Intermediate Programming for the Upper Body Lifts | Nick Delgadillo

[Schrodinger23]

Probably. Give it a shot and see what happens.
You can do 5, 3, and 2 on intensity day. Eventually, you'll end up doing singles anyway. I've been able to progress people faster just switching to singles right away. For the bench, I typically start at 5s, then rotating 5s, 3s, and singles as it becomes necessary.

I've been running this method on a 3 day training schedule and it has been going great. I was a little worried about trying any version of the Texas method being a 42 year old male, but this has worked really well for both the press and the bench.

Press: Just like you mentioned in the video, I've been doing 10 singles as long as I can keep adding weight (about 2 lbs per week) without missing any of the singles and the rest time doesn't get too long. If either happens I just drop the weight 5 to 10 pounds and run it back up and usually get it unstuck.

Bench: I start with 1x5, then go to 2x3, then 3x2, then 5x1, as necessary to keep the weight going up.

On both lifts, I've found that 80% is about perfect on the volume day, except towards the end of the cycle when the last singles get hard and close to missing, where I let it drop a bit, but not going under 75%. What just dawned on me, that you never mentioned in the video is that things seem to go much better for the bench (which is second on intensity day), if the press and bench are out of sync. In other words, hopefully the press will be at the beginning of a deload, when the bench becomes tough on the intensity day. I was wondering why the 5 singles on the bench have been going for a month now, and the last one isn't any more of a grind that the first few and it seems that having the press and bench out of sync minimizes the interference effect between the bench and the press. I didn't want to start setting a 5 to 10 pound range for the press singles yet, as a slight deload and running it back up gets me past the sticky point. When I have tried running out a the heavy day of squat on an HLM, by the time I get down to 5 singles, it is only sustainable for a week or two, which is what I was expecting from the bench. Maybe it is just me, but I think this observation might apply to others running this compressed Texas Method on the press and bench.

[Nick Delgadillo]

On both lifts, I've found that 80% is about perfect on the volume day, except towards the end of the cycle when the last singles get hard and close to missing, where I let it drop a bit, but not going under 75%. What just dawned on me, that you never mentioned in the video is that things seem to go much better for the bench (which is second on intensity day), if the press and bench are out of sync. In other words, hopefully the press will be at the beginning of a deload, when the bench becomes tough on the intensity day. I was wondering why the 5 singles on the bench have been going for a month now, and the last one isn't any more of a grind that the first few and it seems that having the press and bench out of sync minimizes the interference effect between the bench and the press. I didn't want to start setting a 5 to 10 pound range for the press singles yet, as a slight deload and running it back up gets me past the sticky point. When I have tried running out a the heavy day of squat on an HLM, by the time I get down to 5 singles, it is only sustainable for a week or two, which is what I was expecting from the bench. Maybe it is just me, but I think this observation might apply to others running this compressed Texas Method on the press and bench.

Yep. And when you've been at it for a while, one of the lifts will take priority over the other. And which one may change over time, but you'll eventually need to focus on one for a period of time and consider the other assistance work to some extent.

[Hanuman1]

Hi Nick,

Is this better than trying microloading on the press/bench?
Seems like you can use this method to continue make 5lb jumps for longer?
If both are good should I do this first before I try micro loading?

Cheers,
H

[Nick Delgadillo]

You should microload first, especially if you're training on the same weight set every workout. If you're at a gym with cheap plates, you may be better off just moving on to more frequent pressing/benching.

[Hanuman1]

Thank you Nick, makes sense.
If you were focussed on powerlifting would the extra press volume be beneficial or a negative? Would you just run standard tm on bench every week instead?

Cheers,
H

[Nick Delgadillo]

Thank you Nick, makes sense.
If you were focussed on powerlifting would the extra press volume be beneficial or a negative? Would you just run standard tm on bench every week instead?

Cheers,
H

Depends on how good or bad your bench is. If your bench is lagging, you'll have to spend more time benching and a little less time pressing. If your bench is good, train both lifts and drop some pressing and increase benching as you get closer to the meet.

[Hanuman1]

Ok so maybe something like this:

M: bench 5x5
W: bench 1 set of 5, press 3x5
F: bench 5x5
M: bench 1x5, press 3x5
Etc…
Then I can start employing the tactics mentioned in PP for meets closer to the day.

That’s a fair amount of volume and frequency but the weight on my 5x5 is only about 93kg.
For reference I am still squatting heavy 3x5 3 times a week at 157kg on squat and just changed to 2x a week deadlift after hitting 190kg x5. Bw 91kg ht 5ft11.

[Nick Delgadillo]

Ok so maybe something like this:

M: bench 5x5
W: bench 1 set of 5, press 3x5
F: bench 5x5
M: bench 1x5, press 3x5
Etc…
Then I can start employing the tactics mentioned in PP for meets closer to the day.

That’s a fair amount of volume and frequency but the weight on my 5x5 is only about 93kg.
For reference I am still squatting heavy 3x5 3 times a week at 157kg on squat and just changed to 2x a week deadlift after hitting 190kg x5. Bw 91kg ht 5ft11.

This will depend on what you've been doing up to this point, what your recovery looks like, etc, but it looks like you've got some work to do on your bench. Frequency isn't your problem if you've stuck with a single set of 5 on your heavy day. You have to get it up heavier. You should follow the same general approach as the press. Keep 3x5 or 5x5, but do heavier weights on the second day - use triples or singles across. You also need to get bigger. Unless you were 70 kg a few months ago, your bodyweight is behind too. At your height, 100kg should be your immediate goal.

[Hanuman1]

Thanks Nick,
I’ve actually run this program the year prior and got to squat 170kg/375lbs x5, bench 101kg/222x3, deadlift 187.5/415x5. Took about 5 months and went from 175 to 225 bodyweight. I then tried to transition to Texas method but got frustrated with lack of progress and sort of meandered into bodybuilding and dieting.
I’m now redoing the program (I came crawling back lol) and my bw is slowly creeping up, but I have no need to blast as hard as before, I’ve already matched my previous bench pr and I’ve set several deadlift prs already (195kg x5 yesterday). Squat is also returning (160kgx5 yesterday), hoping to beat my prs in a few weeks.
The main concern for me however is bench. On the bench with this program you bench twice a week at most, whilst you squat and deadlift three times. So logically bench falls behind. I think if I were to do it again I would have benched every time and then done the pressing after or something.
The problem with the consolidated TM imo is the frequency with which you progress on the new metrics of volume and heavy days. That’s why I made the more consolidated sample in my previous post. I recently found barbell medicine has a bench/press plugin that can be used to improve both the heavy and volume work on bench twice a week, so that’s looking like my best option right now.

[Hanuman1]

Just to update on this:

I modified the BBM plugin to remove the junk volume and the press day as in its vanilla form it was beating me up and not working. Also some of the assistance work percentages didn’t make sense.
So I took the idea and made it into something simple:

1 single at rpe 8 or like a weight I could only do for 3 followed by a 5x5 at 85%.

I did this 3x a week, adding 1kilo to the single and recalculating 5x5 each time.

Started at exactly 100kg x1 85kg 5x5 and yesterday I did 118kg x1 100.5kg 5x5.

My best bench before this was 100 for 3 at max effort or 95kg for 5 at max effort. My best 5x5 was around 90kg.

Very happy with these results and would recommend to anyone wanting to get their bench up fast - this only took 18 training sessions and I might have even been able to take larger jumps.

You can slot this in right when you start only getting sets of 3 - just use that as the single for the next session.

I didn’t do any pressing on this program as I was worried about recovery but I’m sure you could, if you did lighter sessions after benching. Or you could just do 2 bench sessions one press etc if you aren’t as focussed on bench.