cwd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:19 amMain points:
1) avoid excess complexity, no matter how attractive it is
To my knowledge, no one outside of muscle mags promotes programming that has "excess complexity," but the fact of the matter is that the StSt notion of "adequate complexity" is sorely lacking.
2) don't progress slower than you need to, you're gonna break training eventually and you might as well be stronger when that happens
I hate to point this out, but the lifter who followed the StSt archetype for programming did worse than previously in competition. Is negative progress slower than necessary? Is an auto regulated approach that allows an attentive lifter to add 10 lbs more to a lift on a given training day progressing too slowly?
3) choose weights based on previous session/mesocycle, not from infrequent 1RM tests (and e1RM charts are silly)
There's a lot to unpack here.
What if you can't use a weight that is more than your previous cycle? Should you waste the training session trying and failing? Is a <5% reduction in load really "junk volume?"
1RM charts are effective guides. Saying they are silly is just as naive as saying they are gospel. They can also be individualized for better accuracy.
4) emphasize heavy weights for 5/3/2s and singles, not "junk volume" below 70% unless you are a bodybuilder
Is there a difference between "emphasize" and "use exclusively?" And what about more volume at ~70% (which, in the article conveniently becomes 50%)?
5) learn to grind the hard reps, you should hit failure sometimes and learn from it
Really? In training? How many failures should I plan for in my upcoming cycle? This makes it sound like one just isn't working hard enough unless they're flirting with injury. It's like the authors don't have any idea how peaking works (which is odd, because this seems to go against what Andy suggests for annual periodization...).
A 4-day split is presented as a good example for new intermediates, but not fully fleshed out except for squats:
Mo: bench/press, chest/shoulder assistance, lats, arms
Tu: squat 5x5 a bit lighter than end of SSNLP, pull
Th: bench/press chest/shoulder assistance, lats, arms
Fr: squat 1x5 heavy, pull
This all seems reasonable to me.
As Allen said, it's 4-day TM, and it's really not a good layout for anyone. Even though the article says the dosage magically aligns itself with the week to match the lifter's recovery cycle, so that we should compare a week of TM against a day of NLP, the reality is that the body doesn't work that way...
It's advice that I would give to myself circa 2011 as I was ending my first attempt at SSNLP.
Certainly my current 3-week rep-rotation split with overwarmups and RPE is way more complicated and slow than what would have been ideal for me then.
All workable progressions are likely to be slower than NLP, but that doesn't mean they are slower than they need to be.
My main quibble:
Rip et al are worried about the error of "wimping out" rather than the error of "driving yourself into the ground".
They see people who pay for coaching, by definition. Perhaps this population is particularly in need of tough love. And of course, they have a coach on hand to pick the weight increases for them.
I suspect a lot of uncoached people are (like me) prone to overdoing it and injuring ourselves.
We need clear rules for picking weights that are heavy enough but not too heavy, which Rip et al dismiss entirely (the whole RPE thing), in favor of the "coach's eye" which of course is not present for the uncoached.
It's not just that he has a childish view of people always wimping out, it's also that he clearly doesn't understand what intensities are both sustainable and useful for accumulating volume.
