Wave loading weightlifting workouts

Posted by: Muscle Nerd

Most of the time we lift in one of the following ways (after our warm up).

We use the same weight and do something like 3 sets of 10 or 5 sets of 5.

Or we pyramid up in weight and drop the reps.

More rarely (but much better than pyramiding up) we pyramid down.

But what you rarely see anyone do, even though it's very effective, is varying the load during a workout, or wave training.

So what would wave loading look like?

Decline Bench Press

1x5x145
1x5x185
1x5x145
1x5x185
1x5x145

Dumbbell Bench Press

1x5x60
1x5x40
1x5x60
1x5x40

Each lighter set acts as an active recovery set for the heavier set to follow.

This is one way to up the volume of work without over training.

You'll also find yourself able to do more with the heavier weights and the lighter sets will feel even lighter.

Wave loading is a great way to blast past a sticking point.

You can incorporate wave loading into any type of workout you're currently doing right now.

Try using wave loading every few workouts for a body part.