ExRx.net

Does anyone have any practical experience with either autoregulatory or biofeedback methods of controlling your workouts? It's my understanding that in both cases you base what your going to do in the workout by how your body responds to some test done prior to each exercise or how your body performs during the conduct of the exercise.

Most of what I've read so far is anecdotes of people that use it, or want to sell a DVD or is a theoretical discussion in broad terms. No one is offering practical advise in lay terms of how to actually do it.

Is this something you can do on your own or do you need a coach with computerized measuring devices?

Well I remember reading somewhere that if your heart rate is above some % (maybe 5-10%?) of your baseline when you wake up, it means you're still recovering and should go light that day. Never actually tried it though.

I've seen tests for general systemic readiness to train but these are exercise specific and can indicate what exercises to go heavy on and which to go light on. It all has to do with timing to get each movement into the super-compensation zone to optimize training benefit. It's said that progress is much higher on this type of system than on a linear system.

Are you basically talking about 'instinctual' lifting thing?

Because I've pretty much done that my whole lifting career, if you are. If something feels heavy one day, I'll go lighter and do more reps.

If I'm feeling like a beast, I'll lift as heavy as I can.

If something hurts I'll work a different body part or go super light/high rep on it.

I guess that's one way to do it. The way I read it, it involves some type of test, either bar speed, flexibility, or some indication that an exercises is right or wrong that day.

Stu, I've been reading about this lately from Matt Perryman, what he calls Autoregulated Progressive Resistance Exercise, and which he attributes to Mel Siff, in Supertraining. Here is one of his posts on the subject:

http://www.ampedtraining.com/workouts/apre-strength-size

There are templates for 3-rep, 6-rep, and 10-rep routines. You have a constantly-changing "training max", for instance a 6-rep max. You do warmup sets then use the 6-rep max and go AMAP (he advocates leaving 1-2 in the tank). Then the max is adjusted up or down, or remains the same according to how many reps you get, and the new max is used for the last set. Then the performance on that set determines the "max" to use for the next workout. So when you can lift more, the max goes up. If you are having a bad day and don't get the reps, the max goes down.

There's something about this that's akin to 5/3/1, in that you do AMAP, so the routine is not a rigidly fixed thing, but flexes according to what you can do on that particular day.

This is what I was thinking about using when I was talking about making some changes a week or so ago. I'd like to be able to read Siff's book, as I hear it is very good in several respects. I would have used the 10-rep routine. By the way, in Matt's blog he only gives the table for the 6-rep routine as an example, but someone gives a link in the comments to an article that has the others.

Thanks Doc, it was on Matt's site that I first heard about it but I didn't see this article. I'll spend some time on it and digest it.

The study he refers to is the one that got me excited about this initially. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20543732

Yeah, I had seen the abstract. Don't know how much the findings with Div I football players applies to you and me, but it's compelling findings. I love 5/3/1, but I can't get this out of my mind. I had said before that I'd stick to 5/3/1, but then I keep coming back to this.

Have you read Siff's book? It's kinda expensive. I searched for used copies, but they were more expensive than new ones! We'll see. Maybe I'll post a question for Matt about doing this with old guys, if he has any experience.

I read an early version a couple of years ago. Now the library has lost it. I've recommended they get the new version but it's not a big enough market. There's room on the shelves for 100 different yoga books though.

I'm finding that I have lingering pain from working out too often. 5-3-1 is great but I need more flexibility in my workouts. Right know I have pain between the shoulder blades probably due to squats on Monday, bench and rows on tues day, pull ups on weds, deadlifts on thursday and push presses on friday. Do you know how many exercises involve retracting your scapulas?

Bryan Mann seems to be the expert on this.

There's some very good stuff here.
http://www.sportsperformancecoach.com/

Here's a summary of how to do it:

Summary of 6RM program:

Set 1: 10 reps at 50% of anticipated 6RM
Set 2: 6 reps at 75% of anticipated 6RM
Set 3: Maximum (as many reps as able) at anticpated 6RM
Set 4: Maximum at adjusted weight based on Set 3
Adjusting for Set 4:

Based on the number of reps completed for Set 3:

0-2: -5 to -10 lbs
3-4: 0 to -5 lbs
5-7: no change
8-12: +5 to +10 lbs
>13: +10-15 lbs

Someone interested in power can do a 3RM protocol, someone interested in size can do a 10RM protocol.

One thing I noticed in the article using the speed measurement equipment was how important it is to stop 1-2 reps short of failure.

exactly the way I train too