When to click the "Easy" smiley?

28 minutes ago, Matthias Schwartz said:

Thanks @Josh Earl, that was exactly what I needed. I read that a year ago but didn't really absorb it when I started out, so it's great to read it again! The tidbit about the 3x10s not being comfortable is gold. I wasn't sure whether his stance was to workout at a sub-maximal or maximal effort for results. I see he tends toward the maximal, which makes me feel better about doing that as well, as that is generally what I'd prefer. Thanks again!

There is a lot of good guidance tucked away in those materials—it's easy to overlook them because the videos are much more prominent. 

Glad that helped!

Good input on this thread, and thanks @Josh Earl for the reminder of those essays. I had read them before but re-reading them was useful. Some of them could be updated as they seem to refer to a format that doesn't reflect the current Foundations, but there's lots of great nuggets of info in them still. I have had the same question in my mind about when to click "easy", and really questioned whether I had clicked too early when I also had difficulty in HBP/PE2 going from step 4 (4x6r) to step 5 (4x9r). Step 5 is a 50% increase over step 4 that I couldn't get close to, so I ended up adding my own micro step to build to step 5 by simply adding an additional set (5x6r) until I found that comfortable and am now on step 5 (4x9r). I haven't completed step 5 yet...I need a bit more rest before the last set and my form suffers a little on that last set, too, but I think I'm getting there.

I am also on RC/PE2 step 4 (4x6r) and notice that step 5 has a similar 50% jump to 4x9r, so I'm expecting I'll need to add a set to step 4 (5x6r) before being able to proceed to step 5.