After I have showed you how to put together one cycle of DUPEV, let’s talk about how to progress this program over time. Again, it’s not something “new” here, it’s rather applying some concepts to Daily Undulating Periodization with Exercise Variations, that have been around forever.
Linear Progression on Main Lifts: Most successful strength building programs have planned, mostly linear, progression over time. Simple said: Do the same shit repeatedly with always more weight! I won’t be different here, because linear progression has been shown to be working well so why should I? As we use 1RM values to plan one cycle of DUPEV, it is quite easy to manage the progression using the benchmark exercises. After one Cycle (3 Weeks) just add some weight to the benchmark exercise 1RM and recalculate everything. Here you can go on your own pace, but I suggest adding 2-5 kg on lower body benchmark 1RMs (Squat, Deadlift) and 1-2.5 kg on the upper body benchmark exercise 1RM (Bench Press) as long as you can keep up with it. If you know programs like Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 you might already be familiar with this kind of progression. It’s straight forward, here’s an example:
Variation in Assistance Exercises: You already know that I like variation, maybe because I mainly work with team sport athletes where strength training is a mean to improve performance on the court and not the sport itself. Having a big biceps does not automatically make you better on the court, but that’s another topic… What I want to say is, that for most exercises there exists an alternative that is as valuable as the given exercise. Maybe it’s just switching the Grip or the equipment you use. It can be increasing the Range of Motion or the focus on tempo (eccentric vs explosive). In my eyes it will always be more important THAT you train a muscle group than with what exercise you do that. New stimuli for the muscles can not only be induced by more reps, more resistance but also by changing the exercise a bit: I mean they also do it at Westside, so it can’t be so wrong… Again, an example just using “little” variations of the exercises.
Deload Week: Trust me once in DUPEV you will embrace a deload week: Every workout will be almost equally hard and exhausting and in one or another way you will be “done” after every workout. After 3 Weeks of going hard, before starting a new cycle I suggest putting in a week where you go lower on weights and frequency to restore the body for the next cycle with more weight on the bar. It’s an excellent opportunity to focus on technique (you always should anyway). How to deload? For the deload week we only perform the benchmark exercise of the day but not the variations of the other exercises. So, we reduce the frequency from 3 horizontal pressing exercises to only one. For the Sets/Reps I used 3x5x60% (I copied 1:1 from 5/3/1 here). So over time you will have a steady increase in workload as you get stronger:
As you see the principles behind adjusting and advancing DUPEV are not too different to programs that already exist out there as I an of course influenced as well by programs I have done and/or studied. Once the Excel is finished and commented for you to use, you don’t have to care so much about calculating all the different loads. So come back and check out the page soon…
