So does the Texas method suck?

[marcf]

Hah, I love how you keep calling me a novice, whereas my total was higher than yours with lower bodyweight, no wraps, no monolifts, no deadlift slippers, pure natty, taller and so on . I'm not claiming that makes me an expert in anything, but what's with the derogatory 'novices' comments?

What was your total? In your recent posts you said your goal in the beginning to was to squat 225 and now it's almost double that, but in your first post you said you couldn't squat 460. In another thread you say you deadlifting 405x5 is really hard, but you can pull over 495, and in another you say "well over 500." Why make a 5-pound distinction? When Hanley asked what your numbers were now you said your bench was also 235x5.

You sure you just aren't making up numbers or going off of e1RMs when you're comparing your gym total to someone's competition total from several years ago?

[perman]

@Tom:
So inspired by this thread since I did my own bastardized MWF TM/HLM hybrid (HLM for squats, TM for bench, 1-2 supersets after 3 main movements) which wasn't producing much gains lately, I bought the Android Sheiko app and started the Medium load 3 day intermediate preparation program (didn't want to bother with RTS and RPE) on Tuesday. Is Sheiko a decent choice if gains have stalled for TM/HLM-type programming in your opinion?

About to go on a diet too, so the high volume, sub-maximal programming appeals to me now since I won't have to evaluate how strong I am that day as much...

[Tom Narvaez]

I'll go back and reread the thread as I can but, BBB, when did you out total me again?

I see you listed your best sets of 5 from TM as:
235x5 bench
405x5 DL (but with higher 1RM)
And 410x5 squat
At 200lbsish

My best in all of those at 190lbs are:
Squat: 475x5
Bench: 315x5
Deadlift: 500x5

I'm somehow extremely surprised if you out total me.

I called you a novice because I was under the impression, from what you've written in here, that you were doing the Texas Method.

[Tom Narvaez]

I wouldn't recommend conjugate to anyone, but clearly it works for someone.

I've recommended against it before. The shit storm wasn't very fun.

Ironically, you latched on to the word lazy, potentially having only scanned what I wrote. I actually wrote the opposite, in that it's not lazy, it's a way of communicating something a bit more nuanced on an individualistic level, compared to %'s. It makes the job easier for the programmer and harder for the lifter. Before this is misconstrued as well, what I mean is that the lifter must understand a lot more in order to implement the concept. It's much easier to figure out %'s of known tested maxes (or % of a weight you did earlier in the week, etc), there's no guesswork. It's more complicating with RPE.

I still fail to see how it is more complicated. It is just different.

For example:
5x5@80%
x5@7, repeat for four more sets

The only additional work done by the lifter here is finding the initial @7 set which they can very easily estimate from their last workout under similar conditions using our beloved maths. So, yes, unless the programmer provides a spreadsheet which calculates this for them, I suppose they'll have to calculate an additional number themselves. That's the only additional work, though. Many spreadsheet programs allow for ~5% manipulation of the weights for autoregulatory purposes. Even sheiko allows this.

You can just as easily have a maximal program with RPE and sub-maximal programs with %'s one does not beget the other.

Absolutely.

Hah, the concept is simple, I just don't understand the implementation. Arithmetic is a strong suit, so I know what it means to be able to do 1 less rep than would be my max . In practice I don't know what that might be. If I followed such a system in the past, I would make terrible gains because as I've written, I've been amazed by how much I've been able to lift.

I think you'd find your performance more consistent under periodized programming where you're only lifting in a state of accumulated fatigue when you're supposed to and not throughout the entire cycle. Not only that, but you'd have workouts, in your periodized program, where you did (near) max singles, doubles, and triples just like a percentage based program. These numbers would be used to help determine meet attempts just as in a percentage program.

As you may have read above, Brett** (who's admittedly new to RPE), labelled lifts at a much higher RPE than they really should have been based on his prior numbers. For example, his 231x1 bench was 'assigned' an @8, whereas he was doing 245x4 on TM. This would probably make something closer to 250x1 @8, IMO. So if he were planning on a meet, he might undershoot his real max. Or if he's more apt to push himself, it may be the opposite.

No, this is entirely incorrect. Readiness is not the same from day to day my man. I've had days where I was as much as 10% off the numbers I "should" have hit. Now, that's very rare and most fluctuations are within 2-3% because I'm very anal about recovery and recreating similar conditions. The point stands though. Just because something was your PR three months ago does not mean you're going to hit the same numbers. I think this is the root of the problem. You're looking at RPE at as "gun to the head" "TRUE" RPE. That's generally not how you use RPE. "True" RPE isn't what we're going for here. It is the RPE under the given circumstances. And most of the time you're not going to be in the perfect circumstances for true maxes. You're not going to be hopped up on caffeine, psyched all the way up, listening to your favorite music, and well rested for a new RM. Most of your training sessions, RPE or otherwise, are going to just be "punch the clock" work sessions and, as such, weights you could squeeze 1-2 more reps out of WITH full arousal are going to be slightly higher RPE that day. That's fine. It should be that way. It is the same for any sub-max percentage based programming as well.

P.S. I hope my posts don't come off as some stubborn evidence denying knuckle dragger novice . I'm here to learn just like anyone else and I've learned a lot as a result of the debates in this thread. Sorry to give you heartburn, Izzy... I appreciate the constructive responses.

Ask anyone who has been on these forums awhile...I'm easy to rile up. I'm just hungry from dieting right now. Excuse my grouchy rudeness.

[Tom Narvaez]

Sure, it's easy to read your examples, see the numbers, and understand what the program consists of. The complicated part is comprehending the rationale behind the numbers. Obviously everything is moving from high volume/low intensity toward low volume/high intensity. But picking the actual sets x reps and weights/percentages is the part where don't know enough about how this all works to figure out how to apply it to myself. You wouldn't take someone straight from 3x5 LP and put them on a program where they're doing six sets every workout, would you? And how do you determine what percentage to start at on each day?

No one is saying this is rocket surgery but it's obvious that rotating rep ranges and adding 5lbs every time is "less complicated" because you are just making small modifications to what you've been doing (assuming you've followed the standard PPST novice-intermediate protocol thus far) rather than starting something totally new from scratch with weights and rep ranges that you're not familiar with.

I don't think plugging numbers into a spreadsheet is complicated. For example, the Weekly Linear Program I just posted is basically what Ed Coan ran for 20 years and you can find similar versions of that by just googling linear periodization programs.

Perhaps the word we're looking for here is scary, uncomfortable, intimidating, etc. because that's what you're describing here. The unfortunate part of PPST is that it doesn't explain even the most basic of periodization models very well. So I can post a linear periodization program and people have no idea what is going on with it because they've been educated poorly. It's not even their fault. This is where even the most basic education on periodzation really helps.



I might just write a super cookie cutter six week DUP program that people can just put numbers into and run. Because I strongly believe most people would get better numbers from that than TM. Especially on Bench/Squat. Sometimes deadlift response is more unpredictable. when it comes to volume.


perman, Sheiko is a great choice as long as you give some thought into the appropriate program to *start* off with. It will be more volume than you've ever handled and you'll be dieting.

[Tom Narvaez]

You could easily periodize TM, too (still not in favor of the overall rep scheme but this is just to illustrate a point about periodization):

Week 1: 5x8/3x8/1x8
Week 2: 5x5/3x5/1x5
Week 3: 5x3/3x3/1x3
Repeat with 5lbs more or whatever

Probably will work better like this:

Week 1: 5x8/3x8/1x8, start with the numbers from "Week 2" last time you ran the cycle
Week 2: 5x8/3x8/1x8, go for 2.5-10lbs PR
Week 3: 5x5/3x5/1x5, start with umbers from "Week 4" last time you ran the cycle
Week 4: 5x5/3x5/1x5, go for 2.5-10lbs PR
Week 5: 5x3/3x3/1x3, start with numbers from "Week 6" last time you ran the cycle
Week 6: 5x3/3x3/1x3, go for 2.5-10lbs PR

If Deloading to repeat Cycle:
Week 7: 3x5/2x5/1x5 @ 90% of the "Week 1" coming up

If Testing for 1RM
Week 7: 3x3/2x3/1x3 @ 90% of Week 6
Week 8: 5x1/3x1/1x1

[Aaron Montgomery]

Another question for Izzy, just to help get his mind off of being hungry for a couple minutes :P I recently download a spreadsheet from "Strength Theory" (strongerbyscience.com), and it's got 28 sample programs for the main lifts. It looks like most of the programs are on a 4-week rotation of sets/reps/%. Is this kind of thing someone should move on to once they can no longer add 2.5lb/week to their 3x5 bench on a HLM setup? I just transitioned from SSLP to Baker HLM, so I don't foresee any stalls in the near future.

Oh, and now that your mind is off of food, I should mention that I really enjoyed a big bowl of Fruity Pebbles after my workout today

[SSDino]

So let's say someone is a 20 year old with moderate stress (goes to school or works 9-5 or something like that), can sleep normally 7-9 hours and can eat so he can recover.

Is the Texas Method then the best one? I'd very much rather talk about what I should do (Right now I'm early novice, but still interesting to discuss), rather than what I shouldn't. What should that individual do? (Pretty much me :P)

[marcf]

So let's say someone is a 20 year old with moderate stress (goes to school or works 9-5 or something like that), can sleep normally 7-9 hours and can eat so he can recover.

Is the Texas Method then the best one? I'd very much rather talk about what I should do (Right now I'm early novice, but still interesting to discuss), rather than what I shouldn't. What should that individual do? (Pretty much me :P)

I don't think the Texas Method is ever the *best* option.

[John Hanley]

So let's say someone is a 20 year old with moderate stress (goes to school or works 9-5 or something like that), can sleep normally 7-9 hours and can eat so he can recover.

Is the Texas Method then the best one? I'd very much rather talk about what I should do (Right now I'm early novice, but still interesting to discuss), rather than what I shouldn't. What should that individual do? (Pretty much me :P)

I don't think TM is remotely close to the best programming choice for anyone.

Those with the best recovery (younger men or dudes on anabolics) can tolerate the stupid layout better...but that doesn't make it good.

I like short-term DUP cycles for 'new intermediates'. One or two weeks. As you advance, you just stretch the cycle to 4, 8, then 12 weeks.