Zigzag?

[blasin]

I searched around in the forums but couldn't find a final answer.

I found out zigzagging is alright.

But if your increment for the max from 15's to 10's is low. Is that also alright?

Like... I have:

20-25-30-35-40-45 max is 45 for 15's.

Then for 10's

25-30-35-40-45-50.

I would be zigzagging alot

Is that ok?

 

[whistledixie]

I searched around in the forums but couldn't find a final answer.

I found out zigzagging is alright.

But if your increment for the max from 15's to 10's is low. Is that also alright?

Like... I have:

20-25-30-35-40-45 max is 45 for 15's.

Then for 10's

25-30-35-40-45-50.

I would be zigzagging alot

Is that ok?

Which lift are you talking about here? It sounds like a small muscle group lift like tricep extensions or something.

You should start the rep series with 75% of your max, so if 50 (lbs?, kgs?) is your max you need to start the first session of 10s with 37.5 (rounded up or down, if necessary). If the difference between 50 and 37.5 can't be divided up evenly, just try to divide it up as evenly as you can - and repeat some loads if necessary.

How you divide it up depends on what increments are available. For instance, DBs at my gym are in 5lb increments. That means, my DB lifts have to go up 10lbs (total weight of the two) each time. And the lowest increment I can use on barbell lifts is 5lbs because the smallest plates are 2.5lb.

For the sake of my example, let's say the lift is skullcrushers. If I were in this situation, I'd maybe do 35 - 35 - 40 - 40 - 45 - 45 for the 15s and go 40 - 40 - 45 - 45 - 50 - 50 for the 10s so I don't zig so far back after hitting 45 for 15.

 

[Driver]

I think the most important thing is to increase total effort each training. Your proposed zig zagging is too extreme, as 1*15*45=675, and 2*10*25=500. The result is less effort than during the 15s. Whistledixie's solution prevents this, as you would start at 2*10*40=800.

 

[koolmatt]

On my experience, when I cannot increase accurately with lees than 1lbs adding, what i do, is (it works if you got at least 2 sets for the same exercice) to start with for example one set with 40 lbs, then second set with 35 lbs. So at the end, you have make 2 sets with 37,5 lbs;-)

but as whistledixie said, the most important is to start from 75% of your RM, not less...

BR;
Matthieu.