More frequency, more volume.

I'd consider not losing a ton of weight on your bench as a victory actually; during my cut (from 230 to 186ish) my 5RM went from something like 275 or 280 to the 225-235 range, so essentially maintaining your current maxes through your cut is probably going to be the best you can hope for, assuming you've exhausted your noob gains.

You're also really tall, right? 6'7" or something? Good luck, but you're kind of ****ed imo. Just maintain as best you can and then do a more PL and less aesthetic focused program once you're done cutting, if you're really concerned with upping your bench.

Bench responds very poorly to weight loss in my experience, but PHAT is not a strength program either so that may have something to do with it. I like two bench days a week, one focussed on competition bench press, close grip and shoulder work, and the other on three count pause benching, incline bench press and triceps work. We do four sets of each, with a six week cycle working from four sets of six in the first week to 3-4 ascending singles in the last week for the main lift (reps are slightly higher for the accessory lifts, but still keeping a reducing schema).

This

I guess I was hoping I could do both? From what I've read, PHAT's supposed to be a blend of aesthetics / strength so *ideally* I'd improve in both areas at the same time. Maybe a bit much to hope for?

Edit: and yeah, 6'7". I'm sure that makes it harder but I'd like to think that's a small-ish issue. Maybe wishful thinking

This article's recommendations are in line with Max Effort programming, so obv it is a GREAT article

Any of you have any thoughts on programs you've done in the past?

Just finished my 2nd cycle of candito, and although I really like how the program is setup, my squat is the only lift that saw much of an increase (other 2 lifts remained the same). I'm not certain my body reacts well to the deadlift being right after the squat.

For 5/3/1 (which I ran a little over a year) my deadlift went way up, but other lifts stayed pretty much the same.

I know people have their programs in their logs but also thought we can talk about current and past programs general thoughts.

Here are the programs I have tried and thoughts:

SS: Probably ran this for too long, but was making solid progress with minor adjustments. I did not follow his nutrition advice and did not do power cleans. Really like this program and tend to fall back on a modified version of it when I come off of a break.

Texas Method: Probably ran this for too long. Was an OK program but I think it runs you into the ground quickly.

Smolov: Did the base cycle for squat and the Jr. for bench. Probably will never run it again. I think it does well for breaking through plateaus, but not a sustainable program. I ignored all other lifts during the program which I don't like.

5/3/1: Ran this for a wile and will probably use it again in the future. Saw improvements in all of my lifts, but less so for deadlifts. I think I like squats better and focus on them more than deadlifts causing squats to improve more than deads. I think it was also getting into to high % for me near the end of the last cycle as I was beat up/tired all of the time. Probably has something to do with age, rest/recovery, and eating.

Sheiko: Going to run a 3 day/week 12 week cycle starting in September (most likely the 8th but depends on my next meet). This is more volume than the 5/3/1 but at less %. I have done well with the volume in Smolov an think this Sheiko programming will work well. Will run the whole cycle and then evaluate after the meet in December.

How far did you get with SS and TM?

Awesome, nice post.

Everyone that has run smolov has said they would never do it again. I haven't heard of a single person that said they would like to run it again.

I forgot to add personally that i did madcows 5x5 for over 2-3 years and saw the biggest gains there, though they were largely noob gains.


It's times like these that I consider just getting a coach, where you dont feel like you have this "wasted time" trying to figure out your own programming.

Texas method: ran this for a while i think. Did both a 3 day and 4 day version. Didnt really make progress on it:

Sheiko: Ran 30 and 31. Gained like 30 lbs on my deadlift, bench went backwords and squat stayed the same.

The Juggernaut method: I really like this. Everything went up pretty good except deadlift. Press went from 185x1 to 185x4. Bench went from 265x1 to 270x4, Squat went from 402 to 390x4.

Madcow 5x5: Liked this one a lot too. Liked it better than TM.

RTS: By far the most progress i have gotten since i stopped doing SS

5/3/1: I know i ran this for a while but dont remember anything about it.

SS: Among my favorites, though I wouldn't do it now. It is a great, great program for noob lifters with plenty of noob gains left to exploit. I did not do the power cleans either. This program beat me the **** up. Routinely doing 5 rep sets at 90%+ of your max is hard. I only used it for squats.

GSLP: Switched to this after a few resets on SS. I loved it because the final set is 5+, so there is a conditioning component. I only used this for squats.

Texas Method: I used this for everything else (bench and deadlift) and saw a fair amount of progress. I eventually switched to 3RMs instead of 5RMs for intensity days. I eventually dropped this and SS/GSLP for similar reasons. The requirement to keep increasing the weight every session/week and still hit a minimum number of reps is grueling.

Max Effort: My programming for everything now. Reps never go above triples, sets are determined by your ability that day and your projected ability to recover, and the weight is calculated from your current max 1RM. The classic template has a new cycle every 5 weeks. I love it. Absolutely love it. You always work within 85%-95% of your true max, so you always have a solid idea of what you could actually hit with a true max effort lift. It's structured such that you peak on the 4th week when you test a new 1RM. You get to a point where you're only adding 5-15 lbs to a lift per month, but wgaf when you're hitting a new 1RM PR every five weeks.

Smolov jr: I ran this for squat and hated it, but only because I did this for completely different reasons than strength gains. I did this while on a cut because it called for so much volume. Heartiest of lels.

fakeB brogramming: My favorite and one I would recommend for anyone. Basically you eat what you want and lift what you want whenever you want and still see unlimited gainz. Only for advanced lfiters tho.

Quick q about TM: Is there a standard way to go about resetting a lift once you fail? I think SS advocates resetting with ~90% of the weight you failed at. Similar story for TM?

Depends on which day you fail on I think. Volume day you can lower the percent or do less sets. Intensity day I would try again the next week with the same weight.

Idk what the official advice is

Ah I was assuming failing on volume day

For intensity day, the 2nd edition TM book says when you fail 5s, go to 3s 5lbs heavier then when you failed 5s. When you fail 3s, go to 2s then singles. After that, it says to rotate heavy days with speed days.

ETA:

Just saw you said volume day. Just lower the weight a little and stay at that weight for a couple of weeks. You want to keep the volume as low as possible while still able to make progress.

Just about my entire lifting career has been on a perpetual half-cut, so I feel like I never give programs a real fair chance. That said, SS is obv great for starting out. I didn't do power cleans as well because that's uber-******ed. Took me to about 275x5x3 or so with squat. GSLPed into the 3 plate world. GSLP is super awesome. Lots of thumbs up for that guy, while you're in the linear progression world.

Big fan of the 4 day TM U/L split. Did that for a lot of my career, including multiple months leading up to my PL meet. Fatigue and specificity can both very very easily be tweaked with volume and intensity day, respectively. I started doing triples->singles on intensity day as I got closer to the meet, and volume day can be reduced in cycles as well. I also like the idea of bringing intensity day down to triples when you start failing the 5's, but I don't think I ever had that problem.

I don't think it's fair to compare Smolov, at least the Jr version (I dunno anything about the regular one), to other programs. It's really for peaking, and it's quite obvious that it's not something that should be run for a year. My bench max was about 340, and then I did that for a cycle, and then I hit my 375, and now I'm probably back to 340. Big surprise. Use it for peaking.

Programs I have my eye on that I'm super interested: Juggernaut, RTS, PHAT, and UD2 (really that's with the dieting side of things, but I figured I'd include it in my list).

As far as I can tell, these are the last weights I did the SS program (while using it as primary program, not after a layoff:

Squat - 350 lbs x 5 x 3, Bench - 210 x 5 x 3, DL - 410 x 1 x 5, Press - 145 x 5 x 3

I used Texas Method to get these numbers in a meet:

BW: 98.5 kg (217.2 lb)
Squat: 200 kg
Bench: 125 kg
DL: 200 kg
Total: 525 kg


I used Smolov to get:

Squat - 227.5 kg (501.7 lbs)
Bench - Arm bothered me and I didn't test

After Smolov I switched squat form due to issues (feet were too close, among other things). Used bastardized SS and TM programing to get these at a meet:

Squat - 220 kg (485 lb), Bench - 130 kg (286.6 lb), DL - 220 kg

Moved to 5/3/1 after that meet and used it up until June when I took a break. Last worksets from week 3 of a cycle:

DL: 165 kg (363.8 lbs) x 5; 187.5 kg (413.4 lbs) x 3; 207.5 kg (457.5 lbs) x 2, x 1
Press: 75 kg (165.3 lbs) x 5; 82.5 kg (181.9 lbs) x 3; 92.5 kg (203.9 lbs) x 1
Bench: 97.5 kg (215.0 lbs) x 5; 110 kg (242.5 lbs) x 3; 122.5 kg (270.1 lbs) x 3, x 2
Squat: 165 kg (363.8 lbs) x 5; 187.5 kg (413.4 lbs) x 3; 207.5 kg (457.5 lbs) x 2, x 1

Wait someone ran two cycles of the candito program? Yeah guys go ahead and help this guy, his log was very helpful when I was looking through it.

Facking idiot. Log your next program for the facking love of gawd. You think I log all the time just to show noodz. We aren't facking EV over here, we are trying to learn and make GAINZ.

SS and TM are awesome for the squat, garbage for everything else.

5/3/1 is awesome for deadlift, garbage for everything else.

Smolov JR is awesome for bench, garbage for everything else.

Doing a ****load of heavy DB rows and close grip bench in the 5-8 rep range then occasionally hitting a heavy OHP single is awesome for OHP, garbage for everything else.

Everything above is ok for strength, garbage for hypertrophy.

loco smoking the chihuahua. WTF?

Looks like the basis for FunnieProgramming is here, can we combine this all at the same time?

I found SS and TM to be good for squat and deadlift and not good for press or bench after a short while.

I found 5/3/1 was good for squat, bench, and press when I modified it slightly (paused reps for bench and press, not doing an all out last set but doing a second set at top weight). It was just ok for deadlift for me.

Cliffs: sumo4lyfe


Seemed somewhat controversial but has 373 likes, 3 dislikes.

Brett Gibbs is 100% anti-sumo, so I'll side with him