A question that comes up fairly often with people who are new to using biofeedback in their training is about whether or not they are simply warming up as they do movements and things test better and better.

Here’s the short answer: no, you’re not just warming up.

But let’s get into the longer answer, just for fun.

First thing’s first, I am going to assume that the testing results someone is getting are accurate, and not hampered by pushing to end range of motion, or ignoring the first signs of tension. See here for some common fixes. 

But what if everything really does test better and better?

The first thing to understand is that warming-up is not happening in the mechanistic sense that we often attribute to it by the words we use. There is no actual change in temperature of joint synovial fluids and any muscular temperature increase is debatable. The effects and benefits of warm-ups are hotly contested, and some studies have shown that injury risks actually increased with the use of a warm-up.

So what IS going on with a warm-up, and why do we do it? Why does it seem like we can move more freely when we do a warm-up? And an important question, why doesn’t it always work?

Warm-ups tend to have an effect that allows you to move more freely most of the time because movement that tests well allows for more movement! That is the entire basis of biofeedback testing. You quantify a movement (the toe touch), you do another movement, and then you quantify the movement again to see if it has increased. Theoretically you could do the same thing with your deadlift 1-rep max as the test, but the error introduced by the testing itself would be prohibitive. Using a brief max effort squeeze of a grip dynanometer is similar, at a lower error and cost of testing.

Range of motion is mediated by the brain, as an output that is generated after all of the various inputs from sesory receptors such as Golgi tendon organ and nociceptors as well as the brain’s own map of the body in space.

So when you do movement that tests well, you very likely ARE getting more range of motion. But if you think that all movement is going to “test well” and allow for more and more, think again. This is best illustrated with one of my favorite stories, as it’s so applicable.

A new client I was working with mentioned that whenever he went out for a run his first interval would be abysmal, but after taking a short walking break, all subsequent intervals felt great up until the end of the workout.

I asked what he was doing for a warm-up, and he told me that he was using a dynamic warm-up for runners that he got out of a running magazine.

So I suggested an experiment. Next time he went out for a run, instead of his usual warm-up, he was to do 3 sets of 10 bodyweight reps of the three exercises that regularly tested best for him in the gym.

Can you predict the outcome of this little experiment?

Sure enough, his first interval felt just as good as the rest of them. As it turns out, his regular warm-up did not test well for him at all, so subsequent movement suffered. The running itself seems to have tested well, so it was only after he took a short break that things reset and he was able to benefit from that movement. Switching to a warm-up of things that tested well allowed what followed to be performed at higher function.

It’s Only a Matter of Time

If you use biofeedback long enough, you are guaranteed to have the seminal moment in which you test an exercise and your range of motion is suddenly and significantly reduced. This may take a few sessions, a few months, or more than a year depending on what you do and how you move. But it WILL happen when you find something that significantly conflicts with what is best for your body.

Until then – keep testing.

 

You’ve almost certainly seem them, maybe you’ve even committed it to memory. Rep range charts are to lifting weights as cooking temperature charts are to grilling. If you’ve never seen one, allow me to be your first:

Maybe yours has slightly different reps, or is represented by a spectrum with some overlap, but the general idea remains as similar as it is misleading. Low reps for strength, high reps for muscle, conditioning, or no results depending on who you ask.

This chart, as a heuristic, is not without value. If this is the first time you’re seeing it, you’re probably learning something useful today. Low reps with heavy weight tends to increase adaptation to maximal strength, and higher reps with necessarily lighter weight results in more hypertrophy as a result of stimulating the mechanisms for muscular hypertrophy.

Looked at from the logical conclusion, doing 20-rep sets of squats or deadlifts is never going to allow you to realize your potential 1-rep maximum.

Likewise, only lifting heavy singles is never going to allow you to realize your maximum muscular potential.

But memorizing this chart that is intended to be a heuristic can be incredibly misleading!

It can lead someone whose primary goal is strength development to never wander past the 5th rep.

And it can lead someone who wants to get swolerjacked to never approach their maximal weight limits.

So the question is what you should do instead?

Do ALL of the rep ranges, some of the time.

The reason for varying your rep ranges is an example of the whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts, or one plus one equals three.

• Maximum strength potential can’t be achieved without maximizing the physical size of the levers acting on the muscle. All else being equal a bigger muscle is stronger than a smaller one. This can not be achieved by training only low repetitions for “strength”.
• Maximum hypertrophy potential can’t be achieved without eventually moving bigger weights to increase mechanical tension. Only lifting for “hypertrophy” by keeping reps high and weights low will eventually put a ceiling on your strength.
• Bone is probably best encouraged to remodel and increase in density through heavy loading.
• Softer tissues like tendons and ligaments are probably best remodeled by higher-rep training.
• While even just a few high-load singles or doubles of a large compound movement like squat, deadlift, or bench press may fatigue you enough that further productive training of those movements is impossible, high-rep training of pieces of the whole is almost always still possible.
• High-rep training in exclusivity fails to prepare you in myriad ways (due to SAID principle) to handle loads at or near your maximum potential. In other words, you specifically adapt to what you do, so if you never work near your limit, you can’t work near your limit.
• Finally, in terms of scope and breadth function – which I am always trying to optimize – training at both ends of the spectrum gives you the widest range of function.

Each of these ends of the spectrum, taken alone, may be beneficial. But together they form Voltron.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that the single fastest way to jump start someone’s flatlined progress, if they have always been training in a particular rep range, is to change it up. A perennial 5-3-1 lifter can start making almost astonishing gains when they start including 8, 12, and 20 rep sets.

Which will inevitably bring up the idea in some people’s minds that you can’t do high rep, or 20-rep sets of deadlifts.

This is nonsense.

One of the things that helped me build an indomitable deadlift (and back) was doing outrageous feats of volume in the deadlift. Workouts of 100 reps, or sets of 20 were not at all uncommon (although I’ll note that over all my training my deadlift average reps per set is 5.9). In 2014 at Juggernaut’s BUS3 Brandon Lily told me that one of the things that helped him build his deadlift is the “stupid shit” they would do with it. Sets on the minute, high rep sets, etc. In other words, lots of volume, lots of density, and lots of variability.

People get so stuck on rep ranges, and ideas about how many reps they should be doing for their goals. Here is the answer from my buddy @maxshank. Check out my blog at dellanave.com for an extended article on the topic. Link in bio.

A video posted by David Dellanave (@ddn3d) on Aug 24, 2015 at 9:17am PDT

All of this to say, sometimes do a lot of reps, sometimes do one rep.

 

The following tutorial is a an explanation by Tucson fitness trainer Eric Frey. Eric owns and operates Quality Strength in Tucson. This post was originally shared as a reply to a question in my public Biofeedback Training group about how to use biofeedback with 5/3/1. The answer was so good that I wanted to archive it here for people who are curious about how to use a program like 5/3/1 but integrate biofeedback. I’ve edited it for clarity and legibility as an article, but all the ideas are his.

5/3/1 is often the foundation of my program. I love it and have found it to be very flexible, more so once I started adding in the biofeedback. I can’t speak to other programs, but here’s how I do 5/3/1. Your mileage may vary.

Wendler says that the goal should be to set rep records on the main lift every workout. This is in line with the goal of setting a PR every day, but it may be too specific for what your body wants to do on a given day. So first off, I throw that imperative out the window.

Let’s assume your main lift tested well. Even on the third wave your first two sets, which should be submaximal are only 75% for 5 and 85% for 3. Keep in mind that these are percentages of a training max, and not a true 1 rep max. Training max should always be 90% (sometimes it will be less than) of your 1RM. So, these sets, on most days, are still not going to be very hard. I find they serve very well as work up sets. Again, all of this is assuming your main lift tested well, which I test while warming up. I do test after each warm up set and those first two sets to see if there’s a reason to stop. For me, if the lift tests well, the weight usually isn’t the deal-breaker. If for some reason, I have to stop increasing the load, then I do and just work with what tested well for the main lift. (ddn note: this is a key point – you may not be able to hit your “target” weight, but you can often get more volume in at a lower intensity – and still set a volume PR for that weight.) 

The max set of main lifts in waves 1-3 are all just that, undefined “max” sets. Here is where I focus on the elements of effort and use those to tell me when to stop. I find that works exceedingly well.

If the main lift doesn’t test well, I test variations or if no macro variations work well then I might try to break it up into smaller pieces or components of the lifts. I’ll work up to a good set of five, or a triple and move on. Close enough is good enough.

When planning my next cycle, if I find I’ve done well then I’ll increase the training maxes by small increments, as Wendler recommends, and keep pushing. If I find that I’ve had to make a lot of substitutions, then I will plan my next cycle to accommodate that. Usually, however, I try to make the changes in the assistance work, since I’m often using 5/3/1 to prep for a meet, and so I don’t want to deviate too far from the basic 4 lifts.

The assistance work is where you can be really flexible and rock the heck out of the biofeedback. I figure as long as I’m getting about 50-100 reps total of assistance work choosing exercises and loads by testing, then I’m ok. I try not to overthink it too much. I do less volume the closer I get to a meet. Wendler 5/3/1’s is fairly saggital plane dominant, so the assistance work is where I really try to squeeze in things that I know are lacking in my daily activities and transverse plane stuff.

There are days when the main lift and a few variations don’t test well. Let’s say this lands on squat day, I’ll take it to mean I ought not do squats today, and I’ll bail on that workout. If I think I can re-arrange the week, say flip squat and bench day, then I’ll see if that tests well. If I don’t think I can do that, I’ll do some stretching, rolling, mobility, tai chi, or what not, and try again tomorrow.

Early on in my playing around with biofeedback I had this one workout. Main lift didn’t test well. Variations didn’t test well. It was a squat day. Tried deadlifts, didn’t test well. Bench and push-up variations, didn’t test well. Rows and chin ups? Nope. I spent a half hour testing things to see what I could do. Nothing tested well and I felt like crap the next day. Since learning that lesson, if things don’t test well I don’t push it. I just do some active rest and pick up the next day.

Again, this is what works for me. Keeping the training max low is important in the main lifts. Hope that helps.

ddn’s note: Wendler’s 5/3/1 is a tried-and-true time-tested programming template for strength and muscular development. That said, I’ve known enough people who have been frustrated with their 5/3/1 results to know that it leaves something to be desired in terms of results for some people. It’s my experience that these folks are following the program too rigidly and not taking advantage of times when they could do more than what is called for while simultaneously forcing it when they should be doing a little less than what is programmed. Using biofeedback to bespoke this template gives you the best of both worlds – a proven paradigm for progressive strength training, and a way to customize it to make it work even better for you.