Hi, was just wondering about what my strategy for the next lifting season should be.
For reference, I’m going to nationals (Norway) this week after completing the Strength 1 template. Going in I was coming from Bromleys Bullmastiff Powerbuilding program. All my lifts are up, significantly, but I have run into
issues with my lower and upper back, and pecs. Granted, I’ve done a lot of overreaching doing rpe 9s too often.
So now i am looking forward to a nice off season doing Hypertrophy 1 and then Powerbuilding 1 or Titan 1. Starting the new Powerlifting season in the fall, I was wondering witch approach to go for?
My first plan was to run Strength 1 again and then do Powerlifting 2, but I feel that it’s too taxing. Should i opt for the low fatigue approach instead, or just dial down the RPEs on the «regular» templates?
For reference: I have been compeeting in the mens 105kg class on and off cince 2017. But now, after reaching 32, I want to try to reach my potential. I have kids so I also want to function like a regular human beeing. Thus I don’t want that grueling Texas Method pain again.
I’d favor running PB I for the off season, then going back to a PL- focused template. If you had great results on Strength I, it’d be hard to recommend against that. If your looking for a change of pace that’s still strength focused, the low fatigue template has both 3 and 4-day options that might fit you perfectly. I wouldn’t take too much time away from training for strength during the off season.
I hope you don’t mind me posting a couple of followup questions:
I decide to go for another round of Strength 1. Given that the stress is to higher then my current ability to recover, how do I best adabt the program? I was thinking adjusting the singles from rpe 8 to 7-7,5 and the 3, 4 and 5 reps setts to rpe 8-8,5.
For the off season: what are BBMs recomodations for strength athletes’ off season? Would love a article and/or a podcast episode on this topic.
I think if someone is reporting they were knowingly overshooting the RPE’s, my first thought is to make an effort to not do that anymore. If needed, I’d consider lowering RPE targets to facilitate that further.
For off season powerlifters, my general recommendation would be to start around a 50/50 split, where 50% is PL-specific stuff like SQ/BP/DL, sets of 3 or less, and so on. The remaining 50% would be non-PL-specific stuff like unilateral, DB, machines isolation, and conditioning work. The percentages refer to a rough approximation of total weekly training volume. As one gets closer to a meet, the allocation will change to ~ 70/30 PL/other at 12 weeks and 95/5 at ~ 4 weeks, for example.