TM to Dan John and back: will Mass Made Simple work?

[Rob Israel]

Had to skip today's planned Intensity day for some much needed rest. Just burnt out from lack of recovery, allergies and work. Haven't decided if it's time to just start the MMS program on Monday, or squeeze in one more week of TM. Or if I should just skip the Intensity day for this week or and do the TM for one more week and go back to volume on Sunday or Monday.

[Rob Israel]

Decided to take the rest and stick out the TM for one more week. I took more rest for a total of 4 days off. I basically just skipped the Intensity day and will begin another week, albeit it needs to be modified. Basically, I'm only working out two days a week for two weeks, which for me is horribly unpleasant, but it became clear over the weekend I needed rest more than anything.

Last week: Volume and Recovery days
This week: Volume on Tuesday and then Intensity day on Friday and go for my final TM PR's before entering Mass Made Simple.

That said, I bought Justin Lascek's The Texas Method Part 1 and it really made me want to try the "swollertrophy" TM program: the TM with 10's instead of 5's. After reading the eBook I want to do the TM and more TM.... So many possibilities!

[Rob Israel]

After a 4-day rest break to get my recovery back in order, I decided to go with a lower poundage and a higher volume for volume day. (duh) I just flat out skipped Intensity day which seemed to make the most sense.

Squat: 260x5x5
Overall these felt solid and got better as I went through the sets, a sure sign I was at the right weight and had recovered. I had a few squirrely reps in there (about 1 per set) but I was keeping my knees out and the form was OK. I think this is near my limit for keeping it together. Not the shit-show that 275 was. I was also rested which, surprisingly, really help a lot.

Press: 117.5 x5x3
Felt strong, solid and had bar speed. Technically this is 5RM. By fluke of programming this is actually the heaviest 5x3 I've done. (I 110x10 once or twice now). It definitely makes me want to continue the linear progression with 2.5# jumps to see where this can go.

I somehow took two hours to do the above so I skipped chins. I did some on Sunday and will do more tomorrow.

I've had a balky wrist the last 10 days and it's feeling better. Still a little bit stiff, but it's forcing me to really work on resting the bar on my forearm and not bend my wrist back at all, so at least my form is improving.

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Programming debates this week were made easier by my wife's desire to train on our anniversary. I didn't even bring it up! She is doing SS and took two weeks off which fucked her up and now she is hungry to get back on track. Fancy dinner be damned. This works out great for me because I was looking at a two-workout week and now I can do the proper 3 day TM. I'm a lucky man, right?

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Now that I've read Lascek's The Texas Method, I'm itching to stick with this program and see what I can do. I'm actually contemplating doing his "Swollertrophy" training but instead of 10's, doing 8's. I've always wanted to do eights.

Anyway, that idea is competing with my initial commitment to Mass Made Simple. There's something just really attractive about sticking with the TM and it's variations. I would love to do 8's then 5's and then eventually move to 3's on Intensity days like Lascek lays out: get bigger, get stronger, get stronger some more.

Frankly I'm worried that I'll lose ground on Dan John's low poundage high volume squatting. Not to mention i'm not so thrilled about not doing cleans, standing press or dead-lifts for 6 weeks. Those are the three lifts I feel I have the most to gain.

I'll take feedback on this blabber...

[Rob Israel]

Thanks again to EnlightenedSnipe for the tip on lower the poundage on volume day. That definitely sent me in the right direction, hopefully to be confirmed by a new PR Saturday.

[enlightenedsnipe]

I know it's incredibly tempting to switch to a new program, especially after having trouble with TM, but now that you're armed with tools to do it more intelligently, I'd strongly suggest you stick with it. If you've picked up Justin's book you can figure out how to tweak it for what you want, and I'd encourage you to give it at least a couple of months before jumping to another program. Besides, while the DJ program is probably good, wouldn't you just be coming back to TM after you did it? hope that helps and if you want to shoot me your setup I'll see if I can help you tweak it.

Cheers!

[Rob Israel]

I know it's incredibly tempting to switch to a new program, especially after having trouble with TM, but now that you're armed with tools to do it more intelligently, I'd strongly suggest you stick with it. Cheers!

Thanks for the feedback and offer to help.

I actually had decided to do MMS a while ago and it wasn't so much my dissatisfaction with the TM, as much as my desire to add lean mass. Since DJ wrote the book later in life, I figured it would be more applicable to me than GOMAD....

I actually have really enjoyed the TM and haven't had problems until last week. I really like the program and aside from some recent programming mistakes (combined with some dumb diet choices have had good success with it. Then again, I've been doing modified TM which I can go into in another post....

Anyway, I like the TM a lot and as you said, now that I have Justin's book I feel pretty good about really maximizing it. His SwollerTrophy program is extremely appealing to me: it's familiar, it's strength based and it's not a huge departure from my last 8 months of training. MMS is a huge departure and makes me nervous.

Two last notes: I'm feeling at this point I need a small deload: I've been going hard for about 10 weeks now and lean-out turned into an epic-fail. I loss about 4-5 pounds in the first 10 days and then promptly put it back on when my lifts suffered last week.

Bottom line: I'm thinking I may just do a little deload (which I would love to discuss further) and then hit the TM with 8's. Work 8's on a mass gain and then move back to 5's.

Gotta be bigger, (not fat) and stronger.

[Rob Israel]

Pretty tired today and grumpy. Left worked early and took a 30 minute nap. Hit the gym.

Squats: 245x3x3
Felt better than last week that's for sure. Tried to work on form, keeping knees out and not coming forward in the hole.

I watched some video of my 1st and 5th set of volume day at 260 and was not happy. The bar is not moving vertically. I'm doing a little loop-tee-do at the bottom and basically that shit needs to get straight. Will need to lower weight I think and really focus on the form.

Bench: 170x5x3
Good, solid speed still. Will do another 5 pound jump for a 5x3 PR.

No cleans tonight. Totally slacking on the pulls this week, but scheduling is not helping and I'm generally achy and sore....

[Rob Israel]

Well, I got a full blown cold the night of my recovery workout. I definitely should have taken the night off and gone to bed early. Instead I'm sick as a dog and will once again miss my Intensity workout. Total bummer. After missing only 2 workouts the 1st four months of the year, I've skipped 2 in May alone. Not a good month.

In other news, the name of this thread has now been made obsolete by my decision to stick with the TM and not do Dan John's program. The reason for this two-fold:

1) After buying Justin's TM eBook, I'm more committed to the program and making it work for me in a Mass Gain situation. I'm going to use his TM "10's" method, but use 8's for a better balance with Strength. I'm going to use some of Dan John's ideas and assistance exercises.
2) There is an open invitation CrossFit total meet that some the coaches and members from my gym (CrossFit South Brooklyn) are going to attend. That means I don't want to go to high-rep, low weight squats and dumbbell press as the MMS program calls for. I'm going to work 8's and then go to 5's and hope to beat my previous PR's July 9th

I've never done a power lifting meet, but I've done three Crossfit Totals with the Strength Cycle classes at CF South Brooklyn. They are a lot of fun and not really a competition, but more like a public 1RM test. We have good audience turnout and lots of encouragement and support, so it will be cool to experience this at another gym, with a whole lot more participants and spectators. They are capping it at 100, so it should be pretty big. One cool thing about CF is that the events I've seen are super-friendly and while competitive, they are supportive and display amazing sportsmanship. Everyone wants to do well, but everyone wants everyone else to do well too. I'm sure that will be the case here.

If anyone is interested, it's in Stamford, Connecticut at Hybrid Athletics:
http://www.hybridathletics.net/total-competition.php

For those that don't know a CF Total is 3 attempts at a 1RM Squat, Standing Press and DeadLift. Basically subs the Press for the Bench.

I'm going to post the overview of the Dan John program in the next post and talk about what I'll utilize from it in my TM.