The Texas Method Split (The Better Way To Do Texas Method)

A while ago I wrote an article about the Texas Method. The purpose of that article was to introduce the idea of intermediate training; programming your lifts on a weekly basis. However I believe that the original template for the Texas Method has its flaws; the main limitation being that you cannot train the bench press and overhead press equally in the same week.

The Texas Method split solves this problem. It breaks away from the typical squat-push-pull template that you see in typical 5x5 programs, and in my opinion opens more doors for the lifter, training wise. The Texas Method split follows this basic format:

Day 1: pressing
Day 2: squats and pulling
Day 3: pressing
Day 4: squats and pulling

As a rule of thumb, I'd probably recommend this program for a lifter who's max lifts are around a 160kg squat, 100kg bench, 180kg deadlif (but if you can go higher than this by doing linear progression, then by all means go for it!).

The Program

If I were to list all the exercises and volume/intensity relationships the program would look like this:

Monday

Overhead Press (Intensity)
Bench Press (Volume)
Pressing assistance
Arms
Ab work

Tuesday

Squat (Volume)
Light Deadlifts
Barbell Rows
Extra leg and back assistance if you need it
Ab work

Thursday

Bench Press (Intensity)
Overhead Press (Volume)
Pressing assistance
Arms
Ab Work

Friday

Squat (Intensity)
Heavy Deadlift
Weighted Pull-ups
Ab Work


The rep scheme for the intensity lifts being 1 x 5, and the rep scheme for the volume lifts being 5x5. Increase the weight for the heavy squat and heavy deadlift days by 2.5kg each week, and microload (using 0.5kg fractional plates) for the bench press and overhead press. Don't increase the volume day weight too rapidly. Increase it by 2.5kg every 4 weeks. Remember volume day weight should be ~85% of the intensity day weight.
 
As you can see, the template not only allows the overhead press and bench press to be trained together in the same week, but it also allows you to add in more assistance work. This can allow you to put on more size, if the assistance exercises are performed in the higher rep range 8-12.

Assistance Exercises

Pressing Assistance:

• Dips
• Incline Barbell Bench
• Incline Dumbbell Bench
• Higher rep overhead press
• Higher rep bench press
• Dumbbell Shoulder Press

Leg Assistance:

• Lighter high bar squats (if you currently squat low bar) to hit the quads
• Leg curls
• Leg press

Back Assistance:

• Weighted pull-ups
• Lat Pull-downs
• Barbell Shrugs

Arms:

• Curls for biceps
• Lying tricep extension for triceps
• Tricep pushdowns

Other assistance work that is still very important:

• Ab work (ab roller, hanging leg raise, weighted planks)
• Rear delt work (very, VERY important to keep your shoulders healthy)
• Mobility work (hips, shoulders, ankle, etc) 
• Calf work (not that important but you can do it if you want lol)

Its really up to you what assistance exercises you choose to do, but try to keep the exercises somewhat useful. If you use a big arch on the bench press then I recommend you do incline bench work in order to help fill out the upper pecs more (no homo). It is also (for me anyway) a fairly grindy (slow and difficult) exercise, which I find helps me on the flat bench press as it teaches me to push harder through tough reps and not give up easily.


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That brings an end to this article, hopefully it will help out other lifters out there. I'll write another article later down the track about how to modify the programming (the rep schemes in particular), once you have exhausted weekly programming.

GPC NSW States Meet 2013

Meet results:

82.5kg weight class

• Squat 190/197.5/207.5 (PR)
• Bench 110/115/117.5x
• Deadlift 225/240/245x

My training for the meet:

This was my meet prep over the course of 11 weeks:

http://i.imgur.com/COn4A0H.png

I was on Texas Method so only the Intensity days (the days where I lift heavy) are shown. I pretty much planned all the numbers I was going to hit beforehand.

The bench numbers look funny because I used percentages, I just rounded up to the closest 2.5kg. I did 2 working sets for the bench which worked pretty well. If the first working set felt easy, I would add 2.5kg for the second working set (which I did pretty much every week, so in the last week I benched 105kg x 3, 107.5kg x 3 for example).

An observation from my previous training cycle for the squat was that I got really beaten up towards the end when I stuck with 5's throughout the training cycle, so this time I decided to switch to triples about 5 weeks out which worked well. I'm not making good progress with one working set on Intensity Day anymore so I think more adding more volume for my next meet prep will help me to continue to make progress..

For the deadlift I stuck with 2 sets of 4 reps throughout the cycle. This might have been a stupid thing to do seeing as I did worse on the deadlift at this meet compared to the previous one (although there was no squat in the last meet), so for the next cycle I plan to taper down the volume in the last 5 or so weeks.

Thoughts on the meet itself:

The squat felt strong. although I did lose the feel for heavy weights because of the deload week I took on the week of the meet. For my opener of 190 I didn't sit back enough so it felt a bit off. I got friends to cue me to sit back for my next 2 attempts which helped, they felt a lot better. It felt like I used a lot of back for my third attempt of 207.5kg but on the video it doesn't look too bad.

For the bench, people might be thinking why it didn't improve much. A possible explanation is that for my previous comp I did Smolov Jr for the bench, but I lost a lot of the strength I gained from Smolov Jr afterwards (for those unaware, the program involves benching 4 times a week for 3 weeks) because I didn't maintain the volume and frequency for the bench. For this training cycle I pretty much had to make back the strength that I lost but that being said though 115kg this time around felt stronger than the last 115kg I did.

I think the training approach I used for the bench works pretty well in the off-season when there's no competition to prepare for, but I'll be training the bench differently when preparing for my next competition (start out with lots of volume but taper it down over the weeks and gradually handle heavier weights).

For the deadlift, I think my crap performance was due to a combination of feeling tired on the day plus not being fully recovered from training. I really need to learn to back off in training early enough so that I can display my full strength on competition day. I won't make the same mistake again.

 Video:

General Lifting Advice for Beginners

Sup errbody. It's been a long time since my last post, mainly because I couldn't really think of anything useful to write about. I guess that beats writing a crappy post on a daily basis.

I've still been training hard, currently preparing for a meet on March 10th. Training has been going well so far, I've hit a few rep PRs recently:

Press 75kg 2 x 3 (form could have been better)



Bench 100kg x 5



Deadlift 215kg 2 x 4



I feel like I should be able to make good progress on the bench press this year. Anyway thats enough about me.

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I've made some observations of beginner lifters at the gym I've trained at, and the following are some tips which I believe beginners will find useful. Just to clarify, you're a beginner if you're on linear progression.

Mental Preparation

Don't do a set until you feel mentally ready. A cheesier way of describing mental preparation is 'getting into the zone'. Your body as well as your mind need to both be ready to lift the weights. Chances are, once the weights get heavy enough you will naturally find you need to psyche yourself up before the set, due to not wanting to fail the set.

How to mentally prepare is something you will have to figure out for yourself, but once you do, it will become a ritual that you perform before each PR.

Also, don't waste your rest periods. Use that time to think about your next set. Chances are if you are constantly on your phone during your rests then you aren't very focused. Get that sorted out.

Fighting Through Tough Reps

I've seen some beginners who give up too easily during a set. As soon as a rep gets hard, they give up without even putting up a fight. I've seen other cases where the beginner initially gives up on the squat for example, where they drop by about an inch then decide to keep pushing and end up getting the rep. I think the word I've used the most for beginners during their sets is "push". I tell them to keep pushing, and not to stop.

If you don't learn to push yourself your results will be suboptimal. Training is not meant to be a walk in the park. You don't go to the gym to go through the motions. Go to the gym to crush the weights.

Find The Sweet Spot For Your Bodyweight

You'll know you've hit it when progress hasn't been that great, but once you reach a certain bodyweight your lifts shoot up. This doesn't go on forever of course. Don't interprete this as the maximum bodyweight you should be at, it's more like the minimum bodyweight that lets you be strong for your height.

For example in my case, there is no way I could possibly be strong weighing 50kg. When my bodyweight was in the 70kg range, I was making steady gains on the squat and deadlift but my bench and overhead press were miserable. Once I hit the 80kg mark thats when I started making much better progress for my upper body lifts. Don't feel the need to rush to get to whatever this bodyweight may be for you, try to gain weight whilst keeping the bodyfat levels relatively constant for best results.

Remember if you don't eat, you won't grow which means you're wasting your time if putting on muscle is your goal.


This will probably be my last post for beginners unless I can think of something else to write about in the future. I have ideas for new posts which will be more targeted towards intermediate lifters, such as how to modify the Texas Method, so stay tuned!

If You Physically Can't Squat...

...then your mobility probably sucks. What this means is, your body is not flexible enough to perform the squat correctly, so you physically cannot perform the squat with proper form. The reason for this is most likely due to your lifestyle, if you spend a majority of your time sitting down for instance.

For the low bar squat, the three most common areas (from what I have seen) where people have mobility issues are in:

• the hips
• the shoulders
• the ankles

If you are teaching someone to squat correctly, the first thing you should do is use coaching cues to try to get the lifter to use proper form; e.g. "knees out", "chest up", etc. If this does not work, the following sections may be of use.

Mobility issues don't only apply to new lifters. For instance in my case, my knees only buckled in during heavier weights, so I didn't know for a long time that I needed to work on my hip mobility.

Hip Mobility

A person with tight hips will have trouble keeping their knees shoved out on the squat (demonstrated on the left in the figure below):

An example of knees buckled inwards vs. knees shoved out on the squat

 Having the knees shoved out in the squat (shown right in the above image) is important because:

1. It pushes your legs out of the way and gives space for your body, making it easier to hit depth.
2. It ensures optimal distribution of forces through your knee. If your knees are inside of your feet instead of pointed directly over your feet, there is more torque on the knee.
3. It's prettier to look at

Seriously though, squatting with the knees shoved out is important in keeping the movement as safe as possible. So what if you absolutely cannot shove the knees out?

There is a great drill you can perform daily in order to improve your hip mobility shown below:

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/01/episode-363-pre-squat-hip-opener-mob-rx.html

The above drill should be performed after all your training sessions, as well as every night before you go to bed. You will notice an improvement in your hips (and subsequently your squatting) after about two weeks or so.

The below stretch is also worth doing before you start doing squats in your training session. Hold the stretch for about 30 seconds, and take the same foot stance that you squat with. Also keep your chest up.

 

Squat stretch

Shoulder Mobility

Basically, your shoulder mobility needs improving  if you are unable to put the bar in this low bar position:

The low bar position

The low bar position will initially feel quite uncomfortable. Your wrists may also not be as straight as in the above figure (that is, they will be very bent). Your body will get used to this position over time, you may also want to try shoulder dislocations to help open up the shoulders. 

Also when getting into the low bar position, you may need to jam your body into place, and it may take a few pushes with your body until you can get the bar low enough. You can see me doing this here.

Ankle Mobility

Poor ankle mobility can be in different forms. One case is shown in the left in the below figure, where you can see the feet caving inwards in the bottom of the squat position:

  A comparison of poor vs. adequate ankle mobility. Yes I edited this in Paint.

 

The second case is harder to identify, and is basically when your ankles are so stiff, you literally cannot hit depth without rounding your lower back. This is sort of shown on the right in the figure below:

Just imagine that the lower the man squats, the more his lower back rounds, because his stiff ankles do not permit his knees to track forward (the ability for his knees to track forward is shown on the left figure).

In order to identify this ankle issue, stand with the balls of your feet on the edge of a box, and basically perform the negative portion of a standing calf raise. In other words, you want to place your ankles into dorsiflexion. If you cannot get much dorsiflexion in your ankles, you will need to stretch them out. 

A good ankle stretch you can do will involve you getting into this position, and try to get your knee as close to the wall as possible (don't go too overboard with this). You can do this stretch for both ankles in between all your squat sets. You may also wish to try out this ankle stretch too.

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Hopefully you squatters out there will find this post useful. Individuals will have varying levels of mobility in their hips, shoulders and ankles based on their lifestyle and how long they have been living this way. If your mobility is absolutely shocking, you may need to do further research into how to further improve on your mobility outside of the drills that are shown in this post, and it may take longer to be able to squat properly. Don't give up however, it'll be worth it in the end.

GPC Push Pull Meet

I recently competed at the GPC Push Pull Meet on the 18th of November. It was a great experience and I got to see a lot of big lifts. I came fifth overall.

My attempts:

• Bench 1st attempt: 107.5kg
• Bench 2nd attempt: 115kg
• Deadlift 1st attempt: 220kg
• Deadlift 2nd attempt: 242.5kg
• Deadlift 3rd attempt: 250kg (failed)

Here's the video of my attempts:



Meet Prep:

Even though the squat wasn't a contested lift in this meet, I still trained it, wouldn't want it to fall behind :P

So I planned ahead what numbers I wanted to hit. Everything pretty much went according to plan, I ended up squatting 185kg x 4, deadlifting 225 for 3,2. I was doing Texas Method for the bench press but it stalled earlier than I expected so I did Smolov jr just to make a bit more progress. I'll be continuing with the Texas Method for the bench in the future but adding more sets on intensity day to get in more volume because I feel that's what was lacking the first time.

In Week 8 I hit what I expected to get for my 2nd attempts. For the squat I did 205kg, and for the deadlift I did 240kg. I decided to do doubles for the bench that week and did 110kg x 2. You can see the video here.

At this stage I don't feel like it was worth it doing the '2nd attempts' in training, because the fatigue built up over the weeks made these attempts feel pretty tough. I didn't end up deadlifting much more than 240kg in competition anyway.

Week 10 (the week of the meet) was a deload week, so I was just lifting light weights to reinforce technique.

Weigh-In:

For this meet there was a 24 hour weigh-in. I wanted to lift in the 82.5kg weight class but weighed about 84kg. It wasn't hard to make weight because during my deload week I lost 1kg of water weight because I wasn't drinking as much water (because I wasn't lifting heavy). So all I had to do was not eat as much on Friday night and I weighted 82.3kg on Saturday morning. After weigh-in I drank and ate a lot and was 85.5kg that night.

Thoughts about the day:

Based on how I went, I think I overestimated what I could do. I was hoping for a 120kg bench and at least a 250kg deadlift. I based these numbers off what I hit for triples in training. At least now I have a better idea of what maxes I can hit, based on what I can lift for reps in training. My paused bench and deadlift improved by 7.5kg since the last meet, so I'm happy that I got stronger.

There was a lot of big lifting at the competition which was amazing to watch, 200+kg benches, 300+kg deadlifts. Check out PTC Sydney's YouTube channel over the next few days to see videos of these lifts.

Intermediate Programming: The Texas Method

Linear progression does not work forever. Eventually the stress induced on your body will take longer than 48 hours (the time until the next training session if you're training on Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to fully recover from, and as a result your next training session will be affected negatively. For example if you squat 140kg for 3x5 on Monday, you might only get 142.5kg for 4,3,2 or something like that on Wednesday. If you're not fully recovered, you'll feel it.

Stress on your body when you're on linear progression

If linear progression is right for you (and it will be for anyone who is new to lifting), the stress induced on their body will behave like the above diagram. Your body gets stressed by the first training session on Monday, but then the body is able to recover from it before Wednesday's training session, and so on. During this period you'll make the quickest gains you'll ever make.

  Stress on your body when linear progression is no longer suitable

As you can see from the diagram above, as I described previously eventually you'll reach a stage where the stress induced on your body will take longer than 48 hours to recover from and will affect your next session. This isn't invitation to be a pussy at the first sign of missing a rep though. If you get 3x5 on Monday but 5,5,4 on Wednesday, repeat the Wednesday weight for the next session.

A good rule of thumb of knowing when your linear progression days are over (PROVIDED YOU HAVE GOOD TECHNIQUE) is when you stall at a certain weight, then you deload but once you work your way back up you stall again at pretty much the same time, or a little bit higher. This means the time you put in to get little to no improvement is no longer worth it and you need to change how your program things.

If you started out on 5x5  and are experiencing the above, drop down to 3x5. You'll be able to continue making progress.

Introduction to Intermediate Training:

Intermediate model

In the above figure, you can see the model for intermediate programming. This is also known as the "Texas Method", because it was developed in Texas I guess. Basically you have a Medium day on Monday, a Light day on Wednesday, and a Heavy day on Friday. In terms of rep schemes it goes like this:

Monday

5x5 (~80-85% of Friday's weight)

Wednesday

3x3-5 (at a weight ~80-85% of Monday's weight)

Friday

1x5

This is the concept, remember how I said once you're at the end of your linear progression days, the stress induced from your first training session in the week will take longer than 48 hours to recover from? In intermediate programming, we take advantage of that. You will do a moderately heavy weight for 5x5 on Monday, then on Wednesday you will lift a light weight for low reps just to flush blood through the muscles (and whatever other justification there is for having a Light day, e.g gives you a mental break etc.), then on Friday you will lift a heavy weight for 1x5. 

Friday is the most important day, this is the day where you handle real weights. But it is important to get the volume on Monday's session in other to set yourself up to being able to lift heavy weights on Friday. Monday will be referred to as your "Volume day" and Friday will be referred to as your "Intensity day". You'll understand why when you look at the figure below:

Relationship between volume and intensity during a week of the Texas Method

So the week starts out with high volume moderate intensity, then you have the light day in the middle of the week, then the week ends with high intensity low volume (since you only do one heavy set).

The Texas Method Template

Here is what the program looks like:

Monday

Squat 5x5

Bench 5x5 (alternate with Press 5x5 in the next week)

Row 5x5

Curls

Wednesday

Squat 3x3

Press 3x5 (alternate with Bench Press 3x5 in the next week)

Power Cleans

Weighted chin-ups

Friday

Squat 1x5

Bench 1x5 (alternate with Press 1x5 in the next week)

Deadlift 1x5

Dips

Ab work should be done everyday too, just one exercise for 3 sets should be fine.

NOTE: Since the bench press and press alternate from week to week, the percentages for the light pressing days are determined from the volume day weight from the previous week. E.g in the above case, the weight to be used on the Press on Wednesday for 3x5 is 80-85% of what was done for 5x5 last Monday.

Getting Started on Texas Method

When you first start on the Texas Method, start light. Give your body time to adapt to this way of training. Whatever weights you finished with on linear progression, take around 80% of those weights and use them as your starting weights.

Your first week should feel easy. Let's say you stalled on 140kg for 3x5 on squats on linear progression. When you start on Texas Method, do 110kg 5x5 and 130kg 1x5 in your first week, 115kg 5x5 and 135kg 1x5 in your second week, 120kg 5x5 and 140kg 1x5 in your third week, 125kg 5x5 and 145kg 1x5 in your fourth week. The weights probably won't feel easy at this stage, so from here on take smaller jumps. Increase Friday's weight by 2.5kg.

Don't obsess over how much you do on Monday. It is just a volume day. After your fourth week on Texas Method, you can stick to the same weight on Mondays for 2-3 weeks. If you increase the 5x5 weight every week eventually you'll burn out too soon for this routine. At the moment I'm doing 145kg on Monday, and in the 180's for 1x5 on Friday (this may vary depending on individuals, but if you're doing 150 for 5x5 on Monday and 160kg 1x5 on Friday, the weights are too close).

I've been running Texas Method for squats for almost a year, and I can imagine doing it for much longer still.

Things You Should Know

• The weight you handle on Volume day doesn't matter to the point where you care about setting PR's on Monday
• Don't skip Volume day ever, without it you cannot perform well on Intensity day
• You can microload on the bench press and press if you wish
• If you stall, deload by 10% and take 3-4 weeks to work your way back up
• If you don't like benching and pressing heavy every second week, you can switch into a Texas Method split:

Monday
Bench 5x5
Press 3x5
Row 5x5

Tuesday
Squat 5x5
Power cleans

Thursday
Bench 1x5
Press 1x5

Friday
Squat 1x5
Dips
Deadlift 1x5

I haven't really listed assistance lifts in the above template. Note that you'll be focusing on one pressing movement over the other since one of them has to be done first. The light day has been omitted, but you can still do it on Wednesday if you wish (I do this).


Hopefully this post will be useful to fellow lifters out there!

Training 12/10/12

Haven't updated in a while, I'm currently training for a meet in November. Training is going well so far, yesterday I squatted 182.5kg x 5, and deadlifted 220kg 2x3. I'm doing Smolov jr for the bench press at the moment. It's a 3-week routine that involves benching 4 times a week It's a great program to use if your bench press has been stuck, however it is not to be taken lightly, if you have any shoulder or elbow problems this routine may aggravate them.

Training 13/9/12 and 14/9/12

Bench 106kg x 3
Squat 172.5kg x 5
Deadlift 210kg 2 x 4
Deadlift 140kg x 21

Not too happy with the bench PR, feels like I bounced it too much. Need to make sure I control the bar more next time.

Very happy with the deadlifts, recently threw in speed deadlifts on Tuesday (100kg for 10 singles, 30 seconds rest) to train my explosiveness, and it has helped my speed off the floor for heavy weights.

Training Update

Just thought I'd share how my training is going at the moment since it's been a while, this was done today (105kg x 3 bench, 70kg x 3 press):




My current routine is different to what I posted a while back, it is now like this:

Monday
CG Bench Paused5x5
Press 3x5

Row 5x5
Curls 5 x 5
DB Press 3 x 10
Lat Raises 3 x 10
Grip training

Tuesday
Squat 5x5
Power Cleans
Abs

Wednesday
Light High Bar Squat 3x3
Weighted Pull-ups
Abs

Thursday
Bench 1 x 3
Press 1 x 3
Reverse Flies 5 x 12
DB Bench 3 x 10 elbows tucked (recently started doing weighted dips too so might alternate between these two or something)
Lying Tricep Extension ss. Curls 5 x 12

Friday
Squat 1 x 3-5
Klokov Press
Deadlift

Abs
GHRs
Grip training
Conditioning

The problem with the old routine was that I was only benching and pressing once a week which was not enough. The program is pretty shit now that I think about it haha

I've instead adopted Texas Method style programming where you have a volume day and an intensity day, which seems to be working well. I have seriously upped the upper body volume (compared to what I was doing before anyway) because I feel like it needs to take a beating to grow. For the higher rep stuff I do, I'm not too concerned about how much weight I'm handling, its just to get in more volume. Getting stronger on the big lifts are still the meat and potatoes of my program.

Ever since that meet I competed in at the end of June, my squat wasn't really improving because I tried to get back into it too aggressively. I should've instead started out light and worked my way back up. Now I'm a month behind where I would like to be, oh well lesson learned. I also got rid of power cleans which was a mistake, because I think the extra pulling volume helped both my squat and deadlift. I've recently started doing Glute Ham Raises (you can use a leg curl machine if you don't have access to a GHR) for more hamstring work too.

The bench has been going up which I believe is due to the higher upper body volume, as well as eating more. My bodyweight is around 82-84kg at the moment (would like to get to 90kg for now).

Deadlifts are going alright, just need to figure out how to taper it for the next upcoming meet (sometime in November).

I also did a run of Smolov Jr for the bench press, which increased my 1RM by an easy 5kg. I programmed the numbers quite conservatively since it was my first time doing it and it paid off. Will plan to do Smolov Jr. again soon, I don't want to abuse it too much because it involves benching four times a week. Might do an article on how I improved my bench once it is less embarrassing.

Testing a conservative 1RM after doing Smolov Jr:

Also in regards to that overhead press article I wrote not too long ago, I found it easier to have the bar touching my chest it turns out, so you should try both ways to see how you prefer it.

Modifying Your Routine When on Linear Progression

Note: If you're just starting out on linear progression, stick to the program as written. Your first priority is nailing the technique on the main lifts. Now is the time to get it right, it will cost you later down the track if you don't put in the effort now. This definitely set my bench and overhead press back and now they're playing catch up. Don't be lazy.

Plateauing Lifts:

The first lifts to plateau will be the squat and deadlift. What I mean by plateau is that they will no longer progress from this style of programming. This is because you are handling a heavy enough load that the body now needs more time to recover from it. Plateauing is different to stalling; stalling is where you stop making progress but when you deload and work your way back up you can continue to make more progress.

The bench press and press will see more stalling compared to the squat and deadlift, but won't plateau as early.

There are people who have started on 5x5, and people who have started on Starting Strength so I will consider both cases in terms of how to modify your routine.

If You Started Out With 5x5:

Once you stall on a lift that you are doing 5x5 with (squat, bench, press, row), you should switch to 3x5. This will reduce the volume, and still allow you to continue to make linear progress. You will switch to 3x5 on the lifts at different times, because they will plateau at different times. Just because things stop working for one lift doesn't mean you need to change things for the other lifts if they were still progressing.


In essence you'll end up doing Stronglifts 3x5. The following sections will then also apply to you.

When the Deadlift Plateaus:

Eventually deadlifting heavy twice a week will be too much for the trainee (make sure the deadlift has plateaued first, if you are unsure, deload and try again and see if there is much of an improvement). What they can do instead is reduce deadlift frequency to once a week. The routine might look like this:

Monday
Squat 3-5x5
Bench 3-5x5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row 3-5x5

Wednesday
Squat 3-5x5
Overhead Press 3-5x5(will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Chin-ups

Friday
Squat 3-5x5
Bench 3-5x5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5

Note: I have written 3-5x5 because the deadlift may plateau before you need to switch from 5x5 to 3x5 on the other lifts.

Now deadlifting will occur every Friday. The reason I prefer to leave deadlifts on Fridays is so that you can still squat on Friday will 100% effort. I found I could get away with deadlifting on Wednesdays for a while, but eventually I had to move the deadlifts to Friday because my lower back would not recover in time for Friday's squatting.

When the Squat Plateaus:

Eventually squatting 3x5 will be too much for your body, because you are handling a heavy enough load that it takes longer than 48 hours for your body to fully recover from. What you can do in this case is change Wednesday's squat session into a light day. What you can do is instead substitute Wednesday's squat for front squats, with a load that is lighter, say 75-80% of the load you handled on Monday, for 3x3.

At this stage, you should be familiar enough with the back squat, that you can try to learn the front squat without it affecting your ability to back squat (i.e you can UNDERSTAND the difference between the 2 squat styles). If not, you're fucking up. Put in more effort to understand how the different squat styles work.

 Put more effort into your squatting

This light squat day serves to give you more time to recover from Monday's squat session, and also pumps blood through the muscles involved in the squat to help reduce DOMS which was incurred from Monday's squats. On many occasions my legs felt less sore after I did light squats on Wednesday.

The routine will look something like this:

Monday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row

Wednesday
Front Squat 3 x 3 (80% of Monday's session)
Overhead Press 3 x 5(will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Chin-ups

Friday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5

Eventually this way of squatting will stop working too and you'll need to switch to another way of programming, known as intermediate programming (or weekly programming). I'll save this for another post.

When the Bench Press and Overhead Press Plateau:

Once you have exhausted your linear gains on the bench press and overhead press, I would consider that to be the end of your time on linar progression and it would be time to move on to a different style of programming (since you have already plateaued on linear progression for the squat and deadlift already).

Remember, to get the most out of your linear progress for the bench press and overhead press, you should use fractional plates (they weigh 0.5kg). They will allow you to take smaller weight increases than 2.5kg and will reduce the likelihood of stalling.

You may also wish to switch to 5 sets of 3 reps for the overhead press which worked pretty well for me. Don't be lazy with the overhead press, train it hard and you'll have healthy shoulders.

Power Cleans:



Power cleans are great. They are highly technical and force you to perform a forceful hip extension at just the right time and position in order to get the bar onto your shoulders. If I get better at them I'll do a post on this exercise :P There are plenty of useful resources on the internet though, Don McCauley and Glenn Pendlay are Olympic coaches who would have some good articles on the interwebs.

If you want to do power cleans, there's a few ways you can implement them into your routine:

Monday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row

Wednesday
Front Squat 3 x 3 (80% of Monday's session)
Overhead Press 3 x 5(will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Power Cleans 5 x 3
Chin-ups

Friday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5

Note that power cleans are performed much differently to deadlifts, in that they are eased off the floor in a controlled manner, and using the lats you sweep the bar inwards to keep the bar close to your body, then you accelerate as the bar passes your knees. This is much different to a deadlift where you drive your legs hard into the floor at the start to break the bar off the floor.

Assistance Exercises:

One final thing before I forget; assistance exercises. This includes pull-ups, dips, ab work and curls.

You can implement them into your routine like so:

Monday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5 (will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Row
Curls
Ab Work

Wednesday
Front Squat 3 x 3 (80% of Monday's session)
Overhead Press 3 x 5 (will be switched with Bench Press in the following week)
Chin-ups
Ab Work

Friday
Squat 3 x 5
Bench 3 x 5(will be switched with Overhead Press in the following week)
Deadlift 1 x 5
Dips
Ab Work

You might want to superset the ab work and assistance exercises to save time.

Stronglifts 5x5 vs. Starting Strength?

Stronglifts 5x5 and Starting Strength are both beginner programs which run on linear progression. The lifts involved are almost the same (squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press). Which program should you do?

This is how Stronglifts 5x5 is set out:

Workout A

Squat 5x5

Bench 5x5

Row 5x5

Workout B

Squat 5x5

Overhead Press 5x5

Deadlift 1 x 5

This is how Starting Strength is set out:

Workout A

Squat 3 x 5

Bench 3 x 5

Deadlift 1 x 5

Workout B

Squat 3 x 5

Overhead Press 3 x 5

Power Cleans 5 x 3

You'll notice that Stronglifts has higher volume since it has 5 sets whereas Starting Strength advocates 3 sets. Once you get to fairly heavy weights (for a novice), squatting for 5x5 3 days a week will become excessive. This will probably occur around the 1.3-1.5xBW Squat mark (this will vary between individuals). At a heavy enough load, the stress from 5x5 will eventually take longer than 48 hours for an individual to recover from, and this will negatively impact the next workout. This doesn't mean than 5x5 is the devil and that you should have nothing to do with it. In intermediate programming, we take advantage of the fact that the stress from 5x5 takes longer to recover from (will touch on this in another post).

So the volume in Starting Strength is better for long term progress. You will be able to continue with linear progression for longer. Also because of the lower volume, you'll be able to handle heavier weights.

Does that mean you shouldn't do Stronglifts 5x5?

If you're starting out training for the first time, I think SL5x5 is ok as the extra sets will give you more technique practise. You'll get the benefit of being accustomed to higher volume if you end up switching down to 3 sets of 5. Its up to you in the end, but if you want to continue making progress through linear progression then you need to switch to 3x5 at some stage. You can even start out with SL"3x5" if you wish. I wouldn't suggest doing less than 3x5 though. The volume in 3x5 is just right, because the lifts are still performed on a regular basis.

Stronglifts 5x5 has Rows whereas Starting Strengths has power cleans though?

If you are benching, then you have to row. Otherwise you will end up with an imbalance in your shoulders which will invite injury later down the track.
.
So if you decide to start out with Starting Strength, I would suggest you do rows instead of power cleans. Power cleans are quite a technical lift, and the mechanics involved are quite different to the deadlift, different enough that you shouldn't try to learn both exercises at the same time. Wait until you are confident with deadlifts first.


On an unrelated note, Starting Strength was created by Mark Rippetoe, a strength coach who runs a training facility in Texas. Stronglifts 5x5 on the other hand was created by Mehdi, a guy from Belgium who runs a website. Rippetoe has been around for much longer, which would probably give the impression that the Stronglifts program is a rip-off of Starting Strength. Personally I don't believe Rippetoe himself invented the squat-press-pull template for workouts. It's hard to say who did, but Bill Starr (who actually mentored Rippetoe) had been teaching this method of training since the 1960's (long before Rippetoe was coaching).

Bill Starr, known as the father of strength training

Getting The Most Out Of A Beginner Routine eg. Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5

Its very easy as a beginner to cut your progress short on linear progression routines like Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5, and this could be for a variety of reasons.

1. Not sticking to the program
2. Bad technique on the lifts
3. Not ensuring optimal recovery through eating and sleeping

I'm sure there are other reasons but I can't be bothered thinking of more.

I will address these reasons, to show you how you can ensure you're getting the most out of these type of routines.

Not Sticking To The Routine

Countless times I've seen people not doing the routine consistently. I'll recommend a program for a beginner who's asked me for advice, and they'll make some good gains from it, then several weeks later I'll find out they're doing some stupid routine again, or that they're just mucking around in the gym. They didn't stick to the original plan. This could be for several reasons such as:

• Studies/work becoming more demanding
• Injury from playing a sport
• Loss of motivation

Think about it like this, there are 168 hours in a week. If you're training 3x/week and each session lasts about 1.5 hours, that's 4.5 hours per week. 4.5 divided by 168 is around 2.7%. You can't dedicate 2.7% of your week to improving yourself? If the answer is no, then seriously just quit, because you don't have what it takes to achieve. The people who get good results from training are the ones who are willing to put in the time.

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Here's a suggestion for how you could modify your routine if things like work/study become more time consuming:

Session A
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
DB Shoulder Press 3 x 10

Session B
Deadlift 1 x 5
Row 5 x 5
Curls 3 x 12

Session C
Squat 5 x 5
Overhead Press 5 x 5
DB Bench Press 3 x 10

It's not optimal for a beginner because the frequency with which you perform the main lifts is slightly reduced so progress will be slower, but now there are 2 main lifts per session instead of 3, so it cuts down on the duration of the workout. This is just temporary, and once your time frees up again you should go back to the original layout (whether its SL5x5 or SS).

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If you are injured from a sport, first step is pinpointing what the injury is. Common injuries are occur in the joints such as the shoulder, hip, elbow and and knee. You can also tear muscles but they should recover quicker than tendon/ligament injuries.

When you get injured, this doesn't necessarily mean you should stop training (unless the injury is really serious like a spinal injury). You just need to figure out what you can continue to train.

If you have a knee injury, you should avoid movements which involve knee flexion/extension such as the squat, but you can still try stiff-legged deadlifts. Again this depends on the injury, but the point is finding what DOESN'T hurt, and training that for the time being. You should still be able to train your upper body as normal (maybe not the bench press because you need to bend your knees when lying on the bench, again find out for yourself).

I'm not an expert in this area, but the idea is to do your research. Find out how you can help your injury, and how to prevent it from occurring again if possible. When your injured, don't just do nothing and suffer in silence, think about recovery, think about continuing to move forward.

----

Loss of motivation can occur for a few reasons. Maybe you're getting bored of the routine, or you aren't seeing the results you wanted. If its the latter case, I'll address this in the final section of this post.

In terms of boredom, tough titties mate. The muscle confusion thing is bullshit, switching it up every week or whatever is stupid. Consistency is the key, this is how you will know you are improving. If you're squatting one day, then doing leg press the next, then lunges the next session, how do you know you're getting better?

High frequency of the main compound lifts will also give you more chance to drill in the correct technique. Correct technique on the main lifts is extremely important, especially once you start handling heavy weights.

Bad Technique on the Lifts

Read these posts, and practice, practice, practice:

http://derickthai.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-to-perform-main-compound-lifts.html
http://derickthai.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-to-perform-main-lifts-part-ii.html

Not Ensuring Optimal Recovery Through Eating and Sleeping

Have you heard the saying "you grow outside the gym"? Well it's true. This is how things work; training acts as a stimulus for your body, a form of stress. When you stress your body, you need to be able to recover from this stress in order to come back stronger than last time. And the way to actually recover from this stress is through eating and sleeping.

This is a reason why people may not be getting the results they wanted. They're not getting bigger and stronger. Guess what? You're not eating enough.

A car with a bigger engine needs to consume more fuel than a small car. Same thing applies to people. If you have more muscle, your body NEEDS more calorie intake. Your body also will not grow if it's not getting enough food to grow. You can't create something out of nothing. All the times I've made the best progress on my bench, I was gaining weight. This wasn't necessarily the case for my squat and deadlift but that's because I'm better at those lifts. This will be different for everyone.

So start paying attention to WHAT you eat, and HOW MUCH of it you're eating. That way if you're not gaining weight, you'll know that you need to increase your food portions. If you can't do this, then quit. You don't have what it takes.

Gaining weight as a beginner is also important, because you increase your strength ceiling. If you weigh 10kg heavier than how much you weigh now, you'll be able to lift more weights (provided you are training whilst you are gaining weight too).

Think about it like this, get stronger so you can get bigger, and get bigger so you can get stronger. Lifting heavy weights will increase your muscle size, and eating more will allow you to continue to grow, so you can continue to get stronger.

As a beginner, keep it simple! Focus on getting stronger, and make sure you're gaining weight! Don't go over the top with eating though, because you don't want to get too fat either. It might take some time to find where this fine line (of how much food is enough for you to continue to grow) lies, but once you do, you'll have a good understanding of your body.

A good way to stay motivated is to set a goal for yourself. How big and strong you want to be. Never lose sight of this goal, and you shouldn't have a problem staying motivated.

*****************

When you do everything right, you will make very good gains on this type of routine. It won't last forever however. You will know when it's time to move on once you have deloaded, and worked your way back up but you don't see much improvement anymore and you stall again. When I say this, the stalling MUST be due to your body's inability to recover from the training, not because you have bad technique or because you're not eating enough.

I know this sounds a bit confusing, but there is actually a point you will reach, where you can no longer squat a heavy weight for 5 x 5, 3 times a week, because the stress will become too high. Similar case for the bench press, overhead press and deadlift. I will address this, and intermediate programming (the next step after linear progression) in another post.

Improving Your Press

For guys with long forearm who have trouble with overhead pressing, you might find this article useful:

http://startingstrength.com/articles/learning_press_rippetoe.pdf

Basically instead of trying to force the bar to rest against your shoulders which compromises your leverages, you set up with optimal leverages for the triceps and as a result the bar is suspended in mid-air, but this won't be an issue if your triceps are touching your lats, and everything is tight and flexed (triceps, biceps, lats and glutes)

You can see me pressing this way here



If you compare to someone with shorter forearms, you can see how the position of the triceps are pretty much the same (pause at 0:09 for the first video, and 0:12 for the second video below)



Does it actually help to press this way? Well yes, because:

1. You reduce the distance the bar has to travel
2. The trriceps are in a more efficient position to press
3. There is less layback

I have pressed with the bar resting on the top of my chest before, and I found I needed much more power off the chest and I had much more layback, but with this technique I dont need as much power off the bottom and layback is reduced by quite a bit.

Training 19/7/12

Weights done:

Bench 95kg 10 x 3 (only last set shown)

Deadlift
205kg 2 x 4
185kg 2 x 5
165kg 2 x 6

Been doing Smolov Jr. for the bench, I'll do another post on this later.

I recorded all my deadlift work sets today, if anyone's curious to see how much pulling I do (once a week).

My First Powerlifting Meet

On my first attempt for squats I just wore a T-shirt but my back wasn't chalked up so the bar slid up my back when I was coming out of the hole. This threw me off slightly but I was still able to finish the lift. Whacked on a singlet on top of my shirt and chalked it up, no more issues.

For the bench, the pause diminished my bench strength by quite a bit. Decided not to go for a third because I knew I'd fail anyway.

For the deadlift, I just went for gold. Took massive jumps between attempts but I knew I could handle it.



The meet was run by UNSW Barbell Club. If you live in Sydney and enjoy lifting heavy weights, look it up on Facebook.

Recent Lifting 15/6/12

Squat 180kg x 3

Had to deload, stalled at 192.5kg. Been working on my hip mobility too



Bench today did 100kg x 1, 105kg x 1, 105kg x 1 all with a pause



Deadlift 205kg 2 x 4 -> PR Felt a tightness in my hamstring so I didn't do backoff sets today

Training to Build Muscle

Check out this bodybuilding routine.

If you look at that routine, you'll notice the reps lie in the higher rep range, 8-12 reps. This must mean if you train like that you'll get massive right? Wrong. You need to understand that steroids plays a significant role in the training of professional bodybuilders. If you did a routine similar to the one I linked above, provided you are not using steroids I guarantee that you are wasting your time.

On an elite level, bodybuilders and powerlifters train specifically for their goals (size for bodybuilding, strength for powerlifting). This may give you the impression that this also influences the way they look because of the way they train, but the truth is the steroids that they take are also specific (different steroids affect your body in different ways). If you didn't get that, professional bodybuilders take steroids which promote muscle growth, whilst powerlifters take steroids which promote muscle strength without as much increase in muscle size compared to bodybuilders.



If you look carefully at the image above, there are a lot of grey areas in terms of how your body responds to different rep ranges. This is because when you train in the 5-12 rep range, you will gain a combination of the different types of hypertrophy (myofibrillar and sacroplasmic). In myofibrillar hypertrophy, the muscle's ability to contract forcefully will be improved, and the myofibrils in a muscle also increase in size. In sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the increase in muscle size is primarily due to the increase in sarcoplasm in the muscle, which means the cells in the muscle become better at retaining fluid.

This means getting bigger and getting stronger aren't as mutually exclusive as people think. If you don't plan to take steroids but want to gain muscle guess what? You have to get stronger, and you have to eat enough to promote muscle growth. Don't expect to get bigger just by following routines of professional bodybuilders and taking magical supplements that claim to promote muscle growth. It actually takes time, hard work and some level of sacrifice. If you look at natural bodybuilders in the past like Reg Park and Marvin Eder, they were strong as hell. Reg Park could bench press 500lbs (~230kg)! There are even modern natural bodybuilders today who also compete in powerlifting. Do you really think your body will produce big muscles naturally that aren't strong? How the hell is that useful? Of course your body isn't going to do that. When your body realises that it is being subjected to stress (in the form of training), it will respond accordingly.

So how should you train then? For beginners 5 reps is a good range. It gives them enough reps for them to practise correct technique, but doesn't take them so close to the point of failure that their technique breaks down significantly. Volume is achieved though more sets, 5 sets of 5 reps works well for beginners (my previous posts cover suitable routines for beginners). This isn't the only way beginners can get stronger, but this method definitely works, provided you put in the effort through training hard and recovering sufficiently (eating and sleeping enough). As a lifter becomes more experienced, they may wish to train in different rep ranges (e.g triples for the main lifts to focus on lifting heavier weights, and higher reps on assistance exercises such as curls and tricep extensions) but that won't be covered in this post.

Bottom line, if you're not willing to train hard and get stronger, then you don't deserve that physique of your dreams. This is the truth. There are no shortcuts, no secrets.

Recent Lifting 8/6/12

Squat 192.5kg x 1

Bitched out today was meant to do 3 but I wasn't feeling mentally up for it.



Bench 100kg  x 1 (did 2 singles) (paused)

Practising new bench form, and it seems to be working for me. I can get just as big of an arch as with my old setup, but I can more effectively utilise my legs in the lift.






Deadlift 202.5kg 2 x 4 (only one set shown)

Next week I will be back where I stalled before. Can't wait to kill it!

Recent Lifting (This week) 1/6/12

Squat 192.5kg x 2



Press 70kg x 3,3,3,2,1



Deadlift 200kg 2 x 4



Bench: 95kg 3 x 5




Dips: B.W + 50kg x 3

My Current Routine

Monday

Squat
5 x 5

Bench
3 x 5
2 x 6 (90% of the weight I used for the 3 x 5 sets)
1 x 8 (80% of the weight I used for the 3 x 5 sets)

Assistance work:

Barbell Row
5 x 5

DB Curls
Adductor Machine


Tuesday

Assistance work:

Power Cleans
singles, still need to nail the technique, I'm getting there

Dips
Three week cycle;
in week 1: work up to 3 x 8
in week 2: work up to a top set of 5
in week 3: work up to a top set of 3
The cycle is good because it allows me to get strong in different rep ranges. If you're just starting out with weighted dips better to stick to 3x5 first until that stops working. I'll explain the cycle in more detail at the end of the post.


Wednesday

Light Front Squat (80% of the 5x5 squat weight on Monday)
3 x 3

Incline Bench Press
Might be with a barbell or dumbbells, depends how I feel, the point is to keep it light

Pull-ups
Three week cycle;
in week 1: work up to 3 x 8
in week 2: work up to a top set of 5
in week 3: work up to a top set of 3
The cycle is good because it allows me to get strong in different rep ranges. If you're just starting out with weighted pull-ups better to stick to 3x5 first until that stops working.


Friday

Squat
1 x 3

Press
6 x 3

Deadlift
2 x 4
2 x 5 (90% of the weight I used on the 2 x 4 sets)
2 x 6 (80% of the weight I used on the 2 x 4 sets)


Saturday

Conditioning (not too intense, but enough to maintain a good level of conditioning for general health)


There isn't really a right or wrong when making a routine, however its the principles behind the program which make it effective.

• Are the staple movements the main compound lifts (squat, bench, press, deadlift)?
• Does it aim to make you stronger?
• Is there enough volume?
• Is the workload stressful enough? Can you recover from it?
• Will it help you achieve your goals?
• Is it easy to modify if an aspect of it does not work well for you?

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Why is Monday's squat 5x5, Wednesday's squat light and Friday's squat 1 x 3?

It's based on a template known as the Texas Method which is an intermediate program. Monday is your volume day (5x5), Wednesday is your light day and Friday is your Intensity day (you start out with 1 x 5 but I've exhausted that so I'm doing 1 x 3 now). The point is to handle a medium weight on Monday that is stressful enough (that you can still recover from it) and be able to handle heavy weights on Friday. For example last week I squatted 147.5kg for 5 x 5 on Monday and 185kg x 3 on Friday. The light day on Wednesday gives you a mental and physical break, and should leave you feeling refreshed and ready for Friday's Intensity day session. It's a good way of training if SL5x5 or Starting Strength doesn't work for you anymore, because you can no longer recover from squatting heavy every session (because the weights stress your body too much). You will need to experiment as to how much volume on Monday is enough however. A good way to treat Monday's session is to keep the weight the same for three weeks before increasing the weight. This ensures that volume day doesn't get too demanding too quickly.

Why do you only bench and press once a week?

If I followed the Texas method for the pressing movements also, it would go:

Week 1:

Monday
Bench 5 x 5

Wednesday
Light Press

Friday
Bench 1 x 5

Week 2:

Monday
Press 5 x 5

Wednesday
Light Bench

Friday Press 1 x 5

I don't like the idea of only benching or pressing heavy every 2 weeks since it alternates in the Texas Method. And I respond well to volume anyway so the way I've set it up should work well for me. Bare in mind I'm also doing dips and the light incline bench, so I'm really doing a press movement 4 times a week.

Why so many sets for the deadlift?

I've reached a stage where that's simply how much volume I need in order to make progress. 1 x 5 like in SL5x5 or Starting Strength just wasn't enough anymore. The higher volume is awesome, my back is dense as hell now and more muscular.

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The three week cycle:

Week 1:

25% x 8
45% x 8
55% 3 x 8

Week 2:

25% x 5
50% x 5
60% x 5
70% x 5
80% x 5

Week 3:

25% x 5
50% x 5
75% x 3
90% x 3
100% x 3

Basically you pick a weight you want to hit for 3 reps in the third week, then back-calculate all the other weights. You might aim too high the first time but after doing 1 cycle you'll know how to pick a suitable number. You should only train this way if you can do pullups with 40kg or do dips with 40kg strapped on, its a good way to keep making progress as well as get strong in different rep ranges.