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The original was posted on /r/weightroom by /u/atherapistthatlifts on 2023-10-10 20:08:15.
Some background before the background: Alex Bromeley had released the concept of this program approximately 9 months ago, and released the full template for free, on his YouTube channel, alongside an e-book for purchase. I will disclose: I had purchased the book, as I generally enjoy his content overall and wanted to continue to support his work. You can find his videos here:
-first video, discusses the ideologies, and thought process behind the program.
- video two, the actual program with sets and reps laid out.
Training history and back ground:
I (M31, 5'11) started lifting around college. The term "lifting" could probably be used loosely as I had no idea what I was doing in the early days. At that time I had a woman I was dating write me a very simple exercise program, just to get myself in the gym and to be more active, as I was mostly sedentary well into my 20's. Following that time of my life, I got very much into pursuing more strength , over aesthetics, and that lead me to programs that aligned with more of that desire, some programs of honorable mention have been basic 5x5 progressions, a brief stint with 5/3/1 and its variants, Juggernaut and a highly bastardized version of conjugate leading into those dark times of covid shut down back in 2020.
Following the return the gym after nearly a full year hiatus, I got highly focused on the pursuit of strength numbers again. In the middle of 2022 I hit a major stall in progress with an approximately 220lb bench, 430lb deadlift, 350 lb. squat and a 135 lb. OHP. That stall lead me to hiring a coach, as well as seeking more information on my own, and after a year I had broken through the plateau as well as lost some body fat, but nothing that warranted keeping that coach further. So I moved on in approximately May of 2023. However this lead to my dilemma of figuring out what my next steps would be.
I was feeling pretty banged up from all the strength work/low reps, and my joint were begging for mercy, I definitely felt another stall on the horizon, and knew I needed to change up my approach if I wanted to continue to make something happen. At the time I had read base strength and peak strength and knew I wanted to follow something to that effect, but also knew I needed a longer reprieve in the base building territory, and needed more time away from the basic lifts I'd been grinding for almost a year. So I opted to follow Kong.
The Program:
To sum up in a very short and condensed package, Kong is a 12 week program that is broken up into three blocks that follow a week to week progression scheme based on ascending RPE, and small tweaks in reps and sets. This also follows his pretty standard approach to volumizing as well often with sets being added the deeper into the blocks you get. Its a five day per week program, breaking up the body in different ways block to block. I could outline it here further for you, but if this sounds like your interest I'd just watch the video, after all these folks are more articulate than me anyway.
Diet:
I was tracking food an eating in a slight surplus i was shooting on average 250-400 calories above maintenance, and I typically opt for more carbs in general- I felt really good going into my evening work out times, and was definitely well fed. I am not a nutritionist I will not advise what you should do.
Results:
Given that the goal of the program is mass, and not strength numbers I will share I thought this was very successful for me I had started the program weighing in at 205lbs on average and ended with an average of around 212lbs, I will apologize I did not take progress pictures, as I was not planning on writing a review at the time. Areas that I personally grew: my shoulders REALLY blocked out and widened as did my lats, my triceps also got some additional growth that was noticeable from other reports. My quads also grew enough I needed to buy some new pants, so there is that...
Some thoughts for each block, and then overall thoughts and :
Block 1: This block was the hardest for me personally, this is also where the exercise selection feels the most broad. Reps are typically in the 15-20 rep range on week one, and taper down to sets of 10 and 12 at RPE 10. There were a lot of movements I was either very inexperienced in or very unfamiliar with i.e. JM presses and behind the neck presses to name a couple. I was also very unfamiliar with gauging RPE at this point, and throughout the program RPE never quite made sense logically in my head, so I was overreaching a lot in the RPE department, this will become a theme for each block ESPECIALLY on the leg days.
Block 2: This is where I think I personally hit my stride with the program as it was primarily movements I have done a lot of work with and had good ball park numbers to go off of. In this block it is a lot of disadvantaged movements, followed by similar movement pattern exercises and additional accessories in a pyramid fashion, still utilizing RPE as the primary metric. RPE was starting to click on upper body days really well, and I was pretty frequently on target , or just a slight undershoot, but always left feeling pretty solid. Lower body days were still hell and proceeded to give me a lot of grief. I was not being accustomed to the level of volume specifically around knee flexion due to a lot of squatting, leg extensions, and single leg exercises. My left knee started to become very irritated, with the familiar sting of tendonitis. This is also where I screwed up, instead of letting of the gas, and correcting my volume leading into block three, I maintained course and speed annnnnd that was a big big mistake on my end.
Block 3:
We now switch from disadvantaged movements, to very much overloaded types of movement, for top sets followed by back off work and I will say,,, bromely said in the book to let it fly, and I took that statement as a personal challenge. Some fun accomplishments was a push press at 185 for a top triple, a wide grip bench in which I three RM'd my old 1 rep max (240lbs), and a quite lovely 13inch deadlift that was 465 for 5. You will notice you will not see a squat here, that is because due to the patellar tendonitis issues and some degree of compensation for that, my hips and IT band decided to ignite on fire, resulting in some of the most painful lateral knee pain I have ever experienced , and continues to be an issue for me right now as I write this. This is most likely due to weeks and weeks of misgauging rpe and not knowing just how much effort I was putting into some of these work outs.
Overall :
despite injury during this program was a lot of fun to run, it had so much variety , and so much new movement that it felt like I was in newbie gains all over again! The volume feels manageable when you factor in eating and getting adequate rest. I think that if you have committed to strength for a long time, like I have this can be a nice and refreshing change of pace. I am currently finding it carrying over very nicely now that I am running bullmastiff at the current moment. I was very pleased with my results and continue to be pleased.
Some things I would have done differently, I would have probably wanted to touch some of the exercises that I have never done before for some top sets, prior to running the program to have a general idea of what weight I could handle. In the last few months I have come across, MIke Tuchscherer's RPE chart, and would probably want to use that as general tool to "be in the ball park" for weight selection, as I was generally basing most of my weigh choices of of variations that I did know. I think this is also what lead to me frequently over shooting my RPE.
Overall, I will run it again in the future, my intention will be to run it when/if I feel I need a more prolonged base phase and when I think I need more time to broaden out and get more variety.
If you have any more specific questions I would love to answer them! But I would strongly recommend his material on the program!