Increments of Increase

[ctoph11]

What's up y'all, I was doing some deadlifts today and tried something a little different than I usually do and wanted to know what you guys thought.

Now normally when I do the three big lifts I'll increase like:

Squat
-135-->225-->315-->405-->495
Bench
-135-->225-->275-->315
Deadlift
-135-->225-->315-->405-->495-->545

but today I worked out with a buddy and he told me to try small increments of increase in each set. I did:

-135-->185-->225-->275-->315-->365-->405-->455-->495-->545

and I was able to pull 545 for more reps and much much faster than I usually do.

Now maybe it was just a fluke day and I had a really good lift and just felt good, but maybe it was the increments that I did. I wanted to see if anyone has any criticism on the way that I have been doing it and taking (what I think are) relatively large jumps in weight between each set. Obviously (as I'm sure someone will point out) that everyone is different and people should do what works for them, but I just wanted to see if anyone had anything to say about my jumps in weight during my lifts and wanted to know what kind of increases you folks do during your workouts.

Thank you in advance for any responses and helpful criticism that I may receive! Hope all is well! Happy Training!

 

[GoHardOrGoHme]

Ive used both small increments and larger increments to achieve PR's. Both can be effective, however there are various factors at play to who will respond to one more than another. Larger jumps I personally do not recommend to a novice, but that doesnt mean I would recommend larger jumps to a more advanced lifters. It

Try the smaller increments again and see if it was a fluke or did you stumble on something. Trial and error.

 

[kisaj]

First off, all your big 3 lifts are identical to mine and at the same increments. With that being said, this works better for me if I am going to be doing 495 x 4-5 for example, as adding in the extra increments really taxes me and I cannot work as much in the top end. But, if I am working to move past a plateau, I will work smaller increments in preparation and only do 1-2 reps, but it takes away from the volume in my working set.

So, it does work, but has a place and time in my routines.

 

[Doomzday]

There is a difference and this is very individualized

Personally I don't have much of a warmup and usually jump to working weight in set 3

And if I've already squatted, for example, I wouldn't warmup for deadlifts, jumping straight to work weight. Notice I didn't say MAX weight but work weight

I know its kinda unorthodox but after reading something from Pavel Tsatsouline, along the lines of "warmups are overated", it kinda hit home for me and I found it really true. If u think u need it, then u need it.

But then, every1 is different, so find your sweetspot (u might really need it. lol)

 

[JSNeves]

Like you said its an individual thing

I'm curious what you goal of the training session was and the reps for each set were for your traditional ramp up and what you did this last time.

If I were you I would give the smaller jumps a run for a couple of months and then try your old way and see what really suits you best.

I personally need a lit of ramping sets and if I was lifting your weight my session would of looked like:

135x10
185x5
225x5
275x3
315x3
365x3
405x2-3
455x2-3
495x1-2
545x as many as possible

If I wanted more volume in that lift I'd hit back off sets. If I was working to a 1rm the last 2-3 ramping sets would be singles.