Intermediate Programming - Texas Method vs Madcows 5x5
Reply With QuoteI have had a bit of experience with both and for me, I responded to the TM much better.
If you truly are an intermediate and have milked all you can from novice gains then essentially you can move to a program where you make week by week progress instead of workout to workout. In the Madcow 5x5 your volume is distributed over the week. So you are gonna have a couple of heavy sets that are at least around 85% your 5RM twice a week on the heavy and medium days. Is that enough to cause a disruption of homeostasis and lead to an adaptation? My experience was that it wasn't enough, especially with the upper body lifts like bench. The stressor in the Madcow is supposed to be the Heavy triple on Friday followed by a backoff set of 8 at the 3rd sets weight. For example a heavy squat triple at 325 followed by a set of 8 at 260. Maybe that is enough to cause an adaptation for the following Monday where you turn that triple to your top set of 5. In my experience it wasn't. One solution I thought of was whave the stressor day in the beginning of the week, followed by the light day then the attempt for a new 5RM on Friday. But then thats essentially what the Texas Method is. So after 2 months of experience on the Madcow Program I have decided to go back to TM.
Madcow
Pros:
- Volume is spread out over the week so if you don't do well with a high volume day then it can help
- The ramping sets might make it easier and more productive for people who can't handle sets across
- If you have a little bit of novice LP left it might get you an extra 20 pounds on your lifts since the frequency of the 5RMs is reduced in comparison to SS
Cons:
- Might not be enough volume to stress and cause an adaptation. You could add more top end triples and more backoff sets but in my experience it wasn't much help
- Workout tend to be a little longer, especially in a busy gym it can take up to an hour and a half-2 hours.
- The deadlifting on the light day could interfere with recovery for the next session, I just ended up moving it to the heavy day in my training
TM
Pros:
- Can train the upper body lifts evenly (press and bench)
- Recovery day actually helps you recover, you end up feeling better and fresher after than you did before
- Enough rest programmed in after the volume day that you can usually hit your target on intensity days
- Recovery and Intensity days are much shorter, can be done in under an hour
- Each start of a training week you feel pretty fresh and ready for volume day since Intensity day had low volume and you get 2 days off to fully recover from the week
- Once you understand the Volume and Intensity relationship well enough and get to know how your body responds you can drop some sets and reps and still make pretty good progress.
Cons:
- Volume day is a motherfucker.
- For some people the heavy sets across are just tough to recover from
That is all I can think of off the top of my head. Would love to hear other insights from people on this board as well.
Originally Posted by DCP
