Hello BBM,
Background:
The last 9 months running the BBM programs have been very good to me despite some pretty intense life stressors (new marriage, new career, wife’s first pregnancy). I was totally detrained, but not unfamiliar with strength training. I started my new job as a new graduate emergency room RN, and my wife and I were trying to get pregnant. I had dropped from BW 210lbs to 168lbs, didn’t train for 3 months, and lost all my strength from the stress.
I got myself a home gym, bought the Master template, and pulled myself up out of the funk of all of these positive life changes that were causing me so much stress. Since coming back to training I have ran the BBM programs as follows:
NLP (Master Template edition)
The Bridge v1.0
The Bridge v2.0
HLM v1.0
GPP Hypertrophy 3day v1.0
Currently, I am on my last week of the 3day GPP Hyper template v1.0, and my wife is 39 weeks pregnant. Any day now I will be meeting our first daughter, and we are so excited. The plan for training has been to take the days as they come. I haven’t missed any sessions, and the original plan was going to be to start the 12 Week Strength v1.0 template with the low stress week after this final week of the hyper template. My press and bench have not been moving anymore, and I think I need to transfer over to a 4day training program where I can bench and press more frequently with more volume.
Questions:
Would it be be a good idea to do a pivot week before starting with the low stress week of the 12 week strength v1.0 given my training history and pending fatherhood? My reasoning is that the pivot week would help re-sensitize me to the main lifts that I have been crushing for the last 9 months, give me a week where training is a bit less stressful with becoming a dad, and moving forward the week 0 (low stress week) of the 12 week strength v1.0 would serve as an introduction to training the main lifts 4 days per week rather than the 3 days per week I have been used to. During the pivot week my daughter will most likely be born, so I will be limited to training 3 days (Myo reps FTW).
When starting the 12 week strength v1.0 should I start with 2 GPP days right off the bat instead of decreasing back to one since I have been doing 2 days of GPP per week for the last three months? Or would it be ok running the 12 week v1.0 GPP schedule as written?
Finally, will the Master Template bundle be getting an updated version that will be sent out to previous buyers? Once I am done with the 12wk strength v1.0 I would like to start v2.0 the next time through (after another hypertrophy block).
Thank you for all of the great programming and information. My BW went from 168lbs > 198lbs, and I am stronger and more conditioned than I ever was at 210lbs before detraining. Looking forward to having that Dad strength!
Thanks again,
Brandon
Very cool!