When I run the powerlifting II template I tend to have some awesome results until intensity seems to catch up to me (I don’t think it’s volume as I can run hypertrophy II very comfortably, but maybe I’m wrong?). I struggle with my left bicep and both shoulders flaring up on squats and bench. I don’t believe it is necessarily my technique on these, as I don’t have this issue all the time, and I generally can get very tight and feel it in my upper back as I’m supposed to during “good” weeks when everything flows smoothly. The problem is that when I start to feel beat up, It’s as if I lose the ability to get that tightness in my upper back. It seems to just get too fatigued to get as tight as I need it to. On my squats, I start to load the weight onto my arms, and on my bench, I begin to collapse at the bottom.
Another important note is that I work at FedEx and I have to load my arms (my weak point) pretty heavily 3 days a week, so I am sure that adds to it as well. However, I ran hypertrophy II when I was working there 5 days a week and never had any flare-ups.
Two thoughts I’ve had:
Lowering intensity across the board on the variation work as a start (-1 RPE level on Each set)
Keeping the top sets the same on the variation work and only backing off more on the variation’s back-off sets (These back-offs possibly dropping back ~1-2 RPE levels)
Thanks for the post. A few things I like to evaluate when considering a programming change:
What’s the trend for e1RM or other metrics of strength and how does that compare with previous performance?
What has the session RPE been for training sessions recently?
Subjective feedback, which you’ve nailed here I’m missing a bit of information in order to make a confident recommendation, but I think reducing total training stress likely makes sense. While volume, proximity to failure, and intensity all contribute to training stress, viewing them in isolation can be misleading. I think reducing RPE for all sets (comp work included) or decreasing average intensity on back-off work only (on all exercises) would be reasonable.
I started implementing this about 5 days ago, and my bench is getting back up to speed with minimum issues, and rapidly too. The session RPE now is typically a 6-8 nowadays, which I like. Initially, I would hit an 8-9 on most standard days last time, and fairly often, 10s, if I was having a bad day which would heavily drain me.
My e1rm was trending much higher than I’d ever seen before my flare-up (I ran hypertrophy II prior to this and had amazing results, particularly on bench & OHP), and then started to rapidly crash with additional fatigue. However, I am almost back to that even now being a few pounds lighter. This is also now the first time running powerlifting II where I sometimes opt for the higher end of the % range given for back-offs since I have been feeling much better. To me, this makes me think it was really just the initial top sets that reached slightly too high for me for the given frequency.
Speaking of the RPE & percentages, I opted for the option of just reducing RPE across all sets on most exercises, with the exception being for certain higher rep work that I enjoy hitting higher RPEs on and have had a good history doing so with (Strict press and weighted dips). For these, I opted for the other option of hitting the first 3 sets as normal, and then just backing off slightly more for the back-offs.
I know it is very early since implementing these changes, but the sudden and rapid change feels very promising to me, so thanks for the help!
