A practical and simpler approach to determining exercise volume
In my previous post, I looked at job costing, which I think is more accurate and says more than business as usual.
If you haven’t read it, you can correct your mistake by clicking link.
I know this is a lot of reading (!), but don’t worry this post is much shorter and has more pictures.
An athlete during training
Being a trainer from the tunnels, i.e. one who actually works in the field and not in the lab, I know and I am aware that not many trainers (yet) have the right tools to measure parameters like:
force, power, acceleration, range of motion – path… so I’ve toyed with the possibility of setting things up for all of us working in the field
It is true that we will have to measure the range of motion for each individual “on foot”, but this will give us a more appropriate figure for the amount of exercise per workout, per week, per cycle.
If you remember from the previous post, we said that there is a formula for exercise volume:
Less suitable because it doesn’t contain everything, so I decided to calculate what was done/raised as follows:
But to get both quantities, you need certain apparatus, which not everyone has, or which are very unreliable.
That is why I have taken the approach of simplifying the matter.
So we use the same as above in the first equation:
Burden,
Number of series and
Number of iterations.
But to get an exercise volume suitable for different ranges of motion, it will be necessary to define a parameter that gives an adequate indication of the difference between two different ranges of motion for the same exercise.
How can we measure it?
If we’re talking about the squat, like last time, it’s quite easy (similar for all the other exercises).
The athlete loads the bar on his/her shoulders, in the upper position measure the distance from the bar to the ground.
Then set up a box, possibly without, where the athlete sits at his deepest squat and again measure the distance from the bar to the ground.
Subtract the lower figure from the upper figure to obtain the range of movement for the squat.
See the figures below.
Yes, it’s that simple.
Like building a house.
Top position of the Squat and measurement of the distance from the bar to the ground
Lower deep squat position and distance measurement
d = 165 – 110
d = 55 cm
Repeat the same for the two “shallower” squats
This gives three different ranges of movement for the squat:
d = 55 cm
d1= 45 cm
d2= 40 cm
Then calculate the ratio between the full and partial squats by dividing the range of the partial squat by the full squat to get some quotient (k) for all three squats.
Where the quotient (k) for the whole squat is 1 and does not need to be calculated.
I said it would be easy.
The other two k’s are easy to calculate:
k1= 45/55 = 0,82 rounded to 0,8
k2= 40/55 = 0.73 rounded to 0.7.
So, we’ve got the three quotients, now let’s calculate the exercise volume for all three push-ups.
Exercise.
Load: 100 kg
Series: 2
Repetitions: 10
k = 1
k1= 0,8
k2= 0,7
V = mass x series x repetitions x k
V = 100 x 2 x 5 x 1
V = 1000 AU (some of our units, we can call them Robert units)
V1 = 100 x 2 x 5 x 0,8
V1 = 800 AU
V2= 100 x 2 x 5 x 0.7
V2= 700 AU
Relationship between Quantity and the different range of movement
So, we have a training quantity in units (AU) otherwise known or unknown only to us.
In the graph above, we can see that the numbers are different but also coincide and in this way we can compare the exercise volume for different performances of the same exercise.
I exchanged some information on this topic with the great Swedish sprint coach Hakan Anderson some time ago, but due to force majeure we have not reached a conclusion yet.
I will fix it, I promise.
The theoretical plan and my first thoughts on the different ranges of motion and implementation in the training plan.
In the picture above, which I sent to Hakan, is a draft, theoretical plan, where I used the picture and my computer “non”-skills to come up with the idea of determining some then still theoretical index for calculating the exercise volume.
In the picture you can see that I first thought of a horizontal index.
Therefore, during a short conversation with our “pet-genius” Mih, we both agreed that this index should be more consistently set according to the vertical range of movement, so it would be more appropriate and, above all, simpler.
As every thing has to sit for a while to settle and load, this case was also lying for a while, somewhere in the recesses of my mind.
As a result of past, occasional head bumps into some harder object, which now slows down the software.
This can make the flashes sudden and all the more pronounced.
This is exactly what I had in this respect, while driving.
Why such an obsession with monitoring exercise volume?
A few full moons ago I listened to a lecture, and I don’t remember who the lecturer was or where it was (read the above paragraph once more), where it was said that the greatest Slovenian ski coach Mr.
Filip Gartner (a bit older we remember him, because he put SLO skiing on the world map, a bit younger – ask the gugl machine) had everything written down in his notes.
From kilometres skied, turns, number of runs per training session and more.
And maybe that had an influence on the success of our skiers at that time.
As I like numbers myself, this has stuck with me all the more, so I also keep quite extensive records (certainly nowhere near as extensive as Mr Gartner’s) for each individual athlete.
On this basis I can plan training for both the short and the long term.
Then there is the quote from the man in the picture, which eloquently describes my approach to monitoring training.
Despite the tendency in this atomic age for everything to be connected to various computing commodities: various applications, software, measuring devices… We can simplify our operations and it is still quite relevant and can help to do the following SuperSportsman©.
