Hi Guys, I just bought Powerbuilding 1 and noticed the squat workouts in weeks 3 and 4 are identical. Same with the squat in weeks 7 and 8. And same in weeks 9 and 10. I wanted to know if this is this intentional? I had thought that repeating the same workout at the same weight 2 weeks in a row on multiple occasions wouldn’t provide sufficient stimulus to drive adaption. Please let me know if I’m misunderstanding the program, thanks!
Yep, this is intentional, but you might not necessarily do them at the same weight either. Let RPE determine the load.
That said, you don’t always have to add weight to get stronger. Adding weight in the same context displays strength improvement, but you can develop strength using low, moderate, and heavy loads.
The warm up question about sets of 5 is also explained in the PDF and rest times are kind of self-directed. We don’t need to make rules for people to follow if there’s no reason for them.
That said, 2-3 min between warm up sets tops and 4-5 min between work sets are generally our recommendations.
Finally, if doing multi-rep sets all the way up to your top set takes a little bit off of it due to fatigue, does this have any impact on strength development? Short answer, no. The weight you lift each day of training is really not that important.
Erik,
What do you think you should do based on your most recent performance?
-Jordan
A few thoughts here:
- I do not think there is a significant difference in strength or hypertrophy development if you use 128 or 126.5 as your e1RM. There are many ways to get strong, using low, moderate, or heavy loads.
- Overshooting the target RPE just to add a kilo to the bar is usually not worth it, as there’s little to no additional stimulus being imparted on the individual compared to the significant increase in fatigue.
- The calculator is designed to give you a ballpark for your working sets, not to be absolute. Your warm ups and performance that day should guide your loading, not a calculator.
- We would not recommend regularly doing RPE 10 sets. The eBook accompanying the beginner template is probably as close as we have to a book right now.
- I would’ve started you on phase I or II of the Beginner template given this training background, but you will be fine with Powerbuilding as well.
Just need to give it some time and realize the weight on the bar this week doesn’t really matter compared to the stimulus applied to you, the lifter.
-Jordan
Roger that. Let me know how it goes.