I’ve been listening to Barbell Medicine for over a year now, really enjoying the powerlifting and nutrition wisdom Dr. F and Dr. B have assembled over the years. I really wish I’d found something like this MANY years ago, to help keep me focused through tough years of educational training and work. I started lifting in high school but after a few years, it really tapered off. I got back into it when deployed to Iraq and since then have tried to be consistent, but work often got in the way, as did raising a bunch of young kids. I didn’t make it a priority. Now that I’m over 50, I realize I have to insist on making time to keep myself fit… it doesn’t come as easily as it once did. So, with that said… I’ve determined to stay focused on personal fitness, growth and improvement. I’ve never used a specific training program before, so this will be a fun journey.
I’m completing week 5 of The Bridge and I’ve already hit two new PRs, on DL (551 lb) and Squat (475 lb). More importantly, I’m seeing my baseline work tolerance increase. Dr. Baraki has opened my eyes in this respect. He’s absolutely correct about top PR numbers being less important than the baseline tolerance for heavy working loads day in and day out. My all time max on bench is 385, but at present I can only consistently hit 365. But prior to running Bridge I was usually doing working sets in the 275 range, with an occasional set of 315 x 2 or 3 reps. For the past two bench sessions, I have done three sets of 315 lb x 5 reps at RPE 8-9. I’m extremely pleased with these results.