Female Linear Progression

[Wayne Beaton]

Name: Charlotte
Height: 5’ 2”
Age: 33
Weight: 55kg (120lbs)
Calories: 2,300 (110-120g of protein)
Sleep: sporadic (mother to an 8 month old girl who doesn’t like sleeping!))
Ethnicity: Vegan 

Hello, folks. The above details aren’t mine but my lovely sister-in-law’s. We’ve been following the NLP since mid Feb, training twice a week with one or two resets; sometimes due to my inexperience as a ‘coach’, but mostly because of life’s vagaries.

I wish I could be confident enough to just beg forgiveness rather than ask permission, as I know that trial and error will be part of real coaching, but because it’s someone else’s training I really don’t want them to miss out because of my inexperience and resultant poor judgement, and would also be grateful of the SSC community’s wisdom and experience. Below are the stats on her lifts and few thoughts and queries of mine.

2 workouts per week:
A: Sq/Pr/De/Ch
B: Sq/Be/Cl/Ch

Squat: 5x3 @ 51.25kg (1.25 kg/2.5lbs increments)

Definitely grinding through her work sets but still looking strong. However, I’m thinking of changing to two top sets with 3 back-offs at 90-95% as a way of adapting the 1 t/s + 2 b/o’s in PPST. Would this be a valid way to eke out her squat LP?

Press 5x3 @ 22.5kg (was 1kg/2lbs increments but first set of 23kg was too tough, so dropped to 22.5 and will (try to) continue with 0.5kg/1lb jumps)

22kg looked really good but 22.5/23kg seemed really difficult in comparison. Considering female neuromuscular efficiency/hormonal milieu, is a volume change of 3x3 worthwhile or should we just move into intermediate territory (6x3/1x3)

Bench: 5x3 @ 25kg (1.25kg jumps)

Still looking strong on benches, however, as per press, when things begin to slow is a change in volume or a change in strategy more beneficial?

Dead: 2x3 @ 60kg (2.5kg increments)

This is beginning to slow. Are smaller than 2.5kg (5lbs) increments permissible on the deadlift at this stage?

P-Clean: 5x3@ 22kg (1kg increments)

Still looking good, but when it slows should 0.5kg/1lb jumps be used?

Form wise, I honestly believe that it’s pretty good and with 90% of spot-on, but if you need to see some videos then I’ll happily upload. I haven’t done so until now because I’ve been keen to try and fix any issues myself using The Book. I’m a little more confident in this area than I am in programming for some reason….

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

[Karl Schudt]

This is actually a programming question, so this isn't the best forum for that.

This having been said, your instincts seems fine. Training only two times a week is going to slow down her progress, though. Have you looked at Practical Programming and The Barbell Prescription?

[Wayne Beaton]

Karl, apologies; as soon as I posted I realised it was to the wrong forum. Thanks for kindly replying.

Yes, PPST has been studied (once) and I’m just at the beginning of TBP.

But I guess what you’re saying is that it really is just trial and error using these books as solid guides.

I’m hoping that once we move to intermediate stage I can propose an HLM template and encourage her to do the light days on her own.

Thanks again.