The secret to guarantee a successful session (How to make sure you aren’t wasting time in the gym).
How can you guarantee a successful session and ensure that you are not wasting time?
It can be a difficult question to answer, especially if you are new or even if you are a seasoned trainee. Read on because you might be missing this one trick to take your okay sessions into amazing sessions..
Today I am going to provide you with a simple guide of how to guarantee success in the gym and ensure that you aren’t wasting time.
But first, I have to explain how we measure a training session’s difficulty.
Looking At Training In Two Ways.
So how can we measure a training session’s difficulty?
To ‘judge’ the difficulty of a session suggests a level of self-perception in determining how difficult something is. This supposes a level of subjectivity of the perceived difficulty.
After all, something may be easy for one person but difficult for another.
There are two ways of looking at the world when trying to examine it. There is a statistical/performanced based method which is known as a quantitative method, or there is a subjective/feel method known as a qualitative method.
Quantitative methods are those that involve direct observation. Quantitative, being derived from quantity meaning amount of numbers. There is a demonstrable improvement or regression in the performance metrics.
In terms of training: one would perform more or less: reps, sets, allocated rest times or the weights performed. The whole process of recording past performance and examining it to compare to present performance is a quantitative measure.
Qualitative methods are those that involve subjective feel. Qualitative, being derived from quality, meaning the relative standard of measure. A qualitative method does not have as much demonstrable evidence that quantitative methods do (as quantitative measures are observable). They are based on the subject and their experience.
Despite it being subjective, methods can be implemented to judge if the individual is training hard enough. So how do we determine if we are training hard enough?
Fortunately there is a method for this.
Introducing Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE).
Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE).
RPE is a qualitative self perceived judgment scale of how difficult an exercise is based on effort.
Originally made by Gunnar Borg in the 1960s, and was one of the first protocols in assessing qualitative feel of the difficulty of physical activity.
The scale ranges from 0-10, with 0 being no effort and 10 being maximal effort. The incremental increase in scale points represents an increase in perceived difficulty.
Adjusted Gunnar Borg Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale 1962 (1)
Through the creation of the RPE scale, effort could be thus determined affordably and easily by an individual's own judgment.
RPE was originally created to be used in aerobic & anaerobic exercise activity in the modern day. After a bout of activity, one can question themselves how close to failure was that effort.
Deciding that such a tool could be utilised in modern day weightlifting, the model of RPE had been taken and adjusted for weightlifting by Mike Tuchscherer in his book ‘The Reactive Training Manual’ (2).
This concept is what really revolutionised the world of weightlifting and is the very tool which will take you from mediocre sessions to guaranteed success.
Every world renowned powerlifter and strength athlete uses this form of RPE.
So let's learn about this adjusted form of RPE.
Mike Tuchschere’s RPE.
The adjusted scale maintained increments of 1-10, although with every scale increment representing a change in perceived difficulty in terms of repetitions.
An RPE of 10 being equal to total muscular failure, an RPE 9 representing 1 repetition left ‘in the tank’ so to speak, continuing on with anything below 5.5 being ‘not counted as a true work set’.
This was the first tool that allowed a qualitative measure of determining effort of weight training.
Mike Tuchschere’s RPE scale from Reactive Training Manual .
Mike Tuschere’s RPE scale also led to the development of a final scale which has been used in recent times called Reps in Reserve (RIR).
RIR maintains the same features as the previous aforementioned RPE scale but the primary difference being that the incremental increases are inverse to Mike’s RPE. Where a scale rating of 10 being 10 more reps could be performed, and a scale rating of 0 being absolute muscular failure.
The efficacy of such a scale in novice populations of trainees is that is perceivably easier to use (3).
Rate of Perceived Exertion & Reps In Reserve Graphic.
Why use RPE or RIR?
So why bother with RPE or RIR at all? What is the utility of the qualitative feel of an activity in terms of training and overload?
Simply put, the benefits of a qualitative approach is that it allows the trainee to gauge if they are training hard enough as well as determine how the current effort matches up to previous efforts. This allows for adequate manipulation of training variables such as volume, intensity or load for desired outcomes.
So why do you need to train hard?
As mentioned earlier, anything below an RPE of 5.5 is not considered a ‘true work set’.
So then one might ask “what is considered a true work set?”.
This might sound like a silly series of questions, I promise this is important in determining whether or not your training efforts are successful or a waste of time.
So we must define what a working set is.
What Is A Working Set?
A work set in the exercise science community is a set where most of the workout volume is performed (volume being equated to sets x reps).
For a work set to be true, it implies that there are training sets that could be false. There is a hierarchy of importance for some sets relative to others.
The simple answer to the question, “what is a true work set” is a working set that is sufficiently difficult to cause an adaptation.
The stimulus to cause adaptation must be significant enough to disturb homeostasis. Stimuli that are in those upper ranges of the RPE or lower ranges of the RIR scale are sufficient in intensity to cause that disruption, thus causing further adaptations. It is for this reason that voluntary exerting oneself leads to physiological changes.
If you are training with little effort, you might not be working hard enough to disrupt homeostasis and cause physiological adaptations leading to wasted effort and time in the gym.
To really guarantee a successful session, everyone should attempt to use the RPE or RIR scale and ensure they are above 5 RPE or below 5 RIR.
Conclusion.
Now you can really gauge how hard do you work and if your efforts are in vain or not.
An exercise I like to do with my clients to help them determine how accurate their RPE or RIR reporting is can be done through performing a submaximal set of squats to a given number (it is usually 12), then I ask them to tell me how many more reps they think they could do. They tell me a number, then they are asked to perform that number. I continue to do this until we reach absolute failure.
This is a good example of how inaccurate novice reporting of the difficulty of an activity is. The more experienced and trained an individual becomes, the better they can judge how much more they can push themselves.
If you want to learn more or be guided through this exercise to see if you are working hard enough, feel free to contact us below and we can organise a session to demonstrate this exercise to you.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
We hope you have a great day! :)