I am currently on week 7 of the Bridge and have a question regarding fatigue management.
Context: Early intermediate, 60 y/o male, no previous lifting experience other than recent NLP, on maintenance macros as in TBAB, 5’11", 205 lb, ~25% BF, 38.5" waist, decent cardiovascular condition, good sleep
I am making good overall progress and like the programming very much. The issue I am facing I have hypothesized to be due to my current low work capacity. I am having difficulty managing the overall fatigue on the deadlift. My DL E1RM is only at 265, but I am starting to see a steady decline (had been improving nicely) and feel a bit beat up. I am still making good progress on the squat and bench.
What modification to the DL if any would you recommend to try as an experiment to manage this?
- Just tough it out and things will improve over time as I build capacity
- Drop the RPE a notch and keep the prescribed volume
- Keep the prescribed RPE and lower the volume
- Substitute RDL’s for one of the days
- Take up Crossfit and become a vegan
Do you find yourself overshooting the target RPEs frequently?
Thank you for responding and happy birthday!
I am not thinking I overshoot very often and when I do I drop the weight 5% or so. Have not had a problem on the squat with too much fatigue, just the deadlift. It was feeling really good for a few weeks and then seemed to decline after that. I just took a week off due to a sudden business trip to Kyoto so I got a unplanned break. I started back up this week repeating week 6 and was more conservative on the deadlift usings RDL’s @165 on Monday and did the regular belted DL on Friday with the 1@8 at 205 and the drop sets of 4 reps at 185. My back feels OK just normal levels of fatigue, so I guess I need to take things slower with that lift. I should have been able to to do the 1@8 around 225-230 so I just don’t get why it has regressed.
Given all the warnings about losing muscle mass at my age, I am feeling pretty good about my progress and lifting in general and I really appreciate all the info and discussion your team provides to the public.
Yeah, I tend to opt for dropping the RPE targets by 1 if necessary in this sort of situation, rather than dropping sets or reps.
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