Bromley’s Kong program

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Robster
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Bromley’s Kong program

#1

Post by Robster » Sun May 21, 2023 5:44 am

Anyone ever ran this? Its a hypertrophy specific program. Im coming off a 5x5 program that i gained some decent strength on, and this Kong program is mostly high rep, low rest period at least for a few weeks. I finished the first week and thought “am i gonna lose the strength i just gained on the other program?”, so i tested my lifts and yea my strength is down after one week. Does this mean im losing size/muscle? Or is this just a temporary thing as i adjust into a new program?

dw
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Re: Bromley’s Kong program

#2

Post by dw » Sun May 21, 2023 6:40 am

Assuming you're stressing the same muscles your normally do there's virtually no chance you're losing muscle while working out and not in a cut.

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augeleven
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Re: Bromley’s Kong program

#3

Post by augeleven » Sun May 21, 2023 6:41 am

Robster wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 5:44 am
I finished the first week and thought “am i gonna lose the strength i just gained on the other program?”, so i tested my lifts and yea my strength is down after one week. Does this mean im losing size/muscle? Or is this just a temporary thing as i adjust into a new program?


So you will probably get less strong (short term) on a hypertrophy program. But you will also NOT get strong (long term) if you avoid hypertrophy phases. When running a hypertrophy program, focus on different performance goals, like higher rep maxes and other volume markers.

Bromley’s Kong has a lot of different variations, right? That will exacerbate any strength loss due to technique loss, which will happen as a beginner. But technical/neural gains come back quick.
Bromley has built most of his internet street cred explaining and expounding on the concept that “wide based make tall peaks” and evaluating programs based on the needs of the lifter. Re check out his YouTube videos again with this in mind.

And finally a bit of advice - don’t be the early intermediate who tests their 1rm out of fear and jumps programs every month - that’s pretty counterproductive

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CheekiBreekiFitness
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Re: Bromley’s Kong program

#4

Post by CheekiBreekiFitness » Sun May 21, 2023 11:45 am

Robster wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 5:44 am Anyone ever ran this? Its a hypertrophy specific program. Im coming off a 5x5 program that i gained some decent strength on, and this Kong program is mostly high rep, low rest period at least for a few weeks. I finished the first week and thought “am i gonna lose the strength i just gained on the other program?”, so i tested my lifts and yea my strength is down after one week. Does this mean im losing size/muscle? Or is this just a temporary thing as i adjust into a new program?
Strength, especially top end strength can have an enormous variability, and this variability is uncorrelated to muscle mass. Jordan and Austin were talking about their e1RMs being sometimes down 10% from the trend line, which is enormous. Furthermore, if your current program is mostly high rep stuff and variations, and you go and test your 1RM, you're probably not going to perform well, simple because you're not used to the test anymore.

Losing muscle takes months, because muscle is easy to maintain, although its hard to build. As in people can maintain their current level of muscle mass while reducing their volume by 50% or more. If you're not in a crazy deficit and you are hitting the gym regularly I don't see how muscle loss should ever be something to worry about.

Also, as @augeleven mentionned, I believe that testing your 1RM because you're afraid of losing strength tends to derail your programming. Just trust the process.

Robster
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Re: Bromley’s Kong program

#5

Post by Robster » Sun May 21, 2023 1:20 pm

CheekiBreekiFitness wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 11:45 am
Robster wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 5:44 am Anyone ever ran this? Its a hypertrophy specific program. Im coming off a 5x5 program that i gained some decent strength on, and this Kong program is mostly high rep, low rest period at least for a few weeks. I finished the first week and thought “am i gonna lose the strength i just gained on the other program?”, so i tested my lifts and yea my strength is down after one week. Does this mean im losing size/muscle? Or is this just a temporary thing as i adjust into a new program?
Strength, especially top end strength can have an enormous variability, and this variability is uncorrelated to muscle mass. Jordan and Austin were talking about their e1RMs being sometimes down 10% from the trend line, which is enormous. Furthermore, if your current program is mostly high rep stuff and variations, and you go and test your 1RM, you're probably not going to perform well, simple because you're not used to the test anymore.

Losing muscle takes months, because muscle is easy to maintain, although its hard to build. As in people can maintain their current level of muscle mass while reducing their volume by 50% or more. If you're not in a crazy deficit and you are hitting the gym regularly I don't see how muscle loss should ever be something to worry about.

Also, as @augeleven mentionned, I believe that testing your 1RM because you're afraid of losing strength tends to derail your programming. Just trust the process.
Thanks! Yeah i just get paranoid trying different things especially when the first week isnt programmed to be all that difficult or intense. Im gonna stick with it tho

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augeleven
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Re: Bromley’s Kong program

#6

Post by augeleven » Sun May 21, 2023 3:06 pm

Robster wrote: Sun May 21, 2023 1:20 pm Im gonna stick with it tho
This is the way.
*sorry, wife is watching the Mandalorian again*

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Re: Bromley’s Kong program

#7

Post by CaptainAwesome » Fri May 26, 2023 1:04 pm

A part of your performance at any time is going to be due to very specific adaptations to how you train. Train 1-5 reps, and the 1RM stays high, but higher amounts of reps are a lot harder than if you had been say, training 8-12 or something. Vice versa is the same, and what you're experiencing now. It's the old "the powerlifter wins at max effort, the bodybuilder wins at reps" scenario. So yeah, 1RM dropoff when moving away from low rep training is totally expected and normal. Go back to it and that specific portion of the adaptation will come back.

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