the good sense to have kids earlier in life.
• I feel as if I made some reasonable gains on an HLM type program, but it hit a wall relatively quickly (6-8 weeks) - I also found it boring, and had to eat a fair bit, which resulted in more/faster weight gain than I really wanted. That wouldn't be an issue for everyone, but with my recent history it's something I need to be cognisant of.
• I tried Andy's S&M after 40 program for a little while and while I really enjoyed it in some ways (variety of lifts, and waves of fahves/threes/singles) I don't think it was right for me; I think the volume on the triples/singles weeks was too low, and consistently training 4 days a week was too much for me to recover from with limited sleep.
• Then I said fuckit, and joined his Baker Barbell Club, I think I've just started my 8th week. For me that's been a really good fit, and while I haven't tested 1RMs in that time I feel really confident I've got quite a bit stronger. What do I put that down to? A bunch of things, but mostly
  
  • Dropping back to 3 days a week training, and focussing on sleep more - doing less early morning walking etc too where needed.
  • A good amount of higher volume training at slightly lower intensity to maintain strength, as well as some higher intensity stuff. Example: our last 4 squat workouts have been a max effort set @ 95% plus some back offs, 3 sets of 8 @ 75%, followed by back offs (with a variation), paused box squats (3x8 @ 60%), and then this week it was 5x5 @ higher intensity (80%). It's not boring but it's also accumulating plenty of volume, with fairly regular high intensity work too.
  • Not hitting the same body part too frequently - they are always nicely organised so for example after a heavy leg day (like the one I did last night, which was my first session for this week) there is plenty of time to recover - there is deadlift and light back squats (for higher volume) in workout 3 this week, which for my schedule is 5 days later, if one was running Mon-Wed-Fri it'd be 4.
  • There's plenty of accessory work and variations to keep it interesting.
  • Getting my caloric intake to the right place (though honestly, I think this is one of the smaller factors).

TLDR; I think for me I need higher intensity work every 2-3 weeks to make progress but wouldn't recover well if I did it much more often than that. I definitely seem to be doing better with a higher focus on volume, providing that volume is done in such a way as to give each body part time to recover appropriately, and enough variations/accessories to keep it interesting so I still give it 100% and don't just punch the clock.

You might or might not be the same, and I'm not really trying to advertise for you to join (though I do think it might be a good fit) - but if it sounds like your programming needs might be similar then it'd definitely be worth trying to find something that matches these characteristics.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

I tried Andy's S&M after 40 program ... I think the volume on the triples/singles weeks was too low

Thanks for this.
I am planning to run that program very soon, and it's one of the features that stuck out most for me.

The lack of volume reminds me of 5/3/1, which I run a couple of years back, and which didn't result in much progress (despite using the Boring But Big variant on some of the lifts).

IPB


PS
48 yo

[Adam Nelson]

You don't even like my posts.

Regardless, this pill is bitter.

Bitter? Surely you mean jagged, and little!

[Austin Baraki]

This seems to directly contradict the main point of "The Barbell Prescription".

Yes, it does, because I disagree with that general idea as it pertains to older trainees.

It implies that older trainees are somehow incapable of adapting to increasing workloads (which itself is contradictory to our entire underlying theory).

You WANT to be "volume sensitive"... if you were somehow NOT, you'd effectively be a non-responder to training, and you'd have no other practical / effective tools for long-term adaptation (how high & how long can you ramp up intensity?). But people are attempting near-5RMs for multiple sets across, getting wrecked from it, and then calling themselves "volume sensitive".

I'll be writing more about this in the future.

[George Christiansen]

I think that a general mistake that a lot of folks make is doing volume at too high an intensity.

I've been making good progress this: The KSC Method for RAW Power Lifting ? Andy Baker, which is basically a four day cycle of rotating upper/lower volume days with upper/lower intensity days. One main lift a day and one to three accessory exercises each session.

The volume days increase the weight by 5% of your 1RM each time, but they also drop a rep each time. So basically 5x5 to 5x3 from 75% to 85% over the whole cycle. In terms of RPE this generally feels like the first three sets are about @7, the fourth @8, and the last maybe @9 at the most. The accessory lifts are done for 3 sets each and the RPE's are about the same, but they are less of a drain anyway.I've been doing it three days a week instead of four which basically makes the six week cycle last eight weeks.

Everything was @8+ when I was doing my own programming, which got me very little progress for over a year and had me feeling beat up most of the time. There were other factors, like poor sleep and insane stress during some of that time, but even when those were in order I was dragging ass.