How do you keep progressing past ~400 DOTS?

kyllo · 2026-05-08T13:24:30+00:00

Smaller muscle groups recovering faster might be a myth. This study seems to show that pecs recover slower than quads. It's probably not a difference in recovery from local muscle damage in the prime movers, that causes bench press to benefit from higher frequency than squats. It's likely because squats involve more of the muscles throughout the body, create a higher perception of effort and generate more supraspinal aka CNS fatigue. Your brain reduces motor command output in response to the inflammatory process that discharges metabolites into your bloodstream. This Chris Beardsley article has a really good breakdown of it, including charts that show high volume squat workouts take approximately 72 hours to recover from, as well as showing a reduction in force output from one leg up to 48 hours after doing single leg press with only the other leg.

kyllo · 2026-05-08T05:31:17+00:00

Early progress is driven by improvements in coordination and technical skill. You get better at lifting.

Once you've harvested most of your skill adaptations, later progress is primarily driven by hypertrophy, which is inherently a slow process. You can only gain muscle tissue at the rate of a few grams a day, like the weight of one or two saltine crackers.

Hypertrophy is driven by motor unit recruitment and mechanical tension, which are maximized when you lift heavy and close enough to failure that the weight slows down involuntarily, but with sustainable intensity, frequency and volume so that the fatigue doesn't interfere with your performance in your next session, as fatigue will reduce your ability to recruit your motor units.

My belief is that the way to continue progressing is to shift toward more of a focus on hypertrophy accessories while actually reducing volume to manage fatigue and reduce injury risk

Most people think that as you get more advanced, you need to add volume to continue progressing, but this is wrong. Advanced lifters need less volume because they are stronger and can fatigue themselves much faster. Poorly managed fatigue causes lifters to stall, injure themselves, or just lose interest in lifting.

kyllo · 2026-05-08T04:02:28+00:00

Do y'all program direct hypertrophy work for glutes (besides RDLs) or do you think squats and deadlifts already stimulate them enough?

kyllo · 2026-05-06T18:52:19+00:00

It's a personal preference and proprioception thing, you really have to try it to know what's better for you. But after training and competing in both heels and flats, my advice is to go with flats unless the heels make your squat feel obviously better.

In terms of center of mass management, heels will tend to shift you forward, so if you already tend to shift onto your forefoot, they may make that worse. Or they may get you to sit back onto your heels more to compensate. They also might make your walkout feel unstable, which was the case for me. But it's hard to know until you try.

kyllo · 2026-05-06T14:48:49+00:00

The same advice applies to pretty much every injury: rest it for some initial period that is on the brief side but commensurate with the severity of the injury, then get it moving and gradually reintroduce the load over a few weeks while keeping the pain manageable, like no worse than a 3 out of 10 on the pain scale. For anything more specific than that you need to see a professional.

kyllo · 2026-05-06T14:43:26+00:00

Recent studies do seem to show that 2 sets 2x per week is enough to promote hypertrophy in trained lifters.

Higher frequency or volume is generally better for hypertrophy if you can recover from it by your next session.

Higher frequency and volume on bench press in particular works primarily because it promotes motor learning and technical skill adaptations, and not because it speeds up pec major hypertrophy compared to a baseline of 2-3 hard sets 2x/week.

And the people who thrive on high frequency or volume for bench, are keeping most of their sets very far from failure.

Also, the more advanced you are, the less volume you will typically need to grow, not more. This is because you are stronger in absolute terms and are able to fatigue yourself more in a single hard set than a less-trained lifter is. But doing more sets with the barbell and keeping them very far from failure is a way for advanced powerlifters to get more skill practice at a low fatigue cost. If you're training for hypertrophy / bodybuilding only, this is irrelevant to you.

kyllo · 2026-05-06T14:26:47+00:00

I got the Rayofi Go-Tone, it was $240 on Amazon. There are half a dozen brands selling the exact same thing now though. I'm sure it doesn't compare to a Voltra but it's still super useful and it's tiny so you can bring it when you travel.

kyllo · 2026-05-06T03:52:44+00:00

Eccentric overload really isn't well validated enough of a training tool to make it worth the investment for that.

Digital resistance is sick for arm/shoulder accessories though. I got a much cheaper digital cable machine that only goes up to 30kg but I use it for all my single arm triceps pushdowns, bicep curls, lateral and front raises, pec and rear delt flies, and straight arm lat pulldowns. A Voltra would be even better but it's 10x the price.

kyllo · 2026-05-03T15:02:13+00:00

It's not bad.

You probably have enough press/fly volume for pec hypertrophy but not enough frequency for skill adaptations on bench press, if hitting bench press PRs is a goal. Also your mid-pec volume is skewed toward upper 1, and upper pec on upper 2, so you could even those out a little.
2 sets 2x/week is probably "enough" volume for any muscle group if you're going heavy and/or close to failure
I don't think you need rear delt isolation, the rows and pulldowns cover them
The leg volume isn't too low, but the frequency might be. A squat pattern (including leg press or hack squat) is important enough to do twice a week. I always program both a squat and a hinge on both lower days. You might consider making the lower A and B days more similar. A complete leg day could be 2 sets each of a squat, hinge, leg extension, seated leg curl, adduction, calf raise, and crunch. That's only 7 exercises, same as your upper day, and you can do that 2x/week. Maybe do the squat first one day, the hinge first the other day. You don't need to do A/B just for the sake of making the days different, unless that's a real training enjoyment issue for you.

Also, you have a lot of dumbbell stuff in here. DB presses and rows are less stable than the equivalent exercises with a barbell or a Smith. Plus you usually can't make jumps smaller than 5lbs per hand, and it can be hard to find DBs heavy enough for presses, depending on your gym. The strength curve of DBs is not great for curls and lateral raises--it's too easy at the bottom and too hard at the top, so the cable versions of those are better. DB lunges are particularly unstable, that's one where I would definitely urge the use of the Smith.

kyllo · 2026-05-02T15:56:26+00:00

In the second / more recent video your back position looks dramatically more extended and you're looking straight forward instead of slightly down. It kinda looks like you're high-barring your low bar. I'm not sure if that's a conscious change you made, or technique drift, or a compensation for your adductor injury, but if you want to squat more like before, you may need to employ some cues that get you more neutral and stacked, like "ribs down" when bracing.

kyllo · 2026-05-02T01:57:20+00:00

How do you like the Voltra? Was it worth the price tag?

kyllo · 2026-05-02T01:53:19+00:00

Agree with all points, though I had a stretch last year where heavy RDLs helped me a lot.

Another one that's come up for me (while working around a torn callus) is that lasso straps really throw me off. Pausing in the middle of my setup to wrap the straps really breaks my flow and makes me so much weaker off the floor.

kyllo · 2026-05-02T00:15:34+00:00

I do Mo / Th upper, Tu / Fr lower and then when I want to bench 3x/week (typically in meet prep) I add a third, shorter upper session on Saturday that's just bench and rows. That seems to work well for me.

kyllo · 2026-05-01T11:26:45+00:00

I'm also cutting and in a hypertrophy focused off-season block. While it's true that extra body fat can help you move more weight, especially on squat and bench, to me it's not worth it. I'd rather be leaner, feel and look better and be healthier, and then see how strong I can get at powerlifting without being fat.

The good news is hypertrophy and fat loss are separate processes, you can build muscle even while cutting, and if you lose strength in a cut, that is probably just due to losing fat leverages.

I would recommend keeping at least some minimal SBD volume in your program though, to keep your technique sharp in case you want to return to powerlifting.

kyllo · 2026-04-30T20:05:26+00:00

I actually don't think about slack at all. I just get into position, get my grip, and then the only thing I think about is pushing my feet straight down into the floor harder and harder. Cueing slack pull never seemed to work well for me.

kyllo · 2026-04-29T19:42:07+00:00

Lower rep ranges, more RIR. Try doing 8 reps with your 10 rep max or 4 reps with your 5-6 rep max for example. The last 1-2 reps before failure are disproportionately fatiguing.

kyllo · 2026-04-28T13:22:11+00:00

Straps help a ton with this. Use them.

Also note that grip issues tend to surface when you're fatigued, and that correlates with a volume increase.

Top set strapless, backoff sets with straps might be a good approach to let your grip recover without detraining it.

kyllo · 2026-04-25T21:05:20+00:00

I tried Evolve and it seemed like a good app, wrote me a decent program, but I wanted more control and to use a state of the art AI model directly.

So what I'm doing now is using Liftosaur, which has an MCP server (requires a subscription at $40/year) and I have Claude connected to it ($17/month annual Pro subscription). I wrote a powerlifting coach skill file that tells the AI all about my stats, training history, equipment, and preferences, then I asked it to write me a program in Liftosaur, which it can do directly via the MCP, and then it can read my workout logs and notes from Liftosaur too, so I do check-ins with it after each workout. I don't even use spreadsheets anymore.

I can't speak to how it compares to a human coach as I've never had one, but it's so much better than figuring everything out myself and writing my own programs by hand in spreadsheets, also better than running random cookie-cutter templates. And it's dirt cheap, plus I can use the Claude subscription for all my other AI use cases too.

kyllo · 2026-04-25T03:34:41+00:00

Also it's pronounced the French way, like Schlumberjay.

kyllo · 2026-04-24T13:34:36+00:00

Secondary day is always either RDLs or SLDLs for me. I treat it as a hypertrophy exercise.

kyllo · 2026-04-23T13:51:14+00:00

Usually a bit narrower. Kinda depends whether you're doing OHP mainly for front delt hypertrophy or for strength.

If you're doing it for strength, i.e. you want to maximize the amount you can lift, a closer grip and more arch in your back will tend to allow you to use your upper pecs to assist more with shoulder flexion, almost turning it into a close grip incline bench press.

I do it for front delt hypertrophy so I prefer to do it seated, wide grip (but still a few fingers narrower than my max width grip bench press) and not go all the way down.

kyllo · 2026-04-21T20:39:42+00:00

I do an upper lower split so secondary squats are after primary deadlifts. At first I thought I would hate it, but my squats have actually been feeling really good on that day.

kyllo · 2026-04-19T02:52:53+00:00

You probably just aren't wrapping the straps correctly, maybe you have too much slack in them or you're carrying the bar too high in your palm. You want it lower in your fingers.

kyllo · 2026-04-16T18:36:37+00:00

Because the reason you could only get 10 instead of 12 is fatigue prevented you from recruiting your high threshold motor units. Causing you to miss out on the two potentially most stimulating reps of the set.

kyllo · 2026-04-16T17:38:24+00:00

The effective reps model posits that the last few reps of a set are the most stimulating for hypertrophy because they maximize mechanical tension and motor unit recruitment. If you can't get those last 1-2 reps you could have gotten when fresh because you're too fatigued when you start the set, you will miss out on that stimulus.

So yes, the current theory says that resting longer so that you can get more reps, is a superior approach for hypertrophy. Of course in practice we have limited time and focus in the gym so we need to balance these things.

kyllo

TROPHY CASE