Hi doctors,
I’ve been using different 3-day Barbell Medicine for a good while now, mostly Powerbuilding 1 (and before that the old Hypertrophy Template) when losing weight and Strength 1 (and Bridge 3.0 before that) to gain weight. I‘ve had good results, relative to being a low-responder and still being rather small in the absolute sense, losing a total of 5 kg of weight/9 cm of my waist (from 90 cm to 81 cm) while putting 67.5 kg on my estimated total.
But progress of both e1RM gains and body composition changes has diminished quite a bit now, so I figured it’s time to move on to the 4-day templates (I already bought the templates). I plan on running a Powerbuilding Template in a deficit for my next cycle, so my question:
If it were you, would you wait until making the first time ever switch to 4-day templates until conditions for muscle gain are more ideal (i.e. next time I’m in a surplus) to really get the most out of all the new extra volume, or would you switch right now despite the caloric deficit?
What are your anthropometric measurements (BW, height, and WC) and how much are you lifting for your working sets? Just trying to get a feel for where you are on your journey.
I’m male, 28 years old, 175 cm height, 72 kg bodyweight, 83 cm waist circumference (up 2 cm in the past 9 weeks eating at a surplus), e1RMs for S/B/D are 160/87.5/185 (kg), just started week 10 of Strength 1 (not going to run the peaking/testing weeks). I particularly struggle to make any progress on the bench.
You might respond well to the additional volume of a 4-day program. You could just add a few sets to the upper body work for Strength I and keep the 3 day template if your squat and dead are progressing nicely. I’d probably start there first.
Hmmm, maybe not, as it’s a little bit different with respect to volume and training setup. If you haven’t run it before, I don’t think I’d modify it prospectively.
Gotcha. I’ve ran PB I multiple times before, and I was planning to run it (or PB II, hence my question) again in a slight deficit after Strength I. In light of your advice, would it be an option to run PB I with an additional upper body only day (using PB II sets/reps/exercises basically) before switching to the full four days eventually?
There are many ways to go about adding more volume, but my preference would be to add more sets (not reps) to the existing prescription on current training days.
Sorry to hijack the thread, but at what intensity would the additional set(s) be? Would it generally be the same as the last set / backoff set, or would you go for a bit lower intensity here?
Example 1:
5@6
5@7
5@8 x 3 sets
Adittional set: 5@8?
Example 2:
5@7
5@8
5@9
Remove 5% from 5@9, and perform sets until @9 (cap at 3 sets)
Additional set: change cap to 4 sets?
Example 3:
1@8
Remove 20% and do 5x5.
Additional set: just add another set at the same weight?
My response to training has been pretty poor overall, and I figured it’s worth trying to add a set or two to the templates to see if I can maybe start making some progress.
