Hello Mighty Tribe Member. It’s Intensification week in our first of 3 months in the Strength and Hypertrophy Block. This week’s changeups feature a bump in effort. We are sticking with the 4 sets in each of the primary exercises but we are advancing RPE to 9 on the final set. The changeups are color coded in the table.
Our work on form and volume is paying off. Now we go a little harder! You can think of RPE 9/10 as roughly being 90% of your capability in a given set. In other words, if an all-out, “gun to your head” effort with a specific weight is 10 reps, give it a good 9 reps. Another way of looking at this is just being close with weight selection (or maybe you don’t have a lot of weight options) and then banging reps until you only have 1 left in the tank (RIR = 1). Even if that means your rep range had to go higher than the specified number, you’ll stimulate a hypertrophy response.
Week of 2025-02-17 (week 3 of month 1: Strength Block) KB = KETTLEBELL, MB = MEDICINE BALL, DB = DUMBBELL, BB = BARBELL, E = ELASTIC BAND OR TUBING
BW = BODYWEIGHT, SB = SANDBAG, OHP = OVERHEAD PRESS
[We are featuring a few pointers this week to keep the document shorter. If you need the longer breakdowns, just refer back to last week.]
Workout A Pointers: Pulling and Recovery Cardio. We are still being fairly generic with exercise selection, but try to use your best technique on every rep. With the deadlifts and bent rows, you’ll definitely want to take long-ish resp periods. As you’ve discovered, you don’t need to use very heavy weight with those last two exercises (the curls). A squeezing, concentrating approach is key.
Workout B Pointers: Pushing and Power Intervals. Your pressing muscles are extensors and they generally have a lower concentration of fast-twitch fibers than your flexors. Because of this, moving the weight somewhat slowly and grinding on the lifts is natural. We are not specifying an exact tempo, but you may notice the difference in rhythm between pull day and push day.
Workout C Pointers: Legs and HIIT Circuit. Squatting to a box with a bar or sandbag on your back will be feeling quite familiar by now. Just remember to look straight ahead (relatively) and avoid looking excessively downward (thus rounding your back). Standing on a ramp or board and goblet squatting allows you full range of motion (or close). If you were thinking about ranges, you are really working the bottom half with this exercise (whereas you worked the top half of your squat with the barbell box version). RDL’s are best done fairly light and slow, and don’t worry if your depth is limited by hamstring mobility. Everyone is unique.
This week may represent the most bodybuilder-esque training we do all year. It’s fun to get your pump on. If you love it, there will be ways to keep this experience going for several months. But if you aren’t finding this your complete jam, that’s OK too and I have a few words of advice. Stay with this split and keep working at it. You are going to build muscle fiber density and connective tissue integrity that will serve you all year.
As always, post a comment in Member Submissions if you need some assistance. I’m always here for you.