Hi, the “Lyle McDonald Bulking Routine” Spreadsheet (linked below) seems to be broken in some sort of way, because it dosn´t track the volume and volume% for the 2. lower/upper days.
It´s not adding the volume for the first and second day of each of days of the split.
Hi Jacob,
You’re right, it’s messed up. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take a look at it this evening and try to get it fixed.
Hi Kyle,
Thanks for answering. Are you gonna reply to me here when you have taken a look at it and hopefully get it fixed?
And just a question for the layout of the spreadsheet, that I very much like the look of besides the little problem. Is the volume tracking of the days done in that way, so if you chance and don´t have the same exercises on for example “lower”, then you can still see the weekly volume for the overlapping as well as the single day exercises?
Yes, I will post back here once it is finished!
I’m not sure I understand your second question. Can you provide an example?
Okay, the question is about the volume tracking of specific exercises pr. week basis.
So if we take the “lower” days and all the exercises are the same apart from the squat, where on the second day we do deadlift. Then I´am asking if the volume tracker can account for the exercise selection and add the volume of the rest of the exercises and show them on the overview tab for both days and show the two different volumes and progression of the squat and deadlift.
I hope that cleared the confusion up or at least didn´t make it worse.
I think I understand.
The exercises shown on the volume tabs are copied from Week 1, so whatever exercises are shown in Week 1 will be shown on those tabs.
Those tabs are built on the assumption that the exercise selection does not change when compared to Week 1.
The volume and volume change calculations only apply to the day in which they appear. No other training days are added in for the same exercise.
So if on Monday you do SLDL after Squats and you write in “SLDL” then the volume tracking tabs will show whatever you type in for Week 1 and assume you do that exercise for the rest of the remaining weeks. It does not check - it assumes the rows do not change order in Week 2 and beyond.
As you can see, it is not very sophisticated. If you play around with it a bit I think you’ll see how it works… but basically it assumes that whatever exercises are done in Week 1 will be repeated for the remainder of the program in the same order shown in week 1.
Let me know if the spreadsheet looks better for you now. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qqiJmLLwRX58Z7jBdK0Jpp1DIr-WprXt-bs5jquZiYY/edit#gid=222316940
If so, I’ll apply the changes to the other versions
Hmm the spreadsheet doesn’t seem to be fixed for me since it doesn’t add the volumes of the exercises on the volume tracker tab. So you can´t use the spreadsheet to track the weekly volume of the exercises.
Oh, so you want to know the total volume of squats for a given week, for example? You want to add the training days together for a weekly total for each lift?
Yes. Because the second days are not used for anything otherwise. It doesn’t change anything in the volume tabs the reps and weight you put in, in the second days.
And to my understanding it only makes sense if it the total volume on a week basis that should be calculated. Don’t know if I’m wrong there.
And to my point from earlier. The volume calculation would therefor show if the two lower days had some different exercises.
So:
Monday
Back squat 2 set
SLDL 2 set
leg curl 2 set
Leg extension 2 set
Friday
Deadlift 2 set
Front squat 2 set
Leg curl 2 set
Leg extension 2 set
Total for lower
Back Squat 2 set
SLDL 2 set
Deadlift 2 set
Front squat 2 set
Leg curl 4 set
Leg extension 4 set
- and the weight would also be added together on leg curl/extension to show the weekly volume and progression in the volume tabs
- this is for week 1 and the exercise of the two days will go through the weeks
Maybe this will help get my point across??
Ah okay, I updated the formula to grab the values from the second upper and lower days. I thought I was doing that, but I made a mistake and it was indeed only grabbing the values from the first upper and lower days, as you said.
Unfortunately it won’t add the totals for lower yet. That will take a bit more work, but now you should have both volume calculations for the upper and lower days.
Hope this helps
Yeah, It seems to be working correctly and is grabbing the values from the first and second upper and lower days and putting them correctly in the corresponding places in the volume tabs.
I don´t know what you actually did in the spreadsheet to change it, since I can´t see anything different in the functions.
And i don´t know if you will add the added volume pr. exercise at some point
I just needed to adjust the vlookups to query a different cell range so they didn’t return the volume from the first two days, only the last two days.
To be honest, it’s not a super high priority to add that feature as it isn’t required to successfully run the program.
If you’d like to add additional rows to your version that adds each instance of a given exercise into a sum for the week, it wouldn’t be too hard.
e.g. =sum(B9,B31) would get you the squat total of a given week, for instance.
I don’t want to add that to the default spreadsheet though, as it doesn’t take other cases into account, like if someone changes the exercise selection, the order, etc. It’s brittle.
But for your personal spreadsheet copy that would work fine.
I hope this helps!
I totally understand you about the fragility of the spreadsheet, I just thought you knew some smart function to put in so solve it.
But anyway you have been a huge help and I’m so grateful for your willingness to answer anything I asked.
So again thank you Kyle
Best regards Jacob
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No problem Jacob! Thanks for letting me know about some of the funky-ness. 