Bridge 3-0-3 Tempo Squats

Good Morning,
A question regarding 3-0-3 tempo squats. I’m new to RPE style training. I ran starting strength before jumping on to the 531 band wagon with little success over the past year so I’ve decided to give the Bridge a try because of the solid reviews and content that Barbell Medicine puts out.
My 1rm squat single is 410 and 1st week of the bridge I worked up to 245x8 @RPE 8 on the 3-0-3 tempo squat. Does this sound close to where I should be or does this seem a bit low compared to my 1rm? Honestly they were tough but I made sure that they were true 3sec tempos by counting 1000s in my head durning descent and then back up. I know there is a learning curve and I’m enjoying the training so far, I just want to make sure that I’m not shorting myself.
Thanks in advance.

Hey, I’ve an e1RM of 430 on the squat and I just did 270 on the tempo squat. I probably do them a little faster than you too, since I just do a slow count of 1, 2, 3. If you want to judge these things better for yourself, take the RPE chart that comes with the bridge and calculate your 8RM at an RPE of 8 based off your 1RM of 410. It’ll be about 300 pounds since it’s 74%. Then consider that you’re going deliberately slow on the way down and up and it seems reasonable to knock off a bunch more weight. Only started with the bridge and RPE in January, so take my advice for what it’s worth.

I have similar numbers and my experience has been exactly the same, they’re really hard…

Thanks for the replies!
I’ll keep it up and I’m sure as time goes on I will get more competent with the RPE training. I’ve got a bit of a problem second guessing myself this early into it.
Thanks again.

If you hit your RPE, you hit the intended training stress for the day. The exact weight on the bar doesn’t matter, we play the long game here over the short game. It will increase in time. 303’s are really tough. Not only that, but I’m assuming you’ve never done 303’s before, so you’ll get some noob gains as your body adapts quickly to the novel stress.

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I looked up “tempo” and found out it’s an ancient Greek word for “torture”. Not Latin like you might have been taught.

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Can I do these with belt or no belt

@Sandokan13 If something is not the competition lift it is without a belt. Tempo squats are a variation, so no belt.

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@Sandokan13
Here is the reasoning for no belt per The Bridge 1.0

Most variations besides the squat w/ belt should be performed beltless. This is not done to increase how much the “core” gets trained or to get the lifter to use their abs better, as neither of those statements are supported by evidence. Rather, beltless squats allow for a training stress to be achieved with a slightly lighter weight, which may allow for technique corrections and decreased load-induced musculoskeletal pain.

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