You know who I am...

I've been using the Texas Method as described in Practical Programming. Hopefully the program will yield some nice results.

2008/05/23: Heavy Day

Front Squat: 210 x 5
RDL: 280 x 5
Bench Press: 210 x 5
Pendlay Row: 185 x 5

ERIC W NOT A GIMMICK!!!

Pendlay Rows are jacked imo

front lower/high CNS pos chain assistance, front upper/high CNS back assistance?

that's an interesting arrangement for a day. I often do something similar but split it into two lifting days

Is this the volume/intensity (5x5) day, or the max effort (1x5 to 1x1) day? Also, why did you choose front squats and not back squats for your high intensity work?

Plz to be laying out your weekly program for me. I'm probably going to do this program once I cannot progress with SS anymore.

I didn't want to cut out hamstring work so I put in RDLs but at the same time, I didn't want to cut out rows so I put in the pendlay rows. I'll keep doing this until I get too fatigued but so far I feel fine.

The program is quite simple:

Monday - Volume: ~85% of Friday's weight

Front Squat: 5x5
RDL: 5x5
Bench: 5x5
Pendlay Row: 5x5


Wednesday - Light: ~75% of Friday's weight

Front Squat: 2x5 (2 sets of 5 reps)
RDL: 2x5
Bench: 2x5
Pendlay Row: 2x5


Friday - Heavy: ~5 rep PR

Front Squat: 1x5 (1 set of 5)
RDL: 1x5
Bench: 1x5
Pendlay Row: 1x5


The reason I am doing front squats is because my low back is messed and these are easier on it.

The program is actually pretty sweet. The key is that you make progress week to week. As a novice, one can make progress workout to workout but that's not possible anymore when one is an intermediate so programming/progress must be on a week to week basis.

The nice thing about this program is that theoretically, it should keep me gaining for a while. There are many modifications that you can do if you aren't hitting your weights. For example, if you go through a few workouts of not hitting the Friday PRs but you're progressing fine on the Mondays, that most likely means that the Monday workout isn't causing enough disruption to homeostasis. As a result, you can add an extra workset on monday, change up the rep scheme from 5x5 to 8x3 with a heavier weight, or add in a higher rep set at the end. The possibilities are endless.

Are you progressing from monday to monday, AND friday to friday, or just friday to friday and basing monday's weight on the previous friday every week? Do you have microplates or some alternative solution for microloading? Where's the overhead pressing?

? You're confusing me BUCKO. Well, the weights are going up every monday and every friday so I'm progressing Monday to Monday and Friday to Friday. The Monday weight is based on the Friday weight of the same week.

I've looked into buying micro weights but it's not really feasible (unless you have an idea for me); there are virtually no places that sell them. The best I can do is try to just add 5lbs every week and if I don't hit all the reps for the weight increase, I'll just repeat the weight for the following week.

Wrt to your question about the over head pressing, I suppose that I could incorporate it into my Wed light workout but there's no point really. The Wed work out isn't supposed to be stressful at all so it's not like I'll be getting stronger with that exercise. Unfortunately this is the way it has to be if you're doing week-to-week progression on a 3 day routine.

You can make your own micro weights out of chain links. It tells you how to here: http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow...croloading.htm. It's pretty simple they do everything for you at the hardware store.

wow that's awesome! Thanks man.

For microloading, you can go to madcow's site and find the microloading part. He tells you how to get precise weights with a certain size of chain found at hardware stores. Buy the chain and the clips to close the loop and you're set for cheap. Or you can buy 2" washers from a hardware store.

I would do overhead press on either monday or wednesday to balance your shoulder. Doing presses will carryover to bench as well.

2008/05/26 - Volume:

Front Squat: 185x5 for 5 sets - super easy
RDL: 245x5 for 5 sets - super easy
Bench: 185x5 for 5 sets - moderate
Pendlay Row: 165x5 for 5 sets - tough


Actually, the weights could be +/- 2.5 lbs if I'm using my buddy's home gym's weights as a reference (my buddy has a home gym and I usually work out there). However, when our schedules conflict, I have to go to the local gym. I have a suspicion that the bar at the local gym is a few lbs lighter than the one at my buddy's place so I added those chains that I bought today at Home Depot. So either the weights or +2.5 lbs, or -2.5lbs.

Also keys, overhead pressing on Monday is out of the question. I don't know if it's even worth it to overhead press on Wed because it's supposed to be an "active recovery" type of day.

it couldn't hurt imo. I can definitely say that Rippetoe recommends balancing overhead and benching in a 1:1 ratio in order to balance the shoulder muscles, and I will dig those direct quotes up if you want.

I would do wednesday for sure then. You could also rotate the two exercises each workout.

Light:

Front Squat: 162.5x5 x 2 sets
RDL: 215x5 x 2 sets
Pendlay Row: 142.5x5 x 2 sets
Bench: 162.5x5 x 2 sets

Heavy Day:

Front Squat: 215x5 - Not bad
RDL: 285x5 - Easy
Bench: 215x5 - Not bad
Pendlay Row: 190x5 - Tough

I think that I can get at least a few weeks of progress with this program at which point I'll have to move up 2.5lbs a week or so or tweak the rep schemes. I think that the squats and RDLs will keep going up 5lbs/week or so, the bench will slow down a bit but the rows are definitely slowing down.