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Thread: Advice on 4 day split for a poverty bencher

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2020
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    Eastern NC
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    Default Advice on 4 day split for a poverty bencher

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    Hi all. First post on the forums but I'm active on the other ss communities. I'm looking for advice on this 4 day split. I've run something similar for a month or so, but I'm running into issues with recovery and consistency. My job is constantly rotating days and nights, and I work 12 hours or more on workdays.

    My stats: 25/M/290lbs, 6'2"

    Coached by 3 SSCs, 1 in person multiple times.

    Current lifts:

    Squat 5rm: 315lbs
    Bench 5rm: 190lbs
    Press 2.0 5rm: 150lbs
    Deadlift 5rm: 325lbs
    Power Clean 3s: 155lbs

    Training since September of last year, including an initial and rerun of NLP.

    I feel that both my bench and my deadlift are weak for my size. My squat should be better but I've struggled with low bar, only in the past few months "finding" the position. I'm happy with my press. I want to practice/train power cleans more often as I don't think once a week is enough, and I generally skip them anyway due to fatigue. I've been running basically the exact template from the "high volume /low intensity, low volume /high intensity" in ppst3.

    However, I've found recently that in combination with trying to lose body fat (aka eating 250g protein in 3 - 3.5k calories) and the brutal nature of the heavy 5x5s, I have consistently been failing or skipping parts or whole workouts.

    Is this program viable for increasing my bench relative to my other lifts? My bench goal is 225x5. My deadlift goal is 405x5.
    _________________________________
    Monday

    Bench 5rm (+2.5lbs)
    Bench Volume 3x5 @90% of next 5rm
    Power clean 3x3 (+2.5lbs)
    _________________________________
    Tuesday

    Squat 5rm (+5lbs)
    Deadlift volume 3x5 @80% of next 5rm
    Press 3x5 @90% of next 5rm
    _________________________________
    Thursday

    Bench 5rm (+2.5lbs)
    Bench volume 3x5 @90% of next 5rm (considered changing this to 5x5)
    Light squat 2x5 @80% volume day
    _________________________________
    Friday

    Deadlift 5rm (+5lbs)
    Press 5rm (+2.5lbs)
    Squat volume 3x5 @85% of next 5rm
    Power cleans 3x3 @90% of next weight
    _________________________________
    This obviously has me attempting to add 5lbs a week to my bench press, which I think is possible. Given that my press is so much better relatively than my bench, I'd rather focus on getting my bench up. I've been using the deadlift volume day for a while and that has been excellent for increasing my deadlift every week.

    Thoughts on this?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
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    Default

    There is a lot to unpack here, but what jumped out at me is that you were feeling crushed by the squats and then skipping parts of workouts. I am assuming the 4 day you then listed above is your potential fix? Looks like quite a bit of changes from what you had before, so it will be tricky to see what is and isn't working. Even with 3x5s for volume, having a heavy 5 that gets heavier each week may still run you into the ground based on your recent training. Similarly a BP 5RM that goes up 2x per week may be too much. Have you cycled your intensity days for any of the lifts to 3, 2, etc?
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2020
    Location
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    Thanks for the response. The program I listed is my attempt at fixing my issues with recovery and feeling run into the ground sometimes. Usually the deadlift volume day is fine. Most of the time, 5x5 @90% for press and bench has worked fine, but if my recovery wasn't perfect, I'll fail them horribly. By the time I finish my intensity and volume sets for the day, I'm usually toast. Which is why I usually skip the light work.

    I have not cycled. I feel that my 5s are being artificially limited, therefore I'm stubborn about just giving up on 5s and switching to 3s or less.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    New York, NY
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    Quote Originally Posted by JeffJ117 View Post
    Thanks for the response. The program I listed is my attempt at fixing my issues with recovery and feeling run into the ground sometimes. Usually the deadlift volume day is fine. Most of the time, 5x5 @90% for press and bench has worked fine, but if my recovery wasn't perfect, I'll fail them horribly. By the time I finish my intensity and volume sets for the day, I'm usually toast. Which is why I usually skip the light work.

    I have not cycled. I feel that my 5s are being artificially limited, therefore I'm stubborn about just giving up on 5s and switching to 3s or less.
    You will be able to go back to heavy fives in the future. Don't let that deter you. I would focus on reducing your volume of the lift(s) that are issues (i.e., SQ) and see how that goes. You can cycle the intensity to 33, 2s, etc. and you can also drop your volume day a bit; some people do better with 4x5 instead of 5x5s.
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