Barbell Club Phase 4
Well done to everyone for your performance during the last phase. The classes have been pumping and I’ve seen some great progress. Keep up the good work.
The new programme is continuing the lower body pull and posterior chain focus for Mondays and Tuesdays but using an RDL instead of a deadlift and a slightly lower rep range. The tempo will still achieve the time under tension for hypertrophy. The upper body press will now focus on shoulders instead of chest to balance your shape. The shoulder A exercise rep format sucks a lot more than you might think so start light and increase in small increments. The pairing of the Bs is quite spicy on your traps but still make sure the steps ups are heavy enough for you to be quite gassed by the end of the set. The rest period is long enough for your traps to recover before the shoulder work.
Fridays/Saturdays will remain with a quad focus for lower body but will be using a front squat instead of back squat. For this reason the reps are much lower, so do go heavier to ensure that your nervous system and muscle fibres are fired up for what’s to come. The pull ups have a paused tempo to help you to improve your chest to bar. The D exercise finisher should have your arms pumping out your shirt. Enjoy.
Please note that the intensity (% of 1RM) prescribed is just a guideline. This should vary from person to person depending on many factors such as fast or slow twitch muscle fibre dominance, length of levers, muscle origin and insertion, and nervous system ability, depending on training experience. Please feel free to modify the intensity depending on your individual need i.e. if it’s not working you hard enough for the rep range then increase the weight (or ensure that you always hit the top end of the rep range). Equally if it’s too heavy for you to maintain good form then drop the weight – quality comes first.
As before, ensure that your time under tension for each set hits 40-60 seconds. The exceptions being the A exercises on Friday/Saturday and the D finisher.
Any questions do feel free to email or find me for a chat. It has been a great fun working with you all on this new BBC format. Looking forward to seeing you in class for the next phase.