I took the Beginners Template to Week 8.3. My goal is to be healthy. I have well-developed legs (genetics) but an underdeveloped chest.
So, I went to the Hypertrophy I template. I am at Week 4 and I am feeling beat up. My shoulder pain has come back, and I am starting to get pain in my hip.
It looks like the increased volume is doing this to me.
Should I go back to the Beginners Template or the Bridge? I have read the Pain what do article a couple of times. I know that I need to find a starting place.
Sorry to hear you’re in pain, Roamer.
If it were me, the first thing I would do is try to keep everything the same except for reducing the target RPE by 2 and see how that works. If the pain you have right now doesn’t allow that, then I’d go back to the low-stress week of Hypertrophy-I and swap out the exercises for tempo variations of the same movement (or similar) depending on your tolerance. Then, I’d gradually work up to the volume prescribed in the template.
-Jordan
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Thanks, Jordan. I did the bench press from week 4 of Hypertrophy I yesterday. I lowered the RPE 6 weight by 10%. I understand that each RPE level is about 5%. It felt good and the speed was good. I had some discomfort in my shoulder but no sharp pain. Should I just continue on with this strategy if there is just discomfort or do I need to shoot for no discomfort?
I just read Charlie Dickson’s article Recovering From an Injury: Embrace the Process. You and your staff have really helped me with my thought process about pain. I probably should not have gone and had that MRI that showed a slight tear in my subscapularis.
What am I going to do not train? I don’t think so!
Yea I think that if you’re able to tolerate the training with no increase in discomfort and your general sense is that things are trending towards getting better, this is a good strategy to continue.
Thanks for the kind words as well. They really mean a lot.