Speedcoach, Excellent info thanks. Unfortunately I never got to see Charlie talk before he passed away, but you can tell from his videos he was certainly a real character! Very good guy and obviously one of the greatest coaches ever. I really want to learn from Ian soon. I like what appears to be his very good “critical thinking” skills.
Regarding Charles’s periodization, I think I may be able to give a little bit of info. I have to stress I’m not an expert and I may be wrong but this is how i think he sets it up: at the micro level he uses accumulation and intensification cycles where you alternate between volume and intensity. I think a lot of this came from scientist Dietmar Schmidtbleicher. With progression, he states you should be able to add 1-2% to the bar each workout or add 1-2 more reps. If not you need to change variables up (often change program-i.e shift to the other phase acc/int). Also, deloading occurs often every 3rd workout where the number of sets is dropped by around 40%.
Regarding the wider progression I am not too sure of the whole process, but I believe in the GPP he focuses a lot on unilateral work to correct structural imbalances (tests for upper and lower extremities taught at level 1 and 2 PICP). For instance most athletes have weak external rotators of the shoulder, trap 3 and VMO. So GPP is correcting imbalances as identified by tests and many of the lifts will be of slower tempo than in the SPP. He has talked a bit about tapering for comp but I believe this is more discussed at level 3 and above of PICP and depends on many factors.
I’m still in school at the moment but when I’m older I hope to learn from many experts in the field just like you did mate :). Sounds like a great experience!