Review of Brian Alsruhe’s Powerbuilder Program
I think I’ll start off this review similar to my last one: It’s a program by Brian Alsruhe. It’s brutal, and it will make you better. You should try it.
This was a pretty perfect program to follow the Linear Progression one I did prior to it. For you 5/3/1 guys, you could look at the LP one as an extended leader, and this as an extended anchor.
This was a more ‘fun’ program, in that it had a LOT of stuff in it. Rep PRs, main and supplemental movements, undulating intensities, the addition of conditioning in the giant sets (ugh). It followed a similar linear taper though, as each 3 week block saw the reps decrease and the weights increase.
My results were exceedingly positive I would say. Set several PRs and really pushed myself some days. There were some days I felt totally disconnected from the program, and I’d like to take them back, but that’s on me. Once again, if you use the free version of the programs, there’s holes left for you to fill in and I always get too cute with that stuff.
I used about 90-95% of my max to calculate the work load, similar to Paul Carters every-day max idea. It was a good plan, hit some higher reps on the PR sets, and on the days I was dragging I was able to hit all my required reps with at least some authority.
I tried a few things I’ve yet to do in training, primarily having a priority on upper body barbell lifts that weren’t ‘press’ and ‘bench’ and doing squats/deads as a supplemental movement, with variations as the main. I hit squat and dead PRs after doing front squats and paused deads, so that portion worked out well for me. Although, fuck doing paused deads prior to deadlifting again. That was awful.
I’m not sure how much carryover the high incline bench and close grip bench had to my main lifts. I did discover though, that I like incline benching and dislike close grip benching.
So yeah, it’s a kick ass program by a kick ass dude. If you’ve been on the fence with this one, I’d urge you to take the plunge.
The next 3 weeks I’ll be going ‘program free’ for contest prep. It’ll mostly resemble 5/3/1 though, with plenty of event prep and a heavy dose of band stuff to flush out some problem areas I’ve developed recently. Following the contest, I’ll have to make a decision on summer programming and it’s too soon to really put a ton of thought into that.