Pivoting vs Low stress in emmerging strategies approach

Hi,

I am curious as to the thoughts/ideas behing the use of low stress vs pivot in the context of Mike T’s idea of ES (or really just the general idea of when to use one vs the other). So lets say I ran the first 3 weeks of the 12 week strength template and found that I had a “robust” response to it. From my understanding (please feel free to correct me and explain where I go wrong with anything!) with the idea of ES I kept repeating that week with no varitation until it stopped working, lets say 7 weeks. When it stops working you have the option to pivot out at the end of it, and resensitize the stress to either repeat that block again or try a slightly different developement block. Ie keep the dosage of volume and intensity the same but change the prescription via excercise selection. Or do something like keep the prescription the same but try changing the volume and intensity like going week four of the template and reapeating that until it doesnt “work” anymore. Collecting data on your responses to different styles of developement blocks. I think I understabnd that the pivot does also act as a deload during these transitions of longer developemental blocks. Now I believe this is an acceptable approach and strategy when there is no competition in the near future. So if there is a competion would you use a deload inbetween/to transition between developement, intensification and specilization phase. Or would you still use something like a one week pivot between them? Im sure theres a lot of nuance here. Im just not fully sure on when a deload vs pivot is used in terms of one vs the other. I also understand there are proabably not hard and fast rules here. But am curious on the general ideas of when to use one vs the other.

I hope some of that at least makes sense haha. Thanks in advance and I appreciate all the content you guys put out!

A pivot week is (or should be) a low stress week, but typically has different exercise selection, rep schemes, etc. (all non specific) when compared to a traditional low stress or “deload” week.

I don’t find that most people respond well to back to back blocks for developmental cycles unless both are relatively short, so most of the time I tend to program a short 2-3 week GPP block, intensification phase, or bridge to the next developmental block if there’s no competition coming up.

You’re correct, there are no hard and fast rules for this.

-Jordan

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