There are a wide number of books, articles, and approaches to the long-term design of training. Each of these seeks to manipulate training frequency, intensity, volume, and rest intervals to develop strength and power in athletes. Most of this is influenced by the author’s philosophy and is accepted by coaches if it matches their particular philosophy of training. In the strength and conditioning research, there are few systematic examinations of how the training variables influence strength and power development in athletes. In the May issue of Sports Medicine, McMaster et al conduct a review looking at how these variables impact rugby and American football players.
To accomplish this, the authors examined 27 studies looking at the training of over 1000 rugby and American football athletes. Athletes ranged from high school through Division I football players as well as rugby union and rugby league athletes. The authors looked at how training frequency, volume, intensity, and detraining impacted strength and power.
As a result of their meta analysis, the authors established the following:
• With regards to increases in strength, 3-4 sets of 6-7 reps at ~77% of 1-RM seems to yield the greatest increase per session (.55% increase in strength per session).
• With regards to increases in power, 4-5 sets of 7 reps at 81% of 1-RM seems to yield the greatest increase per session (.2% increase in power per session).
• Training twice per week yields a mean weekly strength increase of almost 1%, training three times per week yields a mean weekly strength increase of almost 2%, training four times per week yields a mean weekly strength increase of 1.3%.
• Training twice per week yields a mean weekly increase in power of .1%, three times per week yields a mean weekly increase in power of .3%, while training four times per week yields a mean weekly increase in power of .7%.
This is one of the first comprehensive examinations of this topic that I’m aware of, so it’s extremely valuable for that reason alone. However, it has limitations and the results should not necessarily be used to rewrite your training programs. The first thing to keep in perspective is that the authors are looking at averages. We don’t increase our strength by .55% each session (i.e. this is not a linear process), but when we average out over the length of a study we can come up with that number. This also goes for looking at training volumes and intensities – i.e. these represent averages. The second thing that should be kept in perspective is that the authors aren’t looking at whether a different set/rep/intensity scheme works better than the ones presented. For example, would 3-4 sets of 7-8 reps work better than 6-7 reps? From the information presented, we don’t know that. Third, the studies reviewed cover a long period of time – some are from the 1960’s. Training approaches have evolved over time and this will influence and confuse the results. Fourth, the article touches on long-term training but the papers reviewed run for finite lengths so the concept of periodization and the need for variation cannot be adequately addressed. Finally, this article is only looking at rugby and American football athletes, different sports are going to have different needs and respond differently to training.
Now, for me there are several valuable take home messages. First, if we want to make gains on strength and power we need to train frequently enough to do so. Two to four times a week on each is essential to maximizing those increases. Second, for rugby and American football players it takes more muscle mass to increase strength and power, which means that a moderate volume is going to be important for strength training. Third, periodization is necessary. Training for months using the same sets, reps, and training intensity is a recipe for staleness and diminishing returns.
McMaster, D.T., Gill, N., Cronin, J., and McGuigan, M. (2013). The development, retention and decay rates of strength and power in elite rugby union, rugby league, and American football. Sports Medicine, 43: 367-384.
