Bearnus
First Post
Greetings,
Versions of this have been covered in the forums before, however never quite with my specific parameters in mind. I'm hoping the extensive experience in these forums could help with my question.
CAVEAT: I know the whole point is not to mess with the program. And generally speaking I am not a variety junky. I stuck with S&S for a couple of years and loved the results. That being said, I have reasonably good interoception, and know when I need to change something in a program.
Why RoP
I have always had a weak press in comparison to other lifts, and so have decided to do Rite of Passage to increase my press volume without neglecting pulling. I include pull-ups in my ladder. After six weeks I am enjoying the results, and feel a subjective improvement in my press, and a surprising amount of hypertrophy in the shoulder.
Broader Training Goal
I can sometimes briefly emphasise one fitness domain over another but need to maintain a high level of general physical performance, including endurance. I want stronger shoulders to protect them in BJJ, but can't afford to lose significant leg strength, aerobic endurance or get injured. Outside of the training mentioned in this question, I train in BJJ and long, slow endurance running/tabbing.
Problem
I feel the high-intensity swings or snatches in RoP are beating me down a bit too much. This is likely due to fatigue from my BJJ training load, usually 4 hours a week, half of which is high intensity sparring. Given the way the swings are programmed, they have me blast through the StrongFirst Stop Signs in an effort to hit RPEs of 8 or 10 on the moderate to heavy days, and frankly I probably go a bit to hard on the easy snatch day (my fault I know).
This may be my fault, I may be using too heavy a bell, the kinds of weight I would use for S&S or AXE. Perhaps the fix is to reduce the weight, but then I am not sure I really need the kind of low weight high intensity training, given my already high volume of high intensity minutes in the week.
I am also not convinced, given the high volume of cleans and pull-ups, that my pulling movements need a huge amount more training load, and am somewhat puzzled by the role of the swing/snatch efforts in the program. (It makes sense to me if you do no other training alongside RoP)
I also worry that my lower body pushing strength is slightly neglected during RoP. This may be a necessary trade off as I am focussing on improving my press, but I have usually tolerated power and strength training well, and improved strength in more than one lift simultaneously.
My question:
Given that I am getting plenty of high intensity minutes training on the BJJ matts, and I am slowly improving my hard to train press, is there any downside to dropping the dice-programmed swings?
I would look to replace them with AXE jump-squats twice a week, and I would keep the snatches on the easy day (and try and take it easy!)
I would also get some AXE heavy swings in on variety days, or alongside the jump squats, to keep my maximal hip-hinge strength maintained, or improving.
I'd be grateful for any thoughts from the forums. Perhaps I am simply seeking to squeeze too much out of a program that has one simple goal in mind. But I notice in the KB AXE book that heavy AXE swings were effective in preparation for the USSS Snatch Test, which is also the metric that the RoP timed dice-programmed swings are preparing athletes for. Given the result is the same, I would prefer to do the more powerful, less glycolytic option.
Sincere apologies if this has been extensively covered elsewhere!
Versions of this have been covered in the forums before, however never quite with my specific parameters in mind. I'm hoping the extensive experience in these forums could help with my question.
CAVEAT: I know the whole point is not to mess with the program. And generally speaking I am not a variety junky. I stuck with S&S for a couple of years and loved the results. That being said, I have reasonably good interoception, and know when I need to change something in a program.
Why RoP
I have always had a weak press in comparison to other lifts, and so have decided to do Rite of Passage to increase my press volume without neglecting pulling. I include pull-ups in my ladder. After six weeks I am enjoying the results, and feel a subjective improvement in my press, and a surprising amount of hypertrophy in the shoulder.
Broader Training Goal
I can sometimes briefly emphasise one fitness domain over another but need to maintain a high level of general physical performance, including endurance. I want stronger shoulders to protect them in BJJ, but can't afford to lose significant leg strength, aerobic endurance or get injured. Outside of the training mentioned in this question, I train in BJJ and long, slow endurance running/tabbing.
Problem
I feel the high-intensity swings or snatches in RoP are beating me down a bit too much. This is likely due to fatigue from my BJJ training load, usually 4 hours a week, half of which is high intensity sparring. Given the way the swings are programmed, they have me blast through the StrongFirst Stop Signs in an effort to hit RPEs of 8 or 10 on the moderate to heavy days, and frankly I probably go a bit to hard on the easy snatch day (my fault I know).
This may be my fault, I may be using too heavy a bell, the kinds of weight I would use for S&S or AXE. Perhaps the fix is to reduce the weight, but then I am not sure I really need the kind of low weight high intensity training, given my already high volume of high intensity minutes in the week.
I am also not convinced, given the high volume of cleans and pull-ups, that my pulling movements need a huge amount more training load, and am somewhat puzzled by the role of the swing/snatch efforts in the program. (It makes sense to me if you do no other training alongside RoP)
I also worry that my lower body pushing strength is slightly neglected during RoP. This may be a necessary trade off as I am focussing on improving my press, but I have usually tolerated power and strength training well, and improved strength in more than one lift simultaneously.
My question:
Given that I am getting plenty of high intensity minutes training on the BJJ matts, and I am slowly improving my hard to train press, is there any downside to dropping the dice-programmed swings?
I would look to replace them with AXE jump-squats twice a week, and I would keep the snatches on the easy day (and try and take it easy!)
I would also get some AXE heavy swings in on variety days, or alongside the jump squats, to keep my maximal hip-hinge strength maintained, or improving.
I'd be grateful for any thoughts from the forums. Perhaps I am simply seeking to squeeze too much out of a program that has one simple goal in mind. But I notice in the KB AXE book that heavy AXE swings were effective in preparation for the USSS Snatch Test, which is also the metric that the RoP timed dice-programmed swings are preparing athletes for. Given the result is the same, I would prefer to do the more powerful, less glycolytic option.
Sincere apologies if this has been extensively covered elsewhere!
