Quality Volume on Deadlifts

Ok, as for the quality volume you should check the ET blog of yours and search for the old explanations I gave you for that. But I'll give you a run-down.

1. Reps should be 1 to 3 but no more than three. My thinking on that is three is the most you can do, while lifting heavy and still call it QUALITY. By that same token 3 is getting up there so if most of your sets are singles or doubles that would be perfectly acceptable.

2. If I gave you a set of guidelines about how to go up or down then it would be "Eric's" quality volume any more.

3. You have to slowly build up to around 80 percent or so of max. You just did 415x5 so if you just call "max" 415 that will be a good place to start. So warm up and then acclimate to a double or triple of around 80% of that.

4. Take a little time between each rep and give yourself a chance to "decide" if you done with the set or not. SO this is very much a "percieved effort" thing. Assuming you hit your first triple at around 80% and that should be easy, right? So put on 5 OR 10 pounds depending on just how easy it is.

Then if you first rep flies up do another. If that one is easy do another. So you have three and you done. Decide, how much you want to put on the bar based on how hard THE WHOLE set was (so see..your looking at the effort of each rep individually to decide if there should be a next rep then your looking at the set as a whole to judge how much to put on the bar).

5. If a first rep is harder than you feel it should be then your done. Rest and go for another rep at that same weight and see if you do better and then follow the same procedure to go forward as above. If the first rep is fine but the second rep makes you feel like a third rep will be too tough to maintain good quality then your done at two reps.

SO WHEN I SAY QUALITY I MEAN EVERY REP IS DAMN GOOD. YOU DO NOT NEED TO GET NEAR YOUR MAX LIFT. YOU ARE JUST TRYING TO GATHER LOTS OF GOOD QUALITY VOLUME AT AN INTENSITY THAT IS MOSTLY GREATER THAN 85 PERCENT.

6. Any trick you need to do to acclimate better as you go along is fine. Say you've built up doing singles, doubles, triples, whatever happens unitl you have 385 on the bar. You do one rep of 385 and it's WAY tough. You might put on 10 more pounds and grind out a rep. Then rest a lot and drop back down to 385. For that "quality" is not going to be as good but you will only do that once or twice if you need to so it's no big deal.

7. You just keep doing that set after set until you know that you cannot get any more weight on the bar without sacrificing quality. For a reference to what I mean about quality look at your last set of 415. The quality was REALLY good for a set of 415x5 but not quite good enough for this. I.E. on some of the reps you back was rounding just to the edge of "safe" and things like that. So this quality volume should not be that far to the edge of your ability.

If you take your time and do this right you can end up with some serious weight on the bar. There are no rules as to how heavy you can or should go. Let quality be your guide. The 80 percent thing was just to get you started. After that don't worry about percentage at ALL. At the same time PLEASE do not have some abitrary number in your head that you want to reach.

Continuation....

Sure that would be a good goal. There will come a time when dumbells just aren't going to be heavy enough. For right now they are heavy "enough". I would certainly consider taking them from 7 reps with crap reps to 7 or 8 good reps and then onward to a couple more sets "heavy" enough. This is rows we're talking about so I understand your question.

I DO think we can go truly heavy on rows rather than always keeping them to moderate volume sets like 5 and up like most people think is necessary. That doesn't mean that doing singles is really in the cards but heavy triples or even doubles are certainly doable. But heavy is not HEAVY with rows, necessarily. For dumbells do what you have to do to progress with the dumbells. When dumbells are not heavy enough anymore then they can become something you do for higher reps and volume.

That is fine for the cable rows if that is what you like. Three sets is fine.

I would do about two sets of face pulls.

One thing that is different between how you do things and how I do things is that you always want new cycles. That is fine but if you were always looking at each individual exercise in the back of your mind and trying to progress with it while keeping it in the context of everything else you were doing..these decisions would make themselves.

I mean, you ask how much to do with cable rows. Well how much have you done before and how can you improve on that within the context of this workout? OR, can you not improve on that within the context of this workout but can you change the parameters and establish a new bench mark that works in this context?

Say you had been dong cable rows with 5 reps and progressing by adding weight to that.

You might say to yourself, well, that isn't going to fly with the medley, and cable rows aren't my "heavy" row right now. So lets see what I can do with higher rep sets. So you estimate what you can hit for 8 reps and then play that set by feel and end up doing 9 good reps with some left in the tank. So then you might add some more weight…

But for that you have to be willing to let the first workout lose so that you can establish a place from which to progress.

On the other hand, if you plan on switching up the row the next workout you might just go all out with some high rep sets.

You want to know should you do 180 for the first set. Well what if you put on 170 and start pulling that thing so hard the cable gets slack in it as the stack comes up? So you do just a few reps and stop and say, that's shit light. So you put on that 180 or even more and rep that out. What is wrong with that? Why not do that? So what if for that first workout you end up doing a few extra sets just to see what it's like?

I've told you like a million times this right? But you STILL ask what should you do? How can I know until you do it?

Rows & Advice

Ok,

First the row medley's. I don't really like the circuit thing. You've kind of lost the point of it somewhere in there. Looking at this:

Medley Rounds #1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6:
Weighted Pull-ups = BW + 20 lbs x 3 reps
Barbell Rows = 165 lbs x 4 reps
Pull-ups = BW x 3 reps
Cable Rows = 150 lbs x 5 reps

Barbell Rows:
185 lbs x 4 reps
205 lbs x 2 reps
225 lbs x 3 reps

Pullups really don't need to be in there. Put em on a separate day so you can pull them heavy. You can always do back off sets with body-weight or light weight at the end..that's what I do. Joe has taken to doing that too. That way you don't lose your pullup endurance while doing low rep weighted sets all the time

I'd rather see more rowing variety with the pullups on another day. But remember, this is strength training. You want to still be able to lift as heavy as possible. A circuit of rows ain't heavy lifting!

I'd rather you do your rows in straight sets, one row complete then another. You can cut down the total number of sets on each row or it can depend on what sort of rows you do. The idea of the row medley is rowing at different angles and variety for you shoulder's sake. You actually haven't been doing that at all.

Something like this is what I like:

1. Cable Rows or Chest Supported Rows or Barbell Rows or Dumbell Rows HEAVY for three sets or more (or even quality volume or many low rep sets). If using a cable I might start with a straight bar handle and then switch to a v-handle (you can pull more this way)

2. High Low pulley rows Higher rep sets - 8 to 12 reps

3. Face Pulls - High rep sets

Usually I will pick one heavy row and work that for a few weeks. The other rows can be changed liberally. There is absolutely no need to "progress" one of these extra rows from workout to workout. You can do that some of course but usually just keep and idea of where you stand with any one row in your journal so you can get some kind of progression over time.

But the idea here is still to be able to do some heavy rowing when you are fresh..and then tack on the variety. Unless you have more than one row day (which I tend to because I row a lot). Then you can just have a lot of variety with higher reps for a medley one day and have one type of heavy row another. Higher volume will tend to come later in the week before a "weeked" just like anything else.

I see that you have "followed by some rowing" on press day so you could make that heavy row day, after pressing. BUT that doesn't give pullups the love they are due.

Maybe like this:

Thursday:

Deadlift

Friday:

Press
Row Medley (heavy row followed by other row varieties all angles)
Arms

Saturday:

NOTHING

Sunday:
OH squats
Squats

Monday:

Pistol Squats
Pullups
Back stuff (anything)

Core Training: put one static core thing in at the end of any of the workouts during the week. Liberal skip policy.