First off thanks to the Barbell Medicine team for all the high quality and consistent material you guys put out.
I’m coming back after an extended layoff (about 3 Months), as I moved into a new house and didn’t have a good plan for training while I was getting my home gym set up.
Now that I’m back I plan on running the bridge 2.0, I finished running the program about 3 months ago before the break.
I was considering doing the low stress week twice, is that unnecessary - should I just run the program as is, or is it a good idea due to the extended layoff?
Also, my home gym has a fairly low ceiling that will probably prevent standing OHP, is seated OHP an acceptable substitute and do you think it can be done safely sitting on a flat bench? If not, could you suggest an alternative movement?
Hi Chris and welcome to the boards! You will be fine with one low stress week here. Just be sure that as you move through the program, you are assessing your RPE and weight increases based on what you are doing NOW, but what you did 3 months ago.
And you can do a seated press if that’s your option, for sure. Also you might be able to do a standing press with small weights loaded on the bar for a time too. Sometimes not using any full sized 45s allows for this.
fwiw I was in a similar boat, long layoff from any serious training (~6 months if not more, but there was “training” thrown in here and there). I jumped into bridge v2.0, only one low stress week. I just wrapped up week 5 and I’m not far off of PR levels for my current bodyweight in the squat and dead and bench and press are within 10-15% of that. Just do as Leah said, mind the RPE. My singles @8 have gone up a lot week to week, partly because so much of getting back into training is just practice. It’s unlikely you’ve shed pounds of muscle in 3 months.