Hey BBM,
I’m currently on week 12 of my second time running PB III. On week 1 of my first time running the template, I injured my shoulder and i’m now only back at ~80% of my working weight from before the injury on the flat bench press, though my incline bench and my OHP are still further behind in terms of recovery. Also, I only got back to sqatting regularly around 2-3 months ago due to an old hip injury from a couple of years ago, so I was running a linear progression just to get back up to weights that are challenging without rushing it (Though due to my shoulder injury I can only high bar squat at the moment due to a low bar squat stretching my shoulder too much). For these reasons i’m planning on running PB III for a third time, and hopefully get back to my previous weight on the bench press, and since I feel I can improve my squat a lot just by following the PB III programming rather than just running a linear progression, because I feel my hip is in a good place in terms of recovering from that injury.
The only thing is that my deadlift progress has stalled over my 2 runs of PB III. When I finished running PB II for the third time (around 5 months ago), my deadlift was 190 kg for 1 rep @ RPE 9, and as of my last deadlift session, my deadlift was 190 kg for 1 rep @ RPE 8. Are there any changes I could / should make to the deadlift programming when running PB III for the third time (both in terms of exercise selection and/or rep/sets/RPE) in order to get over this plateau, or should I just run the template again with the same programming? I always try not to overshoot in terms of RPE, and maybe for that reason i’m “afraid” of going up in weight unless i’m 100% sure I won’t be overshooting the RPE, and that could be a factor in the slow progression.
As for my second and third questions, i’m currently on a long term bulk which I started 6 months ago, and I weighed ~76.7 kg @ ~16.4% bf (according to my scale). I currently weigh ~80.8 kg @ 18.1% bf (This is based on the weekly average of the weigh ins, and i’m 22 and ~180cm for context). I’m planning on continuing bulking slowly until I reach ~87kg, and as for my goals i’d say it’s a 60/40 split between strength and hypertrophy. As for the questions:
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How do I know whether i’m making good progress on the bulk in terms of gaining muscle mass? I can see that i’m getting bigger, but i’m unsure whether it’s quality size or if half of it is added fat mass. I was getting stronger all around during this bulk, though it slightly stalled lately due to the shoulder injury (also I wasn’t actively trying to eat in a surplus for around a month or two after the injury, since I was limited in my upper body training).
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Based on the above, what would be the ideal next template to run after I run PB III for a third time (which i’m running mainly to get back on track after my injuries)? I’ve never ran a “pure” powerlifting template, the only templates I ran were the beginner template, PB I (2 times), PB II (3 times), and PB III (will be 3 times). I was thinking about running strength III or the low fatigue strength template, though i’m not sure what are the differences between the 2 and which one would be better. Also, i’m unsure whether these would be right for me since hypertrophy is a big goal for me, though it’s not the main goal.
Hey Joe,
Thanks for the message. Seems like you had a rough go of it previously, but you’re hard at work on the comeback trail now.
For your first question, are you going to be testing your DL at the end of the final week as the program outlines? I think that would be useful to know objectively how your deadlift strength performance is going without any risk of overshooting.
For your second question, a 50/50 ratio of fat to muscle would be pretty good all things considered. I know that doesn’t sound awesome, but many people do worse than that. I’d be looking for weight gain and waist changes. We’d accept some modest waist changes in most cases during periods of weight gain.
For the third question, I’d probably pick strength III or hypertrophy II if you’re cool with taking a few months off of singles.
-Jordan
Hey Jordan,
Thanks for the answers.
I wasn’t planning on testing my deadlift max because of the injuries, since I wouldn’t be able to test my squat and bench 1RM. I never actually tested my 1RM for any lift, because the only template I ran that had it programmed was PB III, and for the reasons above I didn’t run the test week. Would you recommend running the test week normally for deadlift, while keeping the rest of the training the same for all the other movements?
As for the next template I should run after running PB III again, I think strength III sounds more ideal for me since getting back on track with strength training is the slightly bigger priority for me right now due to the injuries i’ve been dealing with, and i’m looking forward to making some significant progress on my squat for example since it’s far behind my deadlift and bench press (at least it was before I injured my shoulder). Though, I might go ahead and run hypertrophy II after strength III leading up to the end of my bulk, though it’s still far in the future so i’ll save that decision for when I get closer to that time.
Just a question about hypertrophy II - I didn’t buy that template, though i’ve bought and never ran the bodybuilding template. What’s the difference between hypertrophy II and the bodybuilding template, and does it matter which one I run if I do choose to run one of them in the future?
Also out of curiosity, what’s the reason that you’re suggestion of strength III rather than the low fatigue strength template? They both seem to require the same level of training exprience, so i’m wondering what are the main differences between the two templates and who is the target audience of each template.
I wanted to edit the response but wasn’t able to, so instead i’ll post another reply in regards to testing my deadlift max:
I saw on a few other posts that the recommended way of testing you 1RM if I don’t have a previous 1RM is to use jumps of ~5% between each RPE in order to get up to RPE 10. The thing is - when I first hit 190 kg @ RPE 9 (though it was supposed to be @ RPE 8), it was the week after hitting 187.5 kg @ RPE 8, which together with the warm-ups the day I hit 190 kg @ RPE 9, made me feel like the 2.5 kg jump from the previous week would result in ~RPE 8 for that set. The heaviest I ever deadlifted was 190 kg @ RPE 8, though I find it hard to believe that i’ll be able to hit 197.5 kg @ RPE 9 and then 205 kg @ RPE 10 considering 190 is the heaviest I ever lifted, and usually even small changes in weight feel like a whole RPE higher if it’s a weight i’ve never lifted before.
So, considering this will be my first time intentionally going for 1 rep @ 9 and 10, should I still stick to the recommended 5% jumps between attempts, or should I be more conservative and maybe aim for 190 kg @ ~RPE 8, 195 kg @ ~RPE 9, and 200 kg @ ~RPE 10?
Yea, I think the 5% jumps are reasonable for guidance, but I wouldn’t adhere strictly to it. I’d plan on doing something like 180, 190, 200 for a test, adjusting as needed based on feedback.
Regarding the rationale for 1RM testing in this and similar cases, I think that managing programming solely off e1RMs based on singles can be difficult to do, especially without a 1RM anchor and/or lots of training history.
Regarding the Hypertrophy II template, biggest difference between it and the BB templates are the splits and amount of isolation work. The BB template is a body part split and the hypertrophy templates are full-body split. More isolation work in the BB templates than the hypertrophy ones. It doesn’t matter to me which one you run in the future, however I do think the hypertrophy template has a bit more strength specific work.
Finally, I think the low fatigue template is most geared towards strength development in a more experienced lifter. I would expect a person at this level of training to have 1RM history. I don’t think it’s a bad template per se’, but I thought strength III fit your stated goals better.
Thanks Jordan, i’ll go ahead and do as you suggested.
As for what my training looks like after I have an accurate 1RM test, do I choose my weights based on that number for the next training template, or do I continue working based on what I feel like is the correct weight for that reps and RPE based on how the warm-ups feel that day? The reason i’m asking that is that I would expect trainees such as myself who are less experienced in 1RM testing to perfrom worse than their e1RM when testing their max, though maybe going off of that number in terms of sub-maximal training (@ RPE 7-8) will lead to undershooting the suggested RPE’s in the templates. To sum up the question, i’m not quite sure how testing my 1RM is going to affect my training going forward, other than then testing it again at the end of the next template to see if I made progress.
Hey Josh,
This is a good question. While I agree that less experienced individuals are likely to not express their 1RM as efficiently as their more trained counterparts, I think using e1RMs to pick weights is more likely to produce an undershoot than an overshoot. I also think that the less-trained individuals’ feel for what the weight should be on a given day is also less developed. I think these things mostly cancel each other out.
In practice, I would recommend using your e1RM to calculate the target weight for given rep and RPE scheme on the day. I would give yourself brackets at -10% and +10% from this number, within which you would feel out the correct weight for the day. Doing a heavy warm-up based on your 1RM for the same number of reps as your top set(s), but 1 RPE under would be a good way to feel this out with increased precision.
Got it, thanks for the help Jordan