Hi Docs,
Right now I’m on week 4 of Strength I in preparation for my first meet and I’m really enjoying the progress on my lifts I’m seeing during the program so far (not such a fan of Friday Tempo Squats, but hey, not every workout is gonna be a home-run).
However, because I am bad at counting, I just realized that running the program as written will end up with the final day, Week 13 day 3, falling two weeks before the the scheduled meet. The obvious solution is to repeat a couple of the program’s weeks so the taper and peaking phase coincides with the run-up to the meet, and I’m wondering if there were any particular weeks you’d recommend doubling up on. I was thinking of either re-running week 4 again and/or potentially doing week 5 twice to not mess with fatigue or timing too much prior to the meet, but I’m certainly open to suggestions from the experts!
Also as a side-note, I know you guys talk about the importance of conditioning on the podcast a lot, but Strength 1 doesn’t really have a lot of that included, usually just 1 or 2 sessions of LISS per week and a single lonely HIIT session in week 4*, which doesn’t meet the recommended guidelines. With the 150-minute recommendation in mind, I’ve been doing around ~30 minutes of LISS after each of my workouts with a mild jog on Tuesdays. So far I haven’t felt run-down and the sRPE isn’t getting too intense (usually around 7 or so), so would I be fine to continue this for the immediate future? And if so, when would you recommend reducing the cardio load prior to the meet?
Thanks!
P.S. Although I really like the convenience of the app, one thing I like about the Excel spreadsheets is the rest time for different exercises. Is this something you could add to the app?
*I noticed that on weeks 5, 6, and 7 in the app, there is no cardio on the second GPP day but on the Excel spreadsheet there is HIIT prescribed – which is the “correct” programming? Also the in-app template notes for the GPP LISS in week 4 says, “20 sec spring every 2 min x 14 minutes,” which seems like a transcription error from the HIIT session.