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 What is Cluster Training? Cluster Training involves utilizing short intra-set rest periods (usually ranging between 10-30 seconds), we will be using 15 seconds, which will act to allow us to perform more reps with a heavier weight. With cluster training, the design is all about the rest between reps, rather than between sets. How do you do Cluster Training? There are a number of ways you can set up cluster training, but the most important principle of this training methodology lies in the short rest intervals between reps, or multiples of reps. Make sure you re-rack the bar when you rest, and utilize the entirety of the rest period - both during and after your set. We're going to get our reps in then rest. Get another rep in then rest. And then get one more rep and rest. And that will make up one set. This work-to-rest program design is called intra-set rest and has a lot more rest between reps. Why do we need more rest? Because rest allows us to lift more weight and hit higher tonnages in a training block. What the hell is "tonnage" and why is it important? Tonnage is a term that quantifies overall load used during a period of time. Tonnage = Weight X Reps X Sets Tonnage has been used for decades as a qualifier for national and international levels in weightlifting. Theoretically, if a person can accumulate a higher total of weight in a period of time, they should be able to compete at a higher level, become much stronger. How do we manipulate sets and reps to achieve a higher overall tonnage? We can do 10 sets of 10 to achieve more morphological changes, like body composition of hypertrophy. Or we can utilize 10 sets of 3 reps to achieve more neuronal changes; such as, power and force production. There is an interesting concept called Prilipen's chart which describes the volume people can hit at specific intensities in a training session, please refer to the image below:  The science behind cluster training. ATP-PC recovery The ATP-PC energy system is responsible for energy production for the first 10–15 seconds of maximal exercise. Therefore, it's important for strength and power events. To fully replenish the ATP-PC system, it takes about three minutes, but initial recovery is much quicker. After 30 seconds, it can be 70 percent recovered. By using short inter-set rest periods, athletes can perform more reps with a heavier weight or more powerful reps with a sub-maximal weight when training for power.   Post-activation potentiation Post-activation potentiation (PAP) is an increase in force production of the skeletal muscle following a previous muscular contraction (Sale 2002). Essentially, every rep you perform has an excitatory effect on the muscles and nervous system involved. If there is little fatigue, a more forceful contraction can be produced subsequently. This leads to my next point…  Fitness fatigue theory (lactate) Any training stimulus has two effects—a fitness effect and a fatigue effect. Your performance is a balance between these two opposing factors (Chiu 2003). PAP takes advantage of the heightened fitness to increase force production, but if you perform a set with many reps, more fatigue will be involved and performance will decrease. So with traditional sets, more fatigue is accumulated in the form of lactic acid, thus you can't take advantage of the fitness effect or PAP. With cluster training, there is little fatigue, so you can make the most of PAP and each rep should be more explosive than the last (Haff 2008).  Below are a few cluster set/rep schemes we may program for you depending on your individual fitness goals. Before we move onto that, it's important to note that you can utilize cluster training on most exercises, but seeing as we're looking for mostly strength and muscular gains, it makes sense that the best exercises to use are the bigger compound, barbell exercises, Okay, let's look at some ways to set up your cluster training. The first thing you'll notice is that the sets/rep schemes for clusters are written in a weird way. Don't freak out, they're quite easy to interpret. POWER FOCUSED CLUSTER: 5(4x2) - 10 sec w/ 5RM In this set up, you'll do 5 total cluster (the first number), and each cluster is going to consist of 4 mini sets of 2 reps (the bracketed numbers). You're going to rest 10 seconds in between each mini set, and you're going to use around your 5RM load. HYPERTROPHY FOCUSED CLUSTER: 5(3x3) - 15 sec w/ 6RM Again, this follows in the process as the example above, except that in this set up you're going to do 3 mini sets consisting of 3 reps, with a 6RM. This will allow you to do 9 total reps with a 6RM, and skew the training effect more towards gaining muscular mass aka hypertrophy. "THE SPICY CLUSTER" 3-4 sets of AMRAP until you hit 15 total reps - 30s w/ 85% of 1RM In this example you're going to find a weight that's around 85% of your 1RM, and you're going to do as many reps as possible (without going to complete failure) before racking the bar and resting for 30 seconds. After the short rest you're going to again try and get as many reps as you can, before re-racking the bar and resting for another 30 seconds. Continue in this fashion until you hit a total of 15 reps. Repeat for 3-4 total clusters. Typically you should hit anywhere from 5-8 reps in your first mini set, and then have the reps slowly decrease for each subsequent mini set. With this data, we can formulate strategies to bang out more out of our training if:
Cluster Training allows us to push past fatigue. Fatigue is the limiting factor when trying to hit and complete more reps. This is the basic premise as to why we cannot go on forever at a specific intensity. That fatigue could come from central nervous system (CNS) fatigue or from muscular system fatigue. Either way, we are going to have to stop at a certain point no matter how much we want to keep going, which is frustrating. If we have 3 reps, adding more rest between reps is how we can squeeze 91% when normally we can only handle 90% for 3 sets of 3 reps. Let's talk about Relative Intensity and see how it relates:  Believe it or not, we do not work at 100% for the entire block. We progress from 70%, 80%, 90% and finish at 100%. With 100% being your 1 rep max. Working sub-maximally has incredible benefits. Working sub-maximally builds motor patterns in response to the stress and begins the progressive overload over the four weeks. When we get the fourth week, we are supposed to be able to hit 90-92.5% of our max for 3 reps. The intent is to handle higher intensities for increased volumes so we can accumulate more tonnage. If fatigue is coming from either the muscular system (replenishment of ATP/PC) or from the central nervous system (update or transmission of neurotransmitters) we can override that by allowing for rest in between sets. In conclusion: Our training performance all comes down to our limiting factors. If our limiting factors are not as limiting then we can lift heavier weights than we normally can. And if we can use heavier weights than normal, we will obviously become stronger. Gainz. References
New Strength Block starts Monday, June 29th New Weekly Training Schedule Monday: Performance / Conditioning Tuesday: Strength A Wednesday: Performance/ Refine Thursday: Strength B Friday: Strength C Saturday: Strength B Make-up Sunday: Strength C Make-up  When it comes to building muscle, there are a lot of factors that come into play. You have the basics: rep ranges, total sets, rest periods, technique, and exercise selection. However, there is one variable that often gets neglected, if not forgotten altogether. The amount of time you actually spend lifting the weights per repetition. The tempo of your repetition. Time Under Tension (TUT) refers to the time that a muscle is under load or under strain during a set of a particular exercise. FOUR REASONS TO SLOW IT DOWN 1. Mindful Movement: Time under tension requires practice of proper breathing techniques throughout your movement and training session. Proper breathing throughout the movement will help in an posture/alignment, neuromuscular control, and overall enjoyment of an exercise. Concentration on what you're doing and being in the moment; will allow you to feel the difference. 2. Motor Control / Technique Mastery: Enhancing specific movement patterns should be atop of your to-do list when your headed to the gym. Utilizing time under tension in this sense will aid in developing and maintaining motor control of particular movement patterns. Holding a certain position for a period of time, slowly moving through a pattern, an pausing to complete deep breaths are ways your brain can make the connection of what a pattern should feel like. One issue with performing movements in an explosive fashion is that it can be easy to veil flaws in your technique — both from yourself and others. You might “think” you’re squatting with exceptional form, but in reality, your knees might be ever so slightly caving inwards on the concentric (lifting) portion of every rep. This might not be the end of the world, especially if you’re not squatting with an external load on your back or in your hands — but keep in mind that the joints are like tires, and those tires only have so much tread — in time, something is going to give, and you’re going to be having problems if you’re causing unnecessary wear and tear. Utilizing the “super slow” protocol, on the other hand, forces you to acknowledge and correct any errors in your form. If you’re taking a full ten seconds to bring yourself out of the bottom of that squat, you’re going to feel exactly when — and how severely — those knees are buckling in, and you’re going to make the necessary adjustments to get yourself truly squatting with flawless technique. 3. Strength and Hypertrophy: Muscle tension created through resistance training stimulates the growth of new muscle proteins, making your muscles bigger, through a process called hypertrophy. Simply put, lifting weights at a certain rate of time under tension will elicit different rates of hypertrophy. Generally speaking, when you are looking at rep ranges per set, 3-6 reps = strength and power, 8-12 reps = hypertrophy, and 15+ reps = muscular endurance. For hypertrophy, 60-90 seconds per set will provide an optimal stimuli to promote muscle synthesis. What do you need to know? Volume and time under tension is what will get you bigger muscles, given that the load you choose allows for greater volume. So if getting bigger muscles if your goal, slow it down and make each rep count. 4. Scalable to a Large Population: While there are many effective training modalities out there, some of them are less practical for the general population than others. You’re typically not going to have Kevin from accounting, who hasn’t touched a weight in years, performing high level Olympic lifts after a long day at the office on a Tuesday night. Training will time under tension leads to less injuries, denser bones, and stronger muscles are universally beneficial from an elite athlete to a senior citizen. HOW TO INCORPORATE TIME UNDER TENSION INTO WORKOUTS 1. Tempo Reps: With this method, you slow down both the eccentric (lengthening) and concentric (shortening) phases of the movement. Typically 3-6 seconds per phase will increase the load on the muscle group being worked on. 2. Isometric Holds: To increase time under tension, add movements that rely on creating more tension. Isometric holds are usually timed and start with a short amount of time and progressively build up.  Optimal Rep and TUT Ranges Welcome to our third #KSPHomeBody virtual strength block. As they say, "the third time's the charm." Trust us, we've been paying attention to how compliant everyone has been with our virtual workouts and we're ready to make some positive adjustments to add a little more excitement. We want to be able to provide you with greater variation in what can be an otherwise monotonous quarantine experience. That being said, progression is a key element of all of our programming at King Strength and Performance. Although we can't "go up in weight" necessarily because of at-home equipment limitations, we can still drive up progression in different ways... Escalating Density Training (EDT) is a training protocol developed by Charles Staley in the early 2000s. While most people tend to mostly look at load (weight) and volume (sets x reps), EDT manipulates density. To be specific, the goal of EDT is to complete more sets in the same amount of time; each successive workout, you aim to achieve more work in the same time period. How are the workouts going to be set up? Each workout will consist of three separate series of exercises. Series A: Main, Compound Movements (15-minute time frame) Series B: Accessories Series C: Core Work / Finisher For the A series of our main, compound movements. Based on what equipment you have accessible at-home, we'll utilize that remain consistent with it for the 4-weeks. THIS IS OUR BIG SOLUTION. Series A of the workout is what will be tracked for "progression" while Series B and C will allow for more class variability. Week 1, the weight should be challenging enough to get around 10 sets in 15 minutes. After that, it's all about getting as many sets as possible in 15 minutes while maintaining quality* of movement. * A note on quality * When we say quality, we mean maintaining great position, technique & range of motion. More work in the same time. Rather than the same work in less time. This is an improvement in overall work rate, you will become more efficient. Each week, you should aim to increase the number of sets performed within the designated 15-minute duration. So what does Density mean in Escalating Density Training? What is Density? Your training density is the work you're able to do in a given amount of time. Training density is the amount of sets multiplied by the number of reps completed within a certain time frame. There are two methods for increasing Density: Method 1. Increase the amount of work in the same time frame. Method 2. Keep your workload the same while decreasing your work time. We're going to be increasing our training density by increasing the amount of work in the same time frame.  The changes in density caused by reducing rest but keeping volume and intensity up work like pressure changes in physics. The theory is that, all else being equal, less time with the same effort and training volume will elicit stronger signaling to the body. If the amount of rest is insufficient and intensity drops, the session is simply less effective than the original workout. Escalating Density Training (EDT) is really f*cking hard. Here's the scientific reason why... The burning of energy through the storage forms of carbohydrates (glycogen and glucose), fat (adipose and fatty acids) and potentially proteins (amino acids) lead to an acidic environment, or an accumulation of hydrogen at the local level. This acidity corresponds with increases in anabolism (building proteins) post-training through natural levels of growth hormone and testosterone. The most important takeaways you need for the next 4-weeks of this strength block: With such demanding training, our progress is exclusively determined by how well we recover from week to week. Rest and recovery are absolutely necessary. You will not get progress in this block without the appropriate rest and regeneration. We don't advise you perform any two-a-days during this strength block because over-training will hinder your results. Recovery is key. It's fundamental. It's essential. If you report excessively high RPEs and your workloads increase drastically - your countermeasures have to match it. If not, your progress will not occur resulting in either a plateau or possibly worse performance. Sleep, nutrition, and regeneration are the keys to success in this strength block. They must be placed at the highest priority if you want to maximize the benefits of EDT. Rest reduction increases fatigue and leads to technique and strength decay. Our goal is to make our clients and athletes better, not tired.  Utilizing the TrainHeroic app allows us to accurately track and measure what we do during each training session. * A note on why we track your progress * Assessing your progress week to week will be one of the core principles of our programming going forward. It's going to be the primary tool we use to assess if the load was appropriate from week to week based off how you adapt. The term for this systematic tracking of progress and loading of the bar is called Progressive Overload. A large misconception is that progressive overload only means increasing intensity or load. But with progressive overload, you can increase the number of sets at a specific load, you can increase the repetitions at a specific load, or in this case - you can increase the training density at a specific load.  The changes in density caused by reducing rest but keeping volume and intensity up work like pressure changes in physics. The theory is that, all else being equal, less time with the same effort and training volume will elicit stronger signaling to the body. If the amount of rest is insufficient and intensity drops, the session is simply less effective than the original workout. What is RPE? RPE is short for Rate of Perceived Exertion. Based off a lot off research, RPE is a fairly accurate representation of your exertion during a training session. If your heart rate is higher, you report a higher RPE. And vice versa - if your heart rate is lower then you report a lower RPE. Take your RPE number and multiply it by 60-minutes of activity and you can calculate a workload. So with an RPE of 5 x 60-minutes = workload of 300. Our goal is to manage that workload and tie that into a progressive overload based model. Usually, we follow a "traditional" progression with our loading which, means we order our weeks with 70%, 80%, 90% and 100% of relative intensity. With this block, it will be the same Relative Intensity for 4-weeks, which changes the focus from progressive increases in tensity to increases in density. REFERENCES:
Street D, Bangsbo J, Cartsen J. Interstitial pH in human skeletal muscle during and after dynamic grade ncsf d exercise. J Physiol. 2001 Dec 15; 537(Pt 3): 993–998. Velloso CP. Regulation of muscle mass by growth hormone and IGF-I. Br J Pharmacol. 2008 Jun; 154(3): 557–568. Haff, G., & Triplett, N. T. (2016). Essentials of strength training and conditioning. Fourth edition. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.nat “RPE Scale (Rated Perceived Exertion).” The Fit Tutor, May 2019, thefittutor.com/rpe-scale/. Valle, Carl ValleCoach. “Training Density: How to Improve It and When to Leave It Alone - SimpliFaster.” SimpliFaster Blog, 15 May 2017, simplifaster.com/articles/training-density-improve-leave-alone/. “RPE Scale (Rated Perceived Exertion).” The Fit Tutor, May 2019, thefittutor.com/rpe-scale/.“RPE Scale (Rated Perceived Exertion).” The Fit Tutor, May 2019, thefittutor.com/rpe-scale/.  BLOCK 4: GERMAN BODY COMPOSITION TRAINING |
5X5 Split |
Day 1 |
Day 2 |
Day 3 |
Heavy |
Squat Back Squat |
Bench Bench Press |
Deadlift Barbell Deadlift (Conventional vs Sumo) |
Moderate |
Bench Overhead Press |
Deadlift Good Morning or Barbell Hip Thrust |
Squats Front Squat or Zercher Squat |
Light |
Deadlift Barbell Romanian Deadlift |
Squat Overhead Squat or Goblet Squat |
Bench Z-Press |
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