Experiences on BBM Templates

[DCR]

I've repeatedly had folks with opinions tell me that I'm giving up some top end strength by warming up so close to it, as well as by doing too much alleged junk volume on the way up.

This is what I've heard lots of times in the past. What's sad to me is I used to do a lot more warmups for my Bench and Press like this and always felt solid on the top sets (when I was doing SS). I dropped it when I moved to the TM because I was trying to save my strength.

Right. Not only has warming up less thoroughly not resulted in saving any strength for the top, but it has resulted in me being cold and weak when I got there. This has been my experience over and over again. I suspect that age is playing a role, and I of course recognize that there’s a point at which thorough becomes too much. I believe that point is much more than folks think. (Strangely, the only person whom I’ve ever seen write about this is Jason Ferruggia, who once upon a time had useful shit to say but several years ago became a carnival barker. I hadn’t looked at his site in a long time and checking now... yup, still embarrassing. Seems popular, though!)

[SnakePlissken]

@DCR I'm not sure if lack of warmups was my problem with the programming though. I think I need to recheck myself and go back into similar programming again and cap my week-to-week gains too. I do like the idea of doing a 1@6-7 before a 1@8 though.

[DCR]

@SnakePlissken, right, didn’t mean to suggest that; was just running with the tangent.

[SnakePlissken]

In the meantime I'm feeling a changeup from going heavy every week. Running a pivot (random stuff I've wanted to try out) this week, but I'd like to do some more base building/hypertrophy stuff after this week.

Anyone have some good suggestions?

[Testiclaw]

For what it's worth...

1) I generally make 5% jumps or less once I get within a few sets of my planned top-set.

2) I usually aim to repeat previous top-sets for any week where I add volume/additional drop-sets.

3) I try not to expect to add much (if anything) to the bar for weeks at a time.

If our strength increased 10% a year, a fairly significant amount, how much of that needs to happen between every Monday? Not much.

I also drop a fair amount of recommended volume from "traditional" workloads for myself.

I like the recommendation about repeating a weight if you've upped the volume. This is where I went wrong with the 10 lb deadlift jumps on weeks 1-3. Even though I felt great, I guess it's like a loan in that I'm paying it back now.

For the first recommendation, are you saying that's true for just singles or even if your top set was like a 5?

Yep, although I'll taper reps sometimes.

So if I was aiming for 315 x 5 as my top set, @8.

Bar
95 x 5 x 2-3 sets
135 x 5 x 1-2 sets
160 x 3
185 x 3
225 x 3
255 x 2
285 x 5
300 x 5
315 x 5

If I'm lazy and still want to hit my top set, I might drop reps all the way to the top set;

Bar
95 x 5 x 2-3 sets
135 x 5 x 1-2 sets
160 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 3
255 x 3
285 x 3
300 x 2
315 x 5

[Skander]

I've repeatedly had folks with opinions tell me that I'm giving up some top end strength by warming up so close to it, as well as by doing too much alleged junk volume on the way up.

This is what I've heard lots of times in the past. What's sad to me is I used to do a lot more warmups for my Bench and Press like this and always felt solid on the top sets (when I was doing SS). I dropped it when I moved to the TM because I was trying to save my strength.

Right. Not only has warming up less thoroughly not resulted in saving any strength for the top, but it has resulted in me being cold and weak when I got there. This has been my experience over and over again.

A correlary of this for me is that my best set is almost always set 2 or 3, usually 3. Suggests to me that even with good warmup I'm not truly warmed up till then.

[DCR]

I've repeatedly had folks with opinions tell me that I'm giving up some top end strength by warming up so close to it, as well as by doing too much alleged junk volume on the way up.

This is what I've heard lots of times in the past. What's sad to me is I used to do a lot more warmups for my Bench and Press like this and always felt solid on the top sets (when I was doing SS). I dropped it when I moved to the TM because I was trying to save my strength.

Right. Not only has warming up less thoroughly not resulted in saving any strength for the top, but it has resulted in me being cold and weak when I got there. This has been my experience over and over again.

A correlary of this for me is that my best set is almost always set 2 or 3, usually 3. Suggests to me that even with good warmup I'm not truly warmed up till then.

Perhaps why I find that a reasonably hard warm up (although of course nowhere remotely near failure) helps - sort of serving as that “first set.” A friend looked at my progression from last night and suggested that with a top single at 285, the triple with 250 in particular was “too much” in a warm up. Wrong.

[mouse]

I was gonna give this it's own thread but figured piggybacking here will do...

If anyone cares to discuss without too many spoilers, I caved and downloaded Alan/BBM's strongman template. Curiosity and over a year of waiting got the better of me and it 'appears to be' on sale or something... I got it for $45 with Alan's code...

Anyway, my initial reaction is somewhat surprised. Not sure what I was expecting, but I don't know if it was this. It's broken up into three 5-week mesocycles, which I don't know if they've done with any of their other programs. I know there are 'blocks' but not actual separate templates that I'm aware of. Gives it kind of a cool flexibility as you can use them on their own or in conjunction.

Selections and rep schemes are definitely surprising to me. I never saw the crossfit programming, but I'm guessing it might be 'close' as they've recommended using it for strongman in the past, the basic barbell stuff is what you'd expect... with way less 1@8's hahaha. There's a bunch of EMOM backoff stuff I wasn't expecting at all.

First 5 weeks looks really busy with a 5th 'event day' that they recommend you spread across the other 4 days if you don't want the 5th. I get that they're trying to be 'well rounded' (including a bunch of single arm pressing and stuff) when it comes to different event stuff... but there's probably a little fluff that could be trimmed. Some of the exercise selections I find... questionable? But who knows maybe they're really useful and I have much to learn...

In all... at face value I'm interested and satisfied that I didn't just drop $45 on what I may have been 'expecting'. No idea when I'll be able to run the whole thing but I may run the first cycle for funsies if I have time this year to mess around...

[mbasic]

In the current vein of the thread.
I paid for and downloaded the 1st two Olympic Programs I & II. (8/2018 & 5/2019 versions)

meh...
Was not impressed; did not run them.
That shit needs to be highly individualized, real time coaching, would not recommend.

[Stoop]

I did BBM templates pretty religiously for a year and half or so. The Bridge x 3, Hypertrophy x 2 and 12 week strength x 2.

Squats got worse, bench went from end of SS 245X5 to 275x5, deadlift from end of SS 365x5 to ~405x5.

It's a little disheartening to mash 4-6 sets of compound lifts at RPE 7-8-9 and not get much out of it. I'm doing the same reps and sets now, but with 1 top set at RPE 7. Progress is the same or better strength-wise, I can do more bodybuilding volume so better aesthetic gains too, and I like training more.

Squat 5@6, 5@7, then belt squat for 4 Sets of 15@7-8 is much better than squat 5@6/7/7/8/8/8.

[Testiclaw]

In the current vein of the thread.
I paid for and downloaded the 1st two Olympic Programs I & II. (8/2018 & 5/2019 versions)

meh...
Was not impressed; did not run them.
That shit needs to be highly individualized, real time coaching, would not recommend.

Are they still doing snatch/clean with RPE?

[mbasic]

In the current vein of the thread.
I paid for and downloaded the 1st two Olympic Programs I & II. (8/2018 & 5/2019 versions)

meh...
Was not impressed; did not run them.
That shit needs to be highly individualized, real time coaching, would not recommend.

Are they still doing snatch/clean with RPE?

Versions 1&2 yes. I see they're up to Olympic4.0 now...so IDK.

ALSO, I see a Armed Forces template now...

*gazes into future*

Peace Corps v3.5

[DPriest442]

Jordan's generalized intermediate program was the first program post SS I made any progress on, though I did tweak it a bit. I could never handle 4 sets across @ 8 for front squats; even on RDLs or Incline DB Bench it was a bit tough, so those were 3 sets. Occasionally I would skip the top single on the comp lifts as well, and I could never hit 5+ back off sets of 5@8, it was pretty much always 3 sets across on squat/deadlift and maybe 4 on bench before it reached RPE 9

[Hardartery]

I've repeatedly had folks with opinions tell me that I'm giving up some top end strength by warming up so close to it, as well as by doing too much alleged junk volume on the way up.

This is what I've heard lots of times in the past. What's sad to me is I used to do a lot more warmups for my Bench and Press like this and always felt solid on the top sets (when I was doing SS). I dropped it when I moved to the TM because I was trying to save my strength.

Right. Not only has warming up less thoroughly not resulted in saving any strength for the top, but it has resulted in me being cold and weak when I got there. This has been my experience over and over again.

A correlary of this for me is that my best set is almost always set 2 or 3, usually 3. Suggests to me that even with good warmup I'm not truly warmed up till then.

Perhaps why I find that a reasonably hard warm up (although of course nowhere remotely near failure) helps - sort of serving as that “first set.” A friend looked at my progression from last night and suggested that with a top single at 285, the triple with 250 in particular was “too much” in a warm up. Wrong.

Warmups are fairly personal. I've heard a number of reasons. neural adaptation, fibre typing, yada yadad yada. Most high end lifters do not do a lot of warmup, and don't need to. I do the same thing as most other guys that I have trained around, and we didn't consult, it just is what we all were doing on our own and expected everyone else was to. Working up a plate a side until you get near worksets is standard. If you are going to use 325, for example, it would be maybe the bar, 135, 225, 315, 325 for your sets. Some guys liked a drop set or two afterwards, most didn't bother. When the weights get heavier, the warmup starts heavier. I have been starting at 315 on deads, but will probably move that up to 405 soon. If the weight feels light, then fine, get the blood to the appropriate places and get on with it. If you need a ton of reps to warmup, take them. Consider that it's maybe not really the warmup that's the issue though. Stuart McGill has some interesting insights in the Mark Bell podcast from Feb 24th.

https://youtu.be/nX6TL0S7h5g

[mouse]

In the current vein of the thread.
I paid for and downloaded the 1st two Olympic Programs I & II. (8/2018 & 5/2019 versions)

meh...
Was not impressed; did not run them.
That shit needs to be highly individualized, real time coaching, would not recommend.

I know absolutely nothing about that style of training but I know enough to say I don't think a template would work well...

[Wayne]

I did BBM templates pretty religiously for a year and half or so. The Bridge x 3, Hypertrophy x 2 and 12 week strength x 2.

Squats got worse, bench went from end of SS 245X5 to 275x5, deadlift from end of SS 365x5 to ~405x5.

It's a little disheartening to mash 4-6 sets of compound lifts at RPE 7-8-9 and not get much out of it. I'm doing the same reps and sets now, but with 1 top set at RPE 7. Progress is the same or better strength-wise, I can do more bodybuilding volume so better aesthetic gains too, and I like training more.

Squat 5@6, 5@7, then belt squat for 4 Sets of 15@7-8 is much better than squat 5@6/7/7/8/8/8.

Very similar over thoughts & experience here. I like the hypertrophy template but I did find squat in particular degenerated a fair bit. I’ve got the 12 week strength template but haven’t run it yet - I moved to Montana / AtS but had thought about using 12WS for a strength cycle this year.

[SnakePlissken]

I did BBM templates pretty religiously for a year and half or so. The Bridge x 3, Hypertrophy x 2 and 12 week strength x 2.

Squats got worse, bench went from end of SS 245X5 to 275x5, deadlift from end of SS 365x5 to ~405x5.

It's a little disheartening to mash 4-6 sets of compound lifts at RPE 7-8-9 and not get much out of it. I'm doing the same reps and sets now, but with 1 top set at RPE 7. Progress is the same or better strength-wise, I can do more bodybuilding volume so better aesthetic gains too, and I like training more.

Squat 5@6, 5@7, then belt squat for 4 Sets of 15@7-8 is much better than squat 5@6/7/7/8/8/8.

Very similar over thoughts & experience here. I like the hypertrophy template but I did find squat in particular degenerated a fair bit. I’ve got the 12 week strength template but haven’t run it yet - I moved to Montana / AtS but had thought about using 12WS for a strength cycle this year.

12 Week Press and 12WS are pretty similar. If I had to change it I would probably cut the template down in half and get rid of the double frequency of the lifts toward the end. I got through the first 8 weeks feeling weak and slow and when I read further I saw that it just got even worse. Wound up reading someone's log on this website and saw they had run the whole 12 Week Press template too and their final comment was the template seemed like it was made for enhanced athletes. I just stopped at that point and spent weeks doing lighter work until I felt better again. I think I'm done with BBM templates, still like their podcasts and discussions though.

[SnakePlissken]

@mouse Have you read Bromley's ebook? It's not necessarily about Strongman, but it has a pretty in depth section in the back on training for it that has my interest for when barbells become boring. In relation to BBM style programming, his ebook was a breathe of fresh air and has reminded me of how I trained before I knew what LPs and RPE were. So far, I like the switch.

[mbasic]

The Bridge x 3, Hypertrophy x 2 and 12 week strength x 2.

like the hypertrophy template but.... got the 12 week strength template but haven’t run it yet... but had thought about using 12WS for a strength cycle

12 Week Press and 12WS are pretty similar.

----------------------------------

One thing I thought was interesting.

On the Olympic 1 template, you got a series of Unlisted YT links showing you how to performed some of the Olympic Lifts (power variants).....Jordan doing the PS and PC with 40 kilos. You can't search YT and find those videos otherwise. 1200 views. I don't see that those demo-lift-vids were offered with Oly2.0 (IIRC).

I guess that might be a pretty good metric for the number of people buying that template.
And consider relatively no-one in the typical BBM market-share is going to be interested in Olympic WL.

I wonder how many people buy something more generic, or appealing to the masses, like "Hypertrophy1.0".

[SnakePlissken]

@mbasic there are definitely some money making vibes going on over there, but rightfully so.

One thing I thought was odd was a guy on the BBM forum asked Jordan once what the difference between Strengthlifting II and 12 Week Press was and Jordan just listed off "The overall programming, e.g. reps, sets, intensity, exercise selection, frequency, etc. are different between the two templates."
https://forum.barbellmedicine.com/forum ... week-press

What I got from that answer was: We make more money if we take a template, put it in a blender and sell it for full price again.