Thank you Barbell Medecine crew for the great templates so far, I’ve ran 12 week press (OG), Hypertrophy 2 twice, Powerbuilding 2 twice, Strengthlifting 2, and the bodybuilding template over the past year and, without a doubt, I’m a night and day lifter compared to a year ago.
Thank you also for updating the templates recently, I got the email newsletter and thought it would be minor adjustments, and I’m actually pleasantly surprised that a lot of the templates’ structure (volume, intensity, RIR/RPE, etc) have been updated. They seem like enitrely new routines, and I’m all for it because I’m excited to run them through! I have a few questions if that’s ok:
i couldn’t help but notice especially that the GPP guidelines have increased, (definitely much more upper back and arm volume in the powerbuilding and hypertrophy templates). I just wanted to make sure this is correct?
If so, is there any issue with doing HIIT and LISS on the same (off) days, and potentially consecutively/back-to-back? How would you personally sructure this (Liss then HIIT, or vice versa)?
Furthermore, if, due to scheduling, a lifter HAD to perform either LISS or HIIT immediately after a main lifting day, which would you have them do in order to minimize the interference effect (which I know is greatly overstated and can be greatly diminished with common sense)?
I’m just interested to know why you don’t think there is an interference effect?
As far as I understand, one mechanism is an interference at a molecular level where even, for example, if you train upper body before lower body cardio, upper body gains are reduced compared to if trained alone. I’ve seen some studies showing this albeit it was only 2 or 3 but I’m sure there must be more. I’ve always done arm work separated from cardio work rather than at once on a GPP day for this reason, but I know it’s not a massive deal for the average lifter that isn’t competitive.
We discussed this in the podcast with Eric helms, see here.
The molecular level stuff is interesting, though has not been borne out in actual training outcomes. It looks like more training can be more fatiguing transiently, but once you adapt to it and can tolerate it, you make more gainzZz.
I apologize to re-awake this thread, just have a couple more questions please.
Running the updated Powerbuilding II, and, without wanting to give away details of the programming, am about to head into the half way point where the HIIT protocol goes from once a week to twice a week, so the HIIT volume literally doubles. It’s been kicking my butt because I just got a Rogue Echo bike and I believe I’m actually doing true @rpe 10 HIIT on the bike right now, whereas for the past year and a half of Barbell Medicine templates, I’ve been doing sled drags-sprints that I thought were @rpe10, but they were probably @rpe6 compared to how much I’m literally gasping for air after 20 seconds on the Echo. Nevertheless, I expect to adapt.
…that there is no problem in terms of “health outcomes” in terms of splitting HIIT up. Is there any issue with performance outcomes if I split it up? In other words, am I missing out on any intended adaptions as a semi-serious lifter if I split the HIIT recommendations/interval rounds up into three sessions (it’s twice a week as it is)? Or even 4 sessions? Does this “defeat the purpose” of HIIT if you do it into much smaller chunks? I know from reading older threads that LISS is fine to break into chunks, but was wondering if its applicable for HIIT.
(Sort of ties into the first) If it indeed is ok to break HIIT into chunks/more sessions throughtout the week, where would you recommend a lifter draw the line, in terms of minimum amount of consecutive bouts of HIIT intervals? For example, if I do a couple of rounds/20 sec of HIIT as a general body warmup before every training session, that would literally account for a good amount of the prescribed HIIT volume. However, I’m assuming the point of HIIT isn’t to be in longer consecutive bouts which could very well be an incorrect assumption.
To be 100% transparent, doing 10 rounds of HIIT on the echo at once is tough, and maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to break up the other 10 so I don’t have to do it all at once again. I’m going to ramp up the HIIT volume over the next few weeks, but once I hit the prescribed volume, if its ok to split it, then I will.
I tried to find the answer to this (also listened to the conditioning podcast where you had Alyssa Olenick which was a goodie, I’ve pretty much listened to most of the episodes at this point), so I apologize if you’ve already answered this.
I apologize for the long post above, this is the TL;DR:
Volume is about to double for HIIT (via extra day) per the PB II program, so now it’s twice a week. I’d like to spread the HIIT volume over 3, or even 4 sessions, if that doesn’t take away from the “intended purpose” of HIIT that you program it for? Ex: Am I losing anything by performing 10 @10rpe intervals twice a week vs 5 intervals four times a week?
Extending further, if I perform a round or two of HIIT pre or post training, would these smaller intervals rounds even contribute to the adaption that HIIT is intended for, and may I count them towards the total amount of HIIT prescribed?
I hope that is better on your eyes, thanks for reading!