Thanks to Rip et al for the article. As an early intermediate, I am appreciative of the work that went into putting the material together. I'm hoping that my questions will be useful for continuing the conversation.
"What often gets lost in discussions about volume is the fact that as a lifter moves upward through the levels of training advancement, and as the overload event obviously becomes longer, volume is calculated across the now-longer overload event. The Novice overload event is a workout, so the volume and tonnage are calculated for the workout. Intermediate trainees are using a week's training as the overload event, and the math reflects this time period. A week's training in a Novice program and a week's training in Texas Method are not equivalent overload events – the Novice week is 3 overload events, and the TM example is one overload event. As every lifter progresses through the levels of training advancement, the volume in each increasingly-long overload event is higher than it was in the previous programming iteration as a natural consequence of the changing nature of what constitutes the overload."
If I follow the arguments, this is at least partly a response to the argument in "Into the Great Wide Open." []Starting Strength Setting aside 5/3/1, that article charges TM with a reduction in volume and tonnage as compared to SSLP. Whereas Rip et al calculate these variables over the course of a single overload event, Feigenbaum calculates them with respect to absolute time -- that is, one week for both SSLP and TM.
On the one hand, it makes sense to calculate these variables on a timeline relative to the trainee's training advancement (48 hours for the novice, 7 days for the intermediate, etc). On the other hand, if I can do and recover from more work in a given period of absolute time, it seems *possible* that I could elicit a more significant adaptation.
Questions:
What is the relation between relative and absolute time for the purposes of evaluating programming variables?
Is progressive increase in training stress better measured in absolute or relative time?
What effect does doing and recovering from more work over a given period of absolute time have on training outcomes?
I have neither the knowledge or experience to evaluate these claims, since I'm only a couple of months into intermediate training myself. Thanks in advance for any effort taken to respond to them.
[Full disclosure: Anyone who looks at my training log will see that I'm currently doing "the bridge." Since this appears to be a pretty divisive topic, I thought I'd offer a brief explanation in case anyone feels that I'm 'taking a side.' I chose it because I thought it would be educational to experiment with a few supplemental lifts and with RPE, especially since I'm self-taught and don't have a more experienced lifter around to guide my training. Hopefully that won't color the reception of my questions.]