Stefan Ianev Trainer & Educator

Double progression is still one of the simplest and most reliable ways to progress your training.

Pick a rep range, establish a load you can comfortably perform at the bottom of that range, then gradually build your reps before increasing the weight and starting the process again.

For a lot of people, this can work extremely well for a long time.

But eventually you may reach a point where extracting another rep from the same set configuration becomes increasingly difficult as you get closer to your limit.

That’s where I’ve recently been experimenting with Adaptive Set Progression (ASP).

Essentially extending double progression by redistributing the workload, opening the RIR back up, and creating another runway for progression.

I’ve linked my ASP reel to this one if you want to see how that works.

Some people claim that volume load is completely irrelevant for hypertrophy.

That conclusion largely comes from research comparing different loading conditions, where higher and lower loads can produce similar hypertrophy despite very different volume loads.

But what often gets left out of that discussion is what happens when the absolute load is kept constant or similar.

Under those conditions, matching the amount of work tends to produce similar hypertrophy, while performing more work can produce greater hypertrophy.

This is why I care about developing different training capacities.

✅ Increasing force capacity can allow you to perform more reps with a given load.

✅ Improving metabolic capacity can help you maintain rep output across repeated sets.

✅ Redistributing your set configuration can allow you to accumulate more work while better managing fatigue.

All of these can increase the amount of productive work you're capable of performing.

Progression doesn’t always have to mean pushing harder... but you do have to gradually do more work.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been experimenting with a different way of progressing both my own training and with some of my clients.

Instead of continually pushing the same sets closer and closer to failure...

Once effort starts getting sufficiently high, I’ll add a set and redistribute roughly the same workload across more sets.

This pulls each set further away from failure, reduces the effort required per set, and creates room to start progressing reps and load again.

I’m calling it Adaptive Set Progression (ASP).

The important distinction is that I’m not suggesting lower effort is inherently better, or that you should just keep adding sets indefinitely.

It’s about periodically redistributing workload before effort becomes the bottleneck, then continuing to progress from there.

Check out my previous post if you want the full breakdown.

James had already been training for nine years before we started working together.

He wasn’t lazy or inconsistent. He was already doing a lot of things right.

But sometimes it’s the last 10–20% you’re missing, or simply having someone in your corner, that makes the biggest difference.

That’s what helped James break through his plateau and make more progress in nine months than he had in years.

If you’ve been stuck with your training, feel like you’re doing everything right but still aren’t seeing the results you want...

Send me a DM and let’s have a chat.

There’s nothing magical about the last 1–2 reps before failure.

They don’t suddenly become disproportionately more stimulatory than the few reps that came before them.

Taking a set closer to failure can make that individual set more efficient because you’re accumulating more mechanical tension within the set.

But there’s a trade-off.

The closer you push towards failure, the more fatigue you generally accumulate as well.

And you can often make up for stopping a little further from failure simply by performing an additional set or two.

So rather than doing 3 sets and grinding every one of them to the limit, you might do 4 sets while keeping a few reps in reserve.

You’re taking a slightly less efficient approach on a set-by-set basis, but potentially accumulating a similar overall stimulus without having to redline every set.

That doesn’t mean training to failure is bad.

Occasionally I use it, but more often these days I leave a rep or two in reserve.

It’s simply another variable you can manipulate depending on how much stimulus you need and how much fatigue you’re willing to accumulate to get it.

TRT gets talked about a lot in the over-40 fitness space these days.

And I think sometimes it can give the impression that once you hit your 40s and start feeling a little more tired, not recovering as well, or simply not feeling quite like yourself, TRT is the obvious next step.

But there are plenty of reasons you might feel that way that have nothing to do with being clinically testosterone deficient.

A lot of guys in their 40s are juggling careers, businesses and families while still trying to train 4–6 days a week, stay lean, do cardio and somehow get enough sleep.

That’s a lot of competing demands.

So by all means, get your testosterone checked. I actually think knowing where your levels sit as you get older is useful.

But if they're starting to decline, I'd also look at the bigger picture.

- How much are you training?

- Are you eating enough?

- How well are you sleeping?

- How much stress are you carrying?

Because TRT can be incredibly valuable for someone who genuinely needs it.

But I’m also a little skeptical of how normalised TRT has become in the over-40 fitness space, particularly when it’s sometimes presented by people who otherwise promote themselves as examples of optimal health.

That doesn’t mean they don’t genuinely need it. We obviously don’t know their individual circumstances.

But I do think it’s worth asking why testosterone replacement is increasingly being presented as an almost routine part of staying fit and healthy after 40.

Feeling tired at 45 doesn't necessarily mean your testosterone needs replacing.

Sometimes you might just need to recover better.