Training and USMLE Step 1 / COMLEX 1

Hey Docs, I figured this would be a great place to ask my nuanced question, but if it’s not let me know. I’m a second year medical student getting ready for my first powerlifting meet this Saturday. I’m just trying to figure out what to do in my training after the meet, but I’ve got these pesky level 1 board exams in June (I’m at a DO school, and I’m going to take COMLEX and USMLE), so time is an issue.

Just wondering if you think the time crunch template would be appropriate for me, or if I should do something else with less rest time. Obviously I value a great board score, but also don’t want to regress in my training as I’ve made great strides since beginning. If it helps, I didn’t really get a lot stronger doing the bridge, but made great gains during the GPP hypertrophy 2.0 and strength 2.0 template. I’d also like to ask if either of you can share some insight as to how you handled training during your more intense study periods.

Keep doing what you’re doing, barbell medicine is the coolest and has helped me quite a bit. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, and I wish you all the best.

I didn’t train any differently prepping for boards and would generally spend about 2-2.5 hrs in the gym 4x a week. I studied a lot outside of that and scored a 257 on Step 1.

If you really need to spend less time training I would do the hypertrophy template while you study, as that’d be a smaller time commitment than the strength template.

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Great advice doc. I’ll continue with strength training and switch to the hypertrophy template if time needs cut. I appreciate your feedback. Great job on that step score, I hope to do similarly.