When to end the SSLP?

Hi all. My first post. Great to be here.

I’ve just completed 9 weeks on the SSLP and I plan to start the Bridge program when it’s time to end the SSLP. But I’m curious to know - when is the right time to move on?

My press is now progressing at 2.5lbs per session - my last set was RPE 10. The bench is still increasing at 5 lbs but I suspect I will need to shift to 2.5 lbs increases next week. I feel that my squat, at 5 lbs increases, might start to stall probably in the next week or so. However, adding 5 lbs to the deadlift each session still feels quite comfortable.

I’d appreciate your advice.

It is important to embrace the long-term perspective on training starting now, and make your decisions accordingly.

In other words, let’s assume (and hope) you are going to be training consistently for the next 10-20 years, at least. In that light, whether you move on from a beginner program that already has you hitting sets at (or near) RPE 10 this week, or next week, or the week after that ultimately will not make a significant difference in your progress over the long term.

So ultimately there is no one exact “right time” for this kind of thing. If you’d like to make the complete switch now, that’s fine. If you’d like to switch your upper body movements, while keeping the lower body movements on your existing program, that’s also fine. If you’d like to try the older “bench and press plug-in” Jordan wrote a few years back (found here), that’s fine too. You’ll learn and gain valuable experience from whichever you choose. But if this was framed through the lens of, “will any of these options put me further ahead in terms of progress in 1, 2, 5, or 10 years”, assuming consistent and reasonable training throughout … I’d say probably not.

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Thank you for taking the time to reply to me, Dr Baraki.

Indeed I do plan to continue training for my lifetime. And thank you for the upper body plug-in. I will switch that in and I look forward to starting the Bridge in a few weeks time.

A further question is I may:

For the plug-in, I see the reference to RPE. For multiple work sets at say an RPE 8, won’t the first set feel different to the last set, i.e. the last set will likely feel harder than then first. So, for a given weight, work set 1 might be an RPE 8 (2 reps in reserve), but work set 3 might end up with an RPE of 9 or 10. Does that mean when using RPE, that I’ll have to remove weight from the bar for the latter work sets?

It is possible that if weight and reps are held constant, RPE ratings can change from set to set, yes. We would recommend adjusting weight as necessary based on the real-time feedback you’re getting during the workout.

Understood. Thank you Dr. Feigenbaum. I decided to move to the Bridge template. I’m having fun.