Q: It’s almost the off season and I can’t wait to start hitting the weights hard again. Just need your wisdom on a few things. I don’t fully understand the volume and intensity weeks. If I perform, for example, 4 sets of 4 for deadlifts on week 1, and the next week calls for 6 singles, how am I supposed to progress since the parameters have been changed so much? I hope that makes sense, thanks for your time EC.

A: Work up to a PR in good form for the day in week 2 – and then work backward from that.

Let’s say you work up to 400 and it’s the best you can do in good form – and on the way up, you took 365 as your last warm-up. 360 is 90% of 400, so you’ve got two singles over 90% at that point.

Then, take four more singles between 360 and 400, and you’re done.

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