Intermediate and Advanced Training: A Few Ideas

[George Christiansen]

HLM produces weekly progress as well even though it's significantly different in volume and intensity.

How so?

Three day V-R-I version TM has 8 sets of squats per week. The vanilla H-L-M has 9 sets of squats per week. The intensity day squats is higher than the heavy day squat, but the average intensity is probably about the same, but I'm too lazy to do the math right now.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I’m a 49 year old well into my novice progression. The 4 day split looks like a nice transition before intermediate training. I realize it’s in Practical Programming but I couldn’t find it in The Barbell Prescription. Is the 4 day split you describe appropriate for masters?

It's worth a try.

Only include lifts over about 70% or RPE 7.

Or 7.5. Or maybe even 7.25.

[Elephant]

Or 7.5. Or maybe even 7.25.

Your love of the precision of RPE is widely known. Even so, I would think one decimal place is enough.

[dtarrence]

Rip, I think Jordan Feigenbaum would disagree with some of your thoughts in this article. As you well know, his article on 5-3-1/TM compares the different training parameters for these programs as well as NLP using 2 week comparisons instead of comparing the numbers between individual SRA cycles as you do in this article.

So which is the correct way to compare the training parameters of different programs?

I asked this question a few months ago on the SS Facebook group and Jordan responded with the following:

"The reasons you do not compare/ should not compare variables of SRA across training progressions in absolute terms are numerous.

1) The amount of stress one can tolerate from one training progression to another training progression reflect the prior training and ultimately alter how much stress is needed to drive an adaptation. So, even though 15 reps is. the volume for the SRA in SSLP, this does not mean that 40 of TM is "more", because the trainee who has reached intermediate phase is no longer as sensitive to the training for the stress. it is better to compare values over a common time period to compare the level of stress to see if it is significantly more. For instance, we know that in the SSLP the lifter tolerates 45 working reps of squats per week and at the end of SSLP, the summative volume does not produce an objective improvement. Thus we expect t that while he/she can tolerate this amount of volume induced stress he /she will need more stress overall to drive the progression this same logic can be applied to intensity (not actually higher on TM), frequency (not higher on TM), and overall fatigue generated (not higher on TM in most cases).

2) As a function of number 1, the amount of stress that can be generated per session, when all variables are kept equal, decreases as a lifter gains experience, e.g. 3 sets of 5 reps @ 84%( the approx intensity of working sets on a properly run SSLP) does not supply the same amount of fatigue to an intermediate as it does a novice, despite the relative intensity being the same. Why? the lifter has trained more and subsequently, repeated training are easier to deal with/ less stressful/ less fatiguing than they were when things were novel.

3) SRA's are not cut and dry. In general, yes the 48hr SRA applies to novices, but there are delayed training effects certainly manifesting at 96 hrs, as evidenced by the fact that if you squatted Monday and Friday only, you'd still be able to increase your squat, perhaps by the same amount if you squatted MWF suffusing there is not immediate decay of the adaptation. Admittedly, this probably is more applicable after a month or so of training. Additionally, it is not possible to directly tease out the adaptation from a series of training. Did an increase in weight occur from just the previous train session or was it summative with other training sessions? Doesn't this muck up an absolute time from for the SRA cycle?

So, for all these reasons ( and more) comparing things just over the SRA would seriously jeopardize the data someone was working with in oder to make training management decisions for themselves or another lifter. Using a discrete time frame, like a day, a week, two weeks, etc. can be useful to compare programs and I found that a week works well to do so even for advanced trainees."

[Mark Rippetoe]

I suppose this means that Jordan disagrees with us. I suppose it also means you have some thinking to do.

[juanfonseca]

Rip

I’m a 49 year old well into my novice progression. The 4 day split looks like a nice transition before intermediate training. I realize it’s in Practical Programming but I couldn’t find it in The Barbell Prescription. Is the 4 day split you describe appropriate for masters?

Irish1969,

Take a look at page 265 of The Barbell Prescription, Split Routines. The Heavy-Light Split section explains how to apply the four-days split for for intermediate trainees. I hope this helps.

[Geoff Bischoff]

I know this article's been out for awhile, but it came up in my Smartphone "Recommended Articles" feed today, and it's perfect. I'm a raw, very-early Intermediate in week 4 of 4day Old-Man TM. I've got Fall Classic coming up in 8 days, and I've been wondering, "How do I resume training after this?"

The article gives me what I need to answer that.

Given that a bunch of meet-newbies like me are likely to be doing Fall Classic meets that same weekend across the country, you might get an uptick in "What do I do next?" type questions come 1 November.

Thanks for the article.

[Cole Gorton]

Everytime i start getting programming ADHD and the complexity itch, I am going to reference this article. Good stuff.