Go to any gym and talk with it’s patrons. You’ll find all manner of training programs, and a strict religious adherence to their program of choice. You’ll see members clique up based on their manner of training. Quickly you’ll find that training with others may be an issue solely due to the refusal of most to stray from their program one iota. The whole thing is ludicrous.
Humans are not robots. Some days you will be stronger than others. While not going to absolute failure it is often better to go beyond the sets or reps of what your program has in store for you. You may be very strong that day, or very weak. Show up frequently enough and you will have training sessions in all manners of ability.
Maybe you do a program of sets of 5. Maybe on that particular day 5’s feel like shit, but you’re good to go on 3’s or maybe 10’s. If that’s how your body feels go with it!
Would I make faster progress, better gains with every rep written out beforehand, and every weight precise to the ounce? On paper maybe, but I’d hate the sessions, and would end up saying fuck it real quick and reverting to pushups and hindu squats in large quantity.
Personally I like the effort, and simply going. Programming other than walking onto the gym floor and deciding what to do just doesn’t happen for me.
While I try to be the opposite of an accountant and just go with what my body says in the gym,I know a kid who tries to disconnect his brain entirely and go full caveman. Tell him the rep range to hit, don’t let him know the count, and he’ll go far further. If he had a strict program he’d be far weaker due to his brain getting in the way of possibility. While most are not this extreme you can see this going on with just about everyone if you look.
With the exception of a highly Bastardized version of Wendler’s 5/3/1 I’ve never seen much progress on a program. For me to progress I simply train, and if something needs prioritization I will give it just that. I PT for maintenance to a degree, and hitting the same lift daily, or my feeder sessions are how I program prioritization. Straight forward and simple.This isn’t rocket science.
Let me ask you this: Wouldn’t it be better to mad dash your gains, stagnate, then cruise and consolidate only to mad dash again than to inch up like a turtle and only get half as far?
I know where I stand. Let the race begin.
Sans Olympic Weightlifters who squats daily? I’m one of very few. The entire time I did this I heard such things as overtraining,stagnation, and how I wouldn’t recover, yet made the fastest progress of my life on my max this way. Sure there were periods in those 7 months where I was “stale”, and during those times I’d simply do another variation for a while then switch back. Adding 50lbs and a rep ie 1rm +50lbs = 2rm while at less perceived effort is far from any of those things big picture. In fact it’s fairly fast progress for an intermediate.
The best gains are made by lots of experimentation, and learning what works for you. Again you are not a robot. A cookie cutter program always will leave progress on the table unless by a stroke of magic the cookie cutter program just happens to be your perfect program written by hand with divine inspiration from the Gains God (who was thinking of you at the time).
Don’t be so glued to a program. Freestyle training can work, does work, and wondrously at that. Worst case scenario it will make your training a hell of a lot more fun, and with more fun comes more motivation. You know what more motivation leads to? That right more progress.
Yesterday was an off day because that’s what my body said. I did the minimal PT, ended up doubling the shoulder feeder, and took an afternoon nap instead of going to the gym. Today? Today should be fun. I feel front squat and bench PRs in the air.
-J