Estimated reading time: 3 minutes This week’s blog post is a little different. Since our theme for the next while is intermediate/non-new folks at the gym we’re giving away a strength training block targeted at intermediate gym goers/ resistance trainees. If you are a beginner that doesn’t mean this isn't for you, however, there will be a bunch of assumed context and knowledge, as well as the plan isn’t really designed for you and you could likely benefit a lot more from something beginner specific. This is going to be a mix of the rationale behind the choices in the program as well as a demo of how it should work. Firstly the program is on Google Sheets, the link is above. The sheets are protected so please go to ‘File’ and hit ‘Make a copy’ to get your own copy. The idea of this program is that you complete the sessions every week for 6 weeks, and the additional datasheet will track your numbers and build graphs of your performance over those 6 weeks. I picked 3 sessions per week, as this is a pretty commonly manageable amount of training, and personally, I see a lot more success and long-term adhesion to 3 sessions/week than I do 4. Exercise wise we have a bunch of compound lifts, and competition variations if you’re looking to use this with plans to compete in powerlifting, it’s perfectly viable for that. Selections were made with a minimal amount of kit in mind, dumbbells and barbells, and if you have a rack to squat and bench in, you have the ability to set up chin-ups and dips. Exercises have a top set that you work up to, at a given RPE (use the chart at the top for reference, and if you’re unsure, stick rather than twist). Once you fill in your top set weight, the sheet will give you the drop set weight, or repeat set weight to use, and then the amount of sets is based on how they feel. This idea of autoregulating volume can be very strange for people, but once you use it for a bit you get the hang of it. You’re essentially doing sets on a fixed rest time until either the new weight is as hard as the top set weight, or the top set weight gets one notch harder on the RPE scale. ‘But Will! Won't that take ages?!’ Not if you stick to the rest timers, no. You may find you likely undershot your top set if when you drop 5-7.5% you’ve hit drop set number 7 and there’s no end in sight. That’s fine, either call it or see how deep the rabbit hole goes, then consider that undershoot next time you do that session.
Also, I find that a lot of people go pretty heavy on the social aspect of the gym, which can cause the rest period to creep into the 5minute+ range, which we’re aiming to avoid by setting the timer. Whilst we don’t encourage program hopping and bleat on a lot about consistency if you do take on and try this program please get in touch and let us know your thoughts, and if you finish it entirely we’re offering a free 60-minute consultation call to review how it went and go through your results with you, and see what we can learn about how you might want to consider planning more training going forward. If you’re also a coach reading this and just have questions or want to lift stuff from the sheet/program, just ask! We’re happy it’s helpful.
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Estimated Reading time: 4 minutes. In my last post about my return to the powerlifting platform. I posted my planned pivot out of that block. The Pivot went well, fatigue dropped, sore things got a lot less sore. Then I ran another developmental block, so I figured I’d post about that and how it went. The goal of the block was to explore some meme variants, get another block of drama-free strength training in, and see if I could reverse grip 3 plates. For no other reason than the meme factor of doing it. The Microcycle for Dev Block 2 was as follows. Day 1: Front Squat x5@8, Drop 5% Reverse Grip Bench x1@8, x3@8, Repeat till x3@9 Bulgarian Split Squats 3 sets @9 Day 2: Trap Bar Deadlift x5@8. Drop 10% Paused Closegrip Bench x3@8, Repeat till x3@9 DB Overhead Press 3 sets @9 Day 3: SSB Squat x1@7 Reverse Grip Bench x1@7 Sumo Deadlift x1@7 Prior Rationale. From my previous training, I’ve really never managed to do a great number of sets on lower movements. Even while I was just doing more hypertrophy-style training, I really struggled to get past 4 work sets at a higher intensity. Having had my main block going into my last competition being to test out minimal effective dose stuff, I averaged 1-2 drop sets per week. In this dev block, I aimed to see what volume was like at a couple of breakpoints. I also kept upper volume minimal with repeats, though I’ve never had issues with upper volumes ever. Along with me not really having the time to train for hours, I need to keep sessions pretty concise. Here are a couple of tables regarding fatigue % drops. I’ve already written about them in depth here. But TL;DR higher % drops take longer, and equal more total volume on average. Whilst being auto-regulating. I’ve picked out 15% total volume for the week between my Front Squats and Trap bar Deads. So we’re going in pretty low, but remember I’m not very accustomed to this. I chose an SBD day on the third day, to limit my total volume, and also to see how it works. I’ve never done one in a block before and they seem fairly popular now, with the rationale of sports practice (doing all three lifts on the same day). I also decided to play around with measuring bar speed and using it to help make some decisions through training. Overall my training priorities went something like: Pain lead. If something goes past a 3/10 on the pain scale, we call it. RPE. My own perception of how performance felt. Average bar speed on the app. If I couldn’t decide based on how it felt, I’d watch the video and decide based on the video and the measured speed. Let’s look at some top sets from week 1. Reverse Grip Bench x1@8 120kg 0.27ms Front Squat x5@8 110kg 0.46ms Trap Bar Deadlift x5@8 200kg 0.42ms These singles are technically week 2. I did my first-week session in a warm-up room at a comp, so I didn't get vids. SSB x1@7 150kg 0.41ms Sumo x1@7 180kg 0.23ms Everything looking fine. No massive drops post-pivot. Though the variations are really different, so it’s hard to tell even versus my pre-comp block. Now let’s compare them to the peak week of the block, week 7. Reverse Grip Bench 1@10 140kg 0.13ms Front Squat x5@8 125kg 0.38ms Trap Bar Deadlift x5@8 230kg 0.38ms SSB x1@7 170kg 0.41ms Sumo x1@7 210kg 0.27ms Overall a very good block for increases. +30kg on the trap bar deadlift is the most notable. +30kg on the sumo deadlift +10kg on reverse grip bench +15kg on front squat Going forward I’m going to pivot out and hopefully decrease fatigue a bunch. My rough plan to get towards my next competition looks a bit like this.
Given that I don’t know when in November the competition is yet, I think my next development block will be another more exploratory block, aimed at progressing some less specific work. Hopefully, you found some of this information useful, and if you’re keen to see how things go and how I develop things, stay tuned, and I’ll post the new dev block construction and implementation. |
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