Programming advice for New dad.

[Cbyoung]

Hello all. I have a question regarding programming. Currently on a 4 day split. My back ground is basically I have been an idiot to how to actually get strong until I got older. I came across Mark in my quest to learn and squat properly several years ago. Finally after wasting more time and years I decided to buy the book 5 years ago and started my novice progression. Of course I did it wrong the first time got injured and several other factors in life came into play. Then I moved 2 years ago and actually had room to build my own home gym with proper rack and equip. I did the program exactly to the letter over a year right up until I had a new baby on the scene in June of last year. Pre baby I went from 189 LB kinda fat and def weak ass Male to a 232 LB muscular Man with my Squat at 355 LBS, Deadlift 450 LBs, Press 182.5 LBs, and Bench at 300LBs. I"m 35 years old and 6 foot tall. I had to put things on hold for several months due to baby in NICU and Wife a mess. NO sleep yada yada. Finally got baby home and after a few months got a decent schedule and changed my training up to Early morning lifting at 530 AM. I restarted the linear progression with a big deload and eventually had to find a way to get the training in with the little time I had. 3 longer training days would not work due to work, baby, etc. So here I am now after reading most of practical Programming I have been running a 4 day split method of alternating V/I version of Texas method for 14 weeks now. I'm now back to my old numbers and just recently passing them by. The problem i'm running into is the length of time it is taking me to complete the V squat day on Wednesdays as well as the beating it starting to put on me. The limiting issue is my recovery. Mainly sleep. only getting like 5 or 6 hours most week nights. Here is where I am to date with structure and numbers. I"m only putting the numbers for Deadlift and Squat. The Bench and Press are continuing just fine. I am using heavy singles for Presses on I day for about 10 sets and that is really keeping progress going for me. As for Squats i'm using % base for my V day as I taper the I day from 1 set of 5 reps, to 2 sets of 3 reps, to 3 sets of 2 reps, and finally 5 singles. Percentage i'm using is lower as the numbers go up. Any advice or suggestions? Should I just quit being a pussy and get up at 430 AM to accommodate for the V Squat days getting longer as the weight goes up?

Tuesdays- Alternating Bench or Press (Volume) 5x5
(A) LTE 3 x 8-12 reps
Chins

Wednesday- Squats 5x5 Last workout I used 295 LBS across which is about 82.5% of my Intensity day.
Chins

Friday- Alternating Bench or Press (Intesity day) Using taper of 5 x1, 2 x3, 3x2, 5 x 1.
(L) Alternating Bench or Press 3 x5 reps light

Saturday or Sunday- (Intensity day) Squats. Last workout I hit 355 lbs for 3 set so of 2 reps.
(Intensity day) Deadlift 1 set of 3 reps with 400 lbs.
I will do Chins more chines after deadlifts.

*My Chin up volume usually ends up being between 60 and 70 total reps for the week.

[heinz83]

Congratulations on the baby, and I hope everyone is doing well. Sorry you had to go through keeping him/her in the hospital for so long - it must have been hard.

You may not feel it yet since you are working back up to previous PRs, but if you want to progress on 4-day TM you are going to need more than 5-6 hours of sleep. If you can't get good quality sleep, which is understandable given your current situation, I would recommend reducing your training frequency to give you more time to recover.

[Maybach]

Losing sleep to accommodate a longer workout seems counterproductive, I wouldn't do that.

You could always just drop the volume, and see if that affects your intensity squats. It might not! The chapter on the Texas method explicitly outlines two scenarios where the 5x5 volume can be titrated: you can drop one or two sets from that workout if needed, donw to 4 or 3x5. This recommended for slightly older or very strong lifters in any case. If your intensity day suffers, you'll know it wasn't enough. But if you're feeling like fatigue is impinging on your recovery, it probably won't. If you find that you still need volume, you can try shifting some of those sets as back off sets on intensity days: say, do 3x5 on Wednesday, then your 2x3 PR, then two backoff sets of 5 at the same or slightly higher intensity as your Wednesday workout on Saturday/Sunday.

The basic rationale of intermediate programming is to apply adaptive stress on a weekly basis. For the Texas method and the HLM split, this occurs on the volume/intensity, and the heavy/medium days. For the four day split routine, all the adaptive stress occurs on the heavy day (the light days being there mostly to aid recovery and prevent detraining, which I suppose could be considered a kind of "low grade" stress designed to produce the adaptation to squat when you haven't for a while). It may be that you DO need the extra stress of the intensity day to drive your progress, but there's sort of a continuum you can explore between the two: the volume day stress doesn't necessarily HAVE to be high volume, and the intensity day doesn't HAVE to be high intensity: they just need to both contribute to the stress. The Texas method uses volume and intensity, the Starr HLM uses heavy days and assistance exercises. It's possible to imagine a hybrid Texas model/HM split, where the volume day is replaced with some other variety of heavy day and the intensity day is replaced with some other variety of medium day. You could replace the 5x5 volume with 3x5 PR sets (with a slight offset for programming change), the same workout used in the NLP and the 4 day HM split. You could also combine this with the topset and backoff approach: do a PR topset of 5 on Wednesday, 2x5 at 90%, then 3x5 at 80% on Saturday.

Consider also external factors impinging on your recovery for when to place your workouts. The days given in PPST are only starting points. The heavy workout is placed in the beginning of the week because ostensibly one has had a full weekend to recover: the subsequent week is a long time but is expected to be impinged upon by things like sport practice. In fact, the 4 day Texas method is explicitly recommended for populations for whom the recovery day becomes counterproductive due to the demands of their sport: the "active recovery" is going to be sport practice sometime between the intensity blocks and the volume blocks. That's why the 3 day TM is mostly intended for competitors in barbell sports: the recovery day IS the non-training practice (though yes for powerlifters in fact the practice is the intensity day. Bear with me). In fact, the Olympic Weightlifting TM puts the most productive practice (OL maxes and front squats) IN the slot where the recovery day would lie.

Doing your volume day on Monday after a fresh weekend is one thing. On Tuesday after only a bench session, it's a bit dicier but still good. But you're doing your most stressful workout right on humpday. I don't know your schedule (believe me I know how it is with a kid, especially a sick one), so you might already be doing this, but it might behoove you to think about slotting in your "more intense" workout (either a straight up volume day, or a more generic heavy day) into a day where you don't have to do all that much the following day, or at the very least can get a little extra sleep. Doing your volume squat day on Saturday and your intensity day on Tuesday (shifting your press days to Mon-Thu) will have the same effect (same number of days on each side) but you might not have to worry about going to work, waking up early, etc.

[Bill Anders]

As you know, recovery is key. Running a 4-day TM isn't sustainable in your situation.

You're getting closer to the concepts laid out in The Barbell Prescription. Sure, the subtitle says that it's for folks over 40, but as a 35 year old with a toddler in the house and getting by on the amount of sleep that you are getting, you're basically there. There's a very good 4-day split program laid out in there that will keep your gains rolling without grinding yourself into the dirt (and watching those gains disappear).

[Johnsonville]

The one lift a day program in pp would probably be your best bet time wise. I’ve read a bunch of people on the forum have good success with it, although the four day tm seems to be the first choice now days here