Understanding Intensity Day Cycling/Running It Out and Deadlifts

[Ethan Bynon]

I have PPST 3e in front of me, and pages 118-125 (concerning intensity day cycling for Texas Method) are what I'm trying to fully understand. Do I have the basics of cycling intensity day for Texas Method summed up correctly?

Phase I: Run 5RM until progression fails (keeping in mind effective sleep, food, and stress management). Expected to be run 1-2 times before moving to Phase II.
Phase II: Run 5RM until progression fails/near failure (ideally near failure), then switching to 2x3, run until near failure, then 3x2, and then 5x1 or maybe 3x1, possibly a 1RM attempt to cap it off. Expected to be run only once before moving to Phase III.
Phase III: Cycling 1x3, 2x2, and 5x1 on a weekly basis, attempting to set new PRs each time for each 3RM, 2RM, and 1RM. Done in as many cycles as the lifter can manage before moving on to Phase IV and Dynamic/Max Effort Sets.

If I have the above correctly interpreted, I wanted to discuss intensity deadlifts. On the example charts on pg. 122-123 it displays the deadlift as going from 1x5 to 1x3, 1x2, and 1x1, not 2x3, 3x2, and 5x1 like squats and presses. I haven't seen in these pages any explicit mention of keeping deadlifts strictly to 1 intensity set, regardless of reps, except the assumption carried over from SSLP that maximal deadlifts should only be done for 1 set. I just wanted to know if I missed that detail somewhere in this weighty textbook, or am I supposed to do 2x3, 3x2, etc. on deadlifts for a cycle during a phase and then keep it at 1 set of X reps for subsequent cycles. Is this also true if I were to do a 4-day Texas Method split, where I would only be doing one intensity lift per workday instead of three intensity lifts on Fridays?

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Volume of Deadlifts varies by the lifter. If the sets are maximal / near maximal at any rep range, I typically don't recommend more than 1 all out set at that weight / rep range. HOWEVER....we might accumulate a bit more volume (if needed) in the form of (1) back off sets after the main top set or (2) light deadlifts or deadlift variations on a different day of the week. When you start playing with all the various permutations of sets/reps, etc then there are a million ways to do it.

Use the book as guidance, but don't ignore your own individual feedback and response to various protocols to see what works and doesn't work. Remember the big picture stuff that's in PPST3 too that can guide you.....like that we typically raise volume on a lift when lifters get stuck for a period of time. When volume is increased then intensity MUST correspondingly come down a bit. So make sure you understand some of the bigger picture stuff and don't just follow the program examples like it's a cook book.

I have very good luck with lifters using TM programming where I have them pull 2 sets of 5 reps at 80-90% of their best 5RM on Monday and then on intensity day we alternate each week between a top set of 5 and then on alternate weeks a top set of 1,2,3. So it winds up looking something like this:

Week 1: 5RM, Week 2: 3RM: Week 3: 5RM, Week 4: 1-2RM Week 5: 5RM....etc, etc. Some lifters do back offs on ID, some don't.

The big problem with thinking in terms of "phases" like above is that it tends to make people think they MUST do some extended period of time at each phase and exhaust every last drop of progress out of each phase before moving onto the next. While there is often a natural timeline (weekly linear progress generally comes before cyclical approaches) there isn't necessarily an established pattern or timeline that every lifter MUST adhere to. If it helps, think of the phases more as "options."

Try and learn to read yourself and interpret what is going on each week and adjust accordingly. This is essentially programming in a nutshell. Observe, interpret, adjust, repeat.

[Ethan Bynon]

Thank you very much for your response and advice.

...(1) back off sets after the main top set...

Just to clarify on this so I have a better understanding, the lifter should attempt to do the single intensity set for deadlifts for however long they can, and then add something like 1x5 or 2x5 back-off sets at 80-90% when progress is no longer being made (I'm going by the back-off set info on pg. 136 of the book)? Assuming they are also getting deadlift volume through SLDL, RDL, PC, and ect.

[Snake Plissken]

Thank you very much for your response and advice.



Just to clarify on this so I have a better understanding, the lifter should attempt to do the single intensity set for deadlifts for however long they can, and then add something like 1x5 or 2x5 back-off sets at 80-90% when progress is no longer being made (I'm going by the back-off set info on pg. 136 of the book)? Assuming they are also getting deadlift volume through SLDL, RDL, PC, and ect.

Just some personal progress from TM Deadlift progression, backoffs can get hit hard after your ID deadlifts. I've always found adjusting Monday first is usually best. My first time around doing TM I tried doing 2 triples, 3 doubles, etc. with my deadlifts as well and it stalled immediately (was supposed to do 2 triples at 410 and wound up with 1 rep on the second set). There's something about doing more than 1 all out set on ID that wrecks you especially after you've already done your squats and press. Personally what I find works best is VD, 3x5 pause deadlifts @75-80% (or another underloaded pull) of ID and then doing 5RM, 3RM, 1RM weekly undulating cycles (basically skipping phase 2 from the book just when it comes to deadlifts). The VD pull isn't as important, but by the end of ID my second set of deadlifts is almost always going to fail even with longer rest times.

[Matt James]

I had good luck doing 1 set of 3 and 2 backoffs at 90% for my intensity day (was suggested by Nick D'Agostino when I was just starting TM-4 day split). I was doing 3x5 at 80% for volume day. I assume that at some point I would have ended up dropping the backoff sets, but, it worked very well for 3 months. Trying to work back into that program now.

[Eric Larousse]

I have found that Andy's suggestion of alternating 5s every other week with lower reps works much better. If are doing 3s,2s, 1s in sequential order each week you are basically lifting at 90% of above back to back to back which is extremely hard to recover from in my experience.