Running 12 Week Strength without a Peaking phase

[PatLown]

I'm not planning to go to a meet but I do have the time to train four days a week. Should I just run Weeks 1-8 and then a low stress week?

Also, for the overload bench variation, I do not have a slingshot but my gym has chains. However, there is only one set and no one knows the actual weight of the chains. I did week 0 this week and just worked up to the prescribed RPE which had me doing a set of 4 @9 with 255lbs. My regular bench set of 4 @9 is between 265 and 275. Is just sticking to the RPE fine since I don't know the weight or should i move to board press?

[Austin Baraki]

1) You could certainly do that. In general, we still recommend that folks periodically go through those sorts of intensification/peaking phases where volume comes down and intensity goes up, so that they can actually realize some of their developed strength gains, but also for the psychological effects so you aren't constantly training with very high volumes every week, year-round.

2) If you plan to consistently train there and use the same set of chains over the course of the program, just using the RPEs is fine. If you won't always have access to those (and therefore won't be able to "compare" efforts / performances from week to week), then I'd move on.

[HulkFeet]

PatLown Does your gym have a scale? Weigh yourself with and without holding the chains if you really want to know.