Auto Regulation by Matt Perryman All this talk about autoregulation and about getting strong in more general

ways has had me doing a lot of thinking. This workout scheme in particular was inspi red by this post of mine and the paper it references. Autoregulated Progressive Resistance Exercise (APRE) is similar to plain old PRE , which some of you may know as linear progression. You show up, do a workout, a nd next time you throw more weight on the bar. Pretty simple. It also has a tend ency to build you up to a plateau that is very hard to break through. Usually yo u have to go on some more complicated and varied workout to keep improving. Thats where the A-for-autoregulated part comes in. Instead of just mindlessly add ing weight each workout, the APRE protocol introduces a little testing and adjus ting. Which means Im a fan. Ive discussed elsewhere how I think some kind of linear progression is probably t he best idea for most people looking to get strong. The problem is in finding a smart linear progression. I laid out a few options in that post which are worth a look. At the same time, the results of the comparison between APRE and that simple lin ear progression are intriguing. This fits with a long-held belief of mine: an au toregulated program that has built-in ways to adjust itself will prove superior to any pre-planned workouts. Despite what wed like to believe, the body doesnt lik e to fit itself into nicely planned weekly schedules and monthly training blocks . A program that can account for that fluctuation will be a step ahead. Ive gone over other options for this process of autoregulation in another article . Here I want to discuss this particular protocol and some ideas Ive had on incor porating it into a strength-oriented workout routine. The APRE system is not a workout in itself. This is more like a set of guideline s that you follow to determine your work sets. In quick summary: 3RM Protocol 6RM Protocol 10RM Protocol 50% of 3RM 6 reps 50% of 6RM 10 reps 50% of 10RM 12 reps 75% of 3RM 3 reps 75% of 6RM 6 reps 75% of 10RM 10 reps Reps to failure with 3RM Reps to failure with 6RM Reps to failure with 10RM Adjusted reps to failure Adjusted reps to failure Adjusted reps to failure And to adjust after the test set: Reps in third set (6RM protocol) Adjustment for fourth set (kg) 0-2 -2.5 to -5 3-4 0 to -2.5 5-7 No change 8-12 +2.5 to +5 > 13 +5 to +7.5 The adjustments vary slightly for the 3RM and 10RM protocols, but this is the ba sic idea. As you can see, thats not a workout. Thats just some suggestions. But theyre powerf ul all the same, so what we have to do is decide how to use them in a gym-friend ly routine. The templates are influenced by a lot of things. First Option More Frequency, Less Volume This arrangement has you training four days a week with each major movement patt ern being trained each session. Youll be alternating between A and B workouts, so that each exercise will be trained twice a week. This is very compatible with t he heavy-light setup Ill describe below. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Overhead Press Back Squat Front Squat Bench Press Front Squat Bench Press Overhead Press Back Squat Deadlift Now lets take a look at what to do here. First things first, Id group this into tw o days on, one day off. That is, train Monday-Tuesday, rest Wednesday, then agai n Thursday-Friday and take the weekend off.

This is designed for a heavy-light rotation between the lifts so that everything gets one heavy day and one light day, except the deadlift which doesnt seem to l ike that much volume. The top lift is the main lift for the day to train hard, t he bottom lift gets the easy work. Finally Id make it a point to add in an upper-back movement on each day for shoul der health and overall balance of development. You can get away with skipping th is on the day you deadlift. I wouldnt do much assistance work beyond this; maybe a few sets of abs or arms would be about it. The pros: youll get a lot of practice with and exposure to the lifts. The cons: if you arent conditioned to frequent training, if you have a lot of rea l-life stress, or both, this will probably beat you up pretty good and may not b e the best choice. Second Option More Volume, Less Workouts If that template isnt your cup of tea, heres an alternative. This is a more traditional type of upper/lower or body-part split arrangement th at will probably be familiar to most of you. Each day will focus on a big lift a nd then follow up with assistance work, much like any old powerlifting workout o r the 5/3/1 template. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Push Press Back Squat Bench Press Deadlift Close-grip Bench Front Squats Military Press Barbell Row This is straightforward and should be pretty familiar. You do the big lift, do s ome lighter assistance work on another lift, then whatever you feel like after t hat. You can throw in some pump n tone body-part work, you can do more specialize d assistance, you can just go home. Pretty much your call. Id make the usual suggestions of getting lots of upper-back work for shoulder hea lth, some kind of loaded ab work, and Im partial to back raises and glute-ham rai ses. Not mandatory, but can be helpful. The pros: pretty basic and effective template thats hard to screw up. Compatible with other kinds of training and can be modified to include more or less work. The cons: not many. This template doesnt have many drawbacks. Other Options As with any of these templates, youre free to adjust them as needed as long as yo u dont screw up the intent behind them. If you can only train three days a week, then rotate through the four workouts in order. If you dont like an exercise I pi cked, then replace it with something else. Use your head: if you want to replace a bench press with weighted dips, thats fine. If you want to replace back squats with leg extensions, never speak to me again. Which protocol? The APRE gives us three options to choose from: 3RM, 6RM, and 10RM. The paper by Mann et al said they used all three over the six weeks of the study. The paper didnt go into a lot of detail regarding how they used the three, except to say th at they used the 6RM option most frequently as it was most compatible with the g oals of their football players (i.e., strength and muscle mass). In Supertraining, Siff suggests using the 6RM option for the first 6-8 weeks, th en switching to the 3RM version. He suggests that the 10RM version can be used a t any point as a way of stimulating hypertrophy and local muscular endurance. Its also noted that the 3RM version is best for strong athletes interested in incre asing maximal strength. So theres your answer. If youre after size, stick to the 10RM version most of the time and toss in the 6RM protocol for a little variety. If youre after strength g ains, focus more on the 3RM. Fine-tuning the test sets The APRE protocol calls for training to failure in order to establish your RMs. If youre using one of the once-a-week options from above, thats probably going to be okay assuming you have reasonable recovery ability. If youre using one of the high-frequency options and you take your test sets to r eal grinding failure, you will die. As the frequency of workouts increases, the stress and workload of each workout must decrease. If this doesnt happen, you wil l know it quickly. I think that given time and training, most people could adapt

more than they realize. Because of this, you have to grade your effort. Ive not been explicitly logging R PE numbers, but rather making it a point to pay attention to the feel and execut ion of the lift. I, personally, can tell the difference in a lift that stays fai rly smooth & explosive, versus a lift that was a holy-shit grinder. The more oft en you train, the less often the holy-shit grinders need to show up. If youre using the Mike T RPE scale, then youd want to cut your sets around a hard 8 or easy 9. Leave a rep or two in the tank, for the rest of you. Having tested the 5/3/1 in the past, youre going to find that this wont be terribl y different. Youll spend most of your time doing higher reps than suggested by th e protocol, and this is a good thing. The key difference is that there are no pe rcentage-planned work sets (although there is a pre-planned workout) and no plan ned out cycle. This may seem dodgy, but remember that cycling is built in to thi s program automatically. Your work sets and your weights for the next session ar e determined by how well you do on any given day. Youll only wind up working as hard as youre good for, and the actual workload of a session will auto-magically adjust itself based on that. So there is cycling in volved; its just not a month-long cycle sitting in a spreadsheet. Heavy and Light days The heavy day will obviously be the protocol as written: train to a RM or as clo se to it as youre comfortable going. If you have a light day, thats easy to draw up: take 90% of your heavy days work w eight and cut the reps in half. If youre using the 3RM, do singles; 6RM, do tripl es; 10RM, do fives. Yes, I know that one isnt half of three. If you want to do 1. 5 reps, go right ahead. You could do doubles also, I guess. If I hit 2005 on my 3RM heavy/test day, then Im going to use 180 for singles on th e light day. Look too easy, you say? Good. Thats what a light day is for. Back-off sets for more volume I can see this question coming already so Ill go ahead and tackle it. If youre doing the high-frequency arrangement, do your sets and go home. If you f eel great, then take 80% of your top weight and half the reps. Be aware of the w orkloads, however, and dont whine to me if you wreck something. If youre doing the less-frequent template, youve got more room for backoff volume. The way I have it written, youll be following the main lift with a second compou nd exercise, and in most cases you may be content to use that as your backoff wo rk; thats how I intended it, anyway. That doesnt mean you have to listen to me. Regardless of what you do for the second exercise, Im going to suggest keeping it to fast and snappy work for higher volume. That is, sets of 3-6 reps and leavin g a lot in the tank. The goal is to do a lot of sets and keep a reasonable rest interval, rather than all you bro sets. If you want to back off with the main exercise, then Id suggest either 90% of you r top weight for half the reps, or 80% of top weight for the same reps. So if yo u hit 100 as your top weight on the 6RM protocol, then either do 90 for triples or 80 for sets of six. If you switch to the different exercise I have listed, th en follow the same idea. You should have a reasonable idea of where you stand on those lifts, and if you dont, you can figure it out pretty easily. How many sets? Why are you asking me? Go until you feel fatigue set in. Or if yo u dont want to trash yourself, just do one. Or dont do any. Use your best judgment . Another option worth looking at if youre bodybuilding is this cycle by Barry Merr iman. Combine Barrys approach to backoff sets with the 10RM APRE method and youve got a winner. That is, do the 10RM set and the adjusted 10RM set, then two backo ff sets as he describes. Examples Its push press day with close-grip bench as the second exercise. Im starting the c ycle with a push press of 803, so the warmups are 406, 603, and then the 3RM test s et with 80. I hit 6 reps with 80, which means that I should go up to 82.5-85 on the next set. I go to 85 and knock out three reps, so thats where Ill start on the next workout. If Id only hit say 2 or 3 reps, then Id probably clock it back to 77.5 or even 75

on the fourth set, and use it for the next workout. You see how this is not at a ll unlike 5/3/1, only the number of reps you get determines the weight you use n ext time. For backoffs it was a good day, so I decide to take 90% and do a few doubles. To p weight was 85, so Ill use 75 for doubles. Since Im still doing close-grips, I do nt want to go to fatigue so I do two doubles and call it done. For close-grips, I know Im good for 110 for 6 reps, so Ill stick to around 80% (90 ) of that for six reps. Upper back work is weighted chins, so I start throwing them in between the backo ff sets of push presses and the close-grips. Do a set of pushing, then a set of chins. And thats it. I would add that if you want to do more bodybuilder-ish work, theres nothing stopping you. Do your big lift, maybe the second light lift if you care , and then have fun with chest/shoulders/triceps as you see fit. Id still limit t hat to a few quality sets of 8-10 reps on a few solid exercises, rather than the usual 5-set pyramids on eight different kinds of curls, but hey thats your call. Sources and Further Reading The APRE protocol is from Supertraining, 5th edition (2003). Inspiration for using this in a real protocol, and evidence that it works in rea l athletes, came from The Effect of Autoregulatory Progressive Resistance Exerci se vs. Linear Periodization on Strength Improvement in College Athletes. Mann JB , Thyfault JP, Ivey PA, Sayers SP. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Jun 10. PMID: 20543 732