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You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

• PRs
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You should post here for:

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Just a quick overview of my progress within these 12 weeks.

Stats

Start of the program - End of program

Sex - Male - Still Male

Age - 22 - 22

Height - 174cm - 174cm

Weight - 89kg - 83.55kg (I did my cut at the start of the 2nd block and still cutting as I post this)

Squats - 150kg RPE 10 (8-9 second grind)- 167.5kg RPE 8.5

Bench - 87.5kg RPE 10 - 92.5kg RPE 10

Conventional Deadlift - 195kg RPE 10 with a lot of hitching - 205kg RPE 10 competition standard

What is it?

It is a 12 week program that is high in frequency and high in volume - 5x a week, 3x squat and bench, 2x deadlifts, that is written by Brendan Tietz. It uses a "Sub-maximal" approach to training, just basically boils down to a lot of your volume work and back-offs are going to be in the 65-80% range of your one rep max.

1st Block (Primary day sets and reps | Squats 1x5 top set, 3x5 backoffs | Bench 2x5 top set, 3x5 backoffs [I did not do the AMRAPS] | Conv. Deadlift 1x3 top set, 3x4 backoffs) - BW:89kg end of block

Brendan prescribes the program as 2 consecutive days on, rest, 3 consecutive days on, rest, and repeat. Your primary days are always going to be the first two days of the training week. 1st day is Squats and Bench , 2nd day is Deadlifts. Both days use a top set RPE and percentage based backoffs. 3rd training day is your Variation of the Squats and bench, in my case I did Paused squat and 3ct comp bench. 4th day is your variation of the deadlifts, I went with paused deadlifts. 5th day, I went with High bar squats and Larsen press. I want to note that I changed my variation lifts on the first block to accommodate some weaknesses that I have. You can change yours if you want it to or just leave it be.

I undershot almost all my Squat and Bench primary days but still kept making progress and PRs (Deadlifts were pretty much overshot since wk 1, no deadlift platform available at my gym so basically every rep was a tempo deadlift)

3rd wk - Previous SQ. 5 rep PR - 117.5kg @ 9 - New SQ. 5 rep PR - 125kg @ 6

4th wk - New SQ. 5 rep PR again - 130kg @ 7

2nd Block (Primary day sets and reps | Squats 2x3 top set, 2x4 backoffs | Bench 2x3 top set, 2x4 backoffs | Conv. Deadlift 1x2 top set, 3x3 backoffs) BW:86 end of block

Made some minor changes between sets (removed 1 set to others and added 1 to some). Some of your secondary (3rd and 4th day) and tertiary day (5th day) variation will be replaced by comp standard lift or a more specific variation. 3rd day - Paused squats turned into Comp squats (The progression scheme is the same as the primary day of the first block). 3ct comp bench remains. 4th day - Paused deadlifts are replaced with Comp deadlift (Basically doing comp deads 2x a week). 5th day - high bar squat is turned into paused squats, Larsen press turns into Comp bench.

same old same old - I still undershot most of my squats and bench, deadlifts were still overshot with the same problems as my first block.

3rd wk - Previous SQ. 3 rep max - 125kg @ 10 - New SQ. 3 rep max - 132.5kg @ 6

Previous bench 3 rep max - 75kg @ 9 - New bench 3 rep max - 77.5kg @ 6

4th wk - New SQ. 3 rep max - 140kg @ 7

New bench 3 rep max - 80kg @ 7

New deadlift 2 rep max - 175kg @ 8

3rd Block (Primary day sets and reps | Squats 2x1 top set, 2x3 backoffs | Bench 2x1 top set, 3x3 backoffs | Conv. Deadlift 2x1 top set, 3x2 backoffs) BW:84 end of block

All variations are now turned into comp style training. Moved to a new gym with a combo rack and deadlift platform (I can finally let the bar free fall). Since I was cutting now for almost 2 months, I was not expecting a huge leap from my training maxes - moreso just the BW ratio being higher.

1st wk - Squat top single - 140kg @ 5 | Bench single - 85kg @ 7 | Deadlift single - 182.5kg @ 7

2nd wk - Squat top single - 145kg @ 6 | Bench single - 87.5kg @ 8 | Deadlift single - 170kg @ 8 (Idk why)

3rd wk - Squat top single - 152.5kg @ 7 (2.5kg pr) | Bench single - 90kg @ 9 (2.5kg pr) | Deadlift single - 197.5kg @ 9 (2.5kg pr)

4th wk - Squat top sing;e - 167.5kg @ 9 (15kg pr) | Bench single - 92.5kg @ 10 (2.5kg pr) | Deadlift single - 205kg @ 10 (7.5kg pr) 8 sec. grind |

Final thoughts

The Good

I loved the volume this program gave me. I was not acclimated to 5s and 7s of squats and 4s/5s for deadlifts. 1st block made me realize that I badly need to do my cardio and so I did. 2nd block and forward, I was not gasping for air on my sets anymore and I can get back at it within 3-7 mins of rest in between sets. Every block gave me gratification of PRs after PRs and I felt like I can feel myself internally and externally getting stronger. 5x a week felt at home to me as I have only started doing the 3 main lifts recently in competition standard. It also scratched that bodybuilding itch because Brendan actually preaches to do accessories.. a lot of them.

The "meh"

Two consecutive primary days at some weeks left me always somewhat fatigued during my primary deadlifts. At times, I'm more happy that the "heavy" work is done and I can focus on my volume work again on the 3rd through 5th days rather than be ecstatic and hyped for 1st and 2nd days.

I genuinely cannot find that much fault in the program as this is the first program I've actually sticked to.

I've started lifting at the 3rd of January, 2023. Weighed in at 101 kg (A bit too chonky), and only motivated by my group of friends that encouraged me to go to the gym. Due to the limitations of the gym I went to, I only had access to machines and dumbbells. Since I was not that enthusiastic about lifting, I'd only follow what my friends would say - gym bro talks of only doing isolations and doing what's optimal in the most micro-optimized way possible. I've only got the chance to pick up a barbell when the gym bought it's first commercial 20kg barbell and some rubber plates (September 2023). That's the first month I've tried doing Squats, bench, and deadlift. Started out with S - 60kg (Cannot go to depth) B - 30 kg (TnG) D - 80kg.

I did my basic 3x10-12s consistently on these 3 main lifts as I was still focused on growing muscle at the time, I just enjoyed doing SBD. From April to June, I first started doing my One rep maxes (Maxing out once every 3 to 4 weeks basically). Got my numbers up to the ones listed above until I stopped doing SBD movements mainly because I wanted to focus on my isolations again. BW at these times were hovering at around 91kg on January, 80kg on April, 84kg on June, 89kg again on September in which I came across Brendan's program and thought that I want to try and become stronger.

Takeaways

Currently salivating for more progress and now focusing on the short term goal of hitting 500kg @ 83kg in about 3-5 months (Currently at 465kg). I am now obsessed with watching Haack, Candito, CBB, B. Tietz, Perkins, Steve Denovi (currently doing his 15 wk program), Rondel Hunte, and the sunshine of my life SSJ Bobb.

I did not do a single deload in this 12 weeks nor into Steve's 15 week program. Not once did I feel like I am too fatigued coming in to the next week. Beginner's privilege I guess?

Also switching over to the dark side, Just pulled my 160kg sumo at RPE 1??? (Yes, I have long arms and a short torso. Think a five foot eight david woolson)

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Hey folks, if you wanna see the first write up for this, check here

https://old.reddit.com/r/weightroom/comments/1gj3wve/program_review_tactical_barbell_mass_protocol/

INTRO

• My love affair with the Tactical Barbell Mass Protocol continues, and I don’t foresee any stopping in the near future. In fact, I’ve already planned out my training until my next strongman competition on 12 Apr, and it’s all Tactical Barbell, and even after that I genuinely don’t see any reason I would pivot (although, fair warning, I’ve been listening to a lot of Matt Wenning recently, and the idea of Wenning Warm Ups and conjugate is sounding cool, so who knows). And with that understanding, I figured it was appropriate to do another “check in” rather than a program review, because I’m not done yet, but I’m approaching the conclusion of the 12th week of running the Mass Protocol, and given that so many of my program reviews were on 6 week programs, writing at the 12 week point seems fitting.

WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW

• If you recall from my previous check-in, the Mass Protocol contains a base building section, which transitions into a general mass section, and then into a specificity section. I skipped the base building (at my own peril) as I felt I was in a good enough place for that before starting, and ran the general mass protocol of “Grey Man” for 3 cycles (9 weeks). From there, I made the transition to the specificity programs, selecting Specificity Bravo (for reasons I will detail momentarily). Traditionally, one would do a bridge week between the programs here as a transition, but I opted not to PURELY due to scheduling: I have a cruise (like, buffet on a boat kind) coming up between Christmas and New Years that will time out PERFECTLY with me completing 2 3 week Specificity cycles at this point, which will serve as an EXCELLENT bridge week before I return home and start back into training/eventual strongman prep.

• With this being the 12th week, it means I am finishing my first cycle of Specificity Bravo and prepping to start my second one.

FROM GENERAL TO SPECIFICITY: WHY I WENT FROM GREY MAN TO SPECIFICITY BRAVO

• In full disclosure, my original plan WAS to do Specificity Alpha rather than Bravo. The former is similar in structure to the ever popular PHUL program (which I’ve never run myself, but am familiar with) it that it’s 4 days of lifting with 2 days dedicated to lower reps with higher weight (strength days) and 2 days dedicated to higher reps and moderate weights (hypertrophy days). Bravo, meanwhile, is pure hypertrophy days, still 4 days a week, with a A/B/A/B alternating approach, with the percentages ticking up each workout. For the sake of preserving the content of the book, I won’t go into further detail, but you see the difference: once had all hypertrophy days, one had a mix.

• Alpha appealed to me, HOWEVER, on the final week of 3 cycles of Grey Man, I found myself unable to complete a single trap bar pull at the prescribed weight, let alone a work set. My lower back was incredibly overtaxed, and in dire need of fatigue dissipation. I’ll address WHY I was experiencing that fatigue later, but to assuage your fears: it was not a fault of Grey Man/Tactical Barbell programming. I COULD have accomplished fatigue dissipation with a bridge week, but as I noted earlier: my schedule didn’t support that. I realized my other option was to select Bravo instead and let the time with the lighter weights give me some time to let that fatigue dissipate.

• However, the more I looked into it, there was one other thing I really appreciated about transitioning from Grey Man to Bravo: I could use ALL the same exercises. When it comes to the specificity phase, you’re supposed to select a certain amount of movements to train depending on the protocol, with the strength cluster of Alpha being pretty rigid on the squat, bench press, weighted pull up and deadlift, and the hypertrophy cluster being in the 4-8 range of TOTAL movements. Bravo, being absent of the demand for a strength cluster, allots for 6-12 movements to be selected. If you recall from Grey Man, there are a total of 4 strength movements each day (2 trained on day A, 2 on day B) and 6 (max) supplemental cluster movements (3 on day A, 3 on day B). This results in a total of 10 movements…which meant, when it came time to design my hypertrophy clusters for Bravo, I could just select all 10 movements from Grey Man and call it good. Not only did this require no thinking/tinkering on my part, but it ALSO meant that whatever I did on Bravo was going to have direct and immediate carryover for whenever I transitioned back to Grey Man.

HOW I STRUCTURED THE TRAINING

• With Grey Man, my day A was Squat, Axle Strict Press (overhead), Incline DB bench, chins and Glute Ham Raises. My day B was Low handle trap bar lift, axle bench press, dips, lever belt squat and axle curls. Because Bravo trains 4x a week, there was no way to allow for a minimum full day of rest between days while staying within the 7 day structure of the cycle, which meant the same muscles could NOT be trained on Day A and B (according to the rules of the program). To make this happen, I effectively created an “anterior chain/posterior chain” split, or a full body push/pull split. My day A for Bravo was Squat, Lever Belt Squat, Axle Strict Press, Axle Bench Press, Incline DB Bench, and Dips. This left a Day B that was Trap Bar Pulls, Chins, Curls and GHRs…which WAS 10 total moves, but somewhat imbalanced between the two days. I contemplated removing flat bench from day A, as it felt redundant with all the other pressing on that day, but after running day A the first time as written and seeing how outstanding awesome it was, I settled on throwing in reverse hypers on Day B. I had been doing them on my non-lifting days when running Grey Man, so now they were legitimately established into the protocol.

• Because you’re allowed 1-2 minutes of rest between sets, and because the workouts repeat twice in the week but with higher percentages on the second workout, I tried as hard as possible to stick with strict 1 minute rests for the first two workouts of the week. This way, I had some leeway to creep into that 2 minute mark later in the week when the weights were heavier. If I took max rests at the start, I had nowhere to “hide” on those second workouts.

• Similarly, because the plan called for 4-5 sets, I stuck with 4 sets for this first cycle. It gave me the option to keep the weight the same and do 5 sets on the next cycle, or up the weight and stick with 4 sets.

CONDITIONING

• Conditioning during Specificity phases is a departure from general mass. Whereas I was going 1 hour of walking twice a week, alongside getting in much leisure walking, specificity calls for 1-2 high intensity sessions per week. These sessions do not exceed 20 minutes, and are focused on getting the heart rate high and then letting it return before starting the whole process again: interval training. I took to doing hill sprints once a week and then “Reset 20s” on my Bas Rutten Body Action System (basically a free standing heavy bag) once a week. The sprints were doing on Wed, between lifting workouts (trained on Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri), while reset 20s were on weekends (typically Sundays). I still engaged in leisure walking as often as I could, not for the sake of the program, but because it’s one of my favorite physical activities to do and it was imposing no recovery demands on me.

• I enjoyed the higher intensity work as a departure from the low intensity stuff. The workouts were short and I could squeeze them in a bit easier on my schedule. It took a lot of self control to NOT try to push them harder/longer, but I’m trying REALLY hard to comply with the instructions and give this an honest approach.

WHAT WAS UP WITH MY LOWER BACK?

• I’d like to be brief here, but this check in is already getting out of hand. Prior to even starting Tactical Barbell, my body was wrecked as a result of prepping for my most recent strongman competition, which I detailed in my last write up. Biggest issue I was dealing with was some intense hip pain, which would, in turn, force me to squat VERY slowly, which ended up loading up my lower back quite a bit. I found a solution in the form of reverse hypers, HOWEVER, like many tragic stories, eventually the cure became the poison, and I was doing reverse hypers too often with too much load. Along with this, when I first began eating carnivore back in Mar of 2023, I completely changed my squat form, going from low bar, belted, moderate stance width powerlifting legal depth to VERY high bar, no belt, close stance, rock bottom squats. I did this because I was going to be losing weight, and I didn’t want to see my numbers on the squat fall, so I decided to use an entirely new style of squat so I could actually progress on that WHILE weight dropped. However, this style of squat TOTALLY doesn’t suit my body, with a short torso and long legs, and I would end up loading up my lower back quite a bit to maintain form WHICH, without a belt, just compounded things. There were a few other factors at play as well, but ultimately I was just slamming my lower back with too much stimulus and never giving it time to recover.

• So what I did during Specificity Bravo was bring back the belt in limited dosages. Since workouts repeat in a week while percentages increase, I would do the first week’s workout WITHOUT a belt, and the second week’s workout WITH a belt. This gave me a chance to still groove beltless work and get whatever benefits are associated with that, while also allowing me to belt up and reduce lower back fatigue on the heavier workouts, right before my 2 day break on the weekend. I also reduced the weight I was using on my reverse hyper warm-ups, and went from training the reverse hyper 7x a week to 4-5x. One other change I made was, instead of using the ab wheel after every workout (more on that in a bit), alternated between ab wheel and hanging leg raise every other training day. Switching up the stimulus seemed to go a long way.

WHERE I DEVIATED

• Minimally. I am really trying to give this program a fair shake. I included ab and rear delt training on every lifting day (ab wheel/hanging leg raise and band pull aparts), and I entertained the idea of using the prowler vs doing sprinting, but so far I’ve stuck with the recommendations. I do train martial arts 3x a week, and I engage in as much leisure walking as I can, but that’s about it as far as the training does.

• As for the nutrition…

THE NUTRITION

• I am still sticking with the protocol I was using the last time I wrote about this: protein sparing modified fast on weekdays, leading up to one big meal in the evening. On weekends, I eat two meals: a breakfast in the morning and an evening meal. When I eat, its carnivore. I’m eating this way because it’s been my favorite way to eat. I love feasting, and I don’t care about eating frequently.

RESULTS

• In total, I’ve been following Mass Protocol for 12 weeks, and as of the start of the 12th week I’m up 9lbs, having started at 79.1kg and weighing in at 83.2kg. I apologize for mixing pounds and kilos, but my bathroom scale is stuck in kilos for some reason. And again: I have gained this weight WITHOUT macro or calorie counting, on a VERY low carb diet, with one big meal a day on weekdays. Pretty much eating the wrongest way possible.

• Along with that, I’m absolutely getting stronger. When I first started Mass Protocol, I did 4x8x285 on the squat as part of a superset with 4x8 sets of axle strict press. After the set of squats, I’d rest 1 minute before starting the press, and then I’d rest 1 minute from the press to start the next set of squats. So I was getting well over 2 minutes of rest between sets, and by the end of those 4 sets, I legit thought I would have to quit lifting, as I was in so much pain and so exhausted. On the start of the first workout of the third week of Specificity Bravo (12 weeks total on Tactical Barbell), I did 4x8x285 with 1 minute strict rests between sets with MUCH faster squats and rapidly transitioned to 4 sets of belt squats with the same rest periods. My pressing strength continues to climb as well.

• Suffice to say: I’m a fan of this program, and excited to continue running it through April.

You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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Weekly thread for discussing:

• recipes
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You should post here for:

• PRs
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You should post here for:

• PRs
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You should post here for:

• PRs
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• Form checks

You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

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Age 25 and height 5'10" start and end

BW: 215 ish start and end

Bench: 300 start, 315 end

I missed 305 for a single right before starting this program. 300 was a true max coming in, and across the course of 5 weeks I added 15 lbs to my bench (probably more but I made dumb attempt selections for PR day and screwed myself out of a 320 bench).

So what is Bench Blitz? It is a high frequency (3x W1, 5x W2, 4x W3, 3x W4, 2x W5) bench only program written by Bromley. It is free and works pretty well if you are willing to put other lifts on the back burner. Because it is so short my joints all came through with no issues.

Every day is structured with 2 rear delt / rotator cuff exercises before the main bench work. This is where I think the program shines, and I am stealing this (or what I learned from it) for all of my future programming. Rear delts play a huge role in benching and pressing in general- if you lose your back position during a heavy press attempt, you will probably miss the lift. Despite this, I (and many or most others) tend to put them at the end of lifting sessions. The "One Weird Tip to Blow up your XYZ" is to target it at the beginning of your lifting sessions. Just ask John Meadows or any other successful bodybuilder. When you put a lagging muscle at the end, you are more likely to skip them or just not put as much effort and attention into them as they deserve.

If you come away with one message from reading this, I hope it is this: Big Benches Need a Big Back, so give your rear delts the time, attention and effort they need.

The next most important lesson to learn (and again everyone already knows this) Press More Often to Press More. There are very few people in the world who are strong enough for press to really significantly fatigue them. If you are reading this and bench 405 maybe higher frequency isn't your solution but maybe it is.

Lifting, as much as I hate to admit it, is a sport that thrives off of technical proficiency. Frequency + thoughtfulness + notes about what went wrong or right each set and each rep is the best way to build that technical proficiency. This is probably the first program where I had the opportunity and desire to focus on making every rep as perfect as possible. This shit works and it will get you expressing more strength in your lifts incredibly quickly.

What Next? I started a race to a 275 strict overhead with a couple r/weightroom folks who are all starting at around a 190-200lb PR. I don't think any of us are interested in weighing 275, so this is going to require nailed down form and getting huge shoulders and tris. Easiest way to get that form nailed down? Frequency. I also still need to bring up my rear delts. So, for the next 50 days I will be running OHPEDs and RFEDs and applying what I learned from this program.

TLDR: Big Back is Big Bench and Press More to Press More

Over the past 7 weeks I ran Russian Squat Program. This took me from a 140 kilo squat to a 165 kilo squat '@73 kilos bodyweight (BW day of the attempt); granted my theoretical 1rm at the beginning was probably somewhere between 140 and 150 kilos. Edit: I did this beltless, sleeveless and high bar, in Adipower Weightlifting IIs.

Intro/Background

Firstly, a bit about myself. I’ve now got about a year and a half of serious training under my belt; with about 9 months of that being proper squatting. Before that it was calisthenics. During those 9 months, programs I ran included [part of] 70s powerlifter, and a bunch of bodybuilding/powerbuilding style programming (SuperSquats etc.) – to whit, this was basically a bunch of base building. Because I am a Sino/Slavic mutt; naturally, squat was by best lift by far, and it is also the lift that I enjoy the most. No wonder then that I decided to cap off the year by trying to drive my squat up as far as possible (the goal is 4 plates by the end of this training block, which will drag out into the beginning of the next year).

As a quick run down on my stats, I’m 19; 5’8”; my bodyweight during this block fluctuated between 70 to 76 kilos. I am about 73 kilos now, because I accidentally dropped a bit of weight. 25-26 inch quads, probably 15-17% BF.

Before I ran the program, I was squatting 3 times per week for about 5 weeks - basically doing a big pyramid each day. At the end of this "preparation phase" I squatted 120 kilos for 6 reps. I also took 2 weeks off after this because I was moving into a new apartment, and did the first week of the Smolov Introduction phase to get back into shape (incidentally, I actually recommend this for people who have taken some time off gym) and want to get back into good form quickly.

As to why I ran the program – I ran it because Clarence said to do it instead of Smolov.

What is Russian Squat Program?

This may shock you but Russian Squat Program is a Squat Program. It is marketed as being run by Olympic Weightlifters, however, according to Kurlovich’s (?maybe?) coach, no Russian Oly lifter ever ran the program – as is also the case with Smolov Squat Routine. It is a high frequency program, and has you squatting 3x per week, and is 6 weeks long (it took me 7 weeks because I fell ill just before week 3).

Let’s break down how the program works:

It’s worth noting that I made some minor changes to the program. Specifically on the 4x4 day, I took Zack Telander’s advice and did a plus set (amrap) on one of the sets. I’ve linked his video here .

This is because my rate of progression was a little higher than factored into the program and I used the plus set to calculate a new 1 rep max. Zack asks you to do this specifically on the 4x4 day because 4 reps at 90% translates to a relative intensity of 100% by Prilepin’s chart. I got 6 (6.5) reps, and guesstimated 155kg 1rm. I would also drop your other sets by 5% that day because of the enhanced load from the AMRAP.

Now I want to point out a few things about the program.

Firstly, structurally speaking, instead of looking at it week by week, it’s better to think of it as high load days (6x3, 6x4 and so on) with smaller load days (the 6x2s, which Zack calls “backoff days”) every other day.

Secondly, this is probably the most “Western” style Soviet program that I’ve seen, apart from its earlier iterations (1974 and 1976 programs), in that it is relatively simple, and consists of mostly straight sets, performed at fairly high relative intensities. Unlike the somewhat esoteric progression in Sheiko programs and Smolov this is easy to understand. Firstly, you add reps until you hit the 6x6 (6x2,3,4,5,6), then you intensify whilst cutting volume – essentially a built in taper (6x6, 5x5, 4x4…1x1).

Thirdly, this is a squat more to squat MAUR style program. There are no accessories built into the program and I think you could actually get away with not doing accessories to begin with. Nevertheless, I would recommend accessories targeted at your weaknesses throughout most of the program, though on some days I didn’t find it super useful or possible.

Overall, this gelled well with my mindset. I liked the high frequency, the single minded focus on squatting and the progression structure.

Training Plan Specifics

I ran this as part of a 5 day per week program. I would do Squat; Upper/Deadlift; Rest; Squat; Upper/Snatch Grip Deadlift; Squat; Rest. At about week 4 I actually started benching nearly every day as well as doing heavy Zombie squats at about 5 times per week. This was not because I thought it would be useful but because of things happening on the Bromley discord

Accessory work wise, I basically did accessories from Shethar’s “Micro-bodybuilding workouts” video. I’ll link it here .

Note that I did front and zombie squats instead of belt squats, hack squats and split squats, and Platz style hack squats instead of leg extensions. I was not super consistent with the accessory work and changed it up as I went through the program. If I ran this again, I would probably stick to this more rigidly, but also leave room for a lot more autoregulation that I wrote into the plan to begin with, volume wise and for secondary squat pattern work. This is because after some of the sessions, the front squatting I was doing was probably junk volume. I also stripped out all accessories for the last week. I think also, instead of using a generic accessory set, I would have programmed for my weaknesses (glutes and hams).

Notes about my run of the program

I think this program is a good mix of hypertrophy, skill work and peaking for my use case. I would say only the 6x6 and 5x5 really felt like mostly hypertrophy orientated work, with the 6x2s being skill, technique and submaximal volume preparation and every heavy day from the 5x5 being peaking and low rep adaptation.

I probably did not “deserve” to get the gains I did out of this program. I ran it kind of like an arsehole, without being locked in on sleep, nutrition or accessories until realistically the last week, as well as the first two weeks. This is part of why I dropped weight as well as why I think I could have gotten even better gains out of this. I bet if I did GOMAD and bulked up to 170lbs+ it would have been more effective.

I also fucked up three of the workouts on this.

Firstly, the 6x6 where I did a 6x5 on my “last” set because I was being a pussy. I then did another set of 6 because I disappointed myself with that, so it ended up being a 6x6 with a set of 5 too.

Secondly, the 4x4 where I did the AMRAP. I did the AMRAP on my first set and that took a lot out of me. I should have dropped the weight by 5% and done the 3x4 with that. Instead I kept the weight and that resulted in me only getting two reps on the last set. I would have preferred a more consistent approach like taking 5% off and hitting my reps.

Finally, on the 3x3 I misloaded and did 152.5 for 3 instead of 147.5. Again, this kinda fucked me and I had to consistently take weight off the bar. I didn’t take enough weight off and did doubles instead of triples. Because of this I did another set of two at the end to at least match reps, which got me to about the same tonnage for the session.

One tip I have is regarding mentality approaching the 6x2 days. This is something I really liked about the program. Zack tells you to think of these as “backoff days”, but I think technique days is a better way to think about these. I believe that these days will help you to refine your squat technique, if you take an intelligent approach to hitting them. For the 6x2s, I would also recommend rest timing if you tend to get distracted easily. You can get them done fairly quickly that way, and finish the accessories off in good time.

Regarding injuries, my knees were fine but my ankles hurt a bit from the knees over toe, so I took out calf work. I also sprained my TFCC in both my wrists (one before, one during the program). This resulted in having to adapt my upper body days.

Some notes about nutrition

I should have bulked quite intensively but I didn’t. However, my micros were fairly good throughout the program.

I don’t believe it is actually necessary to bulk on this program to get good results though, however, no doubt your results will be better with at least a small caloric surplus. However, considering that Olympic lifters probably did something similar if not this exact program, and need to stay within their weight class, don’t come into this thinking you have to bulk.

Results + final thoughts + what next + thanks

I don’t properly know how much my squat went up, but in any case, it would have been somewhere between 15 and 25 kilo, which I find a satisfying result. I think I could have gotten better results if I was more locked in and not a lazy cunt.

I really enjoyed this program and would recommend it to people after their base phases. I don’t believe that this program is “too much” and will “injure you”, unlike what Sika Strength say about it.

As I said like 3 pages ago, I am trying to get to a 4 plate squat. I’m taking a deload and then I’m going to hop into Smolov, but only the intensity phase and the peaking phase. I don’t want or need (I think) to do the base phase to get to 4 plates. If Smolov doesn't get me there then I'll either rerun RSP entirely, or run a shortened version where I do 5x2->5x5->taper to 1x1.

Thanks to the chaps on the Bromley Discord and the Squat Lab discord for motivating and advising me through this. If not for them telling me to fuck it and go for it on the last session I would have walked out of this with a 160 kilo squat instead.

Masters RSP

Masters RSP is a version of RSP with 2 days per week frequency for Masters lifters. It is 9 weeks long and basically has the same numbers and percentages, just with the structure spread out, so you are hitting:

Week 1: 6x3 6x2
Week 2: 6x3 6x2
Week 3: 6x4 6x2

and so on...

link

I did this on dips for the first 3 weeks and progressed reasonably well, however, I would not necessarily recommend it. As I said, I was ill for a bit and whilst I kept my squat progress, by dip regressed a bit and I was not able to hit the 6x4 at 80%. I did 3x4 and 80% and the rest of the sets at 70-75%ish and then gave up and just did generic hypertrophy sessions for my upper body, because it lags behind my lower body anyway.

I also believe that for developing skill the high frequency is really important. I still like Masters RSP, but I believe that if you can do the 3x per week you should.

You should post here for:

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You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks

You should post here for:

• PRs
• General discussion or questions
• Community conversation
• Routine critiques
• Form checks