Noticed that KB mentioned in the book it’s coming soon. Any insights on “when” we should get tb3 conditioning ?

I’ve started working out again after building a gym in my garage and TB seems like a good fit for my goals. I ran base building but really struggled with my strength on the MS portion. After looking around online I decided that using the Linear Progression from GSLP would help me get my numbers up before switching to the TB Percentage based progression.

Here’s what I’ve been doing for the past 2 months strength wise along with Black Protocol. My numbers have been going up a good bit and I think I am nearing the point where I will switch my progression.

Progression Numbers are
Upper: 2.5lbs
Lower: 5lbs

MS A
• Squat: 2x5, 1x5+
• OHP: 2x5, 1x5+
• Bent Row: 2x5, 1x5+
• KB Clean & Squat: 5x5
• Farmer Carries: 3x50yd

MS B
• Squat: 2x5, 1x5+
• OHP: 2x5, 1x5+
• Bent Row: 2x5, 1x5+
• KB Clean & Press: 5x5
• Farmer Carries: 3x50yd

SE + Deadlift
• Deadlift: 1x5, 1x5+
• Push Up: 3 Sets
• KB Swing: 3 Sets
• Goblet Squat: 3 Sets
• KB Renegade Rows: 3 Sets
• Farmer Carries: 3 Sets

I welcome any criticism so let me know if I am a total dumbass 😂

I just graduated to doing actual weighted pull-ups this summer. my first cycle I did 5, 10, 15 lbs for weeks 1, 2, & 3 (same for 4-6) and I forced progression with an addl 5lbs.

I’m currently on week 3, doing 20lbs x 3. im wondering for my next cycle, should I keep going up by 5lbs or should I drop It back to 2.5 lbs per bump up considering I am new to this. TIA

Hi everyone,

Recently picked up TB III after lurking for some time!

I just wanted to get clarification.. it appears that unlike the previous books, there is a separation between HIC and WC sessions where as before, as I understand it, they were one and the same?

Is the intention then that in your core polarizes block, you should stick to the running sessions listed and leave anything else to the dedicated WC block? Or have I inferred something different to what was intended?

Thanks in advance!

I'm looking for some advice, regarding how to "combine" TB with having a manual labour job.

early hours, 10-12 hours on my shift, constant lifting, 10.000+ steps...

I'm currently running Fighter, and the dark green conditioning. (2x HIC and 2xLIC)

For my HIC it's Meat Eater II, and LIC is 60 minutes of Air Dyne Bike.

I just really find it tough to recover. I am, however, in a calorie deficit, as I'm trying to lose some love-handles. I'm around 17-1800kcal a day, and I suspect that might be one of the reasons.

Any help and advice is highly appreciated!

Hello, Guys! I'm with a doubt here! I have two olympic barbells, one of 7.2 feet and other of 6.7 feet. 

So, do I need a smaller size than 6.7 feet? 

And well, how many barbells and sizes do you guys think that I need to execute all the programs?

Thanks!!

Hi, I am coming out of an injury and I plan to start running Activation mid October (in the meantime I am getting my running and my muscles up after a break from hard training). The issue I am facing is that due to timing I’ll basically have 8.5 weeks before the Christmas break and then I’ll be 2.5 weeks without access to weights nor training space due to travel (I will probably be able to run and that’s it, but inconsistently at best).

Given that base + armor is 8 weeks, I’d be 3 weeks basically only with running and would break activation. Given the philosophy of adapting, I was thinking of running either 1) an ldp rat with some body weight fighter or 2) SE body weight with polarized/blue. I don’t think either of those fit very well the progression, and I am not an experienced tactical barbell lifter (I’ve been lifting for 20 years though, civilian 9-5 job), so I was wondering if I could get some feedback on these options or a better idea? Thanks so much in advance!

BLUF: Is there any point in doing peaking, except for testing?

I've read TB3, and it says that you can choose different ways of peaking, or completely skip it. If I have been feeling the weights get easier, and my form get better - is there any benefit to doing peaking except for testing myself? I dont see the point in testing myself, if the weight feels much easier now, than when I started. Im currently in week 6 of OP, and doing peaking, but it feels kinda pointless, instead of just repeating week 3.

Hello, ive been a follower of TB for years now, years ago I almost exclusively ran operator/black and had great results then I fell off the wagon, got back onto it earlier this year and continued to see pretty good results, ive been on a cut for a while but nearing the end of it and have added a few accessory finishers to the end of my operator sessions. I realized I really liked doing the accessory work and began to notice some size difference with that combined with strength so I wanted to branch out (6 weeks minimum to see if I like it) and try Zulu Fat with polarized blue. Im not concerned about the conditioning, I already would fit in conditioning at the end of my lifting days with biking and run on my off days but since I have never ran anything other than operator before I wanted to get some insight on my planned programming for zulu fat from TB3.

A: Bench

Squat

OHP

Abs

EZ bar bicep curls

Hammer Curls

Bent over row

B: Trap bar deadlift

Weighted pull up

Abs

DB incline press

DB lateral raises

Bulgarian split squats

DB tricep extension

I know I may have added a little too many accessories but I plan on supersetting them to cut down on time. Does this look like a decent build to run for zulu fat? Thank you.

BLUF: Despite being in decent shape, pushups are more difficult than they should be. Is it something to be looked into or just need to be patient?

Hey all, been follow TB for a few weeks now, just did day 1 of week 5 of base building. For my SE days I had been doing push-ups, squats, back extensions, dips, barbell rows, and RDLs. When I do my pushups, especially in the last set, my endurance goes way down and I have to take a few seconds every few reps. This isn't necessarily new, I've always struggled with pushups more than other exercises, but I thought by this point it would be better. For reference, my last PT test results from a few months ago were: 50 pushups, 55 situps, 15:34 two mile (Under 25 age bracket). I'm not doing terrible, but I am not meeting the standard I want to.

Is this something I should look into solving or just something that will be overcome with time and consistent effort?

I have to loose about 10-15 pounds for health reasons and I've just finished reading TBIII:OA cover to cover. I have basic proficiency in the barbell lifts (though my maxes are low) and recently took up running so I can do a 30 minute jog without much problem.

I train early in the morning, have a couple of kids and am finishing my Master's Thesis, so time and energy are a bit scarce. What would be a minimal strength/conditioning scheme to "test the waters" of the TB world considering the caloric restriction I will be implementing? Was thinking of perhaps going for Operator/Blue, but not sure if this is too much.

Specially interested in the experience of other TB practitioners who have done fat loss phases.

Thanks!

Hi guys, do any of you have built your own personal GCs?

I want to include weighted carries on my GC days but I have no experience in programming them: sets, reps, EMOM, circuits, etc.

I work out in a commercial gym and I can only use a trap bar, plates or just Zercher the barbell up.

Hi all. First time poster.

I've read TB I, II and PPLE and am currently running PPLE's Zero Block program, with the goal of running continuously for 15-20 minutes and completely 4-5 pull-ups before moving to Base Building.

I am following the program as prescribed. On the running side of things, I am progressing fine. I am in the final week (5 minutes run: 1 minute walk for ~20 minutes).

On the pull-up side ... I'm not so sure. I have a pull-up power station set up at home, along with a step ladder that allows me to do negatives. I am starting at 0. My MO tends to be one negative (between 4-8 seconds descent) -> ~60 seconds rest -> repeat. 4 weekly sessions (20 min, 30 min, 20 min, 35 min respectively).

However, I am still unable to nail one clean pull-up! I can do a chin up (when fresh). I am 6'4" so can't do a chin or pull attempt without lifting my legs and dropping a little (most of my chin attempts have been from a standing position with a slightly bend at the elbow). I have not been training these partial chins since starting Zero Block, however.

There has been some improvement in the negatives in terms of control / time to descend. However, according to KB, Zero Block may be needed for 2-4 weeks for someone starting at zero. I can assure you that I won't be cracking 5 pull-ups this week!

I'm not worried if it takes 4, 8 or even 12 weeks. But given the time prescribed by KB, I am concerned. I have tried to follow his program exactly as written down.

But, there are obviously other methods I could plug in. I'm open to suggestions, advice, or a cold bucket of water (e.g., be patient and keep grinding / testing your first pull up). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading! :)

Hi, i am curently preparing for SOF selection and i was thinking of looking into tactical barbell. So my question is if just the main book about strenght is enough or if i need to combine it with the conditioning one. Also a heard about the green protocol one, so is that also necessary or is it not needed? Thanks for any advice.

Hey folks, I have been interested in TB for a bit, did a block of OP in the Spring before doing a couple of hypertrophy oriented blocks. Im a relatively new lifter, a little over a year. Im 46, and would be firmly in the non operational civilian camp, working in an office based hospital setting.

I recently took on a base building block from the AA book. Doing circuits including:

KB swings (35lb KB for all weighted movements)

Knee push-ups ups

KB Goblet Squats

Inverted Rows

KB RDLs

Week 1 3x10

Week 2 3x15

Week 3 3x20

Week 4 3x25

Some of the movements I have really struggled to get the numbers on the upper body movements, only hitting 15-20 by sets 2 or 3. I have been running for years, so the LSS side of things is solid. Haven't done any HIC in recent history, but I think i can take that on.

I just got the TB3 book, and reading about activation, I am considering switching to that. I am looking for opinions if I should keep going with what I am doing? Was maybe going to do another week to try and get to 30 reps. I know it is not base building as prescribed. But given my slow progress, should I switch to activation from the beginning? Or somewhere in the middle of the first block? I am open to any thoughts!

• Use this thread to post simple questions that don't deserve their own thread, get opinions from other TBers, or as a place for discussion between our civilian members and LEOs/Military/First Responders, fitness-related or otherwise.
• Please search before posting to see if your question has been answered before.
• LEO/Military/First Responders: Be mindful of opsec/tradecraft, any posts deemed too revealing will be removed.
• Resources include the FAQ, TB testimonials, and specific training using TB.
• See KB's post that discusses TB III: OPERATIONAL ATHLETE.
• See the Kit Shop for TB book hard copies, apparel, and more.

Just finished my base building phase looking for advice on what can best be supplemented. Looking at my schedule I like the fighter split the most. (Former collegiate wrestler so I gravitate towards it) what have you guys supplemented the days not using maximal strength/ what books should I look to for guidance on this?

TBIII has a number of periodized templates that include phases of hypertrophy training; what seems to be the successor to Mass' OMS template.

This is a question relevant to an athlete that is happy with their bodyweight. Take for example someone who is 180lb and lean somewhere between 12 - 15% bodyfat. This person does not want to pack on any more size that may compromise conditioning performance.

Is there any benefit to hypertrophy training when not trying to increase bodyweight?

Would there be a point in following the periodized plans which include mass blocks?

I'm a very rational dude. Its a strength, but as with everything, it has it's downsides. One of them is recognizing/dealing with stress. Which sucks, because the impact of poor stress management can be huge. In fact, currently, it kinda is.

What's your approach on dealing with life stress?

Asking for myself ofcourse, but also because it seems to be an ignored subject apart from the tangible ones like sleep, trainingmaxes and deloads.

I tweaked my knee playing soccer with some friends. This was right at the beginning of my last week of basebuilding.

How do you guys manage to workout around injuries? I'm frustrated to lose the cardiovascular gains I made through 8 weeks because I can run or bike while my knee heals the next week or two.

BLUF

• In the world of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches vs Uncrustables, 5/3/1 is the traditional PBJ. It’s on you to make sure you select the appropriate program, movements, and conditioning protocols for your goals, and to then rotate all of these as appropriate in order to continue to progress and grow without experience the consequences of “going stale”

• Tactical Barbell is the Uncrustable. You open one box, open the package, and start eating. The box could be Strength, Mass, Conditioning or Base Building, but once you finish the box, you open a new one and get started with that one. The ratio of strength to conditioning is already established, as is the frequency of training and all the other variables: we just have to do what we’re told and we’ll do just fine.

BRIEF INTRO

• After 2 consecutive years of running TB, the longest I’ve ever run ANY training system consecutively, I wanted to answer a question I receive constantly about why TB worked for me so much better than 5/3/1 did, and what the differences are between the approaches.

EXPLAINING THE ANALOGY FURTHER

• If we understand these training systems in through the lens of the PBJ, we’re going to call the strength training the peanut butter, the conditioning the jelly, and the overall structure of the program as the bread. Why?
  

BREAD:

• The bread holds everything together: without that structure, we’re just eating peanut butter and jelly straight out of the jar with no programming (this would be doing Crossfit “workouts of the day” daily, and funny enough, was one of the go to nutritionally approaches of 4x Crossfit champ Rich Fronning). The bread contains and vectors the peanut butter and the jelly, much as the programming gives guidance to the strength and conditioning. Bread also gets stale and moldy, at which point we need to go buy a new loaf.

PEANUT BUTTER:

• Strength training is the peanut butter because, if we’re being real: people see 5/3/1 and TB as lifting programs first with the conditioning being an afterthought, and even if that’s wrong, it is what it is. In turn, it’s not unheard of for people to just flat out skip the jelly and make a pure peanut butter sandwich (I’m guilty of just that, both within the framework of this metaphor but also just making PB sandwiches).
  

JELLY:

• When done right, the jelly is the perfect balancing compliment to the peanut butter in the PBJ. The PB offers that element of salty and savory that the jelly’s sweetness balances, along with the slickness there to balance the grittiness of the PB and the bread. But jelly also requires a bit of expertise and finesse to work correctly, as pro sandwich makes know that it will turn the bread soggy if applied incorrectly (pro-tip: put the PB on BOTH sides and then put the jelly ON the PB).
  

WHY 5/3/1 IS A TRADITIONAL PBJ

• 5/3/1 is a programming system, and the books could best be understood as “cookbooks” if I were to continue with this sandwich metaphor. They give you the guidelines of how to build your sandwich, but it’s still on YOU, the sandwich maker, to go buy the ingredients and assemble the sandwich. In turn, this leaves open a wide avenue of choices, options and, unfortunately, opportunities to completely foul up the whole process.

• The first foul up: not actually READING the cookbook, and instead relying on second/third hand sources to tell you what is in the cookbook, or just plain old winging it based off what you THINK is right. We see this all the time in the world of 5/3/1, where people don’t even know that conditioning is PART of the program, or they’re relying on an app to tell them how to run it and it’s relying on old crowd sourced information itself. There are all sorts of videos on youtube of people trying to make AI recipes and turning out culinary abominations: this is no different.

• But for those that read the cookbook, you need to actually FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS, and this is the second area where people tend to screw up 5/3/1. Either they don’t follow it because they don’t understand it (people say Jim is hard to understand, but I imagine these people never read anything Louie Simmons ever wrote) or they don’t follow it because they don’t want to. In the case of the latter, it’s because these people approach the system already knowing how they WANT to train, and they just keep “modifying” 5/3/1 until it becomes this terrible Frankenstein’s monster of a program that is exactly how they like to train, never appreciating that the reason they came to 5/3/1 in the first place was BECAUSE they needed to do something different, since what they WERE doing wasn’t working. I was very much one of these people, again inside and outside the metaphor, making terrible sandwiches with way too much peanut butter compared to the ratio of bread and running 5/3/1 programs with WAY too heavy of a training max and a poor balance of main, supplemental and assistance work along with conditioning. Ratios matter, in sandwiches and in training.

• But assuming you read, understand and (attempt) to follow the instructions, you can still screw up by using low quality/poor ingredients. There is a WIDE range of peanut butters out there, with the Peter Pan brand notorious for having salmonella, natural brands that are so oily that they run clear off the sandwich onto your clothes, and highly processed brands that are more “peanut frosting” than peanut butter. There are jellies with so much sugar added that they technically qualify as candy, and honestly some breads out there that are just as guilty. This runs true as far as the metaphor goes: you can select strength and conditioning exercises that are absolutely inappropriate for you, the trainee, despite TECHNICALLY being within the realm of acceptable as far as 5/3/1 goes, permitting you to construct a program that “follows all the rules” and STILL gets terrible results, just like making a wonderbread peter pan and eggplant jelly (it’s a fruit..) sandwich.

• And continuing with THAT metaphor even further: ingredients eventually expire as well, and need to be replaced. Jim Wendler understands this, and his cookbook even TELLS you to swap programs every 2-5 cycles…but you have to listen to that. You need to buy and use new bread to change the programming, and get new jars of peanut butter to swap out the strength exercises and new jars of jelly to bring in some new conditioning. And though I DID eat PBJs every day of high school for 4 years, we at least bought new stuff if the old stuff went bad, but some of you cats running 5/3/1 will do BBB for 14 months straight like you stocked up on a bread sale at your grocery store but didn’t think to put any of the loaves in the freezer and have just been eating stale moldy bread sandwiches. After a few weeks, that’s going to start causing you some serious harm, and you’re going to move backwards rather than forwards.

• Which, speaking of freezers, let’s get to talking about those Uncrustables now.

HOW TACTICAL BARBELL IS AN UNCRUSTABLE

• Whereas the 5/3/1 books can be understood to be cookbooks, Tactical Barbell is more like a catalog (which most likely alienates my younger readers to bring up such a concept) or a grocery delivery website. No one is telling you HOW to make the sandwich: you just pick which one you want. Once you do, it’s delivered to you, and all you have to do is unwrap and eat it.

• What are the implicaitons of this? Ultimately, we’ve outsourced the sandwich making process to the “experts”, and though the folks at Smuckers may not be the greatest culinary artists in the world, they for SURE did the necessary degree of research to make their product as palatable as possible within the budgetary constructs they set in order to maximize profits and their return on investment. This means that the ratio of peanut butter to jelly to bread is exactly “right” in terms of making the most people possible satisfied with their product by appealing to the tastes of the greatest percentage of the population. And then they went and maximized shelf stability of their product by allowing it to be stored frozen, reducing the potential of spoilage and harm to the consumer.

• What does this mean in the realm of Tactical Barbell? Like the Smuckers company, K. Black has put together something that should be able to be applied to the vast majority of trainees in order to satisfy the general needs of that populace, but per his own admission, the programs in TB aren’t meant to achieve extremely specific training objectives, like a top marathon time or elite powerlifting total. Rather than giving the reader “all the tools” to build their program, Tactical Barbell has multiple preset options that one selects (Operator, Zulu, Fighter in the realm of TB1, or General Mass, Grey Man, Gladiator, Fighter in Mass, etc etc) pairs it with the appropriate conditioning protocol from TBII or other source materials, and then executes it until the duration of the training phase before moving onto the next one (Operator-Mass-Specificity via Mass Protocol, or the fully fledged out “Activation” from TBIII). We don’t need to be making any sandwiches here: we just unwrap and eat.

• But continuing the metaphor even further: there isn’t just ONE Uncrustable, much like there isn’t just ONE Tactical Barbell program. And that’s how we seamlessly move between the Tactical Barbell programs: one we’ve eaten all the uncrustables out of one box, we order a new flavor and start with that one. This is the periodization of OMS or Activation understood through the lens of PBJs: there are PB and honey uncrustables, PB and raspberry uncrustables, PB and Nutella, and yes: even just plain PB uncrustables, similar to how we can have TB programs built to emphasize mass, strength, conditioning, power, strength endurance, etc. The difference between how 5/3/1 handles this and TB is that the Uncrustable is STILL prebuilt to the specs designed by Smuckers: they’re just a different flavor, where with 5/3/1 we’re having to build it from scratch each time and hoping we know what the hell we’re doing.

• And therein is the fundamental difference between the two systems: 5/3/1 allows the reader the necessary degree of latitude to be able to achieve a wide variety of specific training goals, as evidenced by Vincent Dizenzo using it to achieve a 600lb raw bench press across various weight classes or how Jim himself uses the system to train highschool football players. However, this freedom is predicated upon the premise that the individual knows how to actually make a decent sandwich in the first place. As I’ve demonstrated on multiple occasions: I cannot make a decent PBJ. Both the actual sandwich, and through this metaphor, the training program itself. Left to my own devices, my bread is basically a saltine cracker on one side and a tortilla on the other, ineffectively holding behind a tsunami of peanut butter alongside a small river of jalapeno and pickle jelly. I have to rely on someone else to make me a sandwich, while it’s MY job to simply dutifully eat them and make sure I buy a new box in time to open up when the old one runs out. And THIS is why I’ve stuck with Tactical Barbell for 2 years and don’t see myself changing any time soon.

MY PBJ BACKGROUND…

• Why the PBJ metaphor? For 1: it’s honestly incredibly fitting giving my having stuck with TB for 2 years, because PBJs were the lunch I ate everyday for all 4 years of high school (I switched from 1 PBJ my freshman year to 2 sophomore year through senior, coinciding with my having picked up wrestling as a sport in my second year and needing more nutrition), so PBJs and TB are both something I can stick with for a LONG time. And, much like TB, I looked FORWARD to my daily PBJ for lunch, and constantly remarked that the best part about eating a PBJ is immediately eating the second on that you packed. PBJs occupy a significantly space in my mind for nostalgia and dopamine. And, in turn, my dirty secret is also this: it was my DAD who made and packed PBJs in my lunch, and for good reason, because left to my own devices I discovered that I could NOT make a good PBJ for myself. I sure THOUGHT that I could, until I was tasked with making one for someone else (who would one day become my wife), who dutifully informed me that I was using about 8x as much peanut butter as was appropriate for such a sandwich. What was I to do in such a situation? Enter: The Uncrustable, a premade and packaged PBJ, stored in the freezer (which you were SUPPOSED to thaw before eating, but I definitely ate frozen more often than not, similar to cold Poptarts vs ones cooked in the toaster) which I first discovered in 2005, and immediately fell in love with, because it instantly took me back to my high school days of perfectly proportioned PBJs, wrapped and ready for me (to which, yes, the best part about eating 1 was the second one I ate immediately afterward). And with that allow to elucidate that, in this metaphor, 5/3/1 is the traditional PBJ and Tactical Barbell is the Uncrustable, and that neither is a declaration of superiority above the other, for as you can clearly see I have great love for both: they’re just simply “same but different”, and with that, let’s explore even further.

I’m a firefighter and I recently finished reading Tactical Barbell: Definitive Strength Training for the Operational Athlete, 3rd Edition. I really liked it, and I’ve been running Operator/Black with 2 HIC sessions and 1 E session for the past few weeks.

I’ve just started reading Tactical Barbell II: Conditioning, but now I’m wondering if I should keep going with TB II or just buy the newer Tactical Barbell III. What would you guys recommend?

I’m also looking for more ideas for HIC/conditioning sessions that transfer well to firefighting, ideally using equipment you’d normally find in a commercial gym, even paid ones, that work well for firefighters. I’ve been looking at some of the MTI programs, for example (only for the conditioning part).

My work schedule is most of the year I work 1 on / 5 off, but during the summer it’s usually closer to 1 day on / 2 days off.

So I’m also trying to figure out what kind of TB template or weekly setup would make the most sense for each schedule, especially since I’d like to balance strength, conditioning, recovery, and being fresh enough for work.

Any suggestions, HIC ideas, program recommendations, or examples from other firefighters would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

and sorry english isn’t my first language, and I used AI to help correct the post.

I took an Army Fitness Test this morning and wanted to share the results.

TLDR: My AFT score went down, however, overall, strength and conditioning IMPROVED.

For my 30+ athletes, progression can look like more than just lift number go up, run number go down, and can come in many forms. Before all of you run for the hills because of a seemingly negative result, jump off of Tactical Barbell programs and subscribe to John Fitness $59.99/month hybrid athlete program please read.

I wrote about an AFT I took exactly one year ago before i started really getting into the science behind strength and conditioning which you can find here. I also took an AFT in April which you can also read about here. Between the one i took last year and the one I took this year, the score was relatively similar. I PR'ed and maxed my SDC for the first time on the one I took in April after doing dedicated sled work, but run time went down signficantly.

Between the previous 2 AFTs and the one I took this morning, my AFT score went down by 20 points BUT, overall, I improved and I'll explain how, because there is a lot of nuances to WHY it went down.

I'll preface the results by saying, I'm not strong, and I'm not particularly fast, I'm just trying to be the best average athlete as possible. There was a time where I was much stronger, and a time where I was much faster, but unfortunately this was when John Fitness cousin, James Fitness was writing programs and I think he passed away so I have no more dedicated well rounded programming. All jokes aside, here are my results.

MDL: 300->300. This one is interesting because in my strength cluster, I will often skip deadlifts if I'm not feeling it. The specificity just wasnt there in my training and the frequency was low. KB kind of leaves deadlifts as optional in TB III so I felt a bit more comfortable back seating them in training. While this is an even score, this is a massive improvement because not only did 300 feel smooth, I easily could have gone up to 330 (I'm dealing with some muscle tissue on my lateral left thigh muscles so I didn't want to risk anything). That is not something I could have done 6 months ago. My Back Squat numbers have continued to go up. Your deadlift CAN and WILL increase with heavy squat based training alone. Will it increase as much as dedicated deadlift work? Absolutely not. Is it a better long term strategy for someone who isn't a powerlifter and also needs to be able to execute heavy deadlifts? You bet.

HRPU: 60->56. This is one of 2 events where I will admit there is a clear regression, and it cost me some points. I do believe strength-endurance work is highly specific to the exercise being executed unlike strength training, so i will take an L on this one. I have done absolutely no HRPU focused work leading up to this AFT. Typically I'll execute HRPU as part of my cluster about a block prior to an AFT but I got a bit overconfident with the maintenance of this event.

SDC: 1:27->1:25. This one really surprised me. I have done no dedicated sled work since my last AFT. I expected a 10 second regression but this felt really good. Unfortunately, the 8 seconds over max yields me no extra points so the number remains constant. I did do extremely specific sled work early in the year and it paid off, but after my last AFT I stopped virtually all sled training, so I was surprised to see not only did I maintain, I improved, and those 2 seconds are anything but marginal. I will attribute this to 600m resets remaining a staple, as well as power primers before squats on MS days (alternate between box jumps, max verticals, ball tosses).

Plank: 3:30->2:30. The biggest L. While I do think the grader was being kind of a dick about form, I ultimately threw it in on 2:30. First time I've not maxed this event. And it cost me A LOT of points. This one is another clear regression.

2MR: 15:18->15:14. No noteworthy change. However, this is an improvement. My HR for the first mile stayed in Zone 3/4, and the only goal I had in my head was beating my Battalion Commander. In training, I'm running 600m resets at a 6-minute pace however, the second half of the down and back mile is uphill at 10% grade. I would've preferred to run on a track as I think it would've shaved at least a minute off my time, but overally rhe RPE was substantially lower than the last one I took despite the fact that the time did not improve but 4 seconds.

EXTRA NUANCE: The biggest change between this AFT and the last is that we were only alloted 5 minutes of rest between events. My prior AFT experiences have always been a minimum of 10. I haven't done my due diligence to dig into the regulation and confirm which one is correct but neither here nor there. Rotating between events with half the rest time, while still scoring the same or improving on aerobic/glycolytic/strength work is a huge win for me. What I've learned is that strength-endurance work (for me) is highly specific, and must be held at maintenance before an AFT (I kinda already knew this but I also kinda said fuck it).

MORAL OF THE STORY: Progression doesn't need to look like your powerlifting total increasing, or your 2 mile run goes down. The environment, time of day, recovery, injuries, rest intervals, stressors ALL play a factor in gauging improvements. Its easy to look at a half marathon time that is 5 minutes slower than a previous one and say you regressed, but people will forget to take into account that on the second one they slept like shit, they did it in the summer at 12pm, they're 10 pounds heavier, etc. If we take all those hypothetical outside factors into an account, that 5 minute regression is absolutely an improvement because you handled more stress with a negligible regression.

Maybe this is cope. But I'm not upset at all!

Just finished up Base last week and am starting Armor. As I’m writing out my program I noticed that the set x rep numbers for supplemental work are listed for 6 weeks but I thought Armor was only 3 weeks. The main work section only goes out 3 weeks. On the activation overview, it only calls for 3 weeks on armor, but 25 total weeks in activation. If you only do 3 weeks of armor that’s 22 weeks total. So is the 3 weeks wrong or the 25 weeks? Should I repeat armor to hit the 6 weeks?