Late LP Heavy/ Light squat & deadlift

[BradBv]

Hi all,

I’m returning to lifting after 4 years of detraining. My previous meet PRs are:
S 501
B 331
D 552
Bw 240
Height 6,2

I’m running a LP in my basement gym in which the ceiling is too low to press and I’m simply not interested in the power clean. I have been taking 5lb jumps in squats and dead’s for several weeks.

My most recent workout was:

Squat 350x5x3
Bench 227.5x5x3
Deadlift 385x5
Age 34

Heavy squats followed by heavy deads is getting daunting and resulting in long and exhausting training sessions. I have recently read the grey book again so I am familiar with the stock recommendations for pulling heavy every 5th session.

I have been toying with the idea of alternating heavy squats with light deadlifts then light squats with heavy deadlifts (heavy/ light) resulting in week 1 having two heavy squat sessions with 1 heavy pulling session followed by the reverse the following week (2 heavy pulling workouts and 1 heavy squat).

The idea is to only have 1 tough lower body lift per session therefore balancing S and D efforts throughout the week. This would average the rate of progression with the 2 lifts evenly to an average of 7.5lbs a week.

My question is if this is a reasonable approach? Is this setting my back up to crash and burn due to too much heavy pulling while not applying enough stress in the squat to drive more weeks of steady progress?

I am contemplating this approach to keep changes minimal as I transition into heavy/ light/ medium.

Thank you for taking the time to help me out.

Brad

[Cole Gorton]

i follow your training log and have noticed some days you do H squat and H DL in the same session, while other days you do L squat and L DL in the same session. your overall numbers are higher than mine so im not gonna pretend to know whats best for you, but if i were you i would simply pull H on the days you squat L.

i would NOT pull H 2 days in one week. that would derail me over the course of a couple months.

so you squat may need to move to more of a HLM type where your L day is wednesday, coinciding with your H day DL. just my 2 cents

[Matt Dawson]

i follow your training log and have noticed some days you do H squat and H DL in the same session, while other days you do L squat and L DL in the same session. your overall numbers are higher than mine so im not gonna pretend to know whats best for you, but if i were you i would simply pull H on the days you squat L.

i would NOT pull H 2 days in one week. that would derail me over the course of a couple months.

so you squat may need to move to more of a HLM type where your L day is wednesday, coinciding with your H day DL. just my 2 cents

I agree with Cole. Heavy deadlift on the light squat day works OK for late novice programming.

[BradBv]

Thank you Cole. Likewise I check in on your log quite frequently.

You are correct, I have been running my squats and dead's on a H/L/H pattern together. My problem is that I work 4 days a week Mon- Thurs usually 11-12 hours a day so the sessions that I squat and pull heavy are ugly as I’m usually sleep deprived through the week.

Having run the NLP through late Texas method in the past I found that while my squat was maxed near the end my deadlift had room to grow once I added more frequency and volume hence my thought process here.

Your proposal is basically option B for me. Squat heavy Monday and Friday while pulling heavy on Wednesday. My problem here is that I feel like my deadlift will be short changed and eventually be handling the same numbers as my squat. Just wondering if anyone has run a heavy/light alternating template with these two lifts and if this is an intelligent approach.

I was expecting a response of “just do the dam program would you”? This might be correct but I know that eventually the deadlift takes a backseat to the squat and will need more stress via frequency and tonnage while backing off the gas on the squat a bit to improve.