After Strength I: Hyp or Powerbuilding?

[a cool username]

That's great to hear! I'll start PB II next week. Thanks so much for the response!

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I think PB II or Strength II would be great. Running them back to back is not only fine, but preferable for people who are most interested in strength improvements.

[a cool username]

Hey all,

I'm finishing up Strength I this week and trying to pick a template to run next. For the first time, I now have 4 days open to train and I was thinking Powerbuilding II might be a good option. But I've heard that running strength templates back to back is not great in the long term, and I've been running strength templates for the past 23 weeks. Would it be better to switch it up and run hypertrophy? And if hypertrophy is the best bet, I'm wondering if Hyp1 is the best bet since I haven't run a hypertrophy template in years.

Goals: I train mostly for fun and general health, and my favorite part is seeing my e1RM go up. In particular, I'd love to get my bench higher and I was thinking the added volume from a 4th day might help. But I want to keep lifting long term, so I don't want to chase quick e1RM gains at the expense of long term development. I'm sure I'd have more fun running PB2, but I would be fine running hypertrophy if that makes more sense right now.

Training experience: SSNLP -> Bridge v1 -> 3 Day Hypertrophy (2018 version) -> Bridge v3 -> I got derailed for a year and lost a bunch of weight and strength, but picked it back up after my gym reopened post-COVID -> Beginner template (free version, looped for 13 weeks) -> Powerbuilding I -> Strength I.

Numbers: I'm 28(M), 186lbs, 6'2". With Strength I, my e1RM's have gone from 350->415 (squat), 210->235 (bench), 425->475 (deadlift). I had just slightly less progress on all fronts during PB1. Over the past 23 weeks I've gained 16lbs.

TLDR: I prefer strength programs, but I've heard it's bad to run them repeatedly back to back. In the interest of long term gains should I throw in a hypertrophy template even though it's not my preference?

PS. You all are saints for all the worderful info you put out for ps free!!! Thanks for the help.