Review of The Bridge strength program
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- file: posts/review-bridge-program.md
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title: Review of The Bridge strength program
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time: 2018-01-01T12:00:00Z
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description: "My review of The Bridge strength program by Barbell Medicine"
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- file: posts/dropped-packages-following-lts-10.md
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title: Dropped packages following LTS 10
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time: 2017-12-25T15:47:00Z
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Last week, I completed
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[The Bridge](https://www.barbellmedicine.com/the-bridge/), an 8 week
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strength program by Barbell Medicine. Since this program is
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significantly different than what I've done in the past, and what I've
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[talked about on this blog previously](https://www.snoyman.com/blog/2017/06/naive-overview-exercise),
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I wanted to share my thoughts and some results.
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__Summary__ This program was more complicated to follow than others
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I've tried, but given that I was looking for an intermediate instead
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of novice program, that's not surprising. I improved my actual 1 rep
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max numbers on all 4 major lifts. I'm planning on continuing my
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training with another cycle of the program.
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## History
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I've been lifting for close to 2 years now, with a few years of
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bodyweight training before that. In the subset of that time that I've
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been seriously training, I've followed these programs:
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* [Start Bodyweight](http://www.startbodyweight.com/)
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* [StrongLifts 5x5](https://stronglifts.com/)
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* A few months of a Push-Pull-Leg (PPL) routine I made up, which was a
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mistake and gave me no progress. Pretend it didn't happen.
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* [5/3/1](https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/531-how-to-build-pure-strength),
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with the Boring But Big (BBB) accessories
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Ignoring the silly PPL, all three of these programs helped me
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significantly. They also all share something: they're simple to
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follow. First you determine where to start, which is either dictated
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by the program or based on current abilities. Then you follow a simple
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set of rules on how to progress. This simplicity is very appealing.
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Start Bodyweight got me to a decent strength level, but I was unhappy
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with weakness in my back leading to regular pain while sitting at my
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desk. I switch to StrongLifts when I decided I wanted to do a barbell
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program with deadlifts, and (as always happens with a novice program)
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eventually hit a wall.
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When I switched to 5/3/1, I immediately saw my estimated 1 rep max
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(1RM) numbers going up. In fact, they went up
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significantly. Unfortunately, I found that my _actual_ 1RM numbers
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were not budging. It seemed that 5/3/1 was giving me an increase in
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muscular _endurance_, but not necessarily strength. While the program
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was fun, easy to follow, and required relatively little time in the
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gym, I wanted more progress.
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__NOTE__ I know there are _many_ variations of 5/3/1 out there, and
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likely some of them would have served me better. I'm not comparing all
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potential programs in the world, just the ones I've actually pursued
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myself.
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## Overview of The Bridge
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Over the past half year or so, I've been regularly exposed—via
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YouTube videos and articles—to the team behind Barbell Medicine,
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mainly Drs. Jordan Feigenbaum and Austin Baraki. When I was in the
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market for a new program, I heard mention of The Bridge program, and
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downloaded it.
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The Bridge is delivered as a PDF. The program itself takes up about 5
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pages in this 36 page document. The rest of the material is a bit dry
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to get through, but immensely useful and informative. I really
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appreciate the way the authors have given a background on the concepts
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of stress, training volume, and intensity. If you're at all interested
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in strength training, give it a read.
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The program focuses on the main barbell lifts (squat, overhead press,
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bench press, deadlift) with accessories (e.g., barbell row, pin squat,
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paused deadlift). Unlike other programs I'd followed, this program
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changes from week to week. That makes it more complicated to follow,
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but not significantly. The real curve ball is the Rate of Perceived
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Exertion scale, or RPE.
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## RPE based training
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In a program like Strong Lifts, I go into the gym on a Tuesday, and I
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know that I'm going to try to squat X amount of weight for Y sets of Z
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reps. Not so with The Bridge. Instead, you'll see something like:
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> Squats: 5 @ 6 RPE, 5 @ 7 RPE, 5 @ 8 RPE for 3 sets
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This means that, after my warmup sets, I need to start with a set of 5
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squats at an exertion level of 6. The scale goes up to 10, and each
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number below 10 indicates how many more reps you could have possibly
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done. So RPE 6 means "I could have done 4 more reps." Therefore, "5
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reps at 6 RPE" means "choose a weight that you can just barely do 9
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reps for, then do 5 reps at that weight."
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When I first saw this, I was dumbfounded. "How do I guess the magical
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weight number?" And in fact, that _was_ the most complicated part of
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this program for all 8 weeks. There are charts in the PDF that help
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you compare against your 1 rep max. But overall, it was trial and
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error. There were definitely sets where I lifted more than I should
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have, and sets where I could have added more weight.
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In contrast to a simple numeric guide like Strong Lifts or 5/3/1
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delivers, an RPE based scale allows you to easily adjust training
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intensity to account for both good and bad days in the gym. A few
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times during this program, I had a bad night's sleep or a bit of a
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cold, and lifted less weight. A few times, I was feeling great and
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lifted more than I would have expected. RPE allowed this to happen. By
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contrast, with both SL and 5/3/1, there were days where the weight
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felt easy, and other days when it felt crushing.
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Ultimately, my conclusion to all of this was: RPE is harder than a
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number based scale, but gives great results. Just accept the fact that
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you're going to screw up regularly.
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## Difficulty level
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The program is broken up into weeks of different stress level, either
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low, moderate, or high. The weeks also tend to focus on either high
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volume or high intensity. For example, both weeks 4 and 7 are
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considered high stress weeks, but compare the first day's squat
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programming:
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* Week 4: 5 @ RPE 6, 5 @ 7, 5 @ 8 x 4 sets
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* Week 7: 1 @ RPE 8, 3 @ 8 x 4 sets
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Week 4's day 1 ends up having 30 total reps of squat, whereas week 7
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has 13. However, because of how the RPE scale works, you'll end up
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lifting much heavier weight on week 7. For example, "5 @ RPE 8" means
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a weight you could have done 7 reps at. "3 @ RPE 8" means you could
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have done 5. You can lift more weight for 5 reps than you can for 7,
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and therefore week 7 ends up with a lower volume at higher intensity.
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Personally, I really liked the later weeks in the program. None of the
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other pgorams I'd tried ever got to low volume high intensity. But
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having read the PDF and its motivations, I understand why we need both
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the volume and intensity weeks, and appreciate the way the program is
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designed. In fact, having completed the program, I think I understand
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the design of the program much better than before.
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## Cardio
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Unlike previous programs I've done, this program included cardio. I
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considered this a good kick in the pants to start running and the
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eliptical again. If you're like me: find a good audio book to listen
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to, otherwise it will be 30 minutes of hell :)
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(Not entirely accidentally, I also signed up for an Audible account
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around the same time I started this program.)
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## Time in gym
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The earlier weeks in this program have high volume, with lots of
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sets. I spend a _long_ time in the gym some weeks: 3 days of lifting
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for about 2 hours each, and 1-2 days doing about 45 minutes of
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cardio. You can reduce that by having shorter rest periods or
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supersetting your warmups for the next lift with your previous working
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sets, or you can answer emails and Slack messages. (Fortunately no one
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can smell your sweat over email.)
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## Results
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Way back in May of last year, my gym had a "powerlifting competition."
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I put that in quotes since there were four of us, I was the only one
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in my weight class (everyone else weighed 20kg more than me), and some
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of the other competitors half repped their squats. (I'm going to pray
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that I actually squatted to depth, since there were no videos and I
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don't trust the judges.) Between that time and starting this program
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at the end of October, I increased my estimated 1RM numbers
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significantly, but to my recollection barely, if at all, bested my
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powerlifting meet numbers with actual weight.
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There are some minor confounding factors in these increases due to my
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addition of chalk to assist with my deadlift, and getting more
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comfortable with my lifting belt (the competition was the first time I
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ever used a lifting belt). Nonetheless, I think a good portion of
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these increases can be attributed to my time on The Bridge:
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* Squat: 20% increase
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* Overhead press: 16% increase\*
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* Bench press: 11% increase
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* Deadlift: 19% increase
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\* If you're wondering: no, the powerlifting competition did not
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include an overhead press. I'm including a number from around the same
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time.
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Definitely keep in mind that I _do_ believe my time on 5/3/1 in the
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interim helped at the very least with my muscular endurance, and most
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likely primed me to be able to hit the volume weeks of The Bridge
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better than I would have been able to in May. I would not expect to
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make those kinds of increases in just 8 weeks.
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## Conclusion
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This was my first time taking a foray into an intermediate program,
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intended for lifters who are no longer making linear progressions with
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novice programs like Strong Lifts. I can finally understand why Mark
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Rippetoe says
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[you want to be a novice](https://startingstrength.com/article/programming/who_wants_to_be_a_novice_you_do):
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simple programs with great results are much more fun.
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If you've got the time to spend in the gym on higher volume routines,
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have the patience to figure out the RPE system, want to learn more
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about strength programming, and are looking for a well designed
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intermediate program, I recommend checking out The Bridge.
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For myself: when it comes to health and fitness, I consider this at
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least half an experiment with sample size of 1, and therefore I like
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to try out many different things. I'm going to keep my eyes out for a
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new routine to try (and if you have recommendations, let me know). But
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given the great progress this program helped me achieve, I'm going to
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continue with at least one more cycle of it before moving on to
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something new.
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If you want me to share more experience reports like this in the
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future, let me know. I can also include the nutrition side of things
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if people are interested, which has been possibly more volatile for me
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over the past year than the training itself.
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