Excellent write-up, Orcrist. You are echoing many of my experiences, thoughts, especially your #7.
As I write this, I have one more day left. On Friday I will complete the PLP 60-day Challenge. 60-days straight, no days missed.
Summary positives:
Daily discipline.
Surprising hypertrophy and thickess gains.
Momentum. The ball in motion wants to keep rolling.
Vastly improved mechanics on both pulls, and presses.
Vastly improved single leg stability.
Improved flexibility throughout shoulder girdle, due to necessary warmups/stretching.
Improved understanding of how to get more from my body.
Summary negatives:
Tendinitis, both elbows, both shoulders.
CNS boredom, reluctance.
Once I got past 50-reps/day, the fun began to diminish, and it began to get pretty tedious. I wanted to add load to my reps, not just more reps. And of course, the overuse injuries began to present themselves, which I suspect caused more than a few casualties.
Overall, it has been a very positive experience, and I am eager to use these HFT principles on a full body protocol. Good job, everybody! Love to hear more PLP summaries, as you cross the tape.
My question is what people are planning on doing after itâ??s over?
Iâ??ve thought about continuing past the 60 day period, but I am concerned about diminished returns- burning myself out too much for my normal workouts. My other thought was to pinnacle at the 60 day mark then reverse it back to day one. Maybe ease off for a few months before starting up again.
I guess Iâ??ve gotten to a point where I enjoy this addition to my schedule and the progress it has given. I know I donâ??t need a program to do pull-ups, lunges and pushups- but again itâ??s the progression the program gives. Anyway- just was looking to see what other people are thinking of doing when they are done with PLP.
[quote]andrew1978 wrote:
My question is what people are planning on doing after itâ??s over?
Iâ??ve thought about continuing past the 60 day period, but I am concerned about diminished returns- burning myself out too much for my normal workouts. My other thought was to pinnacle at the 60 day mark then reverse it back to day one. Maybe ease off for a few months before starting up again.
I guess Iâ??ve gotten to a point where I enjoy this addition to my schedule and the progress it has given. I know I donâ??t need a program to do pull-ups, lunges and pushups- but again itâ??s the progression the program gives. Anyway- just was looking to see what other people are thinking of doing when they are done with PLP.[/quote]
Well, Chad suggested upping the load to a 15RM movement, or variation, and starting over, and it is, after all, his brainchild. Me personally, I just try to take the principles, and apply them to other movements. So, for example, I have started squatting every day, and building around that with various movements. I think the best result of PLP was not muscle gain, but effectively grooving a bulletproof motor pattern. I also think that the benefits of PLP diminished during the second month, as the soft tissue injuries mounted, and boredom set in.
The thing I was concerned with with the PLP program was that you would pretty much have to keep up some kind of workload to maintain whatever was built in that time. ie - If your body adapts to doing 60 pushup / 60 pull ups and you suddenly stop, why would it keep the muscle it built?
For pure BBing purposes, I still feel that a program based on progressive overload where there is really no “end” is the best way to ensure LONG TERM progress. There is no bullshit in taking your bench press from 135 to 405, and if you maintain your 405 bench you will maintain your muscle (put simply)
Well said, Lonnie. What’s the expression, “Everything works, but nothing works forever…” I think if you did actually try CW’s advice and “reload” the movements, you would probably get another shock to the system. But esp. older guys like me, the costs starts to overwhelm the benefits. I would be interested to hear from CW about his experiences with ongoing PLP gains. 60-days was plenty for me, acually 45 would have been more ideal, the last 15 days were an exercise in tolerance…
AS far as the 405 bench, I actually spotted a guy benching 335-ish, raw, and he was a little dude, about 145lbs, or so. Granted, that’s an anomaly, and most dudes are going to get bigger with that BW to strength ratio, but there are exceptional guys with freaky CNS, wiry strength who might derive size benefits from simple increased volume, ala PLP.
[quote]felix uhlirach wrote:
AS far as the 405 bench, I actually spotted a guy benching 335-ish, raw, and he was a little dude, about 145lbs, or so. Granted, that’s an anomaly, and most dudes are going to get bigger with that BW to strength ratio, but there are exceptional guys with freaky CNS, wiry strength who might derive size benefits from simple increased volume, ala PLP. [/quote]
I dont know how many Natty lifters could actually accomplish a 405 bench, I was just using that as a BIG number on an exercise every knows.
The general idea is that yes, you could build some muscle adding this into your program but I believe that once you quit the program after 60 days the gains will NOT linger long if you quit cold turkey. Some new stimulus would have to be added that at least equaled it, like restarting it over and over again but adding a hanging weight or something. Not entirely out of the question and its fine if you can do it and its motivating to you personally, but the idea of hyper frequency/volume does not appeal to me as a lifter, nor does it seem sustainable in the long run. I could see someone building up to some crazy program where they are PLPing 30 reps an hour or something crazy.
With the 405 bench press, while one might not ever actually hit it, the intent to chase the lift will ensure that the lifter is progressing towards a long term goal and will thus add muscle mass for a long, long time.
I did it! 60 days, feel great, great results. Actually noticed better ab development, who’da thought? People who complain about sore elbows are wussies. Change up your grip, you morons!
Hey jakefor3 , I recently finished the 60 days also and I too noticed more ab definition. I put on 3lbs. and went a notch lower on my belt. My wife asked me what I’ve been doing for my chest so there is something to this. Did you find that after a certain amount of reps there was diminished returns. I want to say somewhere around 40 reps it seemed like I was just treading water after that. What will you do from here on out add weight? Different excercises?
Gentlemen, thought I’d resurrect this thread because the PLP program is so great. I worked my way up to 43, gained about an inch (0.75" to 1" depending on when it was measured), lost 4 lbs (and I didn’t change my diet or my strength/conditioning program), and my legs are showing noticeably more definition.
I had to stop at 43, however, because of some shoulder problems. I’m not sure what happened, but it started to get really sore deep inside the shoulder (I’m guessing it’s a rotator cuff issue), to the point where any exercise in which I’d reach over my head (pull-over type stuff) was almost impossible. If this has happened to anyone else, I’d love to hear about it. I took two weeks off the PLP program and will resume (probably at 25) when I get this shoulder issue figured out.
[quote]tareila wrote:
Gentlemen, thought I’d resurrect this thread because the PLP program is so great. I worked my way up to 43, gained about an inch (0.75" to 1" depending on when it was measured), lost 4 lbs (and I didn’t change my diet or my strength/conditioning program), and my legs are showing noticeably more definition.
I had to stop at 43, however, because of some shoulder problems. I’m not sure what happened, but it started to get really sore deep inside the shoulder (I’m guessing it’s a rotator cuff issue), to the point where any exercise in which I’d reach over my head (pull-over type stuff) was almost impossible. If this has happened to anyone else, I’d love to hear about it. I took two weeks off the PLP program and will resume (probably at 25) when I get this shoulder issue figured out. [/quote]
Is it really worth doing again if it injures your shoulder?
[quote]tareila wrote:
Gentlemen, thought I’d resurrect this thread because the PLP program is so great. I worked my way up to 43, gained about an inch (0.75" to 1" depending on when it was measured), lost 4 lbs (and I didn’t change my diet or my strength/conditioning program), and my legs are showing noticeably more definition.
I had to stop at 43, however, because of some shoulder problems. I’m not sure what happened, but it started to get really sore deep inside the shoulder (I’m guessing it’s a rotator cuff issue), to the point where any exercise in which I’d reach over my head (pull-over type stuff) was almost impossible. If this has happened to anyone else, I’d love to hear about it. I took two weeks off the PLP program and will resume (probably at 25) when I get this shoulder issue figured out. [/quote]
Is it really worth doing again if it injures your shoulder?[/quote]
I honestly think it was a form problem. I was doing the pullups way too fast, rather than focusing on packing the shoulders and squeezing the lats on every rep. Adding some really light rotator work and incorporating the lax ball in my warmup in the last couple of weeks has done a lot of good even in the last 8 workouts or so.
Today is 35 reps for me. Since my legs are my strong point(i bicycle daily 40 min. to transport myself around) i am doing shoulders press and reverse flys(it seemed unfair to replace legs work with a smaller muscle exercise).
I plan to limit myself to 50 reps X 4 exercises, about same as 69 X 3. It is enough time consuming for me.
What do you suggest i do as a continuation ?
I tought adding a few pounds and restart at 20 reps, or going up to 75 reps but doing 2 exercises daily, alternating AB…
I do not plan to get real big nor real strong. At 56 yo i train because i enjoy it and to stay young.
Thanks.
Hi, i was reading this forum and i’m not doing as you guys seem to do. You look like you’re splitting just the chins and doing the pushups and the lunges in just one set. What i’m doing is performing equal sets of plp, which means that i do, for example 10 chins and immediatly do 20 lunges(10 per leg) and the pushups in a slow tempo with the elbows tucked in for greater dificulty. As for the lunges i wanted to make them more challenging, so i’ll accept any suggestion. Back is thicker and a bit wider, added thiknees in the biceps and legs Seem to be always pumped, tomorrow is day 22
Rules are simple, 1 more each day. When, number of sets, it is all up to us, all good, supersetting or not. Today i did 47. I started Jan. 01 but took days off due to moving. Biceps and triceps grew and i am a bit leaner.
You might go with limited range to keep the tension, not locking knee. I would avoid slow eccentrics since it might slow the recovery and Chad never promoted slow eccentrics/negatives.
I’m on day 29 today and it gets so booooooooring…don’t know if I’ll finish this.
Doing this 60 Day challenge together with the 40 day programm 5 days per week and it’s so damn frustrating to do the same stuff over and over
