Have you ever wondered what’s the least amount of training you need to do in order to make meaningful strength gains, even as a highly trained lifter or competitive powerlifter?
No??! Oh … Well, that’s a shame. Also, the newsletter hook now just feels slightly awkward but I guess we can roll with it.
Risking-losing-your-attention-with-a-bad-joke aside, that’s exactly what my PhD was all about: the least a powerlifter needs to do in order to get meaningfully stronger.
We specifically looked at “the minimum effective training dose required to increase one repetition maximum strength in powerlifters.” In other words, we asked “what’s the minimum effective dose for strength.”
My PhD was comprised of the following 7 studies:
We essentially looked at the current literature on minimum dose training in resistance trained individuals, drew on expert opinion by interviewing some of the top powerlifters and powerlifting coaches in the world, and also conducted three training studies in which competitive powerlifters followed different, extremely low-volume training programs. When I say, “extremely low-volume,” I mean that some individuals were doing less than a handful of single repetitions for each powerlift.
Here’s what we found:
In non-powerlifters, but still resistance-trained individuals, doing 2-3 weekly sets of 6-12 repetitions close or to failure per lift led to suboptimal, yet significant increases in one-repetition maximum strength in the squat and bench press.
In powerlifters, 3-6 weekly sets of 1-5 repetitions per powerlift per week, performed at roughly 0-3 repetitions in reserve can lead to meaningful strength gains for approximately 6-12 weeks. In absolute terms (and take this with a grain of salt), some people may gain over 40lb on their powerlifting total in 6-12 weeks by following the above guidelines, even if they’ve been lifting for years.
Lastly, we also found that powerlifters can potentially perform as little as 1-3 singles per powerlift per week and still make some strength gains, albeit less likely to be meaningful.
Practical takeaways
If optimizing strength adaptations is your main goal, training following the above minimum effective dose guidelines should probably not be your default approach to training. However, the concept of the minimum effective training dose can come in handy during periods where your time and/or recovery resources are limited, allowing you to still make meaningful progress without having to spend a lot of time or mental energy training.
If you are not really fussed about maximizing strength gains, you could, in theory, train for the rest of your life using the above guidelines while adding an extra set or exercise whenever things start to feel way too easy or monotonous.
Aside from basing the entirety of your training on the concept of the minimum effective training dose, you can apply the concept only on specific lifts, allowing for more recovery resources to be allocated to lifts that want to prioritize. For example, you could train the deadlift and the bench press using a minimum effective training dose to allow for more squat volume during a squat-specialization training block. Lastly, you could also use the above concept during periods where you’re focusing mostly on hypertrophy training but want to continue progressing strength.
The next time you find yourself feeling stressed about missing your usual training sessions, remember that even doing a handful of sets per week can be more than enough to continue making progress.
Learn more
We're firing up the Stronger By Science YouTube channel and will be releasing new videos regularly! This Friday, we'll have a new, detailed video on the minimum effective training dose for strength.
Subscribe to the SBS YouTube channel to get a notification when the new video is released.
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That's it for today's newsletter. Remember to subscribe to the SBS YouTube for a new video this Friday. Then, we'll be back with a new podcast episode next week, and another edition of this newsletter in two weeks.
Have a great rest of your week.
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The SBS Team
Greg, Pak, Milo, and Lyndsey
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