So I’ve seen myself as a relatively smart individual when it comes to resistance training. I’ve spent a lot of time reading and listening to some of the best people in this field. However, my ego still wanted to go in everyday and try to power lift. I even ran the strength template thinking I would be getting huge improvements in strength (my training age is 10 years with only 1.5 being BBM). After running the strength template my big three went up a laughable amount. +- 5lbs.
Fast forwards ten weeks ago, I finally said screw it and ran the hypertrophy program, really checked my session RPEs and did a nice caloric surplus to gain 10lbs in 10 weeks.
Fast forward again to today. I’m in day two of the olympic template and had to do a deadlift 1@8. My 1@8 today was 55lbs heavier than my 1@9 during the last week of the strength template. My back off sets where substantially smoother and I felt as though I was in better positioning the entire time.
The reason I post this is because I came to the realization that even though I knew that LBM is an indication of strength I had my own bias against doing hypertrophy (I don’t know why) which hindered my gainzzz so I guess the hypertrophy program gets a 5 star review from me. Also my wife says I’ve gotten a lot more solid so you know, that’s a plus.
did you find yourself sticking more rigidly to RPE scales on all your lifts during the hypertrophy and olympic templates? You say your ego caused you to powerlift - were you over estimating your RPEs?
I’m still getting used to using RPE and find that I do sometimes overestimate my strength on given days, meaning my RPE8 sometimes becomes a 9.5, etc.