Template Ideas

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Posted this in the Training forum but don’t want to take up too much BBM team time.

Going to run knee rehab and then beginner template. What I’d like to do in the future is eventually hit a 500lb deadlift and…say…at least a bodyweight OHP. I don’t care a great deal about bench to be honest, but hitting at least 275 would be great (currently 190lb/6’1). I’ve never found strength gains easy to come by, and have been plagued by injuries, but would like to try. Jordan recommended that, then GPP, then i.e. Titan I, given my interest in more dynamic work.

Would alternating between Titan and Strength templates in the future be a relatively viable longterm strategy for both increasing strength but retaining dynamic “do stuff with your kids/chainsaw for a day/go on a mountaingoat hunt” fitness levels? I’m 33 and would love to hit a 500lb deadlift before I’m 40, but who knows given my injury history and such. Not dead set on that goal either, and would probably throw a Powerbuilding block in now and then as well.

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I think Titan has lot more conditioning in it but the PB templates have a good amount of GPP and a little more than strength. Powerbuilding is going to have less conditioning and it is less causal cross fit but it does have some conditioning that should be helpful for more everyday activities. Powerbuilding also has more isolation exercises and choices on varations if you feel you have weakness in areas you want to work you can tailor PBIII and hypertrophy a lot more than other templates. Hypertrophy and PB III have a lot of exercise selections which helps with injuries if need to work around them. For instance you can choose just to safety bar squat and rest the low bar squat if you have something nagging in your shoulders on hypertrophy or do a high bar squat on powerbuilding. So you can work them around what is nagging you a little better if needed.

So to sum up I think it depends on how you feel after a template. If you need to mix it up with intensity or need to work on a weak area that is holding you back or that strengthening an area can help prevent injury hypertrophy is a really good sub for Titan. A little less stress and it is highly customizable to work around injury or strengthen areas while still having decent conditioning. PBIII might be a very good substitute for strength at a little lower intensity that allows to test at the end if you want. It is more customizable than strength but not as much as hypertrophy. I tend to plan blocks after I finish a template. It depends on how beat up I feel and if I need to address weakness but I don’t really run strength twice in a row. I use hypertrophy or powerbuilding to deload from the prep to the 1 rep max.

I honestly think any of the templates will get you were you want to be. It just depends on what you feel like you need for the next 10 weeks. Maybe it is you don’t want to low bar squat for 5 weeks hypertrophy is great. Maybe you don’t feel like you need as much conditioning but some isolation will help address weakness hypertrophy or powerbuilding III are good for that. Maybe you want to go to a meet or just test your 1 rep max and work a little harder then it is strength. A good part of this is what you feel like. Are you excited to run the next template in your two template sequence? Stick with it. Are you feeling a bit of burn out and what to mix it up then hypertrophy or powerbuilding can be good.

I think the other question is do you want to prove you lift 500 on the DL or are you happy just having a 1 RPM estimate around 500? If you don’t compete and are happy with just having an estimated 1 RPM around 500 you really don’t need to test and a powerbuilding template is a fine substitute that puts in a bit more isolation and is more customizable so you can keep it fresh. In the end if you aren’t planning on a meet in 14 weeks there are other options that will get you strong with a little less intensity and an optional 1 RPM test or none at all.

You certainly could run Titan PB strength then repeat it puts your 1 RPM test 10 more weeks down the road but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can also sub out for Titan or Strength to keep things fresh and get good results. I tend to like the hypertrophy or PB a bit better because there are more choices to the exercises you do so you can change it up more easily but if you like more cross fit and want to test your 1 rep max then Titan and Strength are fine.

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Thanks for the thorough reply. Good to know, Powerbuilding was something I was strongly considering as well, as I’d like to have something that continues to ramp up weight but also has a decent amount of movement variability and possibly olympic lifts and the like. The reality is that there probably isn’t one program that is fantastic for everything, as it’s simply not how development tends to work, so going through cycles is probably a worthwhile way to go. Is PB split up into phases as well? I assume you generally don’t want to swap exercises mid-phase correct?

So to sum up I think it depends on how you feel after a template. If you need to mix it up with intensity or need to work on a weak area that is holding you back or that strengthening an area can help prevent injury hypertrophy is a really good sub for Titan. A little less stress and it is highly customizable to work around injury or strengthen areas while still having decent conditioning. PBIII might be a very good substitute for strength at a little lower intensity that allows to test at the end if you want. It is more customizable than strength but not as much as hypertrophy. I tend to plan blocks after I finish a template. It depends on how beat up I feel and if I need to address weakness but I don’t really run strength twice in a row. I use hypertrophy or powerbuilding to deload from the prep to the 1 rep max.
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Thanks, this is really helpful. I didn’t realize Titan would be more intensive than PB. I’m sure I would like Titan, but not sure it’s appropriate for this stage of life with little kids and generally inadequate recovery relative to work and other life stressors, at least not at my current training capacity. I really do like exercise selection, as there are some I simply prefer and do better with, and only have access to limited equipment. I would like to test 1RMs, but I also have a fairly extensive injury history so I’m not sure how appropriate and how often it would be. I’m not sure I’d go full send on any regular basis, and might only test 1RMs every 6 months. I will say that one program that worked really quite well for me in the past were some of Dan John’s “frequency” programs, i.e. 5 reps of 5 exercises a day (with warmups) at roughly 70% of 1RM, 5x a week, so staying away from max intensity generally seems effective, for whatever it’s worth. It’s how I previously got my pullups to a 1RM of BW+115lb.

So current plan is to finish knee rehab template, then do Beginner Template, GPP template, and possibly PB, although I’d love dynamic work to be involved as well. Would you generally say Titan and Strength are the most intense/demanding templates? Not to say they cause injuries, but generally that they demand a lot from both training effort and recovery? If I were to run Strength I likely wouldn’t run it twice in a row as I’m fairly certain I don’t have the intensity tolerance of many others. I’m also 33 so my recovery ability isn’t what it was at 20.

Thanks a bunch!

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"Would you generally say Titan and Strength are the most intense/demanding templates? "

I haven’t tried them all and I guess that sort depends. Titan has a lot more things like emom which are and air squats for X over so many minutes. The lifting is a little higher volume and lower intensity than PB templates but the GPP stuff is more CrossFit type which could be more engaging than say 30 minutes steady state once a week and 20 minutes 20 sec RPE 10, 100 sec rest once a week. So to the GPP parts is a little heavier intensity but the lifting is more like you accessory work on power building. So for the main lifts you are going to get more intensity and higher volume on Powerbuilding than on Titan. Titan also doesn’t really seem to focus on a main lift as much.

So I would say Titan is much harder on the GPP aspect with things like as many sets in a time limit. It is a little easier on the lifting so I don’t think it is so much harder than powerbuilding just that the difficulty at least to me is ramped up more on the GPP while powerbuilding puts the difficulty on the lifts.

I am not really sure strength is harder. It is different you are running a lot more 1 rep at 8 with backoffs and less isolation work. It is harder than the lower fatigue PBIII since you will hit RPE 9 frequently vs. the 7 in PBIII unless you do the last 4 weeks to test. You will still have some and GPP in strength but you are focused more on variation work than accessory as you would see in power building. The end is the easiest because it is your test week where you do something like maybe 10 reps all week.

I am not sure I would call any template i have ran and I have ran a few over the years. They are just different. All of these are going to balance recovery with stimulus. The different templates just have different goals. PBIII is a little easier that is because it only prescribes RPE 7 instead of 8 so it is kind of a lower fatigue template. It has as an extra 4 weeks to test a one rep max though.

Just kind of summary of the templates I own.
GPP more highest to lowest
Titan
pretty much everything else is the same and less. 25 to 30 min LISS and 20 minutes of 20 sec RPE 10 cardio every two minutes.

Intensity
Strength
Powerbuilding
Titan
Hypertrophy
Bodybuilding

Volume
Bodybuilding
Hypertrophy
Powerbuilding
Titan
Strength

Accessory work
Bodybuiliding
Hypertrophy/power building
Strength
Titan

Variations of main lifts
Strength
hypertrophy/ power building/ body building/ Titan

Time per workout most to least
Strength
Titan(?) I am not for sure here I haven’t run the template I thought I was interested in it and bought it but they decided I didn’t want to do the more cross fit style stuff.
Bodybuilding
Hypertrophy/powerbuidling

So you can kind of see here it isn’t really so much that one template is harder than the other. Each have their balances Bodybuilding dials back intensity for volume and much more isolation work. Strength dials back the isolation work and cardio a bit. Titan dials back the insensitivity and volume for more cardio. I should add there are 3 and 4 day versions of all but Titan here so that will affect your volume and recovery a bit if you choose the 4 day a week versions versus the 3 day a week.

So which is the hardest largely depends on how you train. Titan might be really hard if you only have done strength and have to do all that GPP stuff but it might be a little easier on the lifting. Strength or the second half of a PB block might be hard if you haven’t done RPE 8 singles before. Bodybuilding might be hard if you aren’t used to do 10 plus reps. Yet overall all these templates attempt to balance recovery by adding something but dialing back to something else. You just aren’t going to find a template that is going to push you to the limits if you have been training.

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To kind of make this short. Titan is going to be great for things like mountain biking or playing soccer. It will get your GPP up and get a bit stronger. It is probably not going to be as good for your 1 RPM on your lifts though. Still the ranges should give some hypertrophy which doesn’t hurt so it isn’t any worse than a hypertrophy tor bodybuilding template for your 1 RPM but I would say not as good as the lower rep ranges in power building. Not saying you won’t get stronger that just isn’t the emphasis here. It is hardest on the GPP but relatively easier on the lifts.

Strength is best for 1 RPM in the Big 3 it is going to address weakness or round out as well and is moderate on GPP.

Powerbuilding is closer to Strength but a more real rounded accessory and isolation work

Hypertrpohy is going to focus more on well rounded lifting to address everything.

While bodybuilding is the biggest base builder with lots more isolation work.

So for being able to use a chain saw or go on a mountain goat hunt, I think Titan might be a bit overkill but not necessarily bad. Any of the other templates should give you enough fitness for that though. If you wanted to do things like run 5ks, race bicycles, or play higher demand sports like soccer Titan might be better.