Fatigue and soreness during Beginner Template - What adjustments should I make?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi

I am starting Phase 3 of the Beginner Template. I started the Beginner Template in March, then stopped in April for a couple of weeks when I had covid and restarted it in May. I have a few challenges that make it difficult to fit in. One of the main issues is that each day, I do not have more than 45-55 mins to train, so I have split up the strength work in the Beginner Template into 4 days (2 exercises per day and 1 day with 3, based on what I’ve read on these forums), and the conditioning is split to 2 days. However, as a result, I am training almost every day.

I’m finding it quite difficult to recover from the amount of volume on certain days. At the end of Phase 2, Day 3 involved 6 sets of 4 of a Deadlift (including 3 back-off sets) and then 5 sets of 8 OHP. I do not know how I could have managed the 3rd exercise. The next day, I barely had any energy.

I realise it is very hard to answer this question without knowing all the details of individual circumstances, so some important info:

  • 34-year-old male

  • 5"10 and ~74kg (163lbs)

  • Training in the morning - 7:20 am - 8:15 am.

  • Strength: M, W, F, Sat, and Conditioning: Tue, Th (LISS cardio), and Sat (HIIT).

  • Current 1RMs: Squat 108kg, Deadlift 128kg, Bench 96kg, Press 56kg

  • Sleeping between 10:45pm - 6:45am (getting 7-8 hrs sleep / night)

  • Pre-workout snack is 2 scoops of whey protein + 250ml full cream milk + 1 banana

  • Resting 2-3 mins between sets. Unfortunately, I cannot rest more and fit everything in within 45-55 mins.

  • Relatively well conditioned - cycle to and from work every day (~10 mins each way) + run 5km in < 25 mins + 10km in < 60 mins.

  • Desk job

  • Eating ~2500kCal / day w/ ~ 120g protein

  • Predominantly vegetarian, but eat a fair few eggs (4-5 per day) so finding enough protein is a challenge.

  • No known health conditions

Reading other people’s experiences, I feel this is somewhat unusual, so I assume I am doing something wrong. People have complained about feeling this way on SS NLP. I must admit that when I tried SS NLP, I did not feel this way although I did stall after ~ 2 months and struggled to see any progress there, which is why I moved to BBM Beginner Template. Incidentally, the weights I outlined above are about where I start to stall on SS.

In the early stages of the program (Phase 1), I never felt like I overshot my RPEs, but now I feel like that almost every workout and I’ve tried dropping the weights a little bit but I’m not sure if it’s due to overshooting RPEs or other factors. The back end of Phase 2 felt like a proper grind. I am sure I am doing something wrong, so I was wondering what adjustments I need to make.

Apologies for the long post and any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

2

Bowlingshanks,

Thanks for the post. I can appreciate how you feel and would like to reassure you that I don’t think your experience is alarming. A few clarifications and how I see it below:

  1. Phase 2 day 3 has 4 working sets of deadlifts, 3 of which being RPE 6 or 7. The sets preceding this should be fairly low fatigue.
  2. Similarly, there are 3 working sets of OHP, 2 of which should be RPE 6 or 7. Again, the sets preceding this should be fairly low cost.
  3. I think the burden of conditioning, training volume, overall training history, +/- nutrition are likely using all available resources to keep your head above water. Some advice:
  4. I’d keep running the program, eliminating the warm-up sets’ necessity (they are just there for you to ballpark your work sets) and making sure that your back off sets are light enough to meet the prescription. We need to improve your training tolerance and work capacity. SS did little to nothing for this, unfortunately. The first two phases of the BT are designed to improve this, but COVID and some other things may have gotten in the way.
  5. I’d aim for 140-150g of protein each day over 120g- as I worry some days you may be under 120g and that would be not great
  6. I’d be looking to add weight every ~ 2nd week, if possible- matching performance week-to-week and not overshooting. -Jordan
1 Like
3

Hi Jordan

Thanks very much for the response.

I have a few more questions just to clarify that I understand correctly:

  • In the template for Phase 2, Day 3 it says: 4 reps @ RPE 7 (~81%), 4 reps @ RPE 8 (84%), 4 reps @ RPE 9 (86%), -10% from 4 @ 9 x 3 sets of 4 reps. Is that 3 main sets and 3 back-off sets, totaling 6 work sets? How are you defining a work set here, and what do you mean by preceding sets?
  • What do you mean by eliminating the warm-up sets’ necessity? Do you mean remove warm-up sets?
  • Is there a rough RPE guide for the backoff sets? E.g. For the deadlift, it says -10% from 4@RPE 9 x 3 sets, but after the sets of RPE 7, 8, and 9, even 3x4 @ -10% of the weight from RPE 9 feels taxing, especially for a lift like a deadlift. I understand that for my work capacity, it’s more important to get the requisite volume, so I am wondering if I could focus more on the RPE range of the backoff sets rather than getting stuck on the “-10% from 4@RPE9 part”.
4

Bowlingshanks,

To your first question, that’s 4 working sets (the 4 @ 9 and 3 back off sets of 4). The preceding sets are just there to help you get to the 4 @ 9. You don’t have to do them exactly if you can get to your 4 @ 9 appropriately. In other words, if you do a set of 4 @ 6 or 7 and then can jump to @ 9, that’s cool.

If you look on the calculator page, -10% from 4 @ 9 is 76% for sets of 4 reps, which is off the RPE chart on the low end. They should feel pretty easy and FAR from failure.

-Jordan

5

Right I see. So the work sets are really just the RPE 9 and the back off sets? In the PDF for the Beginner Template, in Phase 1 it explains the work sets as including RPE 6,7 and 8 (rather than just RPE 8).

What is the difference between Phase 1 and Phase 2 w.r.t to work sets?