6 Day Texas Method

[Goldenstein Shekkelblat]

Is a 6-day Texas Method split a good idea if time allows? or would the lack of resting days lead to overtraining?

Consider breaking apart the 3-day Texas Method into 6 workouts:

Sunday, Rest
Monday, Heavy Upper - Vol. Bench
Tuesday, Heavy Lower - Vol. Squat, Int. DL
Wednesday, Light Upper - Vol. OHP
Thursday, Light Lower - Pause Squats, Power Snatch
Friday, Medium Upper - Intensity OHP, Intensity Bench
Saturday, Medium Lower - Intensity Squat, Power Clean


My goals with this split are:
1) Break apart the long full-body workouts of the original 3-day program
2) Keep the light day lifts (light squat and light pull) which get omitted in the 4-day split
3) Spread apart the assistance work over all 6 days


My main concern is overtraining the back with too much assistance work. I can't rack powercleans (forearms too long) and powersnatches hurt my shoulder (past injury), so I replace Powercleans with light deadlifts, and powersnatches with chins+back ext., so the pulling schedule looks like this:
Heavy - Deadlift 1x5
Medium - Light Deadlift 80% weight 3x5
Light - Weighted Chinups 3x5, and Back Extension 3x15

How would I arrange the assistance work to avoid overtraining?
Heavy - Barbell Rows? Chest-supported rows?
Medium - RDL 60% 2x3?
Light - Leg Curl?

[Mark Rippetoe]

This will work better if you break each day's workout into a morning and evening session, then gradually lengthen the workouts by adding pointless exercises until you're training 7 hours per day. I should have put that in the book.

[Matt James]

What is your experience with the Texas method? Have you done either the 3 day version or the 4 day split variation?

[Goldenstein Shekkelblat]

pointless exercises

Your youtube videos taught me how to do the dip, the LTE, the barbell row, the RDL, and even the CURL! If the exercises are so pointless, delete the videos. You don't get to profit from ad revenue on those videos while simultaneously making fun of me for trying to incorporate them into my training.

What is your experience with the Texas method? Have you done either the 3 day version or the 4 day split variation?

I have done the 3-day version, right after finishing Starting Strength. I love the Compressed Texas Method for the upper-body lifts. It has been working so phenomenally well that I currently have zero plans of doing any other upper-body program, aside from maybe changing the 3-day split to the upper/lower split.

The problem I found with the 3-day split is, no matter how I arrange the pulling schedule, the Monday workouts become ridiculously long. Imagine:
5x5 Squat
5x5 Bench

Now what do you follow it with?
Intensity DL 1x5? (heavy pull)
Light deadlifts 80% weight 3x5? (medium pull, powerclean substitute)
Weighted chin-ups 3x5 + back extension 3x15? (light pull, powersnatch substitute)

No matter how you slice it, the workouts start to get unmanageably long. The 4-day upper/lower split solves this problem, but it removes the light squat and light pull days (it does not remove "light press" day since that is the volume OHP workout). I really like light squat day and light pulling day. I think that doing an active recovery light squat in between volume day and intensity day does in fact help me feel better on intensity day, it certainly feels that way, but I have yet to train without the light squat workout so I can't say for sure (Practical Programming page 154: "many lifters experience roughly the same results with or without the addition of a light day of training"). And as for light pull day, it's just a super convenient time slot to add in chin-ups to grow my biceps and back muscles to look swole.

So that is where the inspiration for the 6-day Texas Method comes in. It is similar to a 4-day split with the light days added back in. My local gym is a 7-minute drive from my house, so the added driving time of going to the gym 6-days per week compared to 3 or 4 is negligible. I created this thread because I was curious what y'all thought about a 6-day split, but now I suppose it doesn't matter since I confess, I've been doing it for months and I know it works. It works just as well as a 3-day or 4-day split since it's all the same thing. The real problem I'm having is how to add in assistance work without overtraining. I know I can get a 500+ lb deadlift without doing any assistance work and by just doing Coach Rip's programs, but after years of barbell only work, dips and LTE's and stuff are actually fun. I just want to do them, man.

I ran out the Tx Method and got my bench up to a 290 lb 1RM not too long ago. I was curious one day and decided to try some bodyweight dips (I weigh 200 lb) and my arms were shaking while doing it. I thought, "I can bench 290, but I struggle with body weight dips? This is a problem." Now, whether or not this is an actual problem remains to be determined, but I was convinced it was, so I did some more dips and LTE's and found that I liked doing them. Then I tried volume RDL's in place of volume deadlifts, and even only doing 225 lb (less than 60% deadlift weight) for 3x5 beat the crap out of my back since I had never done RDL's before, and now I'm overtrained and deloading and spending time researching and learning how to improve.

I found this delightful free article by Coach Baker: Adding Assistance Work to The Four Day Texas Method - Andy Baker

Instead of racking my brain trying to turn Coach Baker's 4-day split into a 6-day split, I suppose I should just do his program. I want to add RDL's somewhere because even though they beat up my back, for days afterwards I had the best posture ever because the soreness forced my spine into a neutral position. Maybe 225 lb for 2x3 instead of 3x5, and go from there. I also don't know how to program in rows. As a powerclean substitute, I prefer light deadlifts (80% 3x5) over barbell rows. I could do rows on light pull day, after my powersnatch substitute (chin-ups + back extension) but this could rapidly lead to overtraining as I am still adding +5 lb to the row every time I train. I heard him mention chest-supported rows in his elitefts interview so maybe those will be good once my row gets stronger.

Eric Bugenhagen did a recent interview on elitefts and he said that he trains every day because it just feels good, even if it's just to get a pump in his arms or chest. I have to agree that it does just feel good to do these short, intense workouts, compared to a 3+ hour Monday Tx Method workout. You can even train in the morning, instead of having to wait until you ate a full breakfast and lunch.

[Satch12879]

How old are you and what is your life situation?

[Maybach]

The light day probably does help you. But it probably does so by preventing the small degree of detraining that occurs in the four day gap between volume and intensity days. The 4 day split gets around that by shortening the gap to three days. "Active recovery" is mostly a myth (even if it occasionally obtains): your squats on Friday might feel harder when you omit the light squats, but it's not because you are "less recovered".

The pulls are even less of a concern: MOST people don't even include a proper "light pull" from the floor. It's usually either barbell rows or chin ups, both of which are really assistance exercises rather than light pulls (and anyway, often properly "upper body" exercises).

If you really absolutely find you need to do a light squat or a light pull, then really THOSE are the "assistance work" you should think about including: put a light pull on your upper body volume days and a light squat on your upper body intensity days.

The 4 day Texas method has plenty of volume, and if you find you need MORE volume then it doesn't need a whole two extra days. The light pull and light squat you are so desperately missing could be done in one single day. There was a guy a few months ago on here who switched to a 4 day split but missed the light squats, so he just did two sets of light squats on Wednesday. Problem solved. No need to clear extra room for a bunch of "assistance work" just because you want to keep your joints lubricated.

[asm44]

Doing more is usually worse in lifting, especially as you get stronger. You can't be all that strong yet, because anyone who is, is not doing a heavy 5x5 squat and thinking he needs more 2 days later.

[Matt James]

I think your comments reflect some severe misconceptions about the purpose and role of assistance exercises in general, but especially specific to TM-style programming. I think your schedule reflects poor understanding of the importance of managing both specific stress and systemic stress. The 3-day model and the 4-day split model address those very differently and both represent compromises in different ways. If you're going to add a day to either model it should be done with that in mind. Not just to make time for assistance work that you probably don't need. But, you seem hellbent on doing them, and excited to be in the gym six days a week for some reason.

If I was set on needing a light squat day, but wanted to manage the stress and time involved in the Monday workout, I would probably do the following:
Monday: 5x5 squat
Tuesday: 5x5 bench, secondary pulling movement (if needed)
Wednesday: light squat and pressing
Friday: intensity for squat, deadlift, and bench

Note that chins are not the secondary pulling movement. Fit those in wherever it makes sense, Tuesday or Wednesday probably but you could do them any day. Any other assistance work, if you need it, should happen after the main lift it assists (triceps work after volume bench or press, for instance).

Your secondary pull is a separate question but we'd need more information about your lifts and recent training to give you useful advice.

[Adam Tomjack]

This will work better if you break each day's workout into a morning and evening session, then gradually lengthen the workouts by adding pointless exercises until you're training 7 hours per day. I should have put that in the book.

I think there is a useful question buried in the original post. It's a question I've also had, so let me see if I can simplify it so it's clear.

Ignore the assistance exercises. I think that's a red herring. The real question is, how would my progress by affected by changing just the timing of the stress throughout the week?

For simplicity, consider the NLP. It's nine exercises grouped into three workouts over seven days. Is that schedule actually optimal, and do we know why? What if we spread out the stress, or compress it?

Obviously I can't do all nine exercises in one day. That's too much stress and I won't be able to complete a workout. I will also detrain some before my next workout 7 days later. But, can I go the other way and spread that
stress out? What if I do this:

Mon: squat
Tue: press, deadlift
Wed: squat
Thr: bench, deadlift
Fri: squat
Sat: press
Sun: deadlift

I could even separate Tue and Thr into morning and evening workouts. (Assume for the sake of argument that there aren't logistical difficulties in doing frequent workouts.)

The total stress should be the same over the week as a traditional NLP schedule, right? Or is there something that causes three exercises in one workout to be more stressful (or somehow more productive) than three workouts of one exercise each?

Would I not achieve sufficient stress at any one time to trigger adaptation? Would the frequent workouts interfere with the ongoing recovery from previous workouts in a way that undoes my effort?

Would I approach presses and deadlifts a little fresher than if I had just finished squats, thus allowing me to lift heavier weights? Could this actually be better?

Given my own particular set of personality defects, I would be more consistent if I could do shorter workouts every morning instead of longer workouts more sporadically. But, there's obviously no point if that wouldn't make me stronger. So would it? And if not, do we know why not?

[Adam Tomjack]

Well, if nobody knows, I guess I’ll try it and see.

I’m optimistic because it seems like the same amount of stress over time, just with a different dosing schedule.

But, maybe it’s not the same amount of stress. Maybe there’s a synergy (pardon my French) that’s lacking in my plan. Perhaps the most important rep for my squat progression isn’t the fifth rep of the third set, but rather the fifth rep of the subsequent deadlifts, as long as those deadlifts fall within a certain time window.