RPE Megathread: The Sweet Smell of Easy.

[damufunman]

Don't know if this thread should be revived again, but I figured I'd post that after burning out on a Legacy BBM template (where the HNFM values are all very high), that I made my own block to get back in the groove again and will post later on how progress goes.

Took some ideas about keeping away from @9 sets and doing more volume work, but keeping things relatively heavy (3 reps at a 5RM for instance). Used HNFM to help guide these with 2 harder slots for each and 1 easier slot per week. So far Monday and Tuesday have been great.

Monday:
Squat w/ belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Incline Bench: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%
SLDLs: 3@8, 5x5@70%

Tuesday:
1ct Bench: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Split Squat: 3x8@6/7/8
2ct Press: 3@8, 5x5@70%

Thursday:
Deadlift w/ Belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
CG Bench: 3@8, 5x5@70%
Bent Over Rows: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%

Friday:
Press w/ Belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Narrow stance Squat: 3@8, 5x5@70%
Weighted Dips: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%

Is this basically bumping RPEs down from @9 to @8?

[SnakePlissken]

Don't know if this thread should be revived again, but I figured I'd post that after burning out on a Legacy BBM template (where the HNFM values are all very high), that I made my own block to get back in the groove again and will post later on how progress goes.

Took some ideas about keeping away from @9 sets and doing more volume work, but keeping things relatively heavy (3 reps at a 5RM for instance). Used HNFM to help guide these with 2 harder slots for each and 1 easier slot per week. So far Monday and Tuesday have been great.

Monday:
Squat w/ belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Incline Bench: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%
SLDLs: 3@8, 5x5@70%

Tuesday:
1ct Bench: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Split Squat: 3x8@6/7/8
2ct Press: 3@8, 5x5@70%

Thursday:
Deadlift w/ Belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
CG Bench: 3@8, 5x5@70%
Bent Over Rows: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%

Friday:
Press w/ Belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Narrow stance Squat: 3@8, 5x5@70%
Weighted Dips: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%

Is this basically bumping RPEs down from @9 to @8?

Sort of, I felt like I couldn't keep up on the BBM template I was on because my work capacity probably wasn't there so I made some changes to...
Add work capacity/base building
Lower overall intensity from what I was doing
Slightly increase volume from what I was doing
Get more clean reps in (5s@70% and 6s@68%)

For the mains I wanted to do a 5RM load, but keep fatigue down. May change these to a 2@7 depending on how 3@8s go.
The top set of 6@8 is to do something challenging at a higher rep range than just a triple and they gage the backoffs better.

Otherwords, the only time you should hit an @9 is on the easier 10 rep sets on exercises like Bent Over Rows and Dips which never hit me hard. Trying to keep rest times down to about 2 minutes on all backoff work.

[ChasingCurls69]

@SnakePlissken I like that plan a lot. You may even benefit from slightly lighter % on the 6's but it's rrally good and looks fun to do.

I still highly recommend the BBM templates in general but had the same issues with the frewuent @9 sets and overshooting 1@8's, so rate of gains has improved after dropping things down more like this.

[damufunman]

Don't know if this thread should be revived again, but I figured I'd post that after burning out on a Legacy BBM template (where the HNFM values are all very high), that I made my own block to get back in the groove again and will post later on how progress goes.

Took some ideas about keeping away from @9 sets and doing more volume work, but keeping things relatively heavy (3 reps at a 5RM for instance). Used HNFM to help guide these with 2 harder slots for each and 1 easier slot per week. So far Monday and Tuesday have been great.

Monday:
Squat w/ belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Incline Bench: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%
SLDLs: 3@8, 5x5@70%

Tuesday:
1ct Bench: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Split Squat: 3x8@6/7/8
2ct Press: 3@8, 5x5@70%

Thursday:
Deadlift w/ Belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
CG Bench: 3@8, 5x5@70%
Bent Over Rows: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%

Friday:
Press w/ Belt: 3@8, 6@8, 4x6@68%
Narrow stance Squat: 3@8, 5x5@70%
Weighted Dips: 4x10@7/8/9/LD5%

Is this basically bumping RPEs down from @9 to @8?

Sort of, I felt like I couldn't keep up on the BBM template I was on because my work capacity probably wasn't there so I made some changes to...
Add work capacity/base building
Lower overall intensity from what I was doing
Slightly increase volume from what I was doing
Get more clean reps in (5s@70% and 6s@68%)

For the mains I wanted to do a 5RM load, but keep fatigue down. May change these to a 2@7 depending on how 3@8s go.
The top set of 6@8 is to do something challenging at a higher rep range than just a triple and they gage the backoffs better.

Otherwords, the only time you should hit an @9 is on the easier 10 rep sets on exercises like Bent Over Rows and Dips which never hit me hard. Trying to keep rest times down to about 2 minutes on all backoff work.

Nice. It looks like you've implemented that quite well here.

[SnakePlissken]

@ChasingCurls69 I still like BBM, but I've always wanted to program for myself so I'm jumping in. As for the percentages on the 6s, I took a e12RM and halved the number of reps to 6 to end up around 68% or 6@RPE4. Sort of stole that idea from reading around this forum.


@damufunman Thanks man, I intend to report back how this goes later on.

[SnakePlissken]

Wound up running my block and basically made no gains. Since doing this, I bought Bromley's ebook Base Strength and listened to a Candito video about under rating RPEs and using them more as a cap while doing mostly percentage work which has brought up an epiphany...

From reading Bromley's book, I realized that I haven't worked with reps over 8 on compounds in over a year and that I probably have a small base, so this week I decided to just run everything at 12 rep sets around 50-55% of my e1RM and cap my sets at RPE 7-8 and I have a new soreness that I haven't felt in a long time. Suspecting I was sticking so close to the strength side of things, that I have made minimal gains for the last 6 months because of this.

This is more or less how I used to train bro-splits back in the day and I think it's going to become much more popular in the near future.

[augeleven]

Hey @SnakePlissken How is Bromley’s book? I’ve been checking out his YouTube channel a bunch and like what he’s saying. Is it just rehashing his YouTube info? Is it mostly fluff? I’ll probably end up buying it anyway as a show of support.

(Any time I “/mention” you , I imagine myself as Ernest Borgnine. I can’t be the only one...)

[SnakePlissken]

Hey @SnakePlissken How is Bromley’s book? I’ve been checking out his YouTube channel a bunch and like what he’s saying. Is it just rehashing his YouTube info? Is it mostly fluff? I’ll probably end up buying it anyway as a show of support.

The ebook is 10 dollars right now and about 80 or 90 pages. It's mostly what he talks about on his youtube videos, but it's all complied much better and he has multiple examples of how you can setup progressions throughout. It was a refreshing read to me because it reminded me of what I used to do when I first started training and didn't know what RPE was or SS. There's nothing "groundbreaking" in it, but its simplicity is a great refresher. If anything it's worth 10 dollars to me for good reference material.

The big things he hits on are wide bases to make taller peaks and how to setup base phases and peak phases.

(Any time I “/mention” you , I imagine myself as Ernest Borgnine. I can’t be the only one...)

*Cabbie music starts playing as he lights Crazies on fire with a Molotov cocktail*

[alek]

bump

ETA

I’ll play. Here’s what I came up with.

After rereading the RPE Megathread and listening to the latest BBM podcasts, I’ve decided to try an emerging strategies block using the RTS logging app.

I’m thinking I’m going to try something like:

Let x be 1 @8.
Let y be 3 @.87x
Let z be 5’s @.87y

For example, if I squat 365x1@8, then the triple would be at 365*0.87 and the 5’s would be 365*0.87*0.87.

Increase x when x @<8
Increase y when y @<7.5
Increase z when z @<7

Day 1
Comp Squat: x,y,z
Comp Bench: x,y,z
Pullups/Lat Pulldown
Bro Work

Day 2
Paused Squat: x,y,z
Pin Bench: x,y,z
Sumo DL: 5’s @6
Horizontal Row
Bro Work

Day 3
Comp DL: x,y,z
Weighted Dips
Weighted Pullups
Straight Arm Pulldowns
Triceps Pushdown
Bro Work

I’ll see how it goes for about 8 weeks or so. I might do mini-tests every three weeks or so to gauge effectiveness.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Jim Elli (former RTS coach) released a free emerging strategies-style program (i.e. bottom up programming):

https://zaostrength.com/the-zao-strengt ... g-program/



Program comes with a spreadsheet, with stock strategies and adjustable stress levels. Could be useful for somebody just getting started with ES.