Lowering RPE during a training block

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hey, Docs. I watched “What Have We Changed Our Minds on Recently?” on the BBM YouTube channel and it provided some interesting food for thought. I’ve always thought my most productive training sessions were when the weight wasn’t so grindy. I’m running the Beginner template block one right now after a long layoff due to surgery. I looked ahead to the next block of the Beginner Template and saw a lot of sets prescribed at RPE 9. Given what I heard Jordan and Austin discussing regarding training even further away from failure (which I hope I understood correctly) and rarely venturing into RPE 9-land, would it be sensible to lower the prescribed RPE for each set by a point for block II?

So instead of:
4@7, 4@8, 4@9, 5-10% drop for backoffs

This:

4@6, 4@7, 4@8, 5-10% drop for backoffs

Would this be less advantageous or optimal in any way or would you just recommend running the template as is?

And finally, if lowering the RPE on block II is a reasonable modification, would this affect the back off sets at all or would it still be the same percentage drop after the top set? Thanks, guys!

2

I would not change the Beginner template in that part of the program. It has exposure to higher RPE sets by design and I don’t think we should be avoiding higher RPE efforts entirely either. Rather, there’s a time and a place for it.

Would recommend running the template as written, as the creators of the template were definitely thinking about fatigue management via volume, intensity, etc. and training advancement.

3

Gotcha. Thanks, Jordan. I’ll run it as is then.