PowerBuilding II Template - Lack of Heavy Back Work

Can you speak to your thinking on why there isn’t any heavy or even moderately heavy direct back work? Is it that you think people are going to make progress anyway, or more that the overall stress is sufficiently high that adding it in might be too much, and so it’s just been deprioritized? When I first skimmed the template I assumed the back work on day 3 would be programmed as something at least moderately heavy so I was surprised to see how light it was given the absence of any other heavy work.

FWIW, I’ve just finished the second week and I’m really quite enjoying it. I’m still trying to calibrate my use of RPE and so don’t think I’ve yet hit a real set of RPE 9 on the main lifts, yet despite erring on the conservative side I’m definitely feeling the effect of the increase in frequency and overall volume. This is the first time in 20 years I have outsourced my programming (please take that as a compliment) and I’m really trying hard to avoid thinking too much about any of it and instead just doing what is prescribed, but I find this direction pretty interesting so am curious about the thinking.

Hi Limie,

What would you expect in terms of heavy or medium back work there? That might help me understand your concern a bit more. This template has deadlifts at multiple sets of RPE 8, Pendlay Rows with some high volume, moderate intensity, RDLs, and AMRAP upper back work 2x each week.

Leah

Thanks for the response, Leah. I didn’t mean to express my question as a concern as it was more a curiosity. If the answer is because the amount of hard deadlift sets is enough then I can buy that.