Intermediate Programming for the Upper Body Lifts | Nick Delgadillo

[Nick Delgadillo]

My spotter and I could not agree more. Yesterday he went out of his ways to convey how unimpressed he was with my last PR.

Worst spotter in NATO

That cat is unimpressed with everything all the time. Just look at his face.

[Schrodinger23]

I typically have people press first because 1.) Who gives a shit about the bench? Every male who's ever been in a gym has benched and it's just not very interesting, and 2.) Fatigue is more likely to fuck up a press than a bench.

The short rest periods are just for starting out and for when you're still squatting and deadlifting the same day as your pressing stuff. Once you go to a 4 day split and your press/bench are getting heavy, you can and should rest longer. And yeah, just leave the belt on for all the singles.

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks. If I had to prioritize things between the bench and the press, it would be the press.



I don't know about the 4 day split, especially with the squat. I don't know if I can recover from 5x5 in one day on the squat. I'm a 41 year old male with chronic insomnia. I have done sleep studies, seen sleep specialists, therapists, etc. I've only found minor relief, but nobody has been able to fix it. I go to bed for 9 hours, but only get between 6 and 7 hours of sleep each night, regardless of how hard I trained that day. In my 20's I used to be able to sleep 9 to 10 hours straight through, if I had a long hard day of work, or did a heavy set of squats. Not anymore. So it is tough for recovery. My diet is in good shape, but nothing I can do for my poor sleep, which is big for recovery.

Right now I am doing a HLM programming (I'm actually doing MLH instead) on the squat and it begins to look like the Texas method, 3 day program, as I taper the heavy day to run it out.

Monday: Medium - Squat 3x5 90% of Friday and then light pull
Wednesday: Light - Squat 3x5 80% of Friday and then Deadlift 1x5 + 5 lbs of last week
Friday: Heavy - Squat 3x5 + 5 lbs of last Friday and then Light Pull


When I get to the point that I can't do 3 sets of 5 of Friday, I go to a top set of 5 and then 2 backoff sets at 90%. So the volume of the Texas method is spread out over Friday and Monday. I ran this out and am just staring another cycle trying to clean up my technique a bit on the squat while I go. When I run it out the top set of 5 on Friday becomes 2 sets of 3. When I can't do it anymore, which then becomes 2 sets of 2, then I go to 5 singles, then 3 singles. When that becomes too tough, I do 1 single. But, I still do the back off sets on Friday in a way that the tonnage continually goes up. At the end it was difficult to do 3x5 on Monday at the same intensity as those backoff sets, but switching to 4x4 on Monday helped.


I think that the compressed Texas Method might be okay for me on the bench and press though, since last year I was doing HMM on the press, plus an extra day to bench and made some good progress:

Monday: Heavy - Press 3x5 + 2 lbs of last Monday
Wednesday: Medium - Press 3x5 90% of Monday
Friday: Bench 3x5 + 5 lbs of last Friday
Saturday: Medium - Press 3x5 90% of Monday


When I couldn't get 3x5 anymore on Monday, I switched to 5x3 and then worked down to 5x2 with backoff sets. The bench press stalled out pretty quickly though, with only training it once per week, so I wasn't sure how to keep that moving up. Things were working great on the press though, but had an injury and had to back off on the weight a lot. I have now slowly worked back up to where I left off and wanted to try your Compressed Texas method, so that I can get the press and bench to keep moving upwards. I'm trying to really taking things slowly in acclimating to the 5x5 volume days, just starting with 3x5 the first week and adding a couple of extra reps those days each week, so that I don't have my recent injury flare up.

[Steve_]

Thanks for the article Nick and ever the great advice. I have read through the whole thread and watched your upper body programming hour video. Not sure this question has been answered.

I'm 32 years old, 6'4, 280 and my numbers are

Bench 3x5 @ 220
Press 2 reps @ 160 (3 reps at 157 previous workout)
Squat 3x5 @ 340
Deadlift 1x5 @ 385

Currently following NLP with my bench is going up weekly by 3-5 pounds. Pressing I switched to five sets of triples just over a month ago then today hit a wall where I go two reps and then did 5 singles after this at 160. Is now the time for me to switch to compressed Texas method for upper body? Is my bench ready for this programming?

I currently go to the gym 3 times a week but happy to go 4 or more times depending on requirements, it's a short walk away and love seeing the improvements. Thanks for your help!

[Nick Delgadillo]

You could start by just adding a second press day every week. Don't change your bench until your bench needs changing. At your bodyweight, with these numbers 7 singles aren't going to do much. Just hit 10-15 total reps on both days as 5s, triples, doubles, singles, whatever it takes.

[Yadav]

Thank you for the article, Nick.

I ended my novice progression on the press at 132x5x3. I added about 48 pounds to my press by following the article, Thanks again. Two weeks ago, I exhausted my 3s at 176x3x2 (lbs x reps x sets ) on the intensity day and 147x5x5 on the volume day. I am doing five singles in the rep range 182 to 170 for the past two weeks. My singles are coming to halt. I think I will not be able to add more weights to my singles.

What training variable should I change to make further progress? Should I do a reset of 10%? My goal is to press 242 this year. I don't mind adding the 6th set on volume day or another day for my upper body lift. Right not I am doing four day split of the Texas method. I haven't yet read the advanced programming in the PPST3. I also read Chase training log but don't have knowledge to apply it to myself.

Age: 30
Occupation: Software Developer
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 182
Squat: 320x5.
Dead: 330x5
Bench: 187x5x5, 210x 5 singles
Press: 148x5x5, 176x3x2

[Steve_]

I'm 32 years old, 6'4, 280 and my updated numbers from above are

Bench 1x4 @ 230
Press Single @ 170
Squat 1x5 @ 358
Deadlift 1x5 @ 402

I have been running compressed Texas method for upper body lifts for just over a month. My press has stalled at 170 last week and didn't get a single on it today. My volume sets keep going up and did 5x5 at 146 on Wednesday. Currently training three days a week but happy to go to four, should I keep running compressed TM or is there a logical tweak to make? I enjoy pressing more than bench so very happy to increase amount of pressing.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You're 6'4", 280, and 32 years old, not even benching bodyweight, and you're doing intermediate programming? Why?

[CommanderFun]

You're 6'4", 280, and 32 years old, not even benching bodyweight, and you're doing intermediate programming? Why?

As a larger guy, I've found chasing bodyweight based goals to be counter-productive, they always seem harder to get to than for smaller people. It's led me to attempt weight cuts when I probably should've just kept training and eating normally. But my bench has never been able to LP much past 225 without it being more expedient to use intermediate programming, and I'm only 4 years older and 2 inches shorter (and 10 pounds heavier, though I've bulked up heavier than that and did not get much further than where I'm performing now).

[Steve_]

You're 6'4", 280, and 32 years old, not even benching bodyweight, and you're doing intermediate programming? Why?

To be honest, I'd listened to Nick's in depth upper body programming youtube multiple times and read the articles on the site. Also, from the starting strength standards tables my numbers were "intermediate".

If going back to alternating bench and press for 3x5 is the right approach at my numbers, I'll do it. What numbers would you class as intermediate for me?

[Mark Rippetoe]

There are no such things as "intermediate numbers." Numbers do not define the level of training advancement. You have not read the gray book.