Next in my Master The Basics Series is Undulating Reps. I’m a big fan of keeping a good amount of consistency with exercise selection and manipulating reps across client programs.

In this post, I want to write generally about how to program and progress rep ranges in training.

When people first start to train, everyone naturally falls into the 8-10 or 10-12 rep range. That’s great for the first year, but you might want to explore some other reps ranges after a while. The lower reps of 2-6reps or the higher reps of 12-20 reps. And, how can you potentially program these reps, so you touch on them all over your training?

The three most common ways to plan out rep ranges are:

Linear – this is the most obvious way to progress reps. You are beginning towards the bottom end of the scale and working up. Spend 4-6 weeks at each rep range. Starting at 4-6 reps, then going 8, then 10, then 14 and 16. This is a great way to accumulate more volume on each exercise over time, and the volume scales gradually. The negatives are that if you want to do heavy lifts, you jump straight into them. So it’s a good option if you’re not confident lifting heavy. And, just a note, not all exercises lend themselves well to very high reps. 16 rep deadlifts might not be much fun, so you might stay at a lower rep count for longer on certain lifts.

Reverse Linear – is the reverse of the above. Where you start at the highest rep range and gradually reduce it. This is my preferred way to take someone into heavy lifting at 4-6 reps. I like that you can use percentage rep, max calculators, to guide you into the correct load selection.

Note: you can use % calculators on the linear version, but % accuracy is usually better at lower reps.

Undulating – undulating rep format can take on a few forms. As the name suggests, the reps move up and down in an undulating pattern. You can do daily undulations or a weekly undulating model. An example: Let’s say you train 3x per week. Day one is 4-6 reps (low volume/high load), Day two is 8-10 reps (moderate volume/moderate load) and Day three is 12+ reps (high volume/low load). You could leave the undulation like this, progress the loads across 4-6 weeks, and then change the rep ranges. Or you can have the rep ranges change every week, so after three weeks, you have completed each of the three days at each of the three different rep ranges. 

Neither of these options is significantly better than the next. However, if you intend to be in strength training for the rest of your life (which I hope you are), then each of these gives you plenty of scope to manipulate your training and keep it interesting. 

Undulating reps is defiantly the more advanced of the options. The continuous change in volume helps keep training fresh and allows people who feel they are plateauing at a particular load on an exercise to progress more consistently.

Stay tuned next week for another instalment of Master the Basics and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram where I share exercise techniques, and show you how to maximise your training. I hope you enjoyed this blog post, if you have any questions I host a weekly Sunday Q&A session on my Instagram channel. Otherwise, please feel free to email me at andy@andyvincentpt.com. 

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