Follow up questions to my HLM program

[Espen Lund]

Hi Brent,

I'm still on this program with only some slight modifications. Things are progressing well. https://startingstrength.com/resourc...k-program.html

I thought I understood cycling intensity clear enough, but I'm still uncertain. I guess it comes from when I will eventually run out 3s, and then 1s, my "latest 5 across" will be quite outdated, which gives me room to #&/ things up going to heavy. How I THINK it will play out is presented below, with the squat for the example. Can you please look and see if I have understood it correctly? Only first 3 weeks are real, and week 4 and on are just for illustration. Weights are in kg (sorry).

Question 2: should medium and light days be based on heavy day's 5RM, or back-off sets? I've been assuming the back-off sets since you said "latest sets across".

Week 1:
160x5,147.5x5x4

Week 2:
162.5x5,150x5x4

Week 3:
165x5,152.5x5x4

Let's say next week, I'm planning my first set of 3s.

Week 4:
167.5x3,155x5x4

Week 5:
170x3,157.5x5x4

Then I move to singles

Week 7:
172.5x1,160x5x4

Week 8:
175x1,162.5x5x4

Then I want to move back to 5s, and I reset my back-off sets based on this weight.

Week 9:
167.5x5,155x5x4

And so on.

[Brent Carter]

based on back off sets. Always base projected data (weight selection) off of most recent data. If you know what someone's recent PR set of 3 is you can with enough experience predict what a heavy set of 5 would be. Well you would likely need to rest your back offs prior to this point but a new PR set of 5 on week 9 would be 167.5. I also would estimate that you would run 3's and singles for longer than you predicted here.

[Espen Lund]

based on back off sets. Always base projected data (weight selection) off of most recent data. If you know what someone's recent PR set of 3 is you can with enough experience predict what a heavy set of 5 would be. Well you would likely need to rest your back offs prior to this point but a new PR set of 5 on week 9 would be 167.5. I also would estimate that you would run 3's and singles for longer than you predicted here.

Yes, I hope I will I just shortened it down so it wouldn't be such a long post. Regarding reducing intensity on my back-off sets prior to week 9, how do I go about that? Is it merely by feel and experience, when they become real grinders, then I take 2.5-5.0 kg off?

[Brent Carter]

Yeah, when they become particularly grindy you might need to reset a little bit so that it takes you a few weeks to get back to volume PR's.

[Espen Lund]

Ok got it. Thank you for your time.