Note – you might want to consider taking 1-2 weeks off heavy loading in the gym or maybe even take a week totally off training to give your body a chance to catch up.
The goal of the block – to get back the momentum/technique that will probably have taken a knock from the last two blocks. To set you up to be ready to begin overloading and training for strength again.
Block 5 & 6 are a tough ask leading from an accumulation phase and a realisation phase. They are designed to put you into a period of overwork/fatigue during the first 4 weeks (block 5) and then taper the volume away and increase the intensity (block 6). This will have hopefully resulted in some good progress over the block leading to some good personal bests. However here comes the bad news. What comes up, has to come down.
You should be expecting a few weeks of stale and poor training after an overreach and realisation. With in the context of your strongest year, this is important as it allows you to experience this within your own training, to see how effective it is but also to experience what it feels like out the other end.
You should expect
- Your form/technique to not be as good as it was before you started block 5
- You should be stiff/sore through joints and muscles for about 1-2 weeks post Block 6. Properly stiff and sore after week 4 of block 6.
- You should find it tough to get back into a rhythm for a few weeks post block and to build up some training momentum.
- It can take you some time to get your fitness back or to build your overall conditioning back to be able to train with higher volumes and higher average intensities.
This block is what is termed as a Reintro block.
A re-intro block is usually a ramp or reintroduction into a what would be normal volumes and intensities for the person or the program they are on. For this block, we will be reintroducing you into a reduced frequency for the main lifts but still, maintain the 3-4x per week frequency for lower and upper body using different movements and less intense exercises to expose your upper and lower body to the normal frequency used in this programming but in a way that will act as a de-loading from week 1 and then a gradual ramp-up in intensity over week 2-4.
Block Variables
- Frequency – the competition-specific lifts are reduced down to 2x per week to allow you to have a bit of respite and give your body some time to deload from the competition movements and a chance to recover from block 5 & 6. This will also allow you some time to get used to getting back into training using variations and competition lifts.
- Volume – The first week will represent the easiest week of the block. It has a moderate volume and low intensity to allow you to get used to training and reintroduce your body to loading. The next 3 weeks of the block are a simple linear 3-week loading to reintroduce you to normal training intensities and volumes to allow you to jump back into overload based training (training to get stronger from block 8 onwards).
- Intensity – for the majority of the block the intensity remains fairly low. In week 4 you will get up to 85% which will give you a decent jumping-off point for the next block.
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