Today starts my second go-round with the Renaissance Periodization Male Physique Templates. This time I’m trying them with a slight modification.
Jared Feather, one of RP’s coaches, has made some suggestions on an alternative way of running the templates, and I’m giving that a shot. So this first mesocycle will be “tab 1” of the templates with slightly greater intensities and a slightly lower rep range (aiming for 6-10 reps). For me personally, I decided when selecting exercises to pick exercises that are barbell and more oriented towards “heavier lifting” (if you will). For the next mesocycle I’ll run tab 1 again, hitting 8-12 rep range, and will select exercises that start to mix in dumbbell work.
Today went pretty good! I of course knew what to generally expect — a lot of disappointment. š Mostly because this is the first week so it’s lighter intensities, only 2-3 sets, and I have to stop 3/fail. So it’s just not a ton of work, but it’s all good towards setting the stage for what’s to come.
I am happy with my weight estimations. That was the toughest part, because the template spreadsheet is oriented towards what it’s expecting, which isn’t quite Jared’s modifications — so I had to do a bunch of refinements and re-refinements. But I am happy with where things landed. A couple things were under, like close-grips, but I’m going to leave them alone because I expect as intensities increase, more sets, that there will be accumulated exhaustion and things should work out ok.
All in all, happy with the start.
RP Physique, Mesocycle 1.1
- Incline Medium Grip Bench Press
- bar x 10
- 95 x 10
- 135 x 5
- 175 x 10
- 175 x 10
- 175 x 8
- Dips
- BW x 8
- BW x 8
- BW x 8
- Close-Grip Bench Press
- 135 x 12
- 135 x 12
- Barbell Bent Over Row
- bar x 10
- 95 x 10
- 135 x 5
- 165 x 10
- 165 x 8
- 165 x 8
- Narrow-Grip Pulldown
- 125 x 12
- 125 x 10
- 125 x 9
- Upright Rows
- bar x 10
- 70 x 5
- 95 x 10
- 95 x 9
- 95 x 8
- Reaching Sit-up
- bw x 15
- bw x 12