A Question about Power to the People

[James Evans]

Just playing with some ideas in my head and I'm reluctant to pay the $60 odd dollars that this book would cost me in the UK. I reckon Pavel isn't struggling to feed his family.

The basic programme of 2x5 reps in two exercises 5 days per week.

Pick a big exercise like the deadlift, combine it with something like a the side press.

Ok got that.

Here are the questions:

1. When do you up the weight? Every time you lift or weekly?
2. How do you make incremental gains in something like the side press if you are using KBs? Up the reps?
3. Is this exactly what it says on the tin? Do you just do 2x5 or are we talking multiple warm up sets?

Do you just focus on this for a month or so or can you add in other stuff into your schedule. I've read a recommendation to cycle a month of this followed by a month of KB work like swings and snatches. Are you going to mess yourself up (and the potential results) if you do this 5 times a week and throw in some intense conditioning work (Ross Enamait style stuff perhaps)?

Curious to hear your views.

[Rick Deckart]

Originally Posted by James Evans

Just playing with some ideas in my head and I'm reluctant to pay the $60 odd dollars that this book would cost me in the UK. I reckon Pavel isn't struggling to feed his family.

A wise decision, while not bad it is not worth that kind of money...

Originally Posted by James Evans

The basic programme of 2x5 reps in two exercises 5 days per week.

Pick a big exercise like the deadlift, combine it with something like a the side press.

Ok got that.

Here are the questions:

1. When do you up the weight? Every time you lift or weekly?
2. How do you make incremental gains in something like the side press if you are using KBs? Up the reps?
3. Is this exactly what it says on the tin? Do you just do 2x5 or are we talking multiple warm up sets?

Do you just focus on this for a month or so or can you add in other stuff into your schedule. I've read a recommendation to cycle a month of this followed by a month of KB work like swings and snatches. Are you going to mess yourself up (and the potential results) if you do this 5 times a week and throw in some intense conditioning work (Ross Enamait style stuff perhaps)?

Curious to hear your views.

The basic idea is to increase the weight of the first set every workout and to adjust the second set (90% of first set) accordingly. No warmup, plenty of rest (4--5 min) between the sets. Start low and you will find that you can ride the cycle for anywhere between 8--16 sessions. Then rest a couple of days, increase the starting weight of the next cycle and ride that cycle as long as possible. So if you start as a novice with 70kg in the deadlift and increase the sets 2.5kg every workout for 12 sessions you end with 110kg. Relax a couple of days and may start the next cycle with 72.5--75kg---repeat, repeat, repeat. At some time this linear progression won't work anymore, than you have several options: a) use a variant of the deadlift, say sumo style, snatch grip... b) wave the increases, say two sessions increase 2.5kg, next session reduce 2.5kg etc... c) stick to a given weight for several sessions, say three, than increase 2.5kg in session four and again stick to the weight...

I think you get the general idea. And no warmup sets... Well back in the days when I tried that I found it did not work for me so well. I don't doubt that it works, the system is essential an advanced progression, but with my trashed back things got worse, especially without warmup sets...

With respect for conditioning I think Pavel T. was not so fond of the idea to combine these. His approach was more two weeks of P2P, two weeks of conditioning...

[Rick Deckart]

Just a short correction, of course you end with 100kg in the above mentioned example...

[James Evans]

Thanks Peter.

Are you talking 8 to 16 consecutive sessions or this number broken down to 5 a week?

[Rick Deckart]

As far as I recall it's five days a week, as many weeks as it takes to ride the cycle to it's end. The variations are endless: you could do it every day, but then you would have to rest for a full week, or you could decide to do two session per week and ride the cycle for two or three months. You could also swap sets of five for sets of three once five get difficult, ride the cycle for some additional sessions and then do some final session with doubles...

[Steve Shafley]

I seriously mislike the "no warm-ups" idea, and think it's misguided. Wait. I KNOW it's misguided. I don't care what Judd Biasatto did, it's a mistake not to warm up for deadlifting or any other heavy lifting.

[Rick Deckart]

Exactly, this is downright dangerous if you have issues with your back, I found that out by trial and error... My best top set of five back in the days was 75kg and that was almost killing me---for many reasons. Not to warmup for limit deadlifts, especially if you have health issues, is frankly spoken quite nuts...

[James Evans]

I'm pretty damn lazy about warming up and have paid the price with a lot of SGDLs in the first few months of this year.

I resent having a tight back when I run but I've only got myself to blame.

[Rick Deckart]

Some minor additional points:

Pavel T. advocates to run independent cycles for the two exercises, that means you could use a step cycle (stick to the chosen weight for several sessions) for the press and a linear progression or wave cycle for the deadlift.

personally I try to balance things out, running truly independent progressions won't balance things out: so if you start unbalanced you will end far more unbalanced.

I always thought that there are some serious contradictions in P2P, for example there is something about KBs and high reps and how great are these but on the other hand he advocates low reps and low reps only as [u]the[\U] solution for strength training.

And then the obvious dislike of the idea of conditioning...

[Bill Ripley]

James - I have a couple of PTTP spreadsheets I can send you.