I think I still have a month--hopefully more--of linear progress to make, but I'm excited about moving on to intermediate programming so I made this program. It's based on The Texas Method. I used the 6 exercises I want to continue to get strong in. I thought about doing big lifts on volume day and small lifts on recovery day, but then recovery day would have to have some volume if I was going to continue to make progress on the small lifts so I just put the small lifts on volume day. I used 5rm on intensity day rather than 1rm or triples b/c (1) I want to lift at home w/o a spotter and my squat rack only has an extra set of hooks to set low in case I fail so I don't want to fail w/super heavy weight and (2) I want to decrease my chance of injury. What do you all think about doing 3 sets of 5 front squats on recovery day and making linear progress on those instead of doing a light 2x5 back squat? Would that be too much volume?

Week 1

Monday Volume
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
Row 5x5

Wednesday Recovery (all 80% of 5x5 PRs)
Squat 2x5
Press 2x5
Weighted chin 2x5

Friday Intensity
Squat 5rm
Bench 5rm
Row 5rm
Deadlift 5rm

Week 2

Monday Volume
Squat 5x5
Press 5x5
Weighted chin 5x5

Wednesday Recovery (all 80% of 5x5 PRs)
Squat 2x5
Bench 2x5
Row 2x5

Friday Intensity
Squat 5rm
Press 5rm
Weighted chin 5rm

Looks fine but I think heavy front squats 3x5 might eventually be too much to deal with.

Out of curiosity, how are nutrition needs on an intermediate program? Can't see any other way than eating pretty hardcore on a program like that either...

Just Mondays and Tuesdays. Intensity day is not bad at all.

3x3 for front squats is pretty good, I find. x5 is hard because as the weight gets heavy, you tend to lose extension in your thoracic spine and you'll probably dump it by the 5th rep.

agree. 5x3 or 3x3 is better than 3x5 for front russian knee bends.

lol @ being excited for 5x5 across on squats.

is doing a 5RM of deadlifts every friday an option in the texas method?

you can try it

good luck with that

Ain't nothing wrong with doing a 5RM on DL when you first switch over. 5DLs per week with increasing weight isn't gonna kill you. If you feel exceptionally tired or wanna do a diff movement, go for it. Intermediate programming lets you be more of a special snowflake. You're not really unique, but you're not all cheerios either.

I want to include front squats 4 my quadz, so I'll do 3x3. How should I determine what weight to use each week for these?

you'll figure it out. I only did them for a few weeks, I'll probably do them sporadically from here on out. First time I did them until they got kinda hard. Then kept adding 10lbs each week like in SS. Started at 198 and got up to 232 I think.

I started with 3x3 Front Squats at 75% of my 5 rep working weight for Squat. I was under the impression that I should work below my 3rm, but this might be unnecessary for Front Squats since they're fundamentally less taxing than Squats.

If Row=Barbell Row, then wouldn't it be better to alternate those with DLs on intensity days to avoid overworking low back and grip?

I dunno why I put DLs w/rows and bench considering what you said and the fact that press and chins are less taxing. I'll move DLs to the Friday of week 2.

Row/DL on the same day is probably going to be trouble. Other than that it looks great, I think I'll do something like this in a few months.

I imagine using the SS "first day" method of determining starting weights would be a good solution. Then you can make aggressive jumps from there if you feel you need it.

Recovery day shouldn't be tiring.

What I'm getting at is, how much, if any, BF could be expected to gain on Texas programming? Obviously given that you want progress.

Like you say Mon/Tue should probably be nom nom nom, wed/thur not so much, friday decent nom nom then sat/sun maintenance? If this can be a general plan then I think I'd prefer to do 5x5 on Saturday so I could gorge in the weekend instead, heh.


pkrplyrX,
have you thought about a nutrition plan for texas?

Right now the approach I like the best is to stop treating weight gain like a sprint and just continue GOMAD while I finish SS and transition to TM. Whenever I do GOMAD I get over 4000 kcals/day, which seems like pretty good recovery no matter where I'm at in programming. Once I hit my goal weight I think I'll try to start eating "healthy" and just see what happens to my weight when I eat as much as I want. At that point losing weight would be a cut, maintaining weight would be a recomp, and gaining weight would be getting bigger and stronger, so I'm a winner no matter what!

I haven't thought about how to eat around different days for TM, but I did plan on making volume day Saturday. My understanding is that recovery defines programming, so if I don't eat big while on TM that just means my gains on the program will be limited and I will have to move on to advanced programming sooner. I'll be sacrificing strength and simplicity of programming, but I'll be able to maintain a weight I like and start a long term approach to eating by cutting out the unhealthy stuff. After I reach my goal weight what if I just eat healthy food (I'm simply thinking eat as many whole foods as possible and balance the food groups) and drink 1/2 GOM every day and a full GOM on Saturday and Sunday? I'm a complete noob when it comes to diet b/c so far all I've had to do is drink a GOMAD.