The Bridge Block – My First 4 Weeks of JuggernautAI
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Jump forward a few years and I’ve now tackled a 500+lb squat, 350+lb bench, and 600+lb deadlift. All while lifting exclusively from my garage the past 10 years. In 2019 I set out a plan to work towards an Elite Total, consisting of roughly a 600lb squat, 400lb bench, and 600lb deadlift, and I wanted to do it before I turned 40 (year 2026).
I decided, along that journey, if I ever felt like my progress was stalling, I would take on some kind of intervention. The first was to get some rehab help by means of massage, chiropractic, and physical therapy. I had a lingering injury that was never fully addressed despite my best attempts. Once that was fixed, the next intervention was working with Papa Bear Rogers. He wrote me a full year of programming and it helped skyrocket my deadlift.
Now I’m at a new roadblock, and I’ve decided to take the JuggernautAI approach. Hop on the smartest program out there and see what big daddy Chad has in store for me.
JuggernautAI Expectations
My expectations for JuggernautAI are similar to how I typically handle a new recipe in the kitchen. I like to take the recipe for a ride, almost 100% as written by the author, before making any changes. I want to see what the creator had in mind, what the nuances are, what it feels like to try something different, before I go and ruin it with my own personal blend of edits, adjustments, and alterations. So my goal with the JuggernautAI out the gate was to let it do its thing.
I would provide feedback as the app takes that into account as you go, but I would let it pick my exercises, reps, sets, and more. I would try and see through the eyes of the AI, to get a real deal feel for it. As the program progresses, I will make alterations based on what I’m noticing, feeling, and thinking. But I will still run the JuggernautAI program, not some busted up version.
I say this because JuggernautAI is pretty easy to manipulate. You could go in and change out every single exercise to be DB Flat Bench if you wanted to. Do 34 sets of it throughout the week, and then complain that you didn’t hit a Squat PR. So my goal is to modify only when necessary, and only when I truly believe I am doing right by myself and the AI, not running over the top of it.
From there, I expect to run JuggernautAI for one full 16 week cycle. I’ll do a 4 Week Bridge Block, 4 Week Hypertrophy Block, 4 Week Strength Block, and 4 Week Peaking Block (for more on setting up an annual cycle). All culminating towards a bigger total (fingers crossed) for the big show in the Spring. After that, we’ll see what happens.
I mentioned I ran programming from Travis, then stopped. I actually enjoy writing and tinkering with my own workouts. So there is a part of me that thinks at some point, I’ll take what I’ve learned from JuggernautAI and move on back to writing my own stuff.
BUT… who knows? I’m going to give this 16 week training cycle a full run and evaluate from there. If there is more to learn, I’ll keep going. If I love it, think it does what I want but better than I do, or I’m just smashing PRs all around, maybe I’ll join Team Juggernaut for good? I’m excited to take this ride and see where we end up.
What Is A Bridge Block?
I’ll let Chad himself explain it first.
From my understanding in chats with Chad, the Bridge Block is the literal BRIDGE between competition and the next round of training. If you were to compete in the next Garage Gym Competition, you might deload entirely the week after, go on vacation, or just in general peace out for a few weeks. Then when you are ready to return to lifting, you start a bridge block.
It is a way to include the big lifts, some accessories, but keep everything at a lower overall intensity. It isn’t meant to be EASY, as you have prescribed rest times and a large amount of volume and frequency of the lifts, but it is easier from the perspective of being lighter loads. This is nice after a competition for sure, and also something that is helpful after a layoff. You shouldn’t be jumping from nothing to PR prep in a week. And after crushing big PRs in a meet, you should be giving your body a little break from the heavy stuff. Enter, the Bridge Block!
Your training is going to consist of lots of the Big 3 variations, as well as accessory work including biceps, triceps, shoulders, back, and even more work for the legs and chest. Your big lifts are going to have timed rest intervals that vary between 60 seconds and 120 seconds depending on the day, week, and load of the exercise. You are expected to perform a total number of reps, spread across as many sets as needed, where you perform between 3 and 6 reps at an RPE of roughly 6.
So there is some being honest with yourself in the Bridge Block that is going to be challenging for some of us (this guy!).
My Experiences With The Bridge Block
5 Days A Week
I started off with my Bridge Block set at 5 days a week, Monday – Friday. This aligned to what I’ve been doing for quite a few years. Now, one question I had asked Chad (that I cut from the final recording), was whether JuggernautAI could accommodate days of the week that weren’t “created equal”.
My Tuesday is a day where I drop my daughter at school, walk the dog, go to the farmers market, head to the grocery store, put everything away, prep a bunch of stuff at home, run any final errands, sneak in a quick workout, and then pick my daughter up from school. We spend the afternoon at the park, doing homework, hanging out. There just isn’t room for a huge workout consisting of squats, bench, and multiple accessories.
My Friday is also a half day. I typically do some strongman style lifts like weighted carries, overhead press, and call it. It is a good workout, keeps me moving, builds some OTHER stuff up, but I’m done in about 45 minutes or less and have the rest of the afternoon for family activities.
JuggernautAI does NOT do this. You tell it what days, and it programs for those days without discretion. So I wasn’t positive what this would look like for me, but was ready for 5 days of fun.
What Was Different
When I start a new program, I’m hoping for something different. I mean, if its the same as what I was doing, it wouldn’t be a NEW PROGRAM, right? So I was happy to see that the Bridge Block had quite a few new surprises for me.
My First SBD Day
With my roots in lifting tied to a bodybuilder approach, I’ve always had a fond appreciation for more segmented training days. Leg days, back days, you get it. Opposed to the full-body approach a lot of powerlifters take. I’ve done it, and it has worked, but it isn’t entirely my go-to.
But my very first day of the Bridge Block included Squats, Bench, and Deadlifts, with some weighted carries.
That was a shock. I’ve NEVER done all three lifts in a single day outside of competition. I’ve seen it before, and I know people do it, but I have yet to do it. Getting my stripes on Day One!
Because I’m a stickler for a good warm-up, I had to get creative here and do my Squats and Bench in the AM, with Deadlifts and Carries in the afternoon. This meant multiple warm-up sessions throughout the day, and a lot of extra moving around.
Note – SBD days make sense. If you never practice hitting all three lifts in a single day, come competition time, you are going to be a little out of practice. It would be like never scrimmaging in basketball and expecting to bring your ‘A’ Game in the Finals.
A Week of Heavy Breathing
Another thing I’m not used to with the Bridge Block, is timed rest periods. Especially for the big lifts. I’ve taken the approach for years of lifting when I’m ready. So the timed breaks between sets of Squats were a gnarly addition. I felt like I was doing Crossfit or something with the timed rest between sets. Again, just a very different approach to lifting than I have ever done. This was definitely a test of my abilities.
Note – I like how JuggernautAI has the timer built in, so I simply record my lifts and it begins my break as it counts down for me. Otherwise, I would have honestly ignored this.
RPE Troubles
One area where I struggled with the Bridge Block is around the 3 to 6 reps at 6 RPE. I did 6 reps, every single time, for every exercise, the entire block. If I write down 6 reps, I’m GETTING 6 reps. If I write down 4, well then I’m getting 4. So my struggle with the app telling me between 3 and 6 reps, is that really just means 6 reps in my head. I believe this led to me doing at least a handful of sets at a much higher RPE than I was supposed to do. Since 3 reps vs 6 reps in a set of squats can add up quickly.
The rest of the accessory movements for the Bridge Block were all 2-3 Reps In Reserve (RIR), which is also a struggle for me historically. Again, my bodybuilder background is more of a high intensity approach to accessories. Go to 1 or even 0 reps in the tank, and do 1 or 2 sets total. Most of the accessories had me doing 2 or 3 sets, sometimes up to 5 sets, for everything from back work to leg curls to jumps. Then we had weighted carries programmed at an EMOM of up to 12 minutes!
All in, I struggled with nailing the RPE expectations of the Bridge Block. I felt as though I was doing a lot of work that was either too hard or too easy, not much in that sweet spot.
Note – This isn’t necessarily a knock against JuggernautAI. This is a knock against my own abilities to do the right thing in my training. RPE is one of the more difficult items to nail, and when you are a little out of practice (I haven’t been using RPE for the past year or two), it can kick you in the pants. I likely need to reflect on this when I go at the Bridge Block again in the future, and come up with a better mindset and approach in my own head.
Exercise Selection
You might know that while I’m not running the GGC, I’m likely testing gym equipment and writing reviews. The cool thing with JuggernautAI, is that I can keep testing equipment as part of my natural training process. Got a new bar in? Cool, work it into the program. Got a new cable attachment? Or cardio piece? Cool! Add it to the list, swap it in, you are good to go.
You can switch out exercises for just a week, or the entire program, add exercises to your own list, you name it. So if they don’t have Flywheel Box Squats, you are good to go! I was able to continue to naturally test 3 or 4 new products in my gym without going off script.
Note – Even if you don’t have new equipment showing up weekly to test, you might have a favorite bar, attachment, or exercise you want to include. Easy peazy!
Overall Thoughts Of The Bridge Block
During Week 1 I had to move my Friday workout to be split between Friday morning and Saturday morning due to a funeral. Then the following week I had to shift part of my workout to the weekend again (I haven’t done a weekend workout in close to 5 years). The weather has been very wet and cold lately, and everyone in the entire county seems to have a cough. We were also finishing our basketball season, while having a random week off of school (parents know how disruptive a random week off is), plus we had power outages for two days, and I’ve been working double time to get the 2024 GGC up and running.
So I had a LOT of out of the gym stuff getting in the way of what I was doing in the gym. What I found was that the 5 day schedule was just too much. If I managed to sleep well, eat well, and not have any hiccups for the day, I was good. But any small pebble in that path and I was dragging. I got to bed the majority of this first block ready to pass out. Trying to keep up with my daughter and life was getting rough. I was dredging through workouts, and taking excessive breaks during the day, all so I could make it to Saturday.
Not the way I like to live.
So what did I do? Well, like I said, my goal was to ride out the first block and see what happens. So I did just that. I tried to give the app SOME feedback, but in the back of my head I kept thinking that maybe I would catch up, adapt, something. Maybe I just needed to be a little tougher… I could do it! Bad idea! I should have listened to myself, to my body, to my friends I’ve talked to about JuggernautAI. I should have rolled it back a bit, maybe a lot, and had a more successful Bridge Block. But here we are.
Next Steps
As I’m transitioning to the next phase, a Hypertrophy Block, I’ve cut my program down to 4 days a week. My plan will be to still lift 5 days a week, but to spread one day out across Tuesday and Friday. This gives me my normal 3 big days (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday), and my two lighter days (Tuesday and Friday). It also drops the total volume and frequency down considerably.
The Bridge Block had me Squatting three times, Deadlifting twice, and Benching SIX times a week. The Hypertrophy Block has me down to one Squat and Deadlift and Two Bench. Much more realistic.
What is awesome about JuggernautAI, is that I can do the above changes. It even asked me why I was cutting down from 5 days to 4 days. I told it fatigue, and I’m pretty confident that it took that into account when reworking this next block of training. My accessory work is down to 2 or 3 sets MAX, with a lot less total volume. Overall, this looks much more like something I’ll be able to work through instead of drag through.
What is funny, is this is the exact experience I have heard from a number of people. They went in a little overzealous, tried to fight the system, and ended up in a bad spot. I had the opportunity to tell JuggernautAI every day that I was tired, beat up, sore, you name it. Did I? Sometimes… I should have done it more often. This is what I’ll do going forward.
What Is Next?
Like I said, I’ve got a Hypertrophy Block coming up, so come on back and check that out. If you are looking to hop on JuggernautAI, you can use code GGC to save 10% on your monthly bill.
