PlanStrong/BuiltStrong Shortening a prep month or a comp month

[Donny Williamson]

I'm starting my next 12 week cycle of Built Strong next week. The 12th week I will be out of town and not able to train. So I need to either shorten one of the prep months or the comp month. I'm thinking the comp month currently due to not really needing to test my lifts at the end of the cycle.

I'm also trying to decide how to shorten the month. I plan to go from the typical variation of 15,22,28,35 to a variation of 25,33,42.

I also remember Fabio saying something about modifying the monthly NL but I can't recall off hand. I want to say it's something along the lines of take 3/4 of the planned monthly NL and use that for the 3 week phase.

Any thoughts would be helpful, because I'm mainly thinking out loud here.

Donny

 

[Daniel Vintila]

Depends on how long you are out of town and when can you get back to work.
Personally if you have to skip the 12th week then you could do a 12 week program and skip that week and when you get back do again week 11 and then 12. If I skip 1 week I usually start from 1 week behind and carry on.
Every other option you mentioned can also work. But going 25,33,42..that 42 could be a lot of lifts for a week depending on how experienced you are, and how many reps at a high percentage you have. But could as well work.
I don't do Built Strong but I do Plan Strong and whats nice about those types of programs is that you can play with it and learn from it.
I hope it helps.

 

[Steve Freides]

You have lots of options. @daniel vintila has given you some. More:

Decide if you want to test before you go away or after you come home. I would certainly test - it's good to do, even if you don't strictly need to.

If you want to test in week 11, you could take a week away from the last Prep cycle, and then do a Comp cycle that goes 35, 28 22, 15. Just make sure the last week of the Prep cycle isn't 35. In your place, I might just plan a 4-week Prep cycle and skip week 4, and whatever the numbers are, they are. Maybe you do a Prep cycle that goes 15, 22, 28, 35, skip the 35, so then you're looking at 7 weeks that go 15, 22, 28, 35, 28, 22, 12. The NL should be less in Comp period - the manual explains.

There are many, many ways to do this and I wouldn't become too concerned with which one you pick.

-S-

 

[Donny Williamson]

Thanks for the input.