Just a quick question, might be dumb. I just started this program wondering if it matters the order you do prescribed exercises. I don’t like, or want to jump back and forth from squats to dead lifts and back to squats or bench and other uppers. I’ve just been doing the lifts together so far.
Good question. Exercise selection follows this hierarchy by convention:
- Power exercises
- Strength or compound movements using lots of muscle mass
- Isolation exercises
- Conditioning
Save for keeping conditioning at the end or separate from resistance training, most of this doesn’t really matter with respect to training outcomes, though one could argue putting our best foot forward in training is a good idea.
So, what do I mean by putting our best foot forward?
The main goal of a program or coach is to maximize the training load completed by the individual, as more training load generally leads to more results. The two biggest bottlenecks are time and recovery resources. So, maximizing training load while respecting those boundaries is what we aim to do.
Pairing agonist-antagonist (e.g. chest and back) and/or alternate-peripheral (e.g. press and squat) together is likely to increase training load compared to agonist-agonist (e.g. chest and chest) due to primary movers getting some rest. This is best evidenced by superset data, so admittedly, I’m extrapolating from there.
For your particular situation, you can absolutely do the exercises however you like. I just want you to do them and suspect a small to modest effect of doing it this way, if any.
-Jordan
Thanks for the quick answer, really my issue was with the the first lower workout listed in this order-Comp squat- DL-2P, RDLs Hack Sq. then Squats Tempo again. No way I want to go back to squats after all that pulling so I did squats together. I’m 67 that is to much.
I will bunch the power lifts together.
Regards
I think you may be reading the workout wrong. That workout should be:
- Comp squat
- paused DL OR RDL (weak point on DL training)
- hack squats OR tempo squats (weak point on SQ training)
If you’re in the app, this is described in the notes as well as the PDF, but I can also understand how it’s missed. I definitely wouldn’t want to do all that either!
Yes I noticed that in the app later either or on an exercises. Confusion averted.
Thanks
Good catch beforehand hahaha!
Do you have a recommendation for something other then slingshot bench, I don’t have a slingshot and don’t want to buy one. Pause benches or something?
Regards
Understandable. Costs notwithstanding, I do like the the Slingshot for bench press development in raw lifters. I use it mostly as an overload movement, and it seems to be well-tolerated in individuals who might not otherwise do so well with a decent amount of overload work.
In this scenario, I’d favor a towel bench: roll up a towel to a 2.5" diameter or so, stuff it under your shirt, and bench that way. 2 or 3 board press would work, as would floor press. A longer pause or tempo bench could be used as well if you felt like you actually needed a lighter variant vs a heavier one.
Thank you very much, I’ll ponder what to do.
I’m on week 5 and I see many of these workouts are the same percentages or RPE’s
Do you do the same weight no matter what or go by how you feel, as in if you feel stronger go up some on the single, or heavy rep sets? Ex. 4 reps @ rope 8 [83%] , Repeat x 3 more sets to rope 7 then 1@rpe 7 I have a bad inclination to lift a bit more.
The percentages and RPEs aren’t supposed to change much week to week within a block using this type of programming, that’s a feature, not a bug. The way progress shows up isn’t through the weight going up every session. It shows up when the same weight at RPE 8 last week now feels like RPE 7 this week (or similar). That RPE drop IS the adaptation signal, and when it happens, that’s when you bump the load to get back to the prescribed RPE.
Generally speaking, strength gains accrue over weeks and months. Depending on the size of the improvement, they may be measurable/demonstrable in a week or many weeks. Think of it like this, if it takes an average of ~ 4-6 weeks to actually get stronger, a newer lifter may improve by 20% over that time frame, whereas an advanced lifter may improve by 5%. The newer lifter’s improved strength will show up more quickly than the advanced lifter’s, despite the adaptation time course being similar.
All of this is to say, I do not expect most people to be able to routinely add weight weekly. That’s why we keep the load stable and let the RPE tell us when something actually changed — usually over the course of a block, not a workout.
So to answer directly: go by how you feel, yes, but “feeling stronger” means the prescribed RPE dropped, not that you should chase a heavier single because you’re having a good day. If 4@8 last week is now 4@7, bump the weight until you’re back at 4@8. That’s the conservative progression strategy working exactly as intended.
On the back-off sets: those stay at the same weight as your top set. The reps float. If you got 4@8 on top and then your back-offs are supposed to be sets at RPE 7, you might get 4, 3, 3 — and that’s fine. The RPE cap is the stop rule, not the reps.
The fact that you said you have a “bad inclination to lift a bit more” tells me you already know the answer. Trust the RPE targets. The program is autoregulating, it’ll let you lift more when you’ve earned it, and you’ll know because the numbers will tell you, not because you have to force it.
Pretty much as I thought, I have a hard time n ot doing all 4s on the back-off sets regardless, it’s just a fault in my thinking, and the single at RPE-7 seemed to light so I went up some. It’s hard to lay back and think I’m working hard enough.
Understood. I think it may be helpful to view every variable in training as a tool to make you stronger instead of a test of strength. While each training session is a “test” of your performance that day, there’s a lot of noise that goes into performance. While we must accept the performance variability in everyday training - acknowledging it would be great to see an increase every time you train - the real goal in training is not testing your strength, but developing it using the weight, reps, sets, and so on as instruments to do so.
I’ve been on the SS mentality for 2 years also hard habit to break.
One thing with being old 67} I have a hard time getting warm on these 5 set bench and squats many times my was easiest set is 2-4 depending on the day, first working set always seems grindy so it confuses my RPE.
Thanks
Yea, this sort of “warm up” effect is not unusual. A few thoughts:
- Nailing the exact weight isn’t necessary to get optimal results from lifting weights. Why? We have a fairly large “buffer zone” for intensity, which means that even if the weight is a little lighter than it should be, it’s still going to work about the same re: strength, hypertrophy, and health.
- Progress is definitely important, and we want to take advantage of increases in fitness when they declare themselves. One way to do that in the context while also extending the warm-up is to do a “marker” set, where you hit ~ 90% of your target work (to start) set weight for the rep range that is prescribed for the work sets/top set. So, if 5 @ 8 was your programmed top set and you were thinking about 300lbs, you could do 5 reps @ 270lbs to gauge your strength for the day. If it’s lighter than you predicted, go up in weight on the top set. If heavier than expected, go down. If it’s about the same, maintain weight. I’d also count that warm up set as one of your back off sets to control total volume.
- You can keep the anchor set the same week to week within a training block to have a sort of training North Star to guide you when it comes to adding weight.
Hopefully that helps.
-Jordan