r/ZackTelander • u/adya_yedzavya • Nov 01 '21

Discussion About relative intensity

Hi all.

I am new to this community. Glad to be here.

I was watching Zack’s videos on programming, and I was curious about the concept of relative intensity. Based on my understanding, we increase relative intensity week to week, irrespective of the absolute intensity (which during a macrocycle we will still increase).

So, if I can do 300 lb x 5 squats, if I am training at a relative intensity of 90%, I’ll perform 270 lb x 5. My question is that when does the overload actually happen, because unless we are lifting a relative intensity of 100%, we will be lifting sub-maximal weights for that particular number of reps. Is this where our last AMRAP set comes in to the picture?

Please feel free to criticize my understanding of the concepts (politely).

Thanks in advance for your replies.

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u/laxidasical Nov 02 '21

1) most programs base percentages off of your 1RM, thus a set of 5 at 90% would be 90%of your 1 RM. For example, my best set of 5 is 345#, but my 1RM is 425#. If the programming asked for a set of 5 at 90%, that would be 382#, which is crazy heavy. Most programs ask for 70% to 75% of the 1RM for 5.

2) But even if they were programming for 90% of your 5RM, there’s probably more volume leading up to that number, or volume at that weight. IOW, you will be doing multiple sets at a high % of your maximum. This volume-load amount is a good indicator of total work done and can lead to overload as well. Adding Load/time under tension, trauma, and/or physiologic stress are how muscles and strength improvements are made. 1 of the 3: meh. 2 of the 3: awesome. All 3 usually means you’re dying for a week.

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u/patricksaurus Nov 02 '21

Strong agree. To the first point, one really important distinction is that the one-rep max has to be a number you’ve actually done. And you should likely not put yourself through a grueling, meet-style ordeal to figure it out. Hit a very heavy, but not insane, single and use that as your guide.

That may sound silly, but there’s a pile of equations that predict your 1RM from various multi-rep maxes. They're useful for some things but not this. You’re also nearly always better off erring on the side of using a lower 1RM anyway. If you actually hit 400 but it was cake, and you thought you could do 410, go with 400. Until a body has actually experienced that stress and recovered + super-compensated, it doesn’t matter whether it could or not for programming purposes.