Old Forum Pavel, what do you think of this S&S inspired approach to ROP?

[Jason Ginsberg]

Question: ETK ROP is a program based around 3 days a week, heavy, medium, and light. For the pressing portion, this is pretty straightforward, the ladders and rungs take care of the volume and intensity each day. Doing that with swings/snatches though always seemed a bit more problematic, especially when combined with the dice roll. I never felt like I quite hit the "sweet spot" with that, I often felt like I went either too light or too heavy on a given day.

Here was the idea I had: ala S&S, do sets of 10. On the heavy day, start with, for instance, 4 breaths in between. Medium day, sets of 10, 5 breaths in between. Light day, sets of 10, 6 breaths in between (maybe this needs modification for snatches?). Look to reduce all those numbers by 1 breath every so often, maybe somewhere between one week and one month, so when the above is comfortable, move to heavy 3, medium 4, light 6 breaths.

A further idea I had: if rolling 2 six-sided dice, the time will range from 2-12 minutes, with 7 being the average. So, if it's 7 minutes, follow the above numbers (or wherever you're at). For every 2 minutes below 7, take one less breath between sets. For every two minutes above 7, take one more breath between sets, compared to the above numbers.

Would this be a reasonable approach? Any thoughts much appreciated.

 

[Steve W.]

Hey Jason,

I don't see anything wrong with your idea, but personally I just wouldn't bother. A by-the-book S&S swing progression would work fine with the ROP press structure. Just punch the clock each day, do your 10 sets of 10, reduce your rest intervals when it gets easy (you could still time rest intervals by number of breaths), and that's it. When you don't have heavy days, you don't need light and medium days.

You could make adjustments like not swinging on heavy and/or medium days (when you're up to ladders of 5 and/or 4), cleaning once per press set, and so forth.

When I was doing ROP by the book, I two problems with it. One was the same one you pointed out about the swing/snatch progression seeming a little haphazard. The other was that I really didn't want to bust a gut on swings after 5 C&P/pull up ladders up to 4 or 5.

I think the S&S swing progression used with the ROP press progression solves these problems in a very simple and elegant way. The progression is simple and clear, and you don't have to couple the swing volume with the press volume.

 

[Pavel]

Jason, I like your first solution a lot.

If it turns out that your power is compromised as you end up in glycolysis, consider cycling other variables: the bell size, the volume, using 100 as the average and 75-125 as the range, etc.