Here is some documentation about some repranges I have encountered and often at least somewhat played around with. Inspiration for this post was mainly that I wanted to think of the viabilty of the APRE10 protocol for some assistance work, but then did not have the table for the weight increments in my head and wanted it quickly accessible. I usually write sets×reps or, if a weight is specified, the notation turns around, i.e. weight × reps × sets. Also note that when writing sets × reps I mean sets across, meaning the weight is not changed between the sets.

As this is a longer post and because it makes me happy that markdown can automagically generate it, take a look at this fabulous table of contents:

Sets of five

Sets of five are quite popular, as five reps are a neat compromise between maximal strength training, but still allow to accumulate enough volume in a reasonable time for hypertrophy to occur.

3×5

Three sets of five is the base of Starting Strength and many other novice programs utilizing linear progression. However, that's about all where I found it useful. After a longer layoff it seems to work quite well to fall back to some sort of 3×5 linear progression until one is back on track, maybe followed by an intermediate template. Aside from that I often use some 3×5 linear progression for new exercises, so that I start lower than what I could use and then gradually increase the weight in order to stabilize form on the exercise. Also I like doing some stuff like RDLs or Pendlay Rows in this rep scheme, but for assistance I have not found one rep range to be far superior to another one. Also my light work is often done in a 2×5 or 3×5 fashion, but that is again quite arbitrary.

5×5

Until now, I have not found anything which works for me as well as 5×5 on the big exercises, except maybe on the Deadlift. It is the corner stone of many programs, e.g. for Texas method or HLM, about which I already talked a bit in the linked post. At the moment I am using it to accumulate volume (more on that later in a post mortem on my current training plan) and so far it seems to work out.

This scheme can be a bitch. Depending on the weights employed it can be grinding through an endless hell of squats and bench presses, making sleeping and eating a full time job. However, in that case a volume or weight reduction might be appropriate. Unless you really like torturing yourself, as there is a great feeling to being alive after surviving such a workout. But if you're chasing a feeling, you are exercising and not training, and especially not the badass you feel to be after such an workout.

For me I found that a good weight selection, which actually drives my progress, is about an @8 – @8.5 on the RPE scale (see RTS) and creeps up to @9 – @9.5.

Caveat: I could not produce good results in female athletes with it.

Sets of three (or less)

If you want to lift more weight, you have to lift more weight, and everything over three reps is cardio.

Bill Starr Press

This is a template which Bill Starr mentioned for improving the Press. It is as straightforward as it gets:

• do two or three sets of five as warmup
• three to six triples across
• one backoff set of ten with about 10kg less

And you only add weight to the top set if you can do six triples across.

I ran it a few weeks once I was close to 1 Plate, which is probably about 1-2 wheels less than the guys Bill Starr was coaching were pressing, but it worked quite well. I probably did not get that much stronger in terms of musculature, but my technique definitely improved during that time.

5×3

While there is an infinite amount of ways you could do sets of three across, this one stands out for two reasons: The first one is when using 5×5 or something similar in a Texas method-ish setup for driving volume, 5×3 is a good way to drop some volume without losing intensity.

The second reason is that especially female trainees (or people with lower testosterone) seem to respond to lower repetitions better than to higher repetitions, so it can be a better way to approach programs like Starting Strength in these populations.

3×3

Ah 3×3. It has some fans and 3×3 is a fun way to set up your training. However, as Daniel Flaminio mentioned during my C-license training, its main drawback is that you cannot use something close to your 3RM for 3×3, and if you reduce the weight, 3×3 is not enough volume to produce a significant training stimulus. Nevertheless, it sometimes works quite well, but has opportunity costs attached, i.e. something probably works better, for instance Pyramids.

RPT

Reverse pyramid training, or RPT for short, is probably the most primitive form of a pyramid. The general setup seems to be something like this

Set	Reps
1	weight×n
2	weight-10%×(n+2)
3	weight-20%×(n+3)

In particular the lean gains people seem to favor it and it seems to work good in a cut. In particular I like it for weighted dips or chins. There is not much to say to it. You could do any number of reps in the first set and progress in that manner, something like 3 reps, 5 reps and 8 reps being an obvious and popular candidate. Higher reps in the top set are possible, but why would you do that?

Pyramids

In general a pyramid is a combinations of sets where the weight moves, well, in a pyramid shaped pattern, beginning with some sets of ascending weight, peaking in a primary work set and followed by some sets of descending weight. As the weight increases, the repetitions usually decrease and vice versa. Clearly RPT is a degenerate form of a pyramid, as well as ramping to a top set.

There a many ways to set up an pyramid. Note however, that a symmetric setup is almost never the best choice. A pyramid long in the end, as seen in the figure seems beneficial, where the trainee accumulates less fatigue before the top set and then gets in some more work afterwards.

To do pyramids right, I think one has to take a look at Sheiko's programs. You build up to one or two top sets with doubles or singles much like you would build up to sets across, but then instead of doing the volume at these weights, you go back down and slightly increase the reps. Over the course of the weeks you can also increase the reps on the way up, so instead of starting with 50% for 5, you have on the third pyramid 50% for 7 in the first set.

The Hepburn Programs

The Hepburn programs by Doug Hepburn are as basic as it gets. A and B are I think pretty confirmed. There are mentions of a C program, but the only one I found was basically going from five triples at 80% to five sets of five at 80% over the course of time and not really any information on the pump work, so I do not think it is as legit.

What is noteworthy though is the time taken to build up to 5x5 with 80% on this C-variant.

They are always split in two parts: The power phase and the pump phase, with the former consisting of many sets of few reps and the latter consisting of few sets of many reps.

Every workout you try to add a rep to one of the last sets until all sets have added a rep, rinse repeat.

Some people say the order should be the other way around, i.e. add reps to the first sets. Both variants are fine in the long run. As usual, volume beats intensity.

The A program

Power Phase

Workout\Set	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3
3	2	2	2	2	2	2	3	3
4	2	2	2	2	2	3	3	3
5	2	2	2	2	3	3	3	3
6	2	2	2	3	3	3	3	3
7	2	2	3	3	3	3	3	3
8	2	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
9	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3

Pump Phase

Workout\Set	1	2	3
1	6	6	6
2	6	6	7
3	6	7	7
4	7	7	7
5	7	7	8
6	7	8	8
7	8	8	8

The B program

The B program features less reps. workout. The Power phase only consists of 5 singles where you add a single each workout, whereas the pump phase goes from six triples to six sets of five in the usual progression:

Power Phase

Workout\Set	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	1	1	1	1	1
2	1	1	1	1	1	1
3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
4	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1

Pump Phase

Workout\Set	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	3	3	3	3	3	3
2	3	3	3	3	3	4
3	3	3	3	3	4	4
4	3	3	3	4	4	4
5	3	3	4	4	4	4
6	3	4	4	4	4	4
7	4	4	4	4	4	4
8	4	4	4	4	4	5
9	4	4	4	4	5	5
10	4	4	4	5	5	5
11	4	4	5	5	5	5
12	4	5	5	5	5	5
13	5	5	5	5	5	5

Autoregulation

This is where it gets a bit more complicated. Until now reps, sets and weight where predetermined, but on some days you can tolerate more work than on others, and this can and should be taken into account when planning your training. There are two popular systems to do this, APRE and Mike Tuchscherer's RTS. I first describe APRE, as it is the less complex system.

APRE

APRE is short for Autoregulated progressive resistance exercise. There are three so called protocols, APRE3, APRE6, APRE10, where the number indicates the approximate rep maximum you are working with. In general the trainee performs the lifts according to the following table, as seen in Supertraining ¹:

APRE3	APRE6	APRE10
6× 50% 3RM	10× 50% 6RM	12× 50% 10RM
3× 75% 3RM	6× 75% 6RM	10× 75% 10RM
3RM to failure	6RM to failure	10RM to failure
adjusted reps to failure	adjusted reps to failure	adjusted reps to failure

Here nRM refers to your n repetition maximum in the first training session, or the adjusted weight after the last session. The adjustments are made according the following table:

Reps 3RM	Adjustment	Reps 6RM	Adjustment	Reps 10RM	Adjustment
1 – 2	decr. 2.5 – 5kg	0 – 2	decr. 2.5 – 5kg	4 – 6	decr. 2.5 – 5kg
3 – 4	leave the same	3 – 4	decr. 0 – 2.5kg	7 – 8	decr. 0 – 2.5kg
5 – 6	incr. 2.5 – 5kg	5 – 7	leave the same	9 – 11	leave the same
7 – …	incr. 5 – 10kg	8 – 12	incr. 2.5 – 5kg	12 – 16	incr. 2.5 – 5kg
		13 – …	incr. 5 – 7.5kg	17 – …	incr. 5 – 7.5kg

So say you're 3RM in the Squat is 150kg. Then you would perform 6 Reps with 75kg, 3 Reps with 112.5kg and then as many reps as possible with 150kg. In the next set you load the bar with the adjustments according to the table, so if you get 3 reps, you just leave the weight the same and do again as many reps as possible. Say now you can only complete 2 reps, then you would base your next training session off 145 – 147.5kg, and so forth.

The APRE protocols seem to work quite well for novice and early intermediate trainees and the autoregulated adjustments might allow for super linear. Note that APRE has really low volume, so in the overall program you might want to let some back off work or assistance work follow.

There are two problems with this scheme. First, the warmup is designed without love and much thought. Almost everbody needs smaller jumps and fewer reps towards the working set in order to display good technique and control over the weight. As such, I simply recommend warming up as you see fit. The second and major problem I (and others) have with this scheme is that it calls for two sets to failure, which can be quite expensive in terms of recovery and can even lead to technique deterioration over the course of a few weeks. Leaving one rep in the tank on each set seems to work better. Even more conservative would be to cut off the second set, if you reach the corresponding numbers of reps. So my recommendation would be more something like this:

APRE3	APRE6	APRE10
warmup	warmup	warmup
3RM @9	6RM @9	10RM @9
adjusted reps ×3 or @9, whatever comes first	adjusted reps ×6 or @9, whatever comes first	adjusted reps ×10 or @9, whatever comes first

This seems to work much better, and can be used in quite a variety of ways, say on a day with the big three or just one primary movement followed by assistance work.

On a personal note, I think the term autoregulation is a bit inappropriate. I mean, that is just what every meathead is doing when trying to catch a pump. Not enough reps? Drop some weight. Too many reps? Maybe add some weight. True autoregulation has another name, namely

RTS

This is Mike Tuchscherer's quite successful attempt at establishing a formal framework for you gotta listen to your body bro. Both weight and volume are determined by your readiness in that training session. The idea is here that your body does not really care about the absolute weight on the bar and number of reps, but about the weight relative to your ability on that day. A few sets of five with 85% of your 1RM may be too easy on some days where everything is fine, or might totally destroy you if you lived on a diet of sleep deprivation and long hours the days before. RTS gives us tools to account for such occurences in the training plan without having to deviate from the plan.

It consists of two concepts, one which you probably already have seen, namely RPE, or rating of perceived exertion, which quantifies the intensity. The other concept are fatigue percents, quantifiyng the total volume or work load of the training

The former is similar to the homonymous Borg scale, however specific to powerlifting and similar exercies. So after a set you simply assign a number from 5.5 to ten, according how it felt:

RPE	Description
@10	Maximal effort
@9	One more rep in the tank
@8	Two more reps possible
@7	Easy as an opener
@6	Easy as an warmup
@5.5	too easy to count as a work set

Note that I prefix RPEs with an @-sign, as this seems to be also common use in discussions. If you're not quite sure if three, two, or one more rep was possible, you add 0.5 for the "maybe" qualifier.

Of course this is not an exact scale, but after a few weeks trying to assign RPE ratings to any set you do, as well as trying to be honest, this gives us an individual and quite objective to measure intensity in relation to our capabilities in this training session.

As a guideline, one should feel one's way up to the working weight by estimating the weight one is working with and then doing sets with the prescribed reps with 90% and 95% of the estimate. Say your plan calls for ×5@8 and you think that might work out to 125×5@8, you'd do one set with 112.5×5, take not of your RPE, then do one with 117.5 or 120 (or closer to 118.75, if your weights allow for it) and again take note of your RPE. By now you achieved two things: First, you probably can tell if 125×5 will be a @8 or if you should drop some weight or even add some more. And secondly, you've already accumulated some quality volume.

To control volume, Mike Tuchscherer introduced the concept of fatigue percents, measuring how much fatigue you are accumulating on this exercise.

There are multiple ways to measure fatigue, the easisest being load drops. To accumulate x% fatigue, you would simply work up to your top set, then deload the bar by x%, and continue doing sets with the same reps with it until your RPE is the same as in the top set. Most of the time fatigue is given in ranges, as the weights dictate what you can actually load onto the bar. In the above example, to achieve 2-3% fatigue, one would continue doing sets with 122.5×5 until the sets become an @8. If you are unsure, err on the lighter side and maybe stop doing sets if you are getting RPEs 0.5 below the target.

A bit more complicated is attaining fatigue using repeats. Here you just continue repeating your topset until the RPE creeps up to a certain point. In order to achieve n% fatigue, you do repeats until your estimated 1RM from the top set dropped by n%. This essentially requires a lookup in your personalized Prilepin's chart, as there is no closed formular for estimates based on your reps and RPE.

Also, we should not kid ourselves. While all these percentages are fine and dandy, it suggests more precision than what is really there. Practically it works out something like this:

Volume	load drop	RPE increase
almost none	only topset	only topset or maybe 0
low	2–3%	0.5–1
medium	4–6%	1.5–2
high	up to 10%	2.5 and beyond

Miscellaneous

Here is some stuff where I don't know where to fit it in and also rep schemes for assistance exercises. In the end it does not really matter and depends on what you are trying to achieve with these exercises. Sometimes you just want to get a small pump and warmup to facilitate recovery, sometimes you want to accumulate some more volume. Really does not matter.

5/3/1

Well, Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 is somehow a classic. In its most pure form without any assistance, you would do each main lift on one day in a week and do three sets based on the following percentages of an ever increasing training maximum.

The usual table looks like this and it appears to be pretty heavy and badass, much higher than usual 65%-70% of 1RM we use in programs past the novice stage:

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Set 1	65% × 5	70% × 3	75% × 5	40% × 5
Set 2	75% × 5	80% × 3	85% × 3	50% × 5
Set 3	85% × 5+	90% × 3+	95% × 1+	60% × 5

However, a more honest representation would be like this, since we use 90% of the training max:

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Set 1	58.5% × 5	63% × 3	67.5% × 5	36% × 5
Set 2	67.5% × 5	72% × 3	76.5% × 3	45% × 5
Set 3	76.5% × 5+	81% × 3+	85.5% × 1+	54% × 5
avg %	67.5%	72%	72.5%	45%

Now this looks a lot more like a proper training program, which is very low on the volume side.

Note that the last set, except in the fourth week, is always executed as an AMRAP set, unless you tinker with the program. The fourth week serves obviously as a deload. In this form the program is in almost any instance just not enough volume, and on this low amount of volume, a deload every four weeks is just too often. This becomes even more apparent when we are taking the actual percentages into account and not the percentage of the hypothetical training max. In fact, in newer installments these problems seem to be addressed, by doing a deload only after two to three cycles of the first and repeating the first set a few times after the last one as backoff.

Well, if you are in a rut and nothing seems to work, this program will always help to build some momentum, as you take 95% of your current maximum as your first training maximum. Or maybe if you are really short on time or want to fuck around too much with assistance exercises. Also if you are on some sort of Texas Method-ish setup and need some idea to vary the weights on your intensity day, the 5/3/1 weight selection on week 3 seems to work quite well.

In some intermediates it seems to work quite well to do three training days and always two exercises, Squat and Press, Deadlift and Bench, according to 5/3/1, effectively running one cycle in two weeks.

My deadlift also seemed to respond to it quite well on the way from two to four plates.

5/3/1 + GN or 5/3/1, but with volume

The main issue with 5/3/1 is that it lacks a ton of volume. Or several tons. Most of Wendler's variants such as first set last or assistance schemes try effectively to close this gap, but usually this is only one or two additional sets.

Luckily Greg Nuckols has an awesome sheet of programs, and while I never ran any of them, he has a fitting rythm of 3 weeks up, 1 week down, and actually progresses back-off sets fittingly, especially in the 1x a week beginner programs.

So I tried a few there and found the back-off work for bench does work quite well, at least for non-pulling lifts:

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Set 1	58.5% × 5	63% × 3	67.5% × 5	36% × 5
Set 2	67.5% × 5	72% × 3	76.5% × 3	45% × 5
Set 3	76.5% × 5+	81% × 3+	85.5% × 1+	54% × 5
1st back-offs	67.5% × 5 × 2	72% × 3 × 2	76.5% × 1 × 2	45% × 5 × 2
2nd back-offs	58.5% × 8 - 10 × 3	72% × 6 - 8 × 3	85.5% × 3 × 5	54% × 5

So we just go back down the ladder, do two sets at the second heaviest set and in the first few weeks, we do three high rep sets on the first weight, and in the third week, we do five triples with the first weight.

Boring but big

Now we're getting to assistance schemes. Boring but big or BBB for short is often used in connection with 5/3/1 and simply consists of 5×10 with 50% of your training max. Nothing too fancy. It seems to work quite well to slowly increase the percentage over the course of a few weeks. The main benefit is that you can just strip some plates and continue the exercise you were already doing.

Myoreps

Take a movement, ideally some isolation exercise or something where you cannot hurt yourself so much, pick a weight you can do for 12 – 24 reps and max out, rest for 20 seconds and do sets of 3 – 6 (if you had 12 reps, then sets of three, if you had 24 reps, sets of six and interpolate accordingly) reps with 10 seconds pause, until you cannot hit the prescribed amount of reps anymore. The main benefit is that by reducing rest to a minimum, you can catch quite a pump in a few minutes at the end of your workout, even on a variety of exercises.

350

Take an exercise and pick a weight so that you can finish something between 40 and 50 reps in three sets, with one minute pause, maximum. If you cannot complete 40 reps, you should lower the weight next time and you are only allowed to increase the weight once you hit 50 reps in three sets.

Linear periodization redux

This is not exactly a rep scheme, more of an progression scheme, and is simply this: Start with about 70% of your max, do an AMRAP set, strip off about 5% (use whatever is easy to do, say 2.5kg for a press, 5kg for a bench in the low hundreds (kg), 10kg for something around 200kg etc.), try to match reps, strip another 5% off the bar, try to beat the reps. Add one increment next week, try not to lose reps. Continue until you end up doing triples in the first set, then deload, max out or do something else.

This is not great to run back to back, as you probably lose some work capacity, but now and then it is a great way to break out of a rut. Also it has the Greg Nuckols stamp of approval, at least he published an T-Nation article suggesting this.

Well, there is not much left to say. Let me know if you think I missed some important setup for reps and sets.

Power to the people

As with the linear periodization redux, this is also a progression scheme and is laid out in Pavel Tsatsouline's "Power to the people".

It is rather simple: You do one heavy set with five reps and follow up with a set of five with 90% of the weight used for the first set. That's it. If you want more hypertrophy, Pavel recommends to do additional sets of five with 80% of the weight used for the first set, until you can no longer do sets of five with excellent technique. Depending on the person this may take 10 - 20 sets!

Next time you just add weight to the top set and consequently the down set(s). Do so until you can not complete your first set anymore, then restart the whole cycle with a bit higher weights.

Prilepin's Chart

This well known table is again less of a rep scheme and more of a volume guideline. Note that it was developed by observing the training of high level weightlifters. There exist countless critiques and adaption to other strength sports. But even for powerlifting, these are solid guidelines if your focus is on developing technique.

%1RM	optimal reps per set	optimal total reps	total range of reps
55 – 65	3 – 6	24	18 – 30
70 – 80	3 – 6	18	12 – 24
80 – 90	2 – 4	15	10 – 20
90+	1 – 2	7	4 – 10

Stretching or condensing schemes

Sometimes certain schemes are nice, but can be too much to handle in a single week or whatever their underlying cycle is. In this case one can simply stretch it out over a longer period of time.

A scheme used by Kevin Cann for some low volume "just staying in practice" is to work up to a heavy single in one week and do 5x5 with 70% of it the following week. This is basically just a stretched TM and it can also work nicely with other schemes.

This way we can easily work in a training progression we already know that works for us in other training programs, which might already be quite full.

On the other hand, we can also condense schemes. This is for example very popular with 5/3/1, which, as we have seen, is really not enough volume for anyone to progress. But many people had success condensing it into a two week programming, doing each lift two times a week and completing a cycle in two weeks.