For the past couple of months I have moved from progressive overload to more of effort based training. I think I have mentioned being concerned about junk volume. With my age and the amount of resistance training and conditioning I do, fatigue becomes an issue.
My interpretation of effort based training is staying pretty close to failure. With doing that I have severely limited my exercises and volume. The first week I started with only two work sets, the following week three, and then finally to four.
I only do four lifts per session comprising of a push, pull, leg, and ab movement. Training three full body days a week that puts me at 12 effective sets per bodypart more or less. I do throw in a set for calves, biceps, and delts here and there to round things off when the feeling moves me.
The results thus far are that I am feeling very worked after the session and the day after. However, I do feel ready by my next workout 48 hrs later.
This training has allowed me to get good lifting in and have the time and recovery for my conditioning sessions as well. I think just trying to accumulate more and more volume as time went left my joints feeling cranky. I know I have arthritis in my back and shoulders which were not fond of all the work as well.
This is not forever training, but it's a cool change to have in my toobox. The nice thing about it is that you have to prioritize the lifts you choose and the effort you put in to them.
