Making the best program for your athlete involves balancing volume and intensity with the athlete’s background, goals, movement proficiency, and expressing all of those variables through movement selection and load selection. So that big word salad boils down to: there’s more that goes into writing workouts than picking weights, and relative intensity is just one way to handle load selection.
In this post, we cover some basics of program creation, give you a spreadsheet-calculator to use to find the relative intensity you’d like, and provide some examples of programs written with relative intensity, so hopefully after reading it you have a good understanding of how to use this tool for picking weights.
BACKGROUND AND BASICS
The two mechanical inputs you’ll control in program design are volume and intensity: Volume is the total number of reps for a given movement, intensity is how heavy they’re performed relative to the athlete’s 1 RM.
Relative intensity is one strategy for load selection that allows you to have some control over how difficult things should feel. It works off of this basic concept:
My two rep max is probably less than my one rep max.
My three rep max is probably less than my two rep max.
My four rep max is probably less than my three rep max.
Etc.
Relative intensity adjusts the training max depending on how many reps you’re setting out to do. Here is the rep max list.:
1RM = 100% 1RM (obviously)
2RM = 95% 1RM
3RM = 93% 1RM
4RM = 90% 1RM
5RM = 87% 1RM
6 RM = 85% 1RM
7RM = 83% 1RM
8RM = 80% 1 RM
9 RM = 77% 1 RM
10RM = 75% 1RM
Each rep max corresponds to 100% Relative Intensity for the given number of reps, so a set of 2 at 95% 1RM would be 100% Relative intensity.
So if I’m doing a set of 5, I would estimate my 5 Rep Max to be 87% of my 1 rep max. To do a set at 80% relative intensity, I would take my 5RM and multiply it by the desired relative intensity of 80%, which in this case works out to be right about 70%1RM. That would be my load for my sets on the day. Now how much volume should I do?
Volume for each workout should take into account an athletes training history, schedule or frequency, and training phase. Athletes who have more years lifting will usually need higher volume and average intensity than those who are just starting out. That means beginners get more gains out of less work, and most importantly: more work does not equal more gains in beginners. It just means more stress to recover from. As a coach you’re trying to give the athlete enough volume and intensity to progress, but not so much that they are dirt by week 3.
Athletes who are training the same movement frequently may need less volume per session because of their increased volume over the course of the training phase, so someone who is squatting 6 days a week wouldn’t need as much volume each session as an athlete of similar development who is squatting twice a week. Individual experiences, outlooks, and event genetics can play into volume selection. Some athletes will progress with high frequency/low volume protocols, some with low frequency, higher volume protocols. It’s a good idea as a coach to keep track of athletes numbers over time so you can refer back to it and make informed trianing decisions for future training blocks. Lastly training phases come into play here as well. In general: prep phases will be lower intensity with higher volume, strength phases will be moderate on each and peaking phases will be high intensity, lower volume.
Having wrote out all of that: There is a tool you can use to get a starting point for making recommendations for volume for athletes: Prilepin’s chart. It's an old soviet training tool to recommend volume. I like to use it as a starting point for intermediate athletes, or even some beginners with general lifting experience. It is not a good idea to try and use this for brand new athletes who have very limited experience with the barbell because they tend to make gains fast, and at that stage of motor learning it’s more important to learn to do things well than to try to steam-roll the athlete with volume. I’ll do another post later about beginner athletes.
So actually writing workout programs with this information will follow a basic process:
Pick a target relative intensity for that day and movement. You can have different intensities for different movements in the same workout. You can also pick a relative intensity progression: pick where you want to end, and then work backwards to pick RI’s for each training day leading up to it.
Progress the Relative intensity throughout the program in a logical fashion. There are different loading patterns you can use but in general: RI will go up further into a training program you progress before deloading at some point.
RI CALCULATOR
Here is the RI calculator itself. Also here is a link to the workbook if you prefer that.
EXAMPLE PROGRAMS:
Level 2x per week squat
This is a 4 week program built on 2 days a week of squatting. For this program we’ll work between 93 and 81% relative intensity with 4% gains between weeks. One day will be a volume day, and one day will be a strength day. In the last week, we’ll do an open set test to get an idea of how the strength has changed and a new number to calculate maxes off of. To get the test weight we used 93% RI of the estimated 5RM. Ideally, we would’ve probably not tested on this cycle but instead moved into a cycle with lower volume and higher intensity. This illustrates how we can program multiple workouts or differing rep ranges with the same relative intensity. This would be a good loading protocol for squats, presses, rows, deadlifts. Olympic lifts you generally would keep the reps per set a little lower to avoid fatigue in their execution.
3x per week squat - tapering, unload, test
This program will taper the intensity through the week so that eacy day 1 starts with a new peak of relative intensity. We’ll use a 3 week building phase where the intensities work up from week to week, then a deload in the last week where we will purposefully drop the volume and intensity down to aid the athlete’s recovery, before an open set test in week 4.
Full weightlifting program: 6 week, 2x per day (7-8 training sessions per week. Testing in weeks 4-6.
This program is a full weightlifting program consisting of 7 training sessions a week over 4 days. Generally split into ‘strength’ and ‘technique’ work, the intensity slowly builds up to a peak in week 5. Each week has two level days before a drop a peak back up for the last day of the week. Accessory movements were selected to address that lifters specific imbalances. It’s a big program so I’m not going to try and embed it. you can look at it here.
Hopefully this all can help you make some great programs for people!!! If you’d like a chance to talk with us more about program design, feel free to book a free consult time.