Long time lurker here,
Ive ran the 12 week strength with press focus once before, but for convential deadlift, low bar squat, and overhead press, and loved the results. After running the hypertrophy 2 template, I now want to run the same 12 week strength with press focus again, but with (low handle) trap bar deadlift, ssb squat, and overhead press as a few buddies at my gym want to run a friendly mock meet with those movements in a few months.
My question is this: now that my primary pulling movement is a low handle trap bar deadlift, would I benefit from switching all the secondary pulling movements throughout the cycle exclusively with a trap bar to “maximize specficity,” if that is a thing? For example, the rack pulls I would perform with the HIGH handle trap bar, and all the other pulling movements on Day 4 throughout the cycle (2 ct paused deadlift 1" off floor, RDL, SLDL, 2" defecit deadlift, etc.) would all be with a trap bar. In short, i’m completing getting rid of any straight bar pulling this entire cycle (no interest in competing, I am happy with current convential deadlift strength). The only drawback I can think of is that I am much stronger with a trap bar in all of those movements and thus a higher fatigue so please let me know if that’s a concern as I know these templates are carefully and expertly created to keep the stimulus and fatigue ratio optimized. In addition, if keeping straight bar pulling movements is actually beneficial for my end goal of a higher trap bar 1RM, I’m all ears!
Sorry for the long post. Thank you guys so much for the templates, the contents, and the podcasts!
Monster