6 Months deep, feeling a little lost, feeling a little fat.

[roundboi]

Bump up to 400 on the carbs and see what that does. 300-350 is good but it's not what I'd consider an upper limit.

B-b-but muh ABS?!

[Erik Y]

How unrealistic do you think it would be to try and both press and bench press 3 days a week? I've really liked the extra volume on the press and I feel like that might help my bench out too, but 2.5 hour gym sessions are rough, and I'd also like to start adding some accessory stuff eventually.

Doesn’t work for me, but then this is where a lot of individual differences start coming into play. I can’t manage those long sessions, either, due to work (although I did back in the day - used to play darts between sets, too). If you’re enjoying your sessions, don’t worry about the time until it becomes an issue for your lifestyle, and if accessory stuff keeps you interested, you can play around with it, although it’s not likely to be much of an X factor, especially if it’s for fun. Since you’re not able to get coaching or a consultation, I’d say your next move would be a form check at this point, and if you decide to make a programming change after that, I would drop weekly volume first and move to a weekly programming cycle. I like four-day split over three days and 5/1 right now. Don’t rip it right out of the book, either - I find I do better with a volume day of three or four sets than five sets of five. You won’t know exactly what works until you try it, especially since you’re doing this on your own.

And by the way, when I do a top set of five, the first rep grinds like Hell. If you think about how slow it is, it will slow you down even more. You have to just commit to the set and then do it.

[Matt James]

How unrealistic do you think it would be to try and both press and bench press 3 days a week? I've really liked the extra volume on the press and I feel like that might help my bench out too, but 2.5 hour gym sessions are rough, and I'd also like to start adding some accessory stuff eventually. Should I just mummify myself in chalk and let the gym become my tomb?

You may find this thread, and the article linked in it, to be useful. Intermediate Programming for the Upper Body Lifts | Nick Delgadillo, especially if you are still progressing linearly (more or less) on the lower body lifts.

Short answer, you can probably press more frequently without a lot of problems. Benching, maybe not. I will say that my own experience has been that both my bench and press took off again after I switched to Nick's program and it was a relatively smooth transition into a 4-day split when the time came.

[mrflibble]

Even with that, any squat I perform over about 275# appears on video to be RPE=10. Every squat above 275 feels very, very heavy. My PR for a set of 5 was 475 about two years or so ago, but, still, anything over 275 felt heavy and moved very slow.

Just for the record, that's not how RPE works. It has nothing to do with bar speed, or how heavy something "feels." It is simply your estimate of how many more reps you could have done at the end of a set. You can't "see" RPE on video.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Just for the record, that's not how RPE works. It has nothing to do with bar speed, or how heavy something "feels." It is simply your estimate of how many more reps you could have done at the end of a set. You can't "see" RPE on video.

If it doesn't have anything to do with how heavy something feels, how do you estimate the number of imaginary reps?

[Geoff Bischoff]

If it doesn't have anything to do with how heavy something feels, how do you estimate the number of imaginary reps?

Rip, RPE is all around us. Through synergistic parachoresis, it remains in eternal sublime covenant with the Holy Trinity of barbell, platform, and testes. Upon completion of each repetition of the exercise, this perfect everlasting coequality intercedes on behalf of all those predestined unto set completion, such that a trinitarian decree results, delivering the identity of the proper number to the barbell-platform-gonad hypostasis in perfect harmony.

Literally everyone knows this.

[Nockian]

If it doesn't have anything to do with how heavy something feels, how do you estimate the number of imaginary reps?

Random RPE number generator app ? Might be a good product for SS to market for those who love snake oil.

[Will Morris]

Just for the record, that's not how RPE works. It has nothing to do with bar speed, or how heavy something "feels." It is simply your estimate of how many more reps you could have done at the end of a set. You can't "see" RPE on video.

You can't "perceive exertion" visually?

[mrflibble]

If it doesn't have anything to do with how heavy something feels, how do you estimate the number of imaginary reps?

Yeah I definitely should have phrased that part much more carefully. To clarify, I'm sure Will's "very, very heavy" 275 felt a different kind of heavy than his 475 (perhaps that was very, very, very, very heavy). I'm also sure he would be able to Perceive the difference between the two heavy Exertions and with that be able to relatively accurately estimate how many more reps he could do of each.

My main point was that just because the bar feels heavy or moves slow doesn't automatically make it an RPE 10

You can't "perceive exertion" visually?

This is a very good question. Yes, you certainly can (to varying degrees) perceive exertion visually - but you cannot reliably rate it (on the RPE scale) visually. The only exception would be a coach who knows that particular lifter very well.

Which is back to my main point: RPE 10 can appear very different on different lifters.

[Notyouravgdoc]

Most of what ive seen from Mike Tuscherer and RTS lately is that bar speed is the ultimate factor in RPE grading. He personally uses an accelerometer on the bar and advises grading bar speed through the slowest part of the ROM to determine the RPE. RTS isnt the only group but they are the most successful so I would imagine most would not disagree with their method if that is the route one wishes to go down.