Changing to intermediate?

[Michael Wolf]

Your problem is not the programme you're on, your problem is an aversion to eating and being sucked in by our culture's obsession with being tiny.

You're 68kg. I have female clients who could squat you for 20 reps, I have male clients who could press you overhead.

If you get bigger, you will be able to get stronger. If you refuse to get bigger, your lifts will stall whatever routine you're on.


You also lift as much as you can, and your lifts are stuck. To increase your lifts, increase your food. Begin with an extra litre of milk a day. That's a glass with breakfast, a glass with lunch, a glass with dinner, and a glass before bed. This is easily achieveable and does not even require much willpower.

All of this.

[Kregna]

Can you bring milk with you to school and drink it during lessons? I can at work but school? Hmm

You have to eat really calorie dense foods if you're getting full. More bang for your buck

[PunchSlap]

I can assure you that I'm not skinny. Unless your definition of skinny is different from mine. Sure I'll drink more milk. I'm already in the progress of gaining more weight since I actually have been drinking much milk lately. But you don't have to worry about me being trying to be tiny atleast, because I do not. Not trying to dismiss your tips or anything, but I drink much more than the amount of milk you say I should drink.

I read somewhere that you could train with your 5rep max on front squats on "light" day, because "the load/stress on the sceletal system(or nervous system) is smaller, as you don't use the same amount of weight you do on a back squat", how does that sound?
And sure I'll start doing chins every other workout, but does it matter if it is the A or B workout?

[Les Hahn]

If you want to move up slower, without much weight gain, I would move to an intermediate style program. That is pretty much what I did. I am a bigguer guy and really didn't want to gain more weight, especially as a new lifter.

Here is what I did (used an upper/lower split):
M- Bench, Press, assistance (all done with LP - linear progression)
T- Squat, DL, assistance (all done with LP)
Th- Bench, Press, assistance (LP)
F- Squat, DL, assistance (LP)

The first thing that would change as you start to advance is moving heavy deads to 1x per week. Basically you could subsitute one of the deadlift days for speed deads or powercleans.

So right off the bat, the split is more like the advanced novice program. You only move your lifts up 2x per week instead of 3x. That is a bit easier to progress with. After this started to stall out, I used more of a texas method upper/lower split.

M- Bench (Intenisty), assistance ... you could do intensity press here too, but I didn't. Intensity is ramping to a top set (1rm, 3rm, 5rm, etc).
T- Squat (Intensity), speed deads, assistance
Th- Bench (volume), Press (volume), assistance ... volume is doing sets across like you did with SS. I do 3 - 4 sets of 5, or 3 sets of 8, etc.
F or Sat- Squat (volume), Deadlift (Intensity) ... you could pair the intensity squat/dl together if you wanted too, but I split it up

After 15 months of lifting, that is where I am at right now. The only extra thing I started to add is that I don't just ramp up to a top intensity set every time. I do 3's for a few weeks, and then I do singles. The first week of 3's are difficult but not a max. The second week should be near a 3rm, and the singles are up to a near 1rm.

The next step, it is really hard to say. I think the programming becomes more unique to the lifter. I could see that doing heavy volume work and intensity work in the same week could be too much. SO eventually, with things get real heavy, I could see going to a light day instead of a volume day. The other option would be to do the normal volume day, but only have an intensity day every two weeks. I get some of the ideas from looking at how successful powerlifters train. Many squat 1x per week, and some go all out only every other week. So maybe the future could look like this:

M- Intenisty Bench, assistance
T- Light or Volume Squat, Speed deads, assistance
Th- Light bench, volume press, assistance
F or Sat- Intenisty squat or dl (not both)

Basically, don't worry. Linear progression is awesome, but you can climb the hill of strength at a slower rate (weekly progression, etc), and still get much stronger over a period of time. If you are resetting a lot on LP and not getting anywhere, weekly progression might work better for you.

[Dillman]

It is going to be more important that you get a copy of both SS3 and PP2. Knowing the stuff in there will give you confidence to carry out your program.

Also If you aren't planning on doing olympic lifts any time soon I'd say don't bother with the front squats. It could screw up your back squat form and the back squat is a better exercise anyway. At first just keep doing what your doing drop Wednesdays to like 80% of Mondays load for squats and see how things go for 2-3 weeks. That will give you time to chew through PP2 without having to learn new movements or totally rearrange your workouts.

[Brian Zahn]

I can assure you that I'm not skinny. Unless your definition of skinny is different from mine. Sure I'll drink more milk. I'm already in the progress of gaining more weight since I actually have been drinking much milk lately. But you don't have to worry about me being trying to be tiny atleast, because I do not. Not trying to dismiss your tips or anything, but I drink much more than the amount of milk you say I should drink.

I read somewhere that you could train with your 5rep max on front squats on "light" day, because "the load/stress on the sceletal system(or nervous system) is smaller, as you don't use the same amount of weight you do on a back squat", how does that sound?
And sure I'll start doing chins every other workout, but does it matter if it is the A or B workout?

I can assure you that you are skinny, you are 150 pounds at 67 inches, that is pretty tiny, less than 2.3 pounds per inch, you should be over 3 pounds per inch at a minimum for you to not look like a skinny boy

[Michael Wolf]

I can assure you that I'm not skinny. Unless your definition of skinny is different from mine. Sure I'll drink more milk. I'm already in the progress of gaining more weight since I actually have been drinking much milk lately. But you don't have to worry about me being trying to be tiny atleast, because I do not. Not trying to dismiss your tips or anything, but I drink much more than the amount of milk you say I should drink.

I read somewhere that you could train with your 5rep max on front squats on "light" day, because "the load/stress on the sceletal system(or nervous system) is smaller, as you don't use the same amount of weight you do on a back squat", how does that sound?
And sure I'll start doing chins every other workout, but does it matter if it is the A or B workout?

You are skinny. Read this: http://startingstrength.com/articles...n_rippetoe.pdf

[veryhrm]

I can assure you that you are skinny, you are 150 pounds at 67 inches, that is pretty tiny, less than 2.3 pounds per inch, you should be over 3 pounds per inch at a minimum for you to not look like a skinny boy

At 5' 7" an FFMI of 25 would put him at 160lbm LBM. put 20%bf and that gets you to 200lbs.

You requirements for "not skinny" are just a tad extreme.

[PunchSlap]

The BMI calculators says I'm normalweigh(I know that BMI tests have their limitations). If you would give me an example of what is "skinny" then I'd be able to see how I am in comparison to the example.
Anyways, I'd like to gain more weight for the sake of the program and you don't need to tell me to do that because I'm already trying. What you could do is give me examples on HOW. I do drink much milk, maybe not a gallon, but still much more than the average dude.
And for the moment I think I'll stick with Dillmans proposal and chins every other workout. Just dropping wednesdays to 80% of monday squat, and I'm going to put on more weight in the bar on friday too, right(just making sure)?

[scwot]

Just for reference I'm 5'6" and 2 years ago was 135lbs. I'm now 180lbs and still think I need to put on weight to increase my lifts.
A day of food for me is
4 eggs and toast, protein shake
3 eggs and 150g fish and salad
protein shake after workout
350g chicken or beef, 100g pasta or rice
protein smoothie (whey, banana, peanut butter)
150g cottage cheese before bed (although I did down 2 raw eggs the other day as I ran out of cottage cheese, not recommended!)
+ 4 large milky coffees through the day
That's getting on for 300g of protein and 4000 cals.

And yes, add weight to the bar Monday and Friday and make Weds work weight 80% of mondays weight.