Early Intermediate Programming

[rathofthebeard]

I'm a 27 year old male wrapping up what will probably be the final week of novice LP next week and will be looking to transition into an early intermediate program. My training log is saved in the forums here: Rathofthebeard's SS NLP Log

I recently listened to the Barbell Logic podcast episode 33 (found here: YouTube ) in which Matt and Scott seem to suggest that early intermediates like myself should essentially continue the NLP program, but change the rep schemes from fives to triples and from triples to doubles and finally to singles across to allow as much weight to be added to the bar as possible. This makes a lot of sense to me, and it's a lot more appealing to get some experience with much heavier weights before I start adding in volume in the form of 5 heavy sets of 5. It also would be great to kind of explore the limits of my newly gained strength a little and see what I'm actually capable of now.

I do have a few questions about how this programming actually looks. Is it really just continuing the NLP program, adding 5 lbs per workout and dropping the reps down to 3's for my working sets until I can no longer do 3's before switching to 2's and finally singles until that doesn't work and I have to add in volume to continue progressing? What about the recovery squat day? Are those sets done as 3's at 80% of Monday's weight or should I do those as 5's at 80%? How long (roughly) can I expect to make progress with this type of programming before I need to adjust it?

[Brent Carter]

I think you are misunderstanding their/ our position.

Early intermediate is a weekly organization. Thus it is not an NLP. You WILL have to add more volume in some fashion.

This is a good starting point:

Intermediate and Advanced Training: A Few Ideas | Mark Rippetoe

From here you would take your intensity workout and go from sets of 1x5 to 2x3 to 3x2 etc.

[rathofthebeard]

Thanks for the reply, Brent! That was a great article and I'll take it under advisement.

After a little more research and consideration, I don't think I'm quite ready for an intermediate program after all (I haven't de-loaded my squats yet as seems to be the advice for all lifts before going intermediate and I haven't microloaded any of the upper body lifts) so I'm going to make a few more adjustments to squeeze a couple more weeks out of NLP before I switch over.

Again thanks! I appreciate your help.

[KangaJoo]

I wouldn't say you have to do advanced novice programming before going to intermediate, especially if you don't have a coach to walk you through the small changes and to decide which changes are appropriate. It's just a nice way to ease you into things and get a little bit more quick progress. In fact, I was pretty sure in that podcast they even said this is more for people who have a coach and isn't really as useful for people that don't have a lot of experience who are just trying to make it through their novice phase. That said, there's a section about advanced novice programming in Practical Programming if you are interested in reading more about it.

Also, if you haven't deloaded even once or switched to 2.5 lb jumps on the upper body lifts, you probably will squeeze out more than a couple of weeks especially since you're only around 3 months in. I would guess you've still got probably a month or more to go. First time I deloaded the squat was at 265 lbs but I didn't end LP until 325 lbs and I switched from 5 lb jumps to 2.5 lb jumps on bench and press at like 155 and 100 lbs but got them to 195 and 135 before ending LP. Keep in mind I started off much, much weaker and smaller than you so my end numbers should not be as high as yours.