The more you learn about diet and exercise, the more variables you find that you must keep track of. But if you don’t know the big, basic ones, tweaking your rep speed or your beta-carotene intake won’t help. In this tip, I’ll define three big things that you must know about for planning your routines: frequency, volume & intensity.
Frequency
This is the least controversial of the three. All frequency means is how often you train in a given period of time, typically a week. For example, I go to the gym four days out of seven. That’s my frequency.
Volume
Volume is the amount of training you perform per workout. This would equate to how many sets you do in a workout. For example, today, I trained arms and shoulders for a total of 27 sets (9 per muscle group). More is not necessarily better when training. A marathoner is probably the ultimate high-volume trainer. Sprinters, by contrast, train with a low volume.
Intensity
Intensity is how hard your workout is. I don’t mean how hard you were breathing or how hard you felt it was: intensity is more objective than that. Intensity is a measure related to your maximum effort. You only have 100% intensity. For lifting weights, this is typically measured by your 1 Rep Maximum (1 RM) of an exercise: the maximum weight you can lift for one rep; any more, and you can’t perform the exercise. Ideally, you wouldn’t begin your training without first testing your 1 RM in the lifts you want to do. Sprinters are the ultimate high-intensity athlete. Marathoners train with a low intensity.
So: you can train hard; you can train long; but you can’t train long and hard. I’ll talk more about this in future posts.