Measuring Progress with Repetition Maxes and Indicator Lifts

The other day I received a message from a new strength client asking about testing strength since my style of programming rarely, if ever, calls for one rep maxes. He was quite confused as to how I could guarantee he was getting stronger if he didn't test his maximal strength every few weeks. As a newer lifter, he was seeing quick gains in strength as his body adapted and he wanted the undeniable feedback of pushing a one rep max every few weeks. I understood his concerns because I made the same mistakes before I knew any better, before I really understood Personal Records (PR's). There's a secret in strength training that isn't very secret; strength doesn't come from a one rep max. Strength comes from the accumulation of our efforts and there are many ways to demonstrate the gains we make.

I understand the desire to say "I squat xxx" or "I bench yyy" and I know the high you get from nailing a new PR, limiting progress with the idea that increases in maximal strength progress comes only from a one rep max is erroneous thinking. Simply, one rep max tests take a lot out of the body, can be dangerous without proper spotters, and can actually hinder progress if done too often. At minimum, I have 12 weeks of training before scheduling a test week. If I can move a weight faster, if I can do more reps, if the weight feels lighter, or if I can recover faster, I have demonstrated increased strength expect some impact in my 1 RM as well. More and more people are catching on to the idea that a PR is a PR, whether it's a 5 RM, a 3 RM, or a 1 RM. Strength isn't just one all out effort, but is defined by how we use it. Think of a mover; they may not have a tremendous squat max, but they can run up and down stairs with furniture all day long. Or consider a warehouse employee that is shifting, lifting, and moving boxes eight hours a day. We would all agree they are strong, but their 1 RM means nothing.

Instead of programming one rep max tests during cycles, I use two elements to measure progress and strength gains with my clients and myself. The first element is the repetition max. The second element is an indicator lift.  The combination of rep maxes and indicator lifts provides valuable information about your training, your progress, and ultimately, your strength. Because both of these occur over time, a good workout log is essential in recognizing the changes.

Repetition Maxes - By now, most people understand rep maxes. Briefly, a rep max can be either the most weight you can do for a set number of reps (2, 3, 5, etc.) or it can be a weight done as many times as possible. The first option is primarily used by self-regulating programs that allow you to push as hard as you can for that training session as long as you don't miss. The second option is seen in programs like Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 series. Either version can indicate strength increases. Think about it for a minute; if you benched 225 pounds for 6 and then a month later later hit 225 pounds for 8, you got stronger! Or maybe you're doing 3 sets of 5 and last month you did it with 315 but this month you just did it with 340. You'd agree you got stronger, wouldn't you? And if you want to relate back to a one rep max, it can be done. With repetition maxes of eight or fewer, we can estimate our 1 RM using a simple formula: weight x reps x .0333 + weight. Example:  225 x 5 x .0333 + 225 estimates a 265 pound max.

Indicator Lifts - These take some experience to identify, but everybody has them for each major lift. An indicator lift is another lift that correlates to your "tested" movement. Sometimes they are trained in place of the actual lift or they are done as the first assistance lift. The indicator lift uses many of the same muscles as the main lift, which is why the two are related. For me, when my Incline Bench increases, so does my Flat Bench. For some, it may be Front Squat indicating Squat increase. Whether you are aware of it or not, we all have them. This is where the workout log is so important. The longer you have been training, the easier they are to find. Go back and look at how you were training when you were getting stronger. Find the assistance lift that you were doing that also got stronger. That's your indicator. If you're newer to lifting, this may be harder, but it certainly is possible as long as you keep records of everything.

So if you find yourself always testing your one rep max and never making progress, maybe it's time to step back from test mode and start looking at other PR's using the rep max and indicator lift method of analyzing your strength gains. Your body will thank you for it and I'm willing to bet that you will see more from it in the long run.

Help! I'm a Hardgainer

While there are a lot of people in the health and fitness realm that are looking to lose weight, there are some of us that are fighting the opposite battle, the battle of the “hardgainer”. For a long time, I believed I was genetically defective, unable to gain weight and grow muscle. I blamed my father (at 6’4” and under 220 lbs) for my being lanky (5’11” and under 200 lbs). I was frustrated that the scale never moved no matter how hard I trained and how much I ate. I wasn’t getting much stronger and I couldn’t figure out why. I tried supplements and lots of them, with no real results. For those of us that are hardgainers we struggle to find a way to make progress, try every “trick” and push ourselves harder and harder until we break or until we just give up. The idea that we’ll never be bigger or stronger is maddening, but it doesn’t have to be. Along my journey I’ve figured out a few things that can make a big difference if you’re a hardgainer too.

There are the obvious keys to making gains: eat more food, get your sleep, and use your recovery days wisely. There are also some glaring “mistakes” that don’t seem as obvious.

Explaining the Keys
If you’ve done any research, you know the importance of nutrition. Whether you are trying to gain weight, get stronger, lose fat, or just perform better, nutrition is the leading factor. If you want to gain muscle, you have to feed the muscle. Chances are if you are the typical skinny ectomorph, you aren’t eating nearly enough, and unless you take the time to measure your food and calculate your estimated calorie needs, you can’t be sure if you are eating enough to grow. Once you have an estimate, you have to track your weight and your food. If you don’t make any gains at the end of the week, you need to eat more food each day. I know, I know, you’re afraid to get “fat.” Let me clue you in; you’re a hardgainer so getting “fat” is extremely hard and you may have to gain some fat in order to gain some muscle too.

The second key is challenging the muscle with resistance. New trainees have the distinct advantage of their nervous system learning how to recruit muscle fibers and they can make monumental leaps in strength simply through the neural adaptation. As the nervous system learns how to recruit more muscle fibers, the weights get easier, so we increase the load and continue to get stronger. At some point, the “newbie effect” comes to an end, and a change becomes necessary to make progress. In the words of EliteFTS’s Matt Rhodes “It ain’t rocket math” when making the necessary training changes to get stronger or grow muscle.

Finally, growth requires rest and recovery. We don’t gain weight or get stronger with the one or two hours we train each day, but in the remaining hours we have for our body to grow and heal. There are a plethora of great articles and research showing the importance of sleep, and here is one by Greg Nuckols that explains the importance of sleep and recovery on gains.
http://gregnuckols.com/2014/04/28/poor-recovery-and-increased-muscle-breakdown-insufficient-sleep-part-2/

Now, let’s explore some of the pitfalls and stumbling blocks that keep us from making optimal progress and have us still saying we’re a hardgainer.

Making Overly Healthy Choices
I made the mistake of trying “intermittent fasting” and trying to make lean gains. I found it nearly impossible to get enough calories in to gain any weight. I can hear you asking, “How is eating healthy a mistake?” If our focus is on eating a “healthy diet” we will struggle to reach our daily caloric goal. As an ectomorph, we tend to have a fast metabolism, which burns more calories than most. It can be a curse because it makes getting enough calories hard when we eat super-clean but it’s a godsend when we need to cut weight. I’m not endorsing JM Blakely’s “Big Boy’s Menu Plan”, but eating super-clean isn’t going to get it done either.

The simple solution for most hardgainers is eating simple carbs such as white rice and bread. I’ve been known to eat bagels and pop tarts as a snack because they are high calorie foods that can help us reach the caloric surplus necessary to make weight and muscle gains. I recommend simple carbohydrates make up 30-40% of the total carbohydrates you eat on a daily basis and that carbohydrates make up 40% of your total diet. Having more calories available when your body needs them is always better than not having enough. Also, fat is not the enemy in our food. Healthy fats are a fast way to increase our calories, and can be added to most of our meals by simply using heavy cream, olive oil, coconut oil and the like.

Too Much Training
Training every day won’t get it done. In fact, training that much is too much! I get it, we have been taught that if we want to get better at something we need to practice it as much as possible. And when we aren’t getting results, we push harder, we find new programs, we switch to two-a-days, etc. It makes sense, right? Unfortunately, we don’t grow by being overly active and training every day; we grow by stressing the muscle and then giving it adequate time to heal.
Remember above where I said “We don’t gain weight or get stronger with the one or two hours we train each day, but in the remaining hours we have for our body to grow and heal.” So instead of training longer and harder, limit your training sessions to less than an hour and a half and train three to four days per week. This give your body more time to repair and rebuild new muscle, and you will be better rested for the next training session, allowing you to maximize each workout.

Training Small Muscles
Every hardgainer has looked at a bodybuilding magazine with envy and read about the latest, greatest split routine and how to grow a massive {insert body part here} fast. Isolation workouts work well for targeting specific muscle groups, but they aren’t good choices for hardgainers. Being an ectomorph necessitates a focus on maximal muscle recruitment through compound lifts like the squat and deadlift. These lifts recruit the most muscle and also stimulate the release of anabolic hormones, which are one of the most important components of muscle building. Remember, muscle grows AFTER it’s broken down and repaired, and these lifts will cause the most recruitment and best opportunity for growth.

Great Movements for Hardgainers

Squats Deadlifts Bent Over Rows Bench Press Push Press Weighted Carries

Military Press Pull Ups Tire Flips Dips Farmer’s Walks Heavy Sled Push

Using the Wrong Rep Scheme
While there is no such thing as the perfect rep scheme and it is possible to build muscle using just about any rep scheme, muscle growth is more likely to happen in the moderate to high rep ranges. Working with the appropriate amount of weight and performing the proper reps can greatly enhance muscle growth.

In my experience, the best results for hardgainers happens with loads between 70 and 80% of their 1RM for three to four sets of 8-12 reps per set.  My best growth came right in the middle of both lines at 75% for three sets of 10. Does that mean it will be best for you? No, but I’m willing to be it will work better than doing high intensity / low rep workouts or low intensity / high rep workouts.

The Takeaway
While our genetics are seemingly against us, we don’t have to live the life of the skinny weakling! As hardgaining ectomorphs, we make mistakes by simply not eating enough, training too much or the wrong way, and not getting enough recovery. Our body type dictates that we do certain things to beat our genetics and that we get over our fears. If you finally want to break the mold, the steps aren’t much different than losing weight; focus on your nutrition, train hard with the right sets, reps, and weights, and get proper rest and recovery for growth.

Lose and Gain...At the Same Time?

One question is brought up at least 10 times a day on different fitness boards I read, “Can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?” Another version I see all the time which has the same answer is “Can I get stronger while cutting weight?” Some will say “absolutely” while others will scream bloody murder at the very idea. Unfortunately, it isn’t a simple yes or no answer. Like many fitness questions, the answer “it depends” is the answer. There are no simple solutions in fitness because everybody’s body reacts differently, but the more you know, the better your chances of finding success in obtaining your goals.

Let me first address the “gain muscle / lose fat” conundrum. A quick search of the internet returns no less than 42 million results. Unless you have experience weaving through the magic of fitness advertising, you’d wholly believe that everybody can gain muscle and lose fat at the exact same time or that nobody can do it. The internet makes the body seem capable of building muscle from the fat that is being burned. Some basic science tells us that our body needs a caloric deficit in order to lose weight and a caloric surplus in order to build muscle. In an ideal world, your body could use the stored fat as the energy source for building and maintaining muscle. Unfortunately, the fat we burn is not that source and our body doesn’t work that way. Human Physiology tells us that when we eat below maintenance levels, our body does not focus on making muscle [1]. The body will find energy, which can come from the fat we burn or the food we eat to maintain functions, but it does not make muscle from it. According to Dr. John Berardi, the body uses the energy from the days before for repair and growth and not the new nutrients with the exception of long duration exercise [2]. Seems like I just gave some solid reasons why it isn’t possible, but there are a few times when it is possible.

Given the resounding “no” that came from above, there are several cases where the answer is a resounding “yes.” In order to figure out how possible it is, and if is it worth the extreme effort, there are several questions that I consider.

• What is the training age of the client?
• What type of training has the client been doing to this point?
• What is the body composition of the client trying to make the change?
• How much weight is the client giving me to manipulate?
• What is the client's age?

As you can see, that simple “yes” or “no” just got more complicated. Each question and answer gives me an idea of the likelihood of success when trying to do accomplish two goals at the same time. The best chance of success comes from:

• A novice trainee
• Someone that was in a trained state and became detrained
• Someone with higher body fat or a lot of weight to lose
• Someone that is younger

There are many reasons these types of trainees are more likely to experience success, primarily it is the greater potential to build muscle. In contrast, more experienced trainees, trainees that are still in a trained state, people with lower body fat or weight, and older people have several factors against them. In my experience, if the elements are leading away from success, I would look for alternate routes.

If you fall into one of the magical categories, the answer is yes, it is possible and worth trying. One study found that a group of overweight novices lost 16+ pounds of fat and gained nearly 10 pounds of muscle during a 14-week training program [3]. Another study took 30 newer lifters and divided them into three groups of 10. One group did cardio, one did weights, and one did both. Despite the fact that the third group started out with an average body fat of just 12%, the men gained 7 pounds of muscle while losing almost 6 pounds of fat [4].  Finally, a study of trained then detrained and retrained individuals also showed promise that it is possible to lose fat and build muscle due to muscle memory [5]. Does this mean it is possible for everybody? No, it doesn’t, and as I have said many times, what works for one person may not work for any other person.

If you aren’t in one of the special categories that typically means you have less body fat / weight to manipulate, have more years of experience training, or have reached a limiting factor based on age, training, or diet. Without the use of pharmaceutical assistance, it is tremendously hard to do both at the same time. At this point and in most cases it is the wiser choice to attack one goal and then the other. Along with many other trainers, my preferred pattern is to lose fat in the first phase and then gain muscle in the second phase. I’m not going to break down cutting and bulking here as they are topics unto themselves. By losing the fat first through maintaining a high protein, caloric deficit and utilizing proper training, you will be able to spare a lot of your current muscle. Following the fat loss, it will be possible to gradually increase caloric intake to maintenance levels and above to allow for the growth of muscle tissue while minimizing fat gain. While this process may seemingly take longer, it is more reliable and better than spinning your wheels making no progress. This two-phase method will allow for much more control and the ability to manipulate and adjust if things aren’t going as planned.

Still want to try and lose fat while gaining muscle? Here are a few essential elements that need to happen in my successful experiences:

• Train HARD.
• Not just heavy, or cardio, but a mix of both. Train low rep, high intensity two days per week.  Train high intensity one day per week and long steady state one day per week. Every day needs a form of metabolic conditioning circuits.
• Increase protein intake and decrease the carbs.
• You’re trying to save and build muscle which needs protein. Approximately 1-1.2 g per pound should be good.
• Cycle your intakes on training and non-training days.
• This doesn’t mean splurge or starve, but eat slightly more or less based on the training style that day. Carb cycling is popular as is intermittent fasting and the paleo diet. Previous research also showed very low carb / high protein diets to be successful in muscle sparing as well. Be sure to research and fully understand this new eating style before diving in headfirst.

The “it’s possible” to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time verdict relies upon the right combination of circumstances, nutrition, and training protocols. The truth is that while possible under certain circumstances, it is not ideal or possible for most to easily achieve losing fat while gaining muscle and your time may be best spent tackling one goal at a time. If you are one of the few predictable cases where it is more likely and worth the time investment, I support pursuing fat loss while gaining muscle, however, for the many others where it is less than ideal, I urge you to consider all of the variables and options before making a decision. It is a choice you must make regarding the amount of effort and the time it will take to find what works best for you before finding success. From here, you have a starting point to continue educating yourself about your options or you can choose to reach out to a coach to help you accomplish your goals.

Sources:

1. Pasiakos SM, Vislocky LM, Carbone JW, Altieri N, Konopelski K, Freake HC, Anderson JM, Ferrando AA, Wolfe RR, Rodriguez NR. (2010). Acute energy deprivation affects skeletal muscle protein synthesis and associated intracellular signaling proteins in physically active adults. Journal of Nutrition, 140, 745-751
2. Berardi J, Andrews R, (2014). The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, 2nd ED, 71
3. Wallace MB, Mills BD, Browning CL. (1997). Effects of cross training on markers of insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 29, 1170-1175
4. Dolezal, B.A., & Potteiger, J.A. (1998). Concurrent resistance and endurance training influence basal metabolic rate in nondieting individuals. Journal of Applied Physiology, 85, 695-700
5. Staron RS, Leonardi MJ, Karapondo DL, Malicky ES, Falkel JE, Hagerman FC, Hikida RS. (1991). Strength and skeletal muscle adaptations in heavy-resistance-trained women after detraining and retraining. Journal of Applied Physiology, 70, 631-640