Dr. Bridgelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the RPE

Other Discussions Training Logs
21

Week 5, Workout 3
Friday 3/2/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
DL 300x4@6
315x4@7.5
325x4@8.5
325x1*
295x4@8
Bench, 1ct
Pause		 182.5x4@6
192.5x4@7
202.5x4@8
202.5x4@8
202.5x4@8
202.5x4@8
202.5x4@9
Squat, beltless 225x6@6.5
250x6@8.5
260x6@10
255x5@9.5

.
DL I did some math and was like, well if last week I did 390 for 1, and techincally I’m supposed to progress each week, and I did get volume, I’ll calculate today’s 4@8 off an e1RM of 395 which came out to 330. 315 felt a little more grindy than I expected for 330, so I backed off the planned working weight to only 325, which didn’t feel bad the first set, but the 2nd set, my lower back on the right side wasn’t liking it after the first rep. I actually let go, and then tried again for the 2nd rep and after breaking it away from the ground, decided “nope” that just feels bad, although not necessarily painful. I did take more rest during my warm up, but 4 rather than the 5 that I think I remember deciding on during an earlier pulling session.

Paused Bench I really liked how these reps felt. For every rep but the last one on the last set, I could just feel the tension all the way up and all the way down and felt my strength moving the weight in perfect control, whereas the final rep was just a bit of a grind, hence the @9.
Squat, beltless I had trouble picking weights for this one, and judging the RPE. When I wracked the 1st set of 260lb I marked it down as a 9.5 even though the last rep was quite a grind, and then when I did the last set, I felt unsure if I’d get a 6th and after racking it was like “wait, if I think I could get 6 on that but I’m not sure, that means it’s a 9.5 and my last set was DEFINATELY worse, so it’s a 10.” I re-marked my google sheets log accordingly.

22

Week 5 GPP
Sat 3/3/2018

7 minutes AMRAP Pull ups (all normal grip)
8,8,6,6,5,5,5: 43 total
7 minutes isometric abbs
1 min Plank
1 min Side Plank left
1 min Side Plank Right
4 min: rotation between plank and v-sit holds or static flutter kicks (don’t know what else to call them)
“7” minutes Arm Work:
35lb Alternating Hammer Curls
70LB 2 hand Overhead Tri. extensions
6 Super sets of 10 reps with no rest in between. 2 weeks ago I did these and my arms were dead after the 5th set at exactly 5 minutes. This time, I didn’t slow down nearly as much as things went along and I got a 6th set in with only 5:27 on the timer. I’m not sure if I’m going to try to keep this weight and try for more volume before my 7 minutes are up, or up the weight.

Hmmmm, I just went back to the source article (Jordan’s 12 ways to skin the TM) for where I got this arm work idea, and it looks like more volume.

The arm superset just means pick 1 bicep exercise and 1 tricep exercise, do 8-15 reps per exercise and alternate back and forth until your arms fall off. The idea would be to increase the volume over weeks, i.e. add more time to the training in order to accrue more reps and sets.

25 minutes steady state Cardio @~130bpm.

I was very winded after the arm work, and after grabbing a drink at the water fountain on the far side of the gym, I finally grabbed the pulse measurement plates on the stationary bike, and my pulse was still 135. The Mrs was bugging me about how much longer we had, so I only spent 25 min on the bike, and considered the arm work to be the other 5 minutes specified.

23

Week 6, Day 1
Monday, 3/5/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Squat 280x4@7*
305x1@8
290x3@9
275x4@8
275x4@8
Paused
Bench,
3ct		 187.5x3@7
195x3@8.5
200x3@8.5
205x3@9
200x3@9
Paused DL
2ct		 275x4@8
290x4@9
285x4@9

.
Squats: I messed up calculating my weights before hand, thinking last week I did 280x5@8 when it was only 275. Add to that my history of not being able to Squat heavier low rep loads for the reps calculations say I should be able to do based off past 5 rep performances. I tried to do the warm up based off of flawed memory of advice Jordan gave for this type of set. I warmed up to 15lb under what I wrongly expected to do my 4’s at, then did my first single 15lb short of what I wrongly calculated I should be able to do @8… When that weight felt like an 8, I went back and took 5lb off my calculated 4’s preceded to do those, and on the 3rd rep, stopped, since I knew I could only get 1 more. The rest of the workout is documented…

By the way I’ve only ever done a single for 305 once before, and that one was demonstrably high, whereas this one was below parallel, so PR at least, and it probably was @8, so I’ve got more in me if I were trying to try my max, which I’m not.
.
Paused Bench (3ct): I expected 195 to be an 8, but it felt like I wasn’t sure I’d get 2 more, so I marked it as 8.5 and only increased the weight to 200 for my first set at 9. Well the effort for that set was no harder than 195 (maybe even a nose hair less) so I upped the weight again for my 2nd working set, and it felt right on spot. As the Scivation Strong article says for 9’s the weight should go down for the next to be a 9, I dropped the weight back to 200, and it still felt like a 9.

Paused DL: Weight was ~5% lower than last week, but then I paused for 2ct rather than 1 from last week. Although I bet if there were video evidence many of these pauses probably weren’t for 2 seconds, especially by the 4th rep…

24

So 4 hours after my workout, I was driving home and decided to help a woman stuck in traffic with a broken down 7 seater SUV. So she put it in neutral, the light changed stopping crossing traffic, and I said OK lets go, and got behind and started pushing on my own. The first 5 feet or so were barely up hill getting from one street to the next making for a slow grueling start, and then to the right 50 feet to get her safely into a church’s turn lane. I was struggling to get enough breath on the way back to my car afterwards, and 10 minutes later when I got home the Mrs. was waiting in the driveway for me to help unload the 3 little ones from her car. I wobbled over to her car to help out, but I really felt tuckered.

So yah, I had some extra exertion yesterday that wasn’t programmed in, but WTF am I training strength for if I don’t use it in life eh?

25

Week 6, Workout 2
Wednesday 3/7/2018
.

Exercise
 Wt x Reps @ RPE
Pin Squat
 235x3@7
250x3@8
265x3@9
265x3@9
265x3@9.5
Press
 142.5x4@8
142.5x4@8
142.5x4@8
142.5x4@9
DB Rows
 60x10
80x10
105x20

.
Pin squats First @9 felt like I could only do 1 more, but also felt like I’d have no trouble doing the same weight with about the same effort, something I’m more used to appraising… By the 3rd set, the final rep was harder, so I marked it down as a 9.5
Press I offered to let a guy work in his squats when I’d finished my last warm up rep, and after he did his first warm up set, I accidentally put on 142.5 (which happened to be my expected working weight for my 4’s at 8) when I meant to load 152.5 for my expected single @8. I racked my single, and realized my mistake, and quickly decided to just carry on as a set of 4, which was actually a little tougher than it would have been otherwise, since I didn’t have the eccentric portion between the 1st and 2nd reps… I’ll be posting a form check in the training section later. Today is one of the first times I’ve ever done a video of press.

DB Rows As anticipated, 105 was easier than 100 last week since the gym doesn’t have the wider handled dumbells beyond 100#. God I love doing these things.

26

Week 6, Workout 3
Friday 3/9/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
DL 355x1@8
325x4@8
325x4@8
325x4@8
325x4@8.5
Bench, 1ct
Pause		 225x1@8
205x4@8
205x4@8
205x4@8.5
205x4@9.5
Squat, beltless 225x6@6
240x6@7
250x6@8
250x6@8
250x6@8.5
250x6@8

.
DL I upped my rest time to 5 minutes and the later sets didn’t tank. Which was nice.
Paused Bench I felt really good doing 225, and it might have been a 7.5, but I went conservative with my RPE, and then my corresponding 4s had RPE creep.
Squat, beltless Yay

This took me nearly 2.5 hours. OMG what a long workout. Some of that was the extra warm up for the singles.

27

Week 6 GPP
Sat 3/10/2018

7 minutes AMRAP Pull ups (all normal grip)
8,8,8,6,6,6,6: 48 total, 5 more than last week.
7 minutes isometric abbs
1 min Plank
1 min Side Plank left
1 min Side Plank Right
4 30 second planks rotated with 3 10 second dragon flags in between.
3 30 second v sits.
“7” minutes Arm Work:
35lb Alternating Hammer Curls
70LB 2 hand Overhead Tri. extensions
6 Super sets of 10 reps with no rest in between

30 minutes steady state Cardio @~130bpm.

28

Week 7, Day 1
Monday, 3/12/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Squat 315x1@8.5
290x3@8
290x3@8
290x3@8
290x3@8
Pin
Bench,		 187.5x3@7
195x3@8.5
200x3@8.5
205x3@9
200x3@9
Paused DL
2ct		 290x3@7
305x3@8
320x3@9
315x3@9

.
Squats: 315x1 is a new record for me. As I mentioned last week, per past performance, I usually can’t do low rep loads for nearly the weight that 5RM calculated out to lower rep maxes predict, but today’s 3s@8 went smooth, especially the last set, which felt slightly easier than the first to be honest. 3rd set video shows the knees went forward slightly at the bottom, but depth was pretty good on all reps, especially the 315x1!!!
.
Pin Bench: This was my first time doing these, let alone at this rep range, so I was very unsure of the weight and the RPE was iffy. Plus, it took me half an hour from when I got in the gym, to when I did my top 1Rep on Squat, so when 200x3 was @8.5, I just called that my first working set and went from there for time’s sake. Good thing, because my paused DL warmup went LONG

Paused DL: With the way last week went, I was afraid this week’s paused DL would be low too, and worked up to 305 anticipating that to be my @9 but it was an easy 8, so I slapped on 5% more and 320 was @9. Last set I took off 5# to maintain the 9, and although it was a bit of a grind, I still think it was a 9 considering I was able to walk it the couple steps to the squat safeties to facilitate unloading the weight. There have deffinately been days in the past when I couldn’t do that.

29

Week 7, Workout 2
Wednesday 3/14/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Pin Squat 240x3@7
255x3@8
270x3@8.5
270x3@9
270x3@9
Press 155x1@9.5
147.5x3@9
145x4@8.5
145x4@8.5
147.5x3@9
DB Rows 60x10
85x10
110x20

.
Pin squats 5lb more than last week felt easier than last week, as reflected by what I marked down for RPE’s
Press Ugg. Apparently I need the heavy singles work, because I SUCK at them. I couldn’t even get 160 off my shoulders, so I dropped it down to 155, waited 2 min, and got that up, although it was a grind. Knowing I have less trouble repping out slightly lower weights, I calculated my 3’s as if my single was an 8. The first set of 3 felt like a lagit 9, so I took off the micro plates for set 2, and it felt like an 8 maybe an 8.5… I guess I needed more active recovery from that grueling single or something, because the RPE didn’t creep like I expected for set 3, so I put the micro’s back on, which put me back at the 9 that the program specifies.

DB Rows 110x20 felt good, I could have done a rep or 2 or more still. Looking forward to blowing past my 115x20 PR in a few weeks.

Next week is the low stress week, and then I’m going to be repeating the program from week 2 (per recommendations to not do the 2 low stress weeks in a row when re-running The Bridge). I’ll be editing the first post to reflect the long term nature of the log beyond the first run, and I’ll add an image of the graph of my e1RMs I generated yesterday.

I’m pretty happy with how my squats have gone, which have been my weakest lift by far. The week after my daughter was born, I tested myself with 315, which stapled me to the safetys so Monday’s easy 315 had me stoked. DL, I had poor execution of The Program, not helped by the 1RM competition on week 4. Hopefully now that I’m more comfortable with the program, and more conditioned to the higher DL volume, I can execute it better on a second run and see nice results, because unless Monday’s pulls are indicative of an up-turn, I’ve just spun my wheels, and the standard 1 heavy set of 5 with some volume of a variant on a squat day would have gotten me further than I am now. Bench, I’ve only ever done TnG, so I’m unsure if I’ve gotten much stronger, but presumably I have. Press… well I know what I could have done to get much better results in Press, Maybe during the second run I’ll add a block of 3x8@8 Press to Saturday rather than doing arms…

30

Week 7, Workout 3
Friday 3/16/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
DL 360x1@8
335x3@8
335x3@8
335x3@7.5
335x3@8
Bench, 1ct
Pause		 230x1@8
220x3@9
220x3@9.5
215x3@9
210x3@8.5
Squat, beltless 230x6@6
245x6@7.5
250x6@8
250x6@8
250x6@8
250x6@8.5

.
DL I don’t know why, but the 3rd set seemed super easy to the point that I checked to see if someone took weight off the bar when I wasn’t looking or something. I didn’t exactly think of it in terms of RPE at the time, but since it was so much easier than the other sets, I marked it as a 7.5.
Paused Bench Last set, I was pressing the last rep and realized I’d pretty much T&G’d it with very little pause. I think I paused the other reps but I’m not sure. This probably has something to do with why the RPE didn’t stay at a 9 with the slight decrease in weight.
Squat, beltless Yay

I took out some of my warmup sets this time, and some other guys took over my working weight for DL, relieving me of having to strip the bar, so today didn’t take the 2.5 hours last week did, but it was still over 2 hours.

Edit: I updated the OP to make it a more long term friendly intro to this log, including a e1RM graph.

31

Week 7 GPP
Sat 3/17/2018

7 minutes AMRAP Pull ups (all normal grip)
8,8,8,7,6,6,6: 49 total, 1 more than last week.
7 minutes isometric abbs
1 min Plank
1 min Side Plank left
1 min Side Plank Right
30 second planks rotated with 3 10 second dragon flags in between.
2 30 second v sits rotated with 2 30 second planks.
“7” minutes Arm Work:
35lb Alternating Hammer Curls
70LB 2 hand Overhead Tri. extensions
7 Super sets of 10 reps with no rest in between, timer had 41 seconds left after I put the weight down after the last set.

30 minutes steady state Cardio @~130bpm.

Here’s a video of the dragon flag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5h1Ex_OSBg

1 Like
32

Love your chart in the first post - would you be willing to share? I’ve purchased Bridge 2.0, HLM, 12 week Strength, and Hypertrophy, but I love the stacked line chart to see the progress on all the lifts together.

33

Week 8, Day 1
Monday, 3/19/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Squat 305x1@9.5
275x3@8
275x3@7.5
Paused
Bench,
3ct		 185x3@7
195x3@8
205x3@9
Paused DL
2ct		 295x3@7
310x3@8
325x3@9

.
Squats: I left my knee slieves in the wash, and my warmup single at 290 felt heavier than I expected, so I adjusted my top 1R to 305 from my anticipated 320 and it was tough! So I adjusted my 3s@8 from the anticipated 295 to 275. The second set actually felt easier than the first, so I marked it as a 7.5. I remmember hearing once that knee slieves can acount for a 5lb difference in a squat, so they alone probably don’t account for such a drop in my squats…

.
Paused Bench, 3ct: I downloaded a metronome app, and used it to pace my pauses at the bottom. They felt like forever, and were probably a little longer than the last time I did 3R 3ct pauses, but the weight was maintained. Looking forward to using the app for my 3-0-3s so I can show up @neandrewthal on how much weight I can do on 8R tempo squats compared to my belted squats. :wink:

Paused DL: RAWR!

34

Week 8, Workout 2
Wednesday 3/21/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Pin Squat 235x4@7
250x4@8
260x4@9
Press 155x1@8.5
150x0@
115x8@8
DB Rows 65x10
90x10
115x20

.
Pin squats I based my 4rep weight off of the e1RM of last weeks 3R weight +5# and things went well.
Press 155x1 went up easier than last week, but then when I tried to go up 2.5# from last week’s 3@9, I couldn’t get the bar above my nose. So I deviated from the program and did a set of 8@8 for a relatively light weight. I’m going to have to think long and hard about what I’m going to do with my press programming for my 2nd bridge cycle.
DB Rows 115x20, I do my weak left side first, then take another minute of rest and do the right side. Today, on the left side, I ended up resetting my grip by setting the weight down before grinding out the last 2 reps. I think putting away the 90pounder between the last warm up and that set was detrimental to the set, especially since I ended up on the bench farthest from where its racked. I’ll repeat the weight next week.

Today’s workout only took around 1:15, although the DB rows I take much less time resting than I do for BB work.

35

Week 8, Workout 3
Friday 3/23/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
DL 365x1@8
340x3@8
Bench, 1ct
Pause		 235x1@8
225x3@9.5
Squat, beltless 230x6@6
245x6@7.5
255x6@8
255x6@8.5

.
DL I didn’t notice that the set of 3 was supposed to be at 9 unlike last week until I’d already done it.
Paused Bench Last rep went up kinda slow, but didn’t feel all out.
Squat, beltless My legs are tired as I type this.

I’ll be starting a second run of The Bridge 1.0 next week, and I think I’ll make some adjustments to the press portion of the program.

36

I’m running my 2nd run of the Bridge, starting today. I’m starting on week 2 to avoid 2 low stress weeks in a row.

Bridge Run 2 “Week 2,” Workout 1
Monday 3/26/18
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Squat 250x5@6
265x5@7
280x5@8
280x5@8
280x5@8
CGB 190x4@7
200x4@8
210x4@8.5
210x4@9.5
Rack Pulls 270x7@6
285x7@7
300x7@8
300x7@8

.
Squat: These felt good. Although reviewing the videos (I’ll include the last set at the bottom of the post) my knees frequently looked squishy, and I barely broke parallel on multiple reps, although I’m pretty sure I was never above parallel at the bottom. The lower rep range work always comes up short on e1RMs, and I was glad to see that I was able to see my e1RM climb on todays work now that I’m back to 5s.
CGB: Looking back at my last working weight, for CGB, I did 197.5 for 8.5, 4 weeks ago, so I planned on working up to 200 for my 9s but that felt like an easy 8, so I just kept going. 210 felt easier than an 9, but when I repeated the weight the last rep ground. I wouldn’t have tried for a theoretical 10th without a spotter so I’m calling it a 9.5. Lack of familiarity with the movement contributes to lack of confidence on the RPE estimate.

Rack Pulls: Back to pulling from on top of bumper plates. I did 5 minute rest intervals after everything RPE7+ which I determined to be necessary a few weeks ago or my RPE tanks hard core. Interestingly, each set I felt like I could keep going even though it was a grind, but once I set the weight down and picked up my phone, I felt SO DRAINED. By the time 5 minutes rest was over, I felt rip roaring ready to go though. Hopefully I can condition myself to the extra volume for pulls and can bring these rest intervals down to 4 minutes.

I bought the HLM and hypertrophy templates this weekend during the spring discount. If my 2nd bridge run finishes better than the 1st (meaning a prettier upward curve to the graph shown on my first post) I suppose I’ll go into HLM, otherwise, I’ll do a “palate cleanse” with hypertrophy.

Edit to add: Saturday, I ended up spending the day playing with my kids. Which means I walked with them for a couple miles to and from the park, much of that carrying the 40lb 6 year old on my shoulders. so I was penty active, but I didn’t do a programmed GPP day.

37

Week 2, Workout 2
Wednesday 2/7/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
2ct paused Squat 235x4@7
245x4@8
260x4@8.5
260x4@9
Press 132.5x3@6.5
140x3@7.5
147.5x3@8.5
147.5x3@9
147.5x3@9.5
DB Rows 60x10
80x10
100x20
100x20

.
Paused squats I’m using a metronome to pace the pauses. I was a little surprised the first set at 260 was so easy, and marked it at an 8.5, which IMO was confirmed rather than a possible 8 when the next set felt harder. These sets were 15lb more than week 2 of run 1.

Press So since for my first The Bridge 1.0TM run the press was so flat, and I’m used to more upper body frequency I’m deviating from the prescribed program for Press. I’ve had a lot of success with my press running the 4 day version of Jordan’s 9th way to skin the TM so I’m going to try to model my Press programming this Bridge run off of that, while logging RPE as well. Saturday I’ll be doing 3x8@8.

DB Rows I intended to do 115 again today since I had to put down the weight and reset my grip before the last 2 reps of 20 on my left hand last week. Unfortunately, I had to take the morning off work and look after the little ones while Mama went on a Dr. Appointment and so I worked out at the Y which only has up to 100# DBs. Sooooooo, I did 2 sets of 20 at 100. Like usual, I only took 60s of rest while doing DB work, although when I got up to the 20s I took 60s between each unilateral set. Interestingly, by the end of the second sets, it wasn’t my grip that felt like the limiting factor, but my lats.

38

Bridge Run 2 Week 2, Workout 3
Friday 3/30/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
DL 295x5@6
310x5@7
325x4@9
325x5@89
325x5@10
Bench, 1ct
Pause		 185x5@7
195x5@8
195x5@8
195x5@8
195x5@9
3-0-3 Tempo
Squat		 190x8@6
190x8@6
230x8@8
230x8@8

.
DL at 310x5 felt like an easy 7, and then my first set of 325, I forgot to put the last 5 on the left side, which I noticed the first rep and quickly fixed. Every rep after that felt horrible, and I stopped at 4. Next set I thought felt like an 8, but I’m revising it to a 9 since the last set took pretty much everything I had to finish, which isn’t supposed to be the case after an 8…

Paused Bench I thought I would be going to 205 today, so after 135, I went straight to 185 expecting an @6, and was surprised that it wasn’t easy, 195 felt like an 8 the next set, so I stayed there, and the 4th set was a little harder.

3-0-3 Tempo Squat I love these. I’m using a metronome app to get the cadence right, although getting past rep 5, pacing my breathing with the metronome was difficult. Although I forgot to increment the weight after the @6 and accidentally repeated the weight.

GPP: I walked 2.3 miles during my lunch Thursday, then another 3.5 the evening after today’s logged workout with my family at the botanical gardens looking for Easter eggs and taking pictures. Then I walked another 2.5 this morning taking the boys to the park. Much of yesterday’s and today’s was with a 40lb kid on my shoulders, and a significant portion of it was at a bit of a rushed pace. So I consider myself good on cardio. I may go to the Y during the little one’s nap and do some pull ups and abs, we shall see.

39

Bridge Run 2, Week 2 GPP
Sat 3/31/2018

7 minutes AMRAP Pull ups (all normal grip)
7,7,7,7,6,6,5,5,5,4: 59 total
So I decided to go more sub maximal each set, but to take shorter brakes and see what that got me. Well I netted 10 more reps in 7 minutes, so I guess that worked.

7 minutes isometric abbs
1 min Plank
1 min Side Plank left
1 min Side Plank Right
30 second planks rotated with 3 10 second dragon flags in between.

Some leg raise holds that hurt my quads, for a total of 30 seconds.
30s V sits x3

I have been getting arm cramps when I let go of the dragon flags, and on today’s second set I had the epiphany that sitting farther down the bench and extending my arms farther out from my head would give me more leverage. This small adjustment made a HUGE difference.

“7” minutes Arm Work:
35lb Alternating Hammer Curls
75LB 2 hand Overhead Tri. extensions
7 Super sets of 10 reps with no rest in between, timer had 49 seconds left after I put the weight down after the last set. The last 2 reps of the Tri’s were hell. Next week I’m going to pick up the 40s.

Cardio
As I mentioned in the last post, I think I’m set on Cardio this week with all the speed walking I’ve done the past 3 days.

It’s pretty cool that even with an unintentional week off, I can definitely say that I’ve had measurable improvements in all 3 of the areas I worked on this afternoon. Although some of those are through choices in form and programming. Still cool.

40

Run 2, Week 3, Day 1
Monday, 4/2/2018
.

Exercise Wt x Reps @ RPE
Squat 255x5@6
270x5@7
285x5@8
280x5@9
275x4@9
CGB 195x4@7
205x4@8
215x4@10
205x4@9
Rack Pulls 275x7@6
290x7@7
305x7@8
305x7@8

.
Squats: So my first set at 285 felt good, but I watched the video and was a little high for every rep and my bar path wasn’t very good, so I dropped 5lbs and tried to get deeper. Well I didn’t, and that one was a 9. I dropped 5 more pounds and 4 was a 9, so I didn’t do a 5th. Other than the depth, I’m not sure what I need to correct here, so I’m posting last week’s last set at 285, which I admit had 2 reps for questionable depth, and then I’ll post the second set (better angle than first) of today’s

CGB: Warm-up was going well, so I went 5lb over last week and rather than a 9, it was a 10. so I dropped 10 lbs and got another 9.

Rack Pulls: Ooops, I just realized this was supposed to be a 9. Oh well.