 What's happening guys? It's Silent Mike. Today with another video I want to talk about programming, in particular the Kaizen Infinite Off-season programming, which we've had insane amount of feedback for. And if you're interested, it is available for free right now in the description. It's always there. It's always free for you guys. And here we're going to cover some of the most frequently asked questions and then some of my tips and tricks so you can customize it to make the most gains in strength and hypertrophy over time. Obviously, you know, there's a lot of talk about cookie cutter programs and why they're good or why they're bad. And in my opinion, the customization of a powerlifting or strength-based program is actually pretty minimal. It's more depends on kind of beginner, intermediate, advanced. But in that intermediate to advanced, I do think that there is some tweaks you can make to excel your progress based on yourself. But we're all made of similar tissues. We all move very similar. Although some squats look different, a squat is a squat and a deadlift is a deadlift. So some people sure can handle a little bit more volume might be able to lift a little bit heavier at a higher percentage of their wonder at max. But generally speaking, many principles will work for most. And that's why I think this program is one of the best out there. I've obviously have a hand in creating it. So I am biased, but it's something that I've run and I always kind of go to in my off season or in my building stages, even kind of doing my own customization of it right now as I'm building back my strength from kind of having a back tweak. It's something I used after my first back tweak almost a year and a half ago. I used it for about two months leading up to my 705 pound deadlift. And it's also something that I use for eight weeks prior to my bench peak when I benched 405. So it's kind of an off season program. Again, it's something you can customize yourself. The frequency is set up that it's very down the middle. It's moderate frequency, moderate volume, although it could be a higher volume program depending on your customization of it. So let's dig into some of the questions and some of the ways that I think best you can represent it to customize for yourself. So I guess the most common question is that it does cycle. It does cycle volume. First week is three sets of five, second week is four sets of five, then five sets of five. People ask about that all the time. It is not a typo that is how it goes, because based on the AMRAP will represent what percentage or load you progress in the next week. If you end up doing five or six reps in the AMRAP and you're going to repeat the same load, we want to still progress. So if you do three sets of five at 225, and then we're going to four sets of five at 225, that's still progressive overload. That's the goal here. We want to do something more than we did last week, last month, last year. And it's not always going to be as simple as adding five or 15 pounds because that's how you're going to get burnt out. That's how you're going to get injured. And obviously you're just going to plateau once you're in that intermediate or advanced stage. But something we can do is add reps or add sets. And that's why we make it a cyclical training program. So you can do that added with the extra frequency. Again, going into the customization, which we'll tap into next is how you'll be able to use this program over and over technically for a very, very, very long time and still make progress. So I guess the main customization that we put into the program that's obviously visible is the secondary movement in all of the main days. So after your main deadlift day, we're hitting three sets of five. We do have squats afterwards. Now, those squats and other things are often most easily represented by RPE. So then you can use a variation. You can simply, after you do your deadlift work, do three sets of 10 squats every single week by percentage. But we can also do cyclical ourselves, where within that four week cycle, you could start with three sets of 12, then three sets of 10, and then three sets of eight. Rinse and repeat, trying to add a small load the following cycle, if that makes sense to you. So if you could do three sets of 12 at 315, squats as a secondary, and then three sets of 10 at 325, and then three sets of eight at 335, the following cycle, maybe you do your three sets of 12 at 320, and then 330, and then the 340. And those are small increments, but over a long period of time, your 12 rep max or your eight rep max will go up. And that's a great way to kind of daily undulate or weekly undulate. So you're hitting multiple muscle fibers by hitting those sets of eight or 12 plus the fives on your main squat day, as well as building up muscle and keeping that energy system and keeping you in good work capacity or good shape for a long run. This can obviously happen on the secondary of the squat in the bench as well. On the squat day, if you have a really good deadlift form and you can handle a lot of volume, you can hit a deadlift variation. If you don't, I often suggest just doing a stiff leg. Deadlifting twice a week can work and has worked for many people, but often what I find for most works is if you have one dedicated deadlift day and then on the other day, some kind of a stiff leg or even a bent over row or a good morning, some kind of accessory or a variation of the deadlift itself will allow you to progress going overall. Squats and bench tend to, for the majority of people, be able to handle a little bit more frequency and volume with the deadlift. Often a little bit lower frequency, a little bit less volume, you can still make progress because you're working your back, legs, etc. with the squat and other movements. Again, on the secondary there, although it may say three sets of 15 and you're like, Mike, why would I ever do three sets of 15 on deadlift when my goal is my 100 max? This may be true, but again, we're giving you a general template. It is free and it's allowed for you to customize. So instead of 15s, those could be eights. Those could be 10s. They could be first cycle, it could all be 10s. Three sets of 10, four sets of 10, five sets of 10. And then the next one, it could be three sets of eight, four sets of eight, five sets of eight. You can also switch variation cycle to cycle. I often recommend if you choose a variation for the secondary to run it through an entire cycle, if not two, anywhere from eight to 12 weeks, it works awesome. And then you could switch the secondary movement. Again, basing it off, some general RPE works best because a percent of a lift will change based on the variation. 60% for three sets of 10 on a pause squat may be possible, but three sets of 10 at 60% on a tempo squat may not be possible, depending on the athlete and depending on the load, obviously. So using the RPE, just generally get around an eight, eight and a half on those things, saving about two reps in the tank. Even less, the point is just to get a good amount of work in. If we throw and the point is just to get a general good amount of work in and slowly progress over time. If you're adding five pounds each cycle to your secondary movement, you are progressing, whether it's a perfect RPE eight or a perfect 65% is almost beyond the point. It almost doesn't matter. We just want that slow progress over time so you can build up that work capacity, build up that technique and build your muscle in the off season. So when it comes time to peak, you'll have a better chance of hitting a higher one rep max than expected. Again, the accessories on these things are just general recommendations. There's some of the most basic and there's some of my favorite to do as well as the volume that I think that most people can handle over a long period of time and builds and kind of most bang for your buck. Again, if you really don't like a hammer curl and you want to do a barbell curl, go ahead and swap that out. But again, I do like that rule of maybe eight to 12 weeks on the same exercise, the same accessory and then eventually progressing over it over those eight to 12 weeks and then maybe switching and moving on to another one. If you have your bread and butter movements, obviously the squat bench dead or some variation of it, you can always come back and then the accessories, whether you're doing a cable curl or a dumbbell curl, I don't think for a powerlifter strength athlete or even high perch feet overall is going to make the biggest difference in the next six months, years to come and train. Now, the final way to make a variation or to do so, the final way to customize this program is to make those main movements also variations. Now, I've done tons of videos, so has Omar and Barton, a lot of other strength athletes on their favorite variations of all the movements, whether it's a closed script bench or a positive deadlift or a block pull or a pause squat or tempo squat. Those are just some of my favorites to name a few and you can replace the main movement with those exercises. The only thing you're going to have to change then is your one rep max. Because with the calculator or the percentage, you know, if we're doing three sets of five on deadlifts at 70%, that's based off your deadlift one rep max. Now, what we'll have to just either estimate, which isn't that hard and I think worth giving a go is just estimate what you think near your one rep max pause deadlift is or pause squat, tempo squat, etc. And then you can also go through that same cycle of volume using the same amount of amraps. Again, with the amraps, I always recommend leaving some of the tank. It's not an all out thing because we want to stay safe. We want to avoid technical failure, let alone actual muscular failure for safety, longevity and recovery. Last but not least, the most, the other most frequent question I get is this is not a peaking program. So although you can get stronger and it will get you stronger, build more muscle, it is an off season program. So to represent your one rep max, it does not peak you for that. So if you do this and you end up very fatigued, which you can if you're doing all this volume and then test your one rep max and it's the same, if not lower, that's because you didn't peak properly. We do have a peaking program as well available on kaisentraining.com, but this one is free the off season. So you can just build it, customize it, build it over time. It is not made to peak for a one rep max test or competition is made for your off season. Guys, that's it for this video. Please give it a thumbs up. Again, as always, all my programs, this one included for free, is available in the description below. I appreciate you. Head down, chin up, salamakam out here.