I decided to play with what I could finish the Rite of Passage with kb weight wise. After a bit of time with other weights I am working on finishing ROP with the 40k. It's hard for me to say the least. Anyone hear of someone completing this with a heavy bell? ie the Beast.
ROP is an awful lot of volume. I've seen reports from a lot of people about hitting a bit of a wall with 32kg, mostly from people who progressed pretty smoothly from 16 to 24, or at least started with 24 and went smoothly through the progression with that weight. This was basically my experience as well.
IMO, there's a point with ROP where the standard progression outpaces adaptation for a lot of people, and you have to find different ways to cook it to make it work. I was at an Easy Strength/RKC recert when Pavel was there where guy named Andy Speer passed the Beast Tamer and said he "used ladders" to prepare, although he didn't go into any specifics beyond that.
Here's an alternate progression that builds to a maximum of 60 reps in a session (as opposed to 75 for ROP), and waves the volume more using different ladder lengths. I don't know if this an original plan or something that is now being taught at workshops or certs.
It starts with (1, 2, 3) x 3 and progresses that up to 10 ladders (60 reps), then drops back to (1, 2, 3, 4) x 3 and builds up to 6 ladders (60 reps), then drops back to (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) x 2 and builds up to 4 ladders (60 reps). I suppose you could also build in heavy, light, and medium days each week and extend or compress the progression as needed. I haven't tried this plan, but it seems a little more wavy and probably more realistic for many.
