January 2025 Programming

Strength & Transition Blocks

Please Note: Your programming may not resemble this post if you have recently joined, are starting back after a break, are doing bodyweight/DB programming for the week, or need an individual adjustment for another reason. You will be moved back into “regular” class programming when deemed appropriate by your coach!

January will be all about strength-building. This means that the goal of the current program is to increase your one repetition maximum (1RM, i.e. the greatest amount of weight you can lift) on the squat, bench press, & deadlift. In order to do that, you are going to see a mixture of moderately high intensities (intensity = % of 1RM; high intensity = 80%+ your 1RM) & volume (volume = sets x reps) that increases slightly over the month to moderately high. The high stress created by mixing both higher intensity and moderately high volume is where the magic of strength-building happens. In this case, high stress is good! This strength block is going to be “realized” - meaning our gains capitalized on - in February. We’ll cover what that is going to look like in next month’s summary, but just know that we are going to get an opportunity to test our 1RMs in the third week of February, either in class or at Galentines. So that’s where we are & where we are going!

Some interesting things of note in this month’s program:

We are going to use alternating periodization for your squats & deadlifts, meaning each week one will be prioritized as the heavier lift. Alternating these (instead of combining high intensity for both in the same week) will give you greater performance on each respectively as there won’t be leftover fatigue from the other to interfere & I’ve found it tends to keep people’s lower backs a little happier by not overloading the same pattern too much.
Your squat programming will include Tempo Squats for some volume/technique work & some of you may have the addition of Beltless Squats on your third training day. If you normally lift beltless you’ll continue doing that for all variants, but this is also an opportune time to discuss adding a belt with your coach if you haven’t already! It may not be the right time/thing for everyone, but if you’ve been lifting a while & haven’t used one it may be time.
Press is back this month (albeit briefly)! We’ll use this as an accessory for bench, along with Spoto Press & Incline Bench. If those are new variants for you, you’ll discuss those in class with your coach. I recommend making sure you’ve done Incline Bench with your coach before attempting it on your own. It’s not necessarily more dangerous; it’s just weird & it’s helpful to have some guidance on the set-up at least once.
We are going to be playing with different heights on your deadlift accessories. We’ll use a combination of 2” Block Pulls & Just Below the Knee Rack Pulls. This is a clever way of manipulating the intensity without affecting the rate of perceived exertion. You’ll be able to lift more on the relatively higher rack pulls, so intensity will naturally be higher vs. your regular deadlift days, even though they may both be RPE8s. We’ll also be using Barbell Rows (from the floor) to train your secondary deadlift “stuff” (i.e. your lats primarily) while also training the hamstrings to anchor the pelvis isometrically as in the start position of the deadlift. In other words, we are adding some lower intensity input to all the muscles that help you maintain the bottom position of your deadlift without actually deadlifting.
There is a relatively low amount of accessories (really only the Barbell Row, this month) as we are working toward “specializing” in your main three lifts.

Enjoy & Happy New Year!