How did you learn to program BBM/RTS style for yourself?

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Hey all,

Those of you that program for yourselves, how did you learn how to do it? I know here we have the programming podcast eps and a few articles. For people that follow a BLOC-style program, they have their MED Masterclass podcast series. I’m just curious about anything that you all found helpful for when you inevitably encountered the situation of “I’ve stalled/stopped progressing. What do I change to keep progressing?”

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I don’t think BBM and RTS use the same “style” of programming, at least now that RTS uses Emerging Strategies.

Besides all the resources that RTS and BBM offer, there’s also a lot of worthwhile Juggernaut Training Systems, Powerliftingtowin and Stronger by Science articles. There are many good books (which I mostly haven’t read), commonly recommended books include: Strength is Specific, Transfer of Training in Sports, The Art of Lifting, The Science of Lifting, Science and Practice of Strength Training, The Muscle and Strength Pyramid, Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy.

There are countless podcasts. Another good forum is Exodus Strength.

There’s something to be said for reading and trying to understand the decisions behind programs that mostly work: BBM’s free stuff (Bridge, Beginner, Taper, Crossfit Open, Intermediate/Advanced), RTS Generalized Intermediate, Montana Method 3 week, Greg Nuckols free 28 , Average to Savage ($5). If you just want to program for yourself, you may want to try a few of these programs to get an idea of what you like and what works for you. I know that one of the first program I wrote was basically just SSNLP with extra sets of DL, some sets of 10, more accessory work and an AMRAP set to determine load.

As to;

Personally, I (try to) use emerging strategies for myself and time my blocks with my time to peak, so I normally intervene right before I’m about to plateau. All I do is run a pivot block and the start another development block. If I’m not responding to a development block I rule out obvious things such as: injury, huge calorie deficit, a ton of life stress, and/or never sleeping. Then I just pivot and start a new development block.

My thinking is that if your not responding to your training it’s because it isn’t enough productive stress to overcome your resistance.
There are basically 3 different solutions to this issue:

  1. make the stress more productive, for example: I tried out conventional deadlifts (sumo is my comp) and didn’t respond well, so now I might put paused sumo DL in that slot

  2. Increase the stress, for example: adding sets

  3. Reduce your resistance to training, for example: running a pivot block in which the bulk of the training stress is from exercises that won’t be in your next development block.

It’s possible to do so much training that you don’t respond well, but if adding stress is the last option you utilize, this really shouldn’t be a common issue, and you can always just deload. Knowing when to choose one of these options, and how exactly to implement it, is the hard part. As well as coming up with a program that you might progress with in the first place.

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