Cluster Training
By: Josh Miller 6/18/24; Published 4/26/25
Cluster training is an effective, efficient, and fun way to train, especially for strength and performance, and especially on certain movements and for certain goals.
How do you get better at movements that are fundamentally changed by doing multiple continuous reps? How about calisthenic and bodyweight movements that are hard to perform for the number of repetitions needed to hit building vs testing ranges? Cluster training is a great answer to these questions and a great way to train these types of movements effectively and efficiently that is often overlooked.
Cluster training is also highly applicable to athletes such as football players, and tactical athletes who have demands that neccesitate the ability to be explosive in repeated bouts. It is also great to build up reps! I have used cluster training for various applications both in my own and in client training for over a decade now, and it began with chasing being both big and able to do a bunch of pullups back in college. It turned out to be valuable for that, and much more!
So, what exactly is cluster training? Think of how you perform a normal set. Say you are to hit 5 reps with a given weight. You will do all 5 reps and put it back in the rack—pretty simple. For cluster training you would break those reps up a few at a time, or maybe even one at a time. You may do 3-1-1 or 2-2-1 or 2-1-1-1 or 1-1-1-1-1 for that same 5 reps. When programming these you can also manipulate the structure of the clusters as well as the load and overall volume. This allows you to work on what a lifter needs while allowing proficiency at the neccesary volume and intensity for the best progress, or in the case of some movements just provides some technical advantages for some lifters.
From a technical consideration, clusters work really well to build profiency at a high enough load it will still carry over to maxing out, especially for beginners on movements like deadlifts and the olympic lifts. Movements like these change after the first rep often, especially in beginners, but with a cluster you have to start from the beginning again. As Louie said when discussing the value of all the sets of speed work, more first reps are what a powerlifter wants.
From a programming perspective, we also can trick the body into handling higher volume and/or intensity with cluster training. If the volume and load are standardized we will still see an increase in mechanical tension and average force production per rep. This is particularly valuable and effective on movements like pullups, dips, pushups, jumping split squats as well as the aforementioned OL and deadlifts. When it comes to these calisthenics moves often the band assisted variations keep people mentally locked in there, and so while they are certainly valuable variations too, cluster training is an excellent way to get your pullup, pushup and dip numbers up!
When it comes to barbell work for strength, for heavy work I really prefer it for movments that start from the bottom up vs top down. This means again, mostly deadlifts and olympic lifts, but also extends to things like dead bench, dead squat, zercher squat from the pins/straps, seal rows, etc. I really like it for power work, especially in football and tactical populations on squats and bench as well. When we consider old school speed work, it was not so dissimilar to a cluster set. 8-12 sets of 2 reps on a squat, or 5 x5 on a squat or whatever was used would come out to “about” the same reps at a given percentage as people would program with traditional sets. Some found real value for it in powerlifting, and some did not, but it is very beneficial to tactical athletes, football players and again, any athlete who has to be explosive over and over again with short rests between. In general on most barbell movements I tend to go with 6-10 singles for power work on deadlifts, and OL. I tend to go with 5-12 doubles or triples for things like squat and bench as well as most other barbell movments that fit this bill regardless of if power or strength is my focus. The execution and place in the session/program may just be different.
A common way to setup a program for something like pushups would be to say perform as many repetitions as you can for 1 set. Rest 3 minutes afterwards. Now perform as many reps of 10% of this rep max as you can with 20s between the reps. The next workout peform 3 clusters with 70% of the number of reps per cluster as you performed during the cluster last week as 15% of your rep max at a time. The next workout perform 4 clusters with 60% of the reps per cluster as 10% of your max from your first week at a time. So if you performed 20 reps on your first rep max, you would do 2 reps at a time during your cluster to get your clustermax, and you would go until you couldn’t get 2 more reps with 20s rest. For the sake of the example lets say were able to get 40 clusters for 80 total reps. So on week 2 you would perform 3 clusters 54 reps completed 3 reps at a time with 20s between (so 18x3 each “cluster set”), and the final week you would perform 4 clusters of 46 reps which would be 2 reps at a time with 20s betwen (23 x 2 each “cluster set”). Then retest the next week! This is an easy way to ramp the numbers up on movements that can be developed into high rep ranges like pushups!
For pullups check the program linked below!
Stay strong!
Coach Josh