Hamstring irritation due to squat workload on the Bridge day 1 session

[collin_gress]

When running The Bridge (and in the past, Texas Method), I commonly find that I am unable to perform the squats on the Wednesday (second) training session. This is due to pain in this area which increases with additional weight and ROM.



In most cases, if I simply skip squats on Wednesday I have no issues squatting on Friday. Strangely, there is no pain in this area when actually performing the squats on Monday which seem to cause this irritation. For extra context, I have dealt with this issue on and off for the past 2-3 years and I can't attribute it to any specific injury event.

Question: how should I deal with this issue in my programming in the future? Should I continue with the same volume and intensity on Monday and skip the Wednesday squats? Should I adjust the workload on Monday?

Thanks!

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I would just go lighter on Wednesday and make sure you're using RPE to autoregulate your intensity on Day 1 and 3. It is unusual that you've not been able to increase your work capacity to be able to squat 3x/wk after 2-3 years of training (or more). I'd be curious as to what type of programming you've been running and how you've selected loading in addition to your expectations about squatting a few days later.

[collin_gress]

I have the tendency to choose weights that are .5-1 RPE too heavy so that's definitely part of the equation that I'm working on.

Most of my previous training has been 5-3-1 templates because I was constantly running into hamstring issues when I'd try programs with increased squat/DL frequency. I would expect to tolerate the frequency better as a 27 y/o male.

As far as my expectations for squatting a few days later, I would expect around a 10% decrease in performance. I'll try more conservative auto-regulation with less preparatory arousal and see where that gets me.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Yea I think you're overshooting on Day 1, perhaps using a bunch of hype/stimulation to hit some arbitrary numbers vs just training, and this is compromising your ability to handle the workload. I would also try to go into the 2nd day with no expectations, e.g. even using 30% of your day 1's weight may be appropriate depending on your readiness to train (squat) on the given day.