When moving from one program to another, the BBM programs specifically, what do you folks carry forward or not?
For example, do you continue to do the same volume of GPP work in a second run through the Bridge right at the start or follow the program as prescribed? What about the bonus arm work you did in say the hypertrophy program, do you continue that in a different program? Same volumes.
I found that toward the end of the hypertrophy program I was feeling beat up (may have been pushing the RPE #s a bit) and the smaller volume in the beginning of the Bridge was a welcome rest, no bonus arm work etc. But, I also wondered if I was just being lazy and actually should be continuing the higher volume training as I become less of a beginner intermediate…
The other thing that has me wondering this is as someone a little fluffy Jordan’s recommendation of "Change diet and training to produce weight loss sooner rather than later." indicates to me I should be doing that extra volume. At least the two GPP days…
I would keep the number of GPP the same; if you were doing 2, continue. If a progam ends on a low stress week, and the next starts with one, I would skip one of them.
Yeah, the Drs have said several time to just keep doing the GPP twice per week. You might want to reduce the amount a little bit if you are going from a GPP template to a strength one though.
As for bodybuilding stuff, they don’t really give us much to go on except the recommendation in the hypertrophy template to increase from 3-6 sets of bis and tris 2-3 times per week over the course of the 7 weeks. As for what to do after I have no idea what we are supposed to but I’ve been enjoying this guide and the related videos on youtube:
The general philosophy is that you do a massing cycle where you pick the part or parts you really want to grow and increase from the minimum effective dose (MEV) to the maximum recoverable volume (MRV) over the course of the cycle while doing the maintenance volume (MV) for everything else. After you have maxed out on volume for a short time you apparently need to reduce the volume and work on something else instead to resensitise that body part to hypertrophy. The volume recommendations are all for isolation exercises so it’s very helpful that it makes different recommendations depending on what compound work you are already doing.
For example, it says if you do a lot of pressing you might not need any triceps isolation work to maintain tricep gainzZz (including those obtained from isolation work), but four sets per week is a good insurance policy. On the other end of spectrum it says that even if you are trying to grow your traps, you might not need to add shrugs for 5-10 years as long as you are deadlifting heavy.
So to translate this is to BBM programming I would titrate the bi and tri work up over the course of the hypertrophy template as recommended (maybe limiting to maximum 12 sets of tris due to all the pressing), then when going back to the bridge or HLM do 4-6 sets of bis and 0-4 sets of tris per week until it’s time to do another hypertrophy phase.
I would figure out what your short and long term goals are and adjust according to that.
For example, I am more focused on health because I have a fatty liver and IFG. Therefore while I am still making strength gains, I am making them slower than I could because I am doing additional conditioning and not gaining weight. It would feed my ego a lot more to focus on strength because I am not particularly strong but I’m looking at the long run here.
I’m also nearing a period where I will have no time, so I will be going on the time crunch template.
I Wouldn’t tell someone to do what I am doing, but I would say figure out what is most important to you and what you can realistically do and go from there.
The answer here is going to depend on your goals. Is it worth it to you to continue devoting time and recovery resources to the extra arm work when transitioning from hypertrophy to strength-focused training? If so, how much is going to be productive in the context of your total training picture?
Personally, I wouldn’t bother with it, since lots of pressing combined with GPP day pulling (usually rows or pull-ups) is enough to fit my goals. A hypertrophy block, for me, is just a useful break to resensitize myself to a strength training stimulus.
Re: GPP
I have nothing to add to what’s already been said.