How do I calculate the amount of work done in a workout?

Any progress, wherever and whatever we do, requires some analysis of what has been done and some planning.
Both in business and in sport.

If in manufacturing they calculate the volume of production in hours and the quantity of goods produced, we have to do something similar in sports coaching to know how much work we have done.
In this way we can adjust the quantities in the following cycles according to the given circumstances.
The competition period cannot have the same quantities as the preparation period.
The standard practice for calculating training volume is to calculate the total load as follows:

Figure 1: Formula for calculating the quantity.

Figure 2: Example of a quantity calculation.

The summary is that we lifted a total of 1000kg during the squat training.

This is quite a common way of calculating, but it is not the most suitable for me, because there are several different ways of squatting, and I don’t mean the different variations such as: back squat, front squat, Zercher squat, split squat, etc.

I have the same exercise in mind, e.g.
ROM (range of motion).
I use three “depths” in different preparation periods.

Figure 3: Athlete doing a squat (Photo: Rok Rakun, https://rrakun.com/).

In the early preparation period, the most common form I use is the full (healthy!) range of motion squat at a normal tempo of 2-0-2.
First a controlled tempo, then an increasingly aggressive concentric movement (overcoming the load, the positive part of the lift).
In the Late Preparation Period I use a shorter range of movement where the lowering is controlled at first, I won’t say slow, no pause in the lower part of the movement and as fast as possible transitioning into the concentric part of the movement.
We are not working very much on the so called SSC (stretch-shortening cycle) as often stated in various articles, but more on the starting intensity (overcoming the load from rest and accelerating it (both forms of intensity together belong to the explosive intensity according to Yuri Verkoshansky).
Here we can help ourselves to a large extent by using elastics to extend the so-called propulsive (propulsive) velocity almost to the end of the concentric part of the movement, because to some extent we disable the premature inhibitory reflex in the muscle.
How much of this depends on the load.
The lighter the load the sooner the inhibition of the movement is “switched on” and vice versa.
Let’s leave that, that’s a topic for another post.

Then comes the last form of the squat, which I call the “power” squat, where the range of movement is smallest and we make good use of the SSC, i.e. the descent into the squat is also jerky, as well as the deceleration and the redirection of the movement into concentricity. Here I always explain to the athletes to imagine the movement as a graph in the shape of a “V” and no longer a “U”.

Figure 4: Graphical representation of the U and V motion.

The shorter the time in the bottom position means more elastic component for the lift itself and thus more force production.
This in turn leads to more power, which manifests itself in a higher jump, a faster lift and other sporting movements.

I can then combine this form with sprints, jumps or even heavy lifts, because it’s all about muscle potentiation.
This is very suitable for pre-competition activation, for in-season work, where we need to inhibit the process of decline as much as possible and stimulate fatigue as little as possible.

This is not just my way of doing things, but I also saw it in Joel Smith’s book Speed Strength, where Joel wrote that the full range of motion squat is more about muscle work and the partial squat is more about stimulating the nerve work.
If the load and range of movement are chosen wisely then you can actually do more with less.

The amount depends on the individual (training, seniority, gender, sport…), but for men, the load for power squats should be chosen between 40 and 80% of the maximum lift (1RM).
I know that some people lift with power squats even above 100% of the total squat but they probably do it outside the competition period as an overload and to get used to higher loads.

Work…what?

But then how do we distinguish between the work we do?
If we calculate classically as above, then we cannot distinguish.
That is why I have already written the answer in the question: work.
We count different amounts of work as work.

We can see that for a shorter path (ROM), in our case d (path), the work is smaller and vice versa.
In this way, we can distinguish the amount of work done when performing an identical exercise that is performed slightly differently.
Because we get a modified quantity V1 and V2 in some units, but where the work done is different.

Figure 6: Calculation of individual workouts at different times.

The picture above is a practical example of a single training session at three different times:

– Early preparation period

– Late preparation or pre-competition period

– Competition period

It is one and the same exercise, differing in the “depth” of the squat and the loading parameters: load, sets x reps.

In the blue box you can see the calculation for each workout.
Firstly, in terms of the amount of load in kg (V) and the amount of work (A).
If we look only at these numbers we see nothing, except that they are not the same.

The yellow box shows the calculation according to the different cycles.
Where both quantities decrease, i.e. the highest quantities are at the beginning of the preparation, gradually decreasing until the competition period.
Even though the intensity increases, both the amount and the work decreases.

The green box shows a comparison of the quantity and the work between them, where it can be seen that both quantities are decreasing symmetrically.

To help you visualize through an imaginary preparation cycle, you will see how certain load parameters increase or decrease in the table below:

Figure 7: Numbers are our undoing…
The above very opaque table breaks down the various parameters from average power (Pavg), force (average & max-Favg and Fmax), average speed (vavg), time to maximum force (t-Fmax), RFD (Rate of force development), reps, sets, load, range of motion and work (A) and the amount in kg.
I have made a semaphorised display of the numbers, where red is worse than green which is best and divided into thirds.
The graph below is a graphical representation of the number of sets and reps and the work done and kilos lifted per workout through an “imaginary” cycle. Figure 8: Overview of the complete quasi-cycle

All three peaks are immediately at the start of the cycle where the load and range of motion increase, resulting in three peaks in both the work (A) and the total load lifted (kg).
Throughout the cycle it is shown how the sets and reps decrease and increase from workout to workout.

So I hope I have been able to show and approximate a little bit how to keep track of the work done in the series, in training and throughout the cycle.
In this way we get traceability backwards and a starting point for planning ahead.

Maybe the article will convince someone that this is a more appropriate way of tracking and planning than the widespread “youtube periodisation“.

Now, pencil and paper in hand, try it yourself.