On the right track with The Bridge?

[tate1981]

Hey guys, just wanting to check i'm somewhere on the right track with my first attempt at The Bridge. When i was running SSNLP after a workout i was pretty beat up and felt completely trashed. When i'm finishing up my workouts on The Bridge i am leaving the gym nowhere near as trashed and feeling pretty good. All that i hear/read from SS is intensity is what matters, weight on the bar matters and im left wondering if im hitting things hard enough. Today i finished up Day 2 on The Bridge

Pause Squat [email protected] 70kg, [email protected] 75kg, [email protected] 80kg
Press (w/belt) [email protected] 40kg [email protected] 42.5kg [email protected] 45kg
Barbell Row [email protected] 60kg [email protected] 65kg [email protected] 70kg
GPP
Chins 7mins AMRAP 5,5,5,3,3,3
Ab wheel rollout 7mins AMRAP 10,10,8,8,8
25min SSC.

When i wrapped up LP, my Squat was around 115kg - 120kg 3x5 with deloading and re-runs for a few extra kilos and i felt like garbage. Things feel good on The Bridge but am i pushing hard enough to be building strength when only hitting 80kg on Squat variations. When Rippetoe talks about RPE he says its pretty much useless, even for late intermediate trainees (which i'm nowhere near yet) and it makes me think. I must admit however, i am really enjoying this new form of training and the control movements feel like they are improving my form on this program. When all i did on LP was lift relatively heavy workout after workout i was skeptical. I am probably going to run The Bridge a second time through after this run just to really try and nail RPE.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Hey guys, just wanting to check i'm somewhere on the right track with my first attempt at The Bridge. When i was running SSNLP after a workout i was pretty beat up and felt completely trashed. When i'm finishing up my workouts on The Bridge i am leaving the gym nowhere near as trashed and feeling pretty good.

That's good. Session RPE helps control acute on chronic workload management. Feeling "trashed" and "beat up" aren't necessarily good or bad markers of anything, but session RPE can be useful.

All that i hear/read from SS is intensity is what matters, weight on the bar matters and im left wondering if im hitting things hard enough.

Arguing that intensity is the most important programming variable for strength improvement is interesting in that is is both true and false at the same time.

Using the correct intensity is very important for generating adaptations that improve performance in that intensity range. For example, doing heavy sets of 5 all the time will improve your ability to do heavy sets of 5 more than it will help you get better at doing sets of 1 or 10.

To get better at doing sets of 1, doing singles helps more than sets of 5. The same principle holds true for sets of 10. Strength is specific in many ways and there is no such thing as general strength.

That said, the degree that doing sets of 5 improves your 1RM or 10RM is called transference or carry-over and the more closely-related two tasks are- the more carry over there is.
Is there more carry over to a 1RM from doing a heavy set of 5 (5RM or ~86%) than a moderate set of 5 (75%)? Likely not. The adaptations necessary for strength improvement (increased coordination, voluntary muscle contraction, tissue stiffness, sarcomereogenesis, etc.) driven by these two sets are relatively similar with an admittedly slight edge going to the 5RM scenario IF we limit the volume to one set of 5, which we'd HAVE TO if we used a 5RM.

Problem with that is we know we need more volume to drive hypertrophy adaptations, which are increasingly involved in strength improvements as a client goes further on in training. Volume is THE MAIN VARIABLE that correlates to hypertrophy improvements when intensities > 65-70% are used. So sure, intensity is important to get you in the range for useful work to be done- you just have to do enough work there in order to drive the fitness adaptations that you're seeking.

Another problem with the intensity-only argument is that "adding weight to the bar" is associated with a higher intensity, which is not reliably true. If you squat 315 x 5 @ RPE 10 and then 3 days later squat 320 x 5 @ RPE 8, which scenario is done at a higher intensity? The first day, as you were stronger on the second session and worked at a lower relative intensity (relative to your 1RM that day) even though you added 5lbs. The fact that you added 5lbs to the bar is meaningless for all training adaptations in this scenario.

As a final problem with the intensity-only argument (not the last one, just the final one here...) - it supports this logical intuition that heavier=better for all strength-related applications. For example, if one wonders whether the front squat or low bar squat is better for "strength"- the "intensity-only" camp would say low bar is better because it's heavier.

We argue the following points:
-Strength is force production in a specific context, e.g. running and squatting are different displays of strength with different demands force production
-Strength, as defined above, is specific to joint angle, muscle lengths, movement, contraction type, contraction velocity, etc. In short, force production in the squat is different than force production in running. This doesn't mean there isn't any carry over between the two, however it means that the less similar two movements are in joint angle, muscle length, movement, contraction type, contraction velocity, etc. then the less carry over there are.
-Without a specific task assessing "strength", neither the front squat or low bar squat are better for developing strength. They are equal- just different movements.

[tate1981]

Thanks for the lengthy reply Jordan. Just looked over the upcoming weeks in The Bridge. I'm currently on week 3, and i see a change in intensity and rep ranges i'm sure i will be pushing. Where would i go after finishing up The Bridge? Bridge 2.0? I was going to take another run-through of Bridge 1.0 just to try and nail down RPE. Does that sound ok running it twice through?

[Leah Lutz]

Thanks for the lengthy reply Jordan. Just looked over the upcoming weeks in The Bridge. I'm currently on week 3, and i see a change in intensity and rep ranges i'm sure i will be pushing. Where would i go after finishing up The Bridge? Bridge 2.0? I was going to take another run-through of Bridge 1.0 just to try and nail down RPE. Does that sound ok running it twice through?

If you are making progress on Bridge 1.0, another run of that will most likely be just fine. You can also move on to Bridge 2.0.