Questions on the Bridge

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1

Hi Guys,

I am new to the community and fairly new to strength training as well (<1 year). I did NLP for a while, then decided to lose some weight (~20 lbs), then did NLP again, and I am definitely approaching the end. I am taking light days on squats mid-week, and have not failed a set yet, but it is getting close. I have been doing your bench press/press plug in for the end of NLP for the last 2-3 weeks. I have couple of questions about the Bridge. If this has been answered elsewhere, I apologize, just point me in the right direction.

  1. Do you guys have any recommendations for starting points on the exercise variations such as the paused squat and tempo squat, the rack pull and barbell row, perhaps relative to where someone ends their NLP? Like general guidelines such as a paused squat set should be at ~80% of a standard squat set for the same RPE? Or is this just something that each trainee should feel their own way through, trying to gauge RPE? I just don’t really know where to start with any of these variations since I have no experience with them.

  2. Does “isometric ab exercise” simply mean a plank, or are there other options?

Thanks for all the work you guys are doing and the great content you are putting out!

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  1. There is no percentage guideline to use for figuring out your supplemental lifts, just warmup and then figure it out based on RPE. Something like paused squats will be closer to your regular squat than a 303 tempo squat, but that’s about all you can know until you actually do the lifts. It won’t take long to figure out the proper weights the first time, and the 2nd time you will have a pretty clear idea of what you should do beforehand.

  2. It does include planks, yes, and I’ve seen ab wheels recommended as well. I’m not sure what else they might recommend.

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  1. Just do your normal lifting warmup except with the supplemental movement and the total reps instead of decreasing reps. For example if you ended with 300x5 squat, your warmup probably looked something like:

Empty barx5
135x5
185x4
225x3
250x2
275x1

If you’re doing paused squats x4 just do the same weight progression-- you’ll probably notice 225x4 feels kind of heavy at this point, so instead of 250x4 you’ll do 230 or 235x4. That’s basically what I did anyway.

For being new to RPE, just think of RPE 6/7 as your LP start weight immediately after your reset. You’ll probably choose wrong a bunch of times the first couple weeks but we all do so don’t sweat it.

  1. I prefer planks over the other options. Ab wheels noticeably impact me the next day of lifting – felt pretty stupid sacrificing squat gainzzz for ab wheel volume. But maybe that’s just me.