Out of Shape from LP

[Art_Vandelay]

Hey Austin. I was the one on your Instagram live the other day talking about how I started the bridge and the weights I’m using at the correct RPE seem light compared to what I’ve done on my bastardized powerbuilding LP I ran before this. I know it’s two weeks only into the bridge so far, but going from making clear jumps in weight every workout or every week to feeling weaker over the course of two weeks due to extra volume and work is a change in thought process for me. I can’t tell if I’m getting stronger like I could in the past evidently, and it’s making me lose faith in what I’m doing a tad (just in the back of my mind). I thought I’d give you a clear example of what I’m talking about. First of all, the warmups alone (on top of what you guys recommend 5-7 sets of 8-10 reps with the empty bar which is already anywhere from 45-79 reps) have me fatigued enough where the working weights end up being less than I could do if I just did a few sets of 5’s 3’s and 1’s for warmups like I did on LP. Where you recommend doing the same reps as the working set on the way up to the working weights for the day, and then on top of that the fact that sets at RPE 6,7 and 8 are are kind of close together in weight, I feel like I’m using less weight once I get to RPE 8 or 9 then I’m actually capable of. I mentioned to you for example that I can pull 475lbs for a single at 8-8.5 but somehow the weight I used on deads 5 reps @ 8 was 375 and felt like a 9. Just for the hell of it, I took a video of myself straight from work in work clothes pulling 475 rather easily for you to see here (I know I need to work on straightening my back more): https://youtu.be/oaQnxiehQ1c

I cannot be the only one coming from doing a few sets of 3 or 5 on an LP style routine and waiting 5 minutes between sets to was a bit smacked in the face with the added work on the bridge. And I know that’s not even anything compared to your other programs on terms of volume or frequency. My question is, is this by design for guys like me in the beginning? Will I find at the end of the 8 weeks that I got used to the volume and end up much stronger as a result? I know you can’t tell me yes or no, but I’m just trying to get a gauge here. What I’m a tad concerned will happen is that after 8 weeks my estimated 1rms will be around the same as they are now give or take a few lbs only I’ll be more conditioned and prepared for work in the future, which is nice but early intermediates should apparently still be able to add decent amounts to their lifts in the months.

[Austin_Baraki]

Hi Art.

First: as we have said elsewhere, the Bridge is named as it is because the intent is to expose the trainee to the sorts of demands (and hence develop the adaptations) that we feel are beneficial for long-term physical development in general. This includes introduction to autoregulated training, exposure to a greater degree of movement variation, and higher training volumes (both to stimulate hypertrophy as well as improvements in work / recovery capacity).

Second: We have also discussed how there is a wide spectrum of inter-individual variation in response to a given training intervention, and it would be dishonest of us to claim that any of our standard templates “work” (or especially work optimally) for everyone, all the time. The simple fact is, there will be people who respond better than others, and there will be people who do not appear to respond, for whatever reason.

Now, as I said in the Live session, two weeks is not enough time to say whether you’re getting stronger or weaker in absolute terms.

I know it’s two weeks only into the bridge so far, but going from making clear jumps in weight every workout or every week to feeling weaker over the course of two weeks due to extra volume and work is a change in thought process for me. I can’t tell if I’m getting stronger like I could in the past evidently, and it’s making me lose faith in what I’m doing a tad (just in the back of my mind).

This is understandable, and if you’ve listened to our stuff you may also know that your own psychological assessments like this can influence your response and performance (which kind of confounds the whole picture, too). You can either charge forward with confidence and see how you respond to the program, or you are free to move on and do something else you’re more comfortable with. Either way, if you plan to make continued progress over the long term, you’ll need to be able to tolerate more training.

I thought I’d give you a clear example of what I’m talking about. First of all, the warmups alone (on top of what you guys recommend 5-7 sets of 8-10 reps with the empty bar which is already anywhere from 45-79 reps) have me fatigued enough where the working weights end up being less than I could do if I just did a few sets of 5’s 3’s and 1’s for warmups like I did on LP.

Where you recommend doing the same reps as the working set on the way up to the working weights for the day, and then on top of that the fact that sets at RPE 6,7 and 8 are are kind of close together in weight, I feel like I’m using less weight once I get to RPE 8 or 9 then I’m actually capable of.

Where, specifically, have we recommended that everyone perform 5-7 sets of 8-10 reps? I don’t believe I’ve ever explicitly recommended this myself – and if this is written somewhere, it need to be corrected. There are certain people who feel so “stiff” that they require additional sets / reps to get adequately warmed up (as an alternative to stretching, rolling, etc), and we sometimes suggest they do 3, 4, or even 5 sets of 5 with the empty bar before adding weight. But 7 sets of 10 is ridiculous.

As for the “warm up doing the same reps” - this is most useful to find your working weights for a particular rep range on a novel exercise you haven’t done before (like, say, a paused squat). If you have a good idea of where you tend to perform on that exercise (say, you know your usual 4@9 is 315 on a paused squat), and you want to warm up with sets of smaller reps until you get closer to where you’d expect a 4@7 is, that’s fine - then you hit your projected 4@7 and use that to calibrate your next jumps.

I suggested that you may be doing it wrong, and if you’re actually doing upwards of 79 reps in a session … yeah, you’re doing it wrong.

[Art_Vandelay]

Hi Austin,
This clears up a plethora of things for me. I cannot find it now, but one night I was scouring the forums and I read countless threads in a short period of time on the bridge to try to get as much info as possible on it before starting so I could mitigate mess ups (lol didn’t work, still messed up). Maybe I read a log or misread something but I could have sworn I read that one of the warmup recommendations was to do sets of 10 with the empty bar every minute on the minute for up to 7 minutes or until sufficiently warm.

[Art_Vandelay]

Edit:
So, lets hypothetically pretend I’m going for 5@6 5@7 and 5@8 on belted deadlifts. Even if I worked up to 315 for 5@6 and I did the bar for 3-5x5, 135x5. 185x5, 215x5, 245x5, 275x5, 300x5, 320x5 then I put on my belt and hit 340x5@6, 355x5@7 and then finally 370x5@8. That’s 75 total reps including the 5x5 with the bar. And that’s only on deadlifts so when tempo squats hit and I have to do something similar I am fried.

Now when you said that if I know what my first set is gonna be already and it’s not a new exercise variation for me then I can warm up more like I’m used to that helps me out tremendously. So now if I knew I was gonna say squat 315 for 4@6. I’d do 3x5 with the bar then 135x5, 185x5, 215x3, 240x1, 275x1, 300x1 then 315x4@6. Is something like this okay because I knew I was working up to the 315@6 and it wasn’t a new variant where the sets at 4 on the way up would help me choose my weights better? This is more in line with what I’ve done in the past for warming up.

I tremendously respect you guys and your strength is a testament that this stuff must work which is why I don’t want to stop or switch programming. I’m gonna just keep going and try to adhere to it to my best ability and just keep getting better. Thanks for helping me!

One more thing: when warming up with lifts like a 303 squat or a paused squat do I have to do the tempo squats on the warmups or can I just squat normally until I get to the first set @6 (provided I know what weight that first set @6 will be)? I feel this helps me save energy up too.

[Austin_Baraki]

@Art_Vandelay

Now when you said that if I know what my first set is gonna be already and it’s not a new exercise variation for me then I can warm up more like I’m used to that helps me out tremendously. So now if I knew I was gonna say squat 315 for 4@6. I’d do 3x5 with the bar then 135x5, 185x5, 215x3, 240x1, 275x1, 300x1 then 315x4@6. Is something like this okay because I knew I was working up to the 315@6 and it wasn’t a new variant where the sets at 4 on the way up would help me choose my weights better? This is more in line with what I’ve done in the past for warming up.

Yes, that’s fine. Then you’d use the actual set at 315 to gauge - i.e., was that really a 6? Was it easier than expected (suggesting I might be able to go heavier than planned today)? Or did it move more like @7 or @8, suggesting I might need to pull back a bit today, depending on how my next set goes?

@Art_Vandelay

I tremendously respect you guys and your strength is a testament that this stuff must work which is why I don’t want to stop or switch programming. I’m gonna just keep going and try to adhere to it to my best ability and just keep getting better. Thanks for helping me!

We really appreciate that. But, for the sake of honesty here, I’d caution you against drawing conclusions like that - there are lots of really strong people out there who have gotten that way doing what would seem to be very silly shit, that happened to work well for them (or due to chemical enhancement). I’m not saying this is us, but we can’t say “this worked great for us, it’s a testament that it must therefore also work really well for you!”. This is similar to pointing to people who squat 405 x 5 x 3 on their novice LP and say “see?? it worked for them, so it must work just as well for you!”.

With that said, we certainly do our best to put out the most accurate, generalizable information possible that should benefit the most people, and we certainly hope it works well for you. The only way to know for sure is to run it and see how it goes, and adjust based on your response.

@Art_Vandelay

One more thing: when warming up with lifts like a 303 squat or a paused squat do I have to do the tempo squats on the warmups or can I just squat normally until I get to the first set @6 (provided I know what weight that first set @6 will be)? I feel this helps me save energy up too.

Either way works, though you’d probably prefer to squat normally until your first “calibration” set.

[Art_Vandelay]

This is of tremendous help Austin. I thank you! 320x1 is my bench pr prior to doing bbm training so 405 here I come! (However long it takes)

[JohnBloggs]

@Austin_Baraki

Hi Art.

First: as we have said elsewhere, the Bridge is named as it is because the intent is to expose the trainee to the sorts of demands (and hence develop the adaptations) that we feel are beneficial for long-term physical development in general. This includes introduction to autoregulated training, exposure to a greater degree of movement variation, and higher training volumes (both to stimulate hypertrophy as well as improvements in work / recovery capacity).

Second: We have also discussed how there is a wide spectrum of inter-individual variation in response to a given training intervention, and it would be dishonest of us to claim that any of our standard templates “work” (or especially work optimally) for everyone, all the time. The simple fact is, there will be people who respond better than others, and there will be people who do not appear to respond, for whatever reason.

Now, as I said in the Live session, two weeks is not enough time to say whether you’re getting stronger or weaker in absolute terms.

This is understandable, and if you’ve listened to our stuff you may also know that your own psychological assessments like this can influence your response and performance (which kind of confounds the whole picture, too). You can either charge forward with confidence and see how you respond to the program, or you are free to move on and do something else you’re more comfortable with. Either way, if you plan to make continued progress over the long term, you’ll need to be able to tolerate more training.

Where, specifically, have we recommended that everyone perform 5-7 sets of 8-10 reps? I don’t believe I’ve ever explicitly recommended this myself – and if this is written somewhere, it need to be corrected. There are certain people who feel so “stiff” that they require additional sets / reps to get adequately warmed up (as an alternative to stretching, rolling, etc), and we sometimes suggest they do 3, 4, or even 5 sets of 5 with the empty bar before adding weight. But 7 sets of 10 is ridiculous.

As for the “warm up doing the same reps” - this is most useful to find your working weights for a particular rep range on a novel exercise you haven’t done before (like, say, a paused squat). If you have a good idea of where you tend to perform on that exercise (say, you know your usual 4@9 is 315 on a paused squat), and you want to warm up with sets of smaller reps until you get closer to where you’d expect a 4@7 is, that’s fine - then you hit your projected 4@7 and use that to calibrate your next jumps.

I suggested that you may be doing it wrong, and if you’re actually doing upwards of 79 reps in a session … yeah, you’re doing it wrong.

Not to be “that guy” but since you asked for specifically where, the Bridge ebook says “We recommend doing repeated sets of 5 with the empty barbell for the first exercise every minute on the minute for 8-10 minutes until appropriately warm.” That’s not quite sets of 8-10, but it does read to me as 8-10 sets of 5, routinely (not for people who are ‘stiff’), which I’m guessing is far more than you’d recommend.

[Austin_Baraki]

@JohnBloggs

Not to be “that guy” but since you asked for specifically where, the Bridge ebook says “We recommend doing repeated sets of 5 with the empty barbell for the first exercise every minute on the minute for 8-10 minutes until appropriately warm.” That’s not quite sets of 8-10, but it does read to me as 8-10 sets of 5, routinely (not for people who are ‘stiff’), which I’m guessing is far more than you’d recommend.

I wasn’t being rhetorical when asking for that, so thanks for pointing this out. The number of people who need to do that for 10 minutes is very small, so that should be clarified - even though it does not say to perform sets of 10, as you noted.

I am (very) slowly making my way through the eBook in order to edit it and bring it more up to date with our current thinking.