Ya Boi
Apr 29, 2026
How personal trainers make a banger
Hey y'all!!This article is gonna cover acute variables; why they're important and how they impact your fitness goals. So, what are acute variables first of all? Acute variables are basically everything that goes into how we exercise session to session and even our overall training program. Acute variables are a universal truth that will make or break your fitness goals. It's important that we match the right acute variables to our fitness goals, if we want to maximize our results. Using the wrong acute variables can lead to slow and frustrating progress to any fitness goal, and nobody wants that. As always my goal is to empower y'all with the tools and knowledge to succeed. Just a heads up, todays article is gonna be a bit longer and juicer than normal. Anyway, lets crack into it. Starting with a list of the acute variables we'll be covering.
Sets
Reps
Training intensity
Rep tempo (Time under tension)
Rest interval
Training volume
Training frequency (sessions a week)
Training duration
Exercise selection
Exercise order
When we're thinking of these acute variables and our fitness goals, there are a few questions to ask ourselves.
How many days a week do I plan on training?
What amount of sets, reps, and intensity match my fitness goal?(we'll cover that next)
What exercises align with my fitness goal?
Does the intensity match what I can realistically bring to the table?
What are my limitations?(either because of injuries, time constraints, etc)
Some of this will probably make more sense by the end of the article when we have the full picture, hopefully. One important thing to clear up, is what we mean by intensity in regards to resistance training. Intensity is basically the level of effort you bring compared to what you're fully capable of. This is normally expressed as a % of your 1 rep max. If you don't know your 1 rep max don't fret! There are easily accessible 1 rep max charts all over the internet. Just know it's critical when it comes to training right for your goal. On that note, intensity is one of the biggest factors when it come to building more muscle; other than nutrition of course. Fun fact for all the future meat heads out there.
So, how do I know what sets, reps, and intensity is right for my fitness goal? well here are some general guidelines.
For stabilization and muscular endurance:
Moderate to high reps 12-20, sometimes higher
Low to moderate sets 1-3 sets
Low to moderate training intensity 50-70% of 1 rep max
For Muscular hypertrophy
Low to moderate reps 6-12. sometimes higher
Moderate to high sets 3-6 sets
Moderate to high training intensity 75-85% of 1 rep max
For Maximal strength
Low reps 1-5 reps
High sets 4-6 sets
High training intensity 85-100% of 1 rep max
For Power
Low to moderate reps 1-10 reps
Moderate to high sets 3-6 sets
Low training intensity 10% for med ball work, 30-45% for weights
This info covers some of the more common fitness goals. For weight loss you'll probably be in the muscular endurance category. Something like HIIT or circuit training will certainly give you an edge , if weight loss is your main goal. Now, as far as cardio goes we'll be doing a whole different article for that.
When we're thinking about rep tempo(Time under tension)as it relates to our fitness goals; a slower more controlled rep 2-4 seconds eccentric and concentric(there and back) will be great for building lean muscle mass. It will even help with stabilization and endurance too. Whereas a faster tempo 1-2 seconds is gonna be much better for building strength and power.
Now, for our rest interval(the time between sets). A 30-60 second rest window will be best for building endurance and help if we're trying to lose weight. If we want to build lean muscle mass a rest window of 0-180 seconds will get the job done. Finally, if we want to increase maximal strength we're looking at a rest window of 2-5 minutes. A good rule of thumb is the closer we are to our 1 rep max the longer the rest window and vis versa.
Our training volume is quantified with a simple formula:
Rep x Sets x Weight.
This is just a way for us to figure out how much we're doing and how we're going to progress further with our training to ensure constant growth towards our goals. So, when we start a training program our overall training volume might be kinda low, but each week we would increase the volume by X amount. How do we increase training volume though?
Either by increasing set, reps, weight, or even training frequency(going for 2x a week to 3x). Don't try to increase all these variables at once, it won't workout well for you. Pick 1 and work from there. Another good rule of thumb to remember; as volume increases, intensity will typically decrease and vis versa. There are certain exceptions though. This also ties into our training duration.
Typically the more intense training session is the shorter the duration will be. Think of sprinting at max effort vs a long distance jog. A good training session should be anywhere between 30-90 minutes, depending on what you're going for.
Just to touch on training frequency; it really comes down to how you're splitting up your training. For a full body workout 3x a week is normally fine for most people. For something like an upper-lower split it could be 4-6x a week, and so on. The biggest thing to think about is the amount of recovery you're getting between training sessions. Trust me, you'll know if you're getting too much or not enough pretty quickly. For most people 24-48 hours between working the same muscle groups is enough.
Okay, home stretch team! For exercise selection it trail and error to find what works best for you. Finding exercise that work for your goal is one thing, but finding exercises you actually enjoy makes a bigger difference than most people think. Just keep in mind we don't want to change our exercise up too much. We also don't want to always do the same exercises forever.
So, once we have a good selection of exercises it's time to put them into an order that makes sense. We want to try to put our bigger compound lifts (Bench press, Squats, etc) before our isolation exercises(Bicep curl, leg extension, etc). This is simply so we get the most out of our exercises. Doing an isolation before a compound lift is gonna reduce our overall performance, and that in turn reduces our overall progress to our goal. Just think about how the exercise you're doing now is gonna affect your next exercise. If you just did a bunch of leg extensions, chances are your ability to squat is gonna be reduced. Now, with this and a lot of the other stuff we covered today there are certain exceptions, but we'll save that for another day.
Congrats y'all!! You made it through this long af article and are that much better prepared for doing so. I just want to through out a few caveats though. This is all very surface level info, and a lot of what we covered today could have their own articles. The aim of this was to give y'all a basic working understanding of acute variables. Also a lot of what we covered is debated heavily in the fitness world. I'm not trying to give you the end all be all answers, rather a good point of reference and knowledge to make your own judgement call. There is so much more depth to this, but it's a strong step in the right direction. Have a rock'n day y'all!!