Managing a program overhaul for a single lift

[ProgramingTheorist]

27 YO M
198lbs, 5'6

PR singles:
Squat: 415
Press: 202.5
Bench: 300
Deadlift: 465


I recently stalled on my weekly bench PR for a single. Workset was 1x1@302.5. Rest time between the last warmup and PR attempt was 3 minutes; this was a 2.5lb PR attempt.

The week of my miss, the programing was as follows:

Benching and pressing twice a week.
Mon: 1x1@302.5, 1x1@272.5, x3AMRAP@237.5 for 10,9,7 respectively.
Wed: 1x2@272.5, 2x3@252.5

I decided to repeat the intensity day during my next week of programing and increased my volume day weights by 2.5#. During the next attempt of 302.5, I missed again, but hit all of my volume worksets.

My theory is I made the mistake of doing too low volume-intensity days; the lack of stress hit a head and is no longer suitable to provide continuous progress. My uneducated guess is based off being able to hit the volume work, but not intensity.

After reading the intermediate/novice portions of Practical Programing, and due to my miss, I decided to do an intensity and volume reset so I can ratchet the numbers up across both workouts. After reading and comparing notes with previous workouts, I came to this probable new program:

Mon: 2x3@270, 1x10@225
Wed: 5x5@250

I haven't done 5's since I ran out my original TM programing back in May, the last 5x5 being @235. My PR at that time was for a double @267.5. I switched from 5x5 back to 3x5 and eventually down to 3x3, and 1x3.

I'm assuming that jumping right at a new PR set of 5 wouldn't go the way I want, so I've concluded based off being able to hit 2x2@275, I can manage 2x3@270.

I've never done a major program overhaul aside from NLP to intermediate. I figure that I'll benefit from increasing the amount of heavy reps I'm doing and that will keep progress driving. Obviously it's super un-ideal to take such a hit to setting new weekly PR's; but switching into a new program that's along the lines of 1x5@290 or even 2x3@290 doesn't seem feasible because I don't think I can hit those numbers yet.

Missing anything?

[Satch12879]

Why are your workouts Monday and Wednesday? Might there be a problem with four days rest between your "volume" day and your "intensity" day, while there's only one day between them in the other direction?

What is the purpose of the AMRAP sets and the new set of 10 on Monday?

[ProgramingTheorist]

Benching and pressing twice a week. Bench Mon/Wen and press Wen/Fri. Where Monday is intensity day and volume is Wednesday.

I don’t follow your logic regarding timing. If I were doing the standard workout A) workout B) style of upper body programming, the only difference would be 24 hours between the intensity and volume day during week A). In my or the above scenario, there’s always at least 96 hours between volume day and intensity day.

The AMRAP sets are general hypertrophy work.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Jesus. The Programming Theorist has not read the book on programming theory: Practical Programming for Strength Training, 3rd edition – The Aasgaard Company

Why do you people continue to pretend that high reps causes hypertrophy?

[ProgramingTheorist]

Rip, thanks for taking the time to read my post.

You’re right. I hadn’t read the book when I wrote my first bench program. It would have read better in my reply to Satch’s post: “The AMRAP sets WERE for general hypertrophy work”.


I have read the intermediate and novice portions of PPST3; which is how I designed my new program. I don’t claim expertise on the material, that’s why I’m writing on the board for assistance. I’d appreciate any input you have.

[Satch12879]

Benching and pressing twice a week. Bench Mon/Wen and press Wen/Fri. Where Monday is intensity day and volume is Wednesday.

I don’t follow your logic regarding timing. If I were doing the standard workout A) workout B) style of upper body programming, the only difference would be 24 hours between the intensity and volume day during week A). In my or the above scenario, there’s always at least 96 hours between volume day and intensity day.

The AMRAP sets are general hypertrophy work.

If you perform a "volume" workout on Monday/Wednesday and then perform an "intensity" workout on Wednesday/Friday of the same lift, there is only one day off between those two sessions, while between the "intensity" day, Wednesday/Friday, and the following "volume" day, Monday/Wednesday, there are four days off:

Monday - Volume Bench
Tuesday - OFF
Wednesday - Intensity Bench
Thursday - OFF
Friday - OFF
Saturday - OFF
Sunday - OFF

Do you regard the volume/intensity workouts of two different exercises, particularly upper body exercises, as being equivalent?

[ProgramingTheorist]

Satch, you’re still misinterpreting what I wrote.

Each week, I will do one volume, and one intensity, focused workset(s) for each upper body exercise.

This translates to:
Monday: intensity bench
Wednesday, intensity press, volume bench
Friday, volume press.

As for your question about regarding different exercises being different, yes, they are different.

[Satch12879]

No, I understood. On the same week, you have one day off between bench volume and intensity workouts and then don’t do the set of them again for four days. Same with pressing.

I think this schedule might indicate insufficient frequency for pressing movements and both too long a layoff across weeks, but not enough recovery time within a given week.

Why not just bench and press three days a week as described in PPST and the programming article by Nick Delgadillo?

[Robert Santana]

How many weeks were you running singles for?

[ProgramingTheorist]

Hey Robert, thanks for your reply. Big fan of Weights and Plates.

I ran singles for a 17 weeks. Started with 3x1 and ran it down to 1x1. Added 2.5lbs the whole way through. The start weight was 260 and ended at 300.

Satch, thanks for your continued replies as well.

I like your mention about frequency and will read Nicks article; it seems pretty out there for me to bench and press x3 per week. Especially since I’m training M/W/F. Though I’m open to whatever fix works.

My lifts on the squat and deadlift are still going up #5 every week, so I’m fairly confident recovery isn’t my issue. To this end it would make sense that under-stressing the movement would be the problem. Another point for frequency.

The issue I’m assuming with increasing volume is that it’s just like those AMRAP sets I did. Based off what I read in PP, it still seems like the best fix is to lift more singles at the 90% plus range. Increase heavy weights, increase stress, recover, adapt. I’m not sure adding another slot to do more benches outside the intensity-day range would help.