Question:

I am about to start System six tomorrow and I am excited!  I have a background in both kettlebells and dumbbell/barbell lifting, but have beaten myself into the ground with too-high-intensity programs over the last 6 months especially.  I am looking so forward to a basic program that I can use on a long-term basis as the "spine" of my workouts, and that won't exhaust me  too much, and that I can insert Bus Bench stuff on occasion…not all the time like I used to.  SOOOooo ready for this!

One question I have is about deadlifts in your program.  I would prefer to barbell deadlift.  I am used to doing mainly Craig Ballentyne's Turbulence Training as I work out from home.  For deadlifts, I have pretty much did 3 sets of 8 reps (his usual rep scheme for most exercises).  So far, my best lift is 110lb for 3×8.  So, with your varying sets/reps of say 2 sets of 6, or 6 sets of 2 or whatever, what do I start with?  Or say on an easy vs a hard workout day?   And, how do I increase the weight?  Say up it by 5-10lb and do this for only 2 of the 6 reps, and gradually increase each workout to the 6 reps?  I would appreciate your advise, as I am not used to this sort of periodization of your reps/sets and easy/hard days.
 
Once again, THANK YOU for being so ingenious for burned out exercisers like me.  I am looking forward to getting started tomorrow.

 Tina

Answer:

Hi Tina!

Great questions!!!!!

As far as the deadlifts go, lets take the first deadlift day, 2 sets of 5-10 reps.  Because you've got a range of reps, you've got more wiggle room to figure it out.  I'd do a couple warm up sets (maybe like 2×5 with 65lbs) then try out 110lbs for 2 sets of 5 reps.  It'll be "heavy", but not necessarily hard, because you're used to 3 sets of 8 reps with that weight.

When you work up to the hard day, and you go for 6 sets of 5 reps, if it's easy-ish, you can try bumping up the reps as the sets go on.  So it could look like:

110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5
110lbs x 7
110lbs x 7
110lbs x 8
110lbs x 10

 Now this would be a massive personal record.  Not only because you hit 10 reps in 1 set (where before you only did 8), but also because your total reps for the workout would be 42 (where before you did 24).

But that would be a "best case scenario". 

On the flipside – Lets say you show up at the gym that day and you are totally dragging ass and hating life.  Your boss yelled at you, your car got a flat tire, and you got the macarena stuck in your head all day.  It might look like this:

110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5
95lbslbs x 10
95lbslbs x 10
95lbslbs x 8
95lbslbs x 5

And nobody ever wants that, 'cause it "feels like you went backwards".  But that's how it goes in real life some days.  

I adjust the workouts with my clients every single set

I adjust it based on two things:

1.) How the last set felt
2.) How it felt the last time they did this workout

If someone feels great, we may end up with a massive double personal record (like in the first example).  If someone feels like crap, I totally dial it back (like in the second example). 

If there is any way that I can eek out a personal record somewhere, we do.  So lets say you are used to 110lbs x 3 sets of 8 reps, which is 24 total reps with 110lbs.  That means that if we get 110lbs x 6 sets of 5 reps, that's a personal record on volume: 25 total reps

110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5
110lbs x 5

25 total reps

Different Phases of Training

The better you are at tension, the more you are going to be able to increase the weight on low rep sets.  If someone is really good at creating tension, they might lift twice as much weight doing sets of 3 as they do with sets of 10.  If someone really sucks at creating tension, the weight might be exactly the same.  That's why the skill of creating tension is so important.

Tension 101:

1.) Squeeze the bar
2.) flex your butt like I was going to kick you in the butt
3.) brace your abs like for a punch.

Once you master that, you can get into power breathing and other advanced tension techniques (like in The Naked Warrior).

Conversely, with high rep sets you want to get good at relaxation.

Enjoy!

Josh Hillis, RKC, CPT, PES, ZMIS
author of System Six: The Absolute Minimum Workout