Scattered schedule approach and programming

[Barkadion]

Bark, no idea what you did, but I did something that didn't work and thought of your situation. Work stuff set me up for four week blocks and a one week deload. Could do two two week blocks back to back, or one four week bloc, but I didn't see a way to do a three week block/one week deload pattern. What I tried was to stretch out the Op IA by doubling the third week, since that week has a cap on sets and isn't that brutal. So went 75-80-85-90. At least for me that did not work, I think it would have been better to go 75-85-80-90 or to do the shorter two week blocks.

Hi TBP,

What have done so far is mix of OP-OP/IA for over almost two weeks. Mean and lean version. Lifting only every other day. 75/80/85 with SQ/BP/WPU-BP/DL cluster. Doing conditioning while traveling. It’s not ideal but it does the job.

Also, I find that just walking does the job for “cardio” sometimes. Long power walks are amazing. It can easily substitute LSS runs if you can’t run for some reason. And you can always beat you face almost everywhere

Cheers!

[CD51]

What ‘didn’t work’ for you? You added a week to the block of X sets and Y reps at 85% and as a result what happened?

[TBPenguin]

What ‘didn’t work’ for you? You added a week to the block of X sets and Y reps at 85% and as a result what happened?

CD, I had no choice but to have every fifth week as a life schedule enforced deload. So I stretched Op IA to be four weeks of 75 - 80 - 85 - 90 instead fo the usual three. Essentially instead of a third week of 85/90, I had a week of 85 and a week of 90. The two consecutive weeks of heavier, low rep stuff took away the fresh crisp lifting. The week of 90 was not nearly as good as it the week of 90 is in regular Op. Usually with Op IA the wk 3 (85/90) is followed by a 75, usually in Op the wk 3 (90) is followed by 75. KB set up that stress fluctuation for good reason.

[CD51]

TBP - Got it. I would have though that was a pretty straight forward way of handling a ‘long block’. It’s seems like you’re adding little volume and it shouldn’t have had a big impact. Did you do the minimum sets/reps throughout the block? And what did this do to your next block?
A suggestion would be using an A-B-A, B-A-B schedule. In four weeks you’re getting each lift in 6 times. So a 70%, 80%, 90%, 75%, 85%, 95% scheme works well.

[TBPenguin]

TBP - Got it. I would have though that was a pretty straight forward way of handling a ‘long block’. It’s seems like you’re adding little volume and it shouldn’t have had a big impact. Did you do the minimum sets/reps throughout the block? And what did this do to your next block?
A suggestion would be using an A-B-A, B-A-B schedule. In four weeks you’re getting each lift in 6 times. So a 70%, 80%, 90%, 75%, 85%, 95% scheme works well.

CD, that was my thinking. Next time I would either go 75-85-80-90 or do two week blocks as described earlier in this thread, with two days at each percentage. I've done ABA, BAB in other programs but want to stick to the high frequency.