Gain weight quickly or slowly?

[Max Wynn]

Hello,

I am a 20 year old male who has been doing the program for almost a year and a half. I am 5'11" and weigh 205 pounds. I started at 145 pounds. Currently, I am on phase 3 of the program, with slight modifications to bench and press. Here are my numbers:

Squat: 400x5
Bench: 235x3
Press: 180x4
Deadlift: 455x5
Power Clean: 200x3

My upper body lifts have been going up steadily, especially bench. Press is going up too, but I switched to intermediate programming for it involving a volume and intensity day.
Squat and deadlift, however, have been struggling. I failed 460 on deadlift recently, and I haven't failed a deadlift in 7 months. I am confused on where to go next. I believe these are my options:

1. Get my bodyweight up to 225lbs and squeeze the last progress out of my program, probably ending in the mid 400s on squat and low 500s on deadlift, then switch to TM.
or
2. Gain weight steadily but make the switch immediately to Texas Method to make slow continuous progress.

Regarding the first three questions, I take plenty of rest between sets, and I sleep almost always over 9 hours a night. Food wise, I eat a lot of protein, but need to decide how fast to gain weight at my level of training advancement.

Thank you!

[Mark Rippetoe]

You are obviously underweight. Hurry.

[Satch12879]

Good numbers at that bodyweight. Good weight gain, too, thus far; but, too slow.

[Max Wynn]

Yes, sir. How should I know when to stop?

[Mark Rippetoe]

If you get to 500 pounds, stop.

[Max Wynn]

This might be a question for Santana, but should I GOMAD again? I did it initially when I gained 60 pounds. I want to try to avoid getting fat (maybe that's stupid way of thinking about it), so should I eat more without the milk or with it?

[Robert Santana]

Yes. Continue gaining the weight and you will reach a point where your upper body lifts feel suddenly easier. Ignore the fat gain. You can easily deal with that later. The getting strong part takes much longer. I learned this the hard way.