SS Novice progression for 42 YO. 2 days a week vs 3 days with a light day?

[bikesandcars]

Thanks again to this whole community and Rip for the books and the enormous amount of educational material here. I'm still making my way through the books.

I'm doing a Mon, Wed, Friday A/B split, the regular novice program with alternating deadlifts and powercleans.

I'm debating between switching to a 2-day a week workout (Monday/Thursday for example) or changing my Wednesday to a light day.

I feel like I could use a bit more rest, by Friday my whole body just feels tired and I'm missing lifts. I still feel a little tired Monday but I'm stronger and resume progress.

I'm still in my novice progression. I've missed a couple lifts but have then progressed the next session, not "stuck" yet.

My lifts are getting harder, especially the squat, and I'm learning to deal with what "heavy" squats feel like and to suffer under the bar, I'm OK with that.

I'm in reasonably good shape and besides failing occasional lifts I finish my training strong and am productive the rest of the day.

During the week I always feel trained but I don't feel abnormally sore. I feel pretty good overall just never totally recovered before my next workout.

I'm eating more, more carbs, as much protein as I can get, nominal fat (I get it from animal protein).

22-May 22-Jul
Bodyweight 175 185
Squat 160 230 (grinding)
Deadlift 190 295 (hard but feels good)
P-Clean 135 155 (form reset, good progress now)
Press 95 120 (tough, harder and slower progress than bench)
Bench 155 185 (tough but moving steadily up)

[BastiatBB]

What are your current increase increments for each lift from workout to workout?

[bikesandcars]

What are your current increase increments for each lift from workout to workout?

Deadlift: 10 lbs
Everything else: 5 lbs.

Considering going to 2.5 lbs increases on Press and clean.

I'm most concerned with my recovery from the squat, my upper body lifts recover quicker. I decided to take 2 days off in between this week (Lift Mon and Thurs) and see how I do tomorrow, then next week do 3 days with a light wed.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The First Three Questions | Mark Rippetoe

[BastiatBB]

Deadlift: 10 lbs
Everything else: 5 lbs.

Considering going to 2.5 lbs increases on Press and clean.

I'm most concerned with my recovery from the squat, my upper body lifts recover quicker. I decided to take 2 days off in between this week (Lift Mon and Thurs) and see how I do tomorrow, then next week do 3 days with a light wed.

My two cents as a man a few years older than you and further along (but still in) SSNLP: Hard sets and not always feeling recovered workout to workout is the normal. So, to a point, just grind it out. You are still progressing, increasing the weight from workout to workout, so keep on keeping on.

But at some point recovery does indeed become an issue. In my experience, squats require lots of frequency. So, cutting to just twice a week has proven to be counterproductive. So, for me, I have only just recently moved to a lighter squat day on Wednesdays to aid recovery but not undercut progress. That has me still going up in weight on Monday and Friday; I'm currently at 305x5x3. But Wednesdays are 10-15% lighter, still with 3 sets of 5.

What I would try first, if I were you, is cutting your weight jump increments. For me, I found I should have shifted to 2.5# increases on the presses earlier than I did. I am now at 2# increases. Better to down shift on the increments sooner rather than later.

But I'm not a coach. Therefore, beyond my limited personal experience, I point you to SSC Matt Reynolds and his article, "Minimum Effective Dose for Maximum Strength, Part 2." Note what he says:

For the vast majority of lifters, the early phase of SSNLP will look just like this, with 5 lb increases every workout. Then, as the lifter progresses through the first 4-8 weeks of the program, smaller weight increases (1-2.5 lb) will be necessary. Eventually the lifter will often be unable to complete all the reps 3x per week on squat or deadlift or both, so we’ll need to make a MED change to continue making progress…

Read on to find out what comes next, and when and why.

[bikesandcars]

Thanks for your feedback Rip and BastiatBB.

Last week I tried 2 sessions, this was convenient because life/work was hectic, I did Monday / Thursday. I hit all my NLP numbers both days including squat with a 230 then 235. On paper my results were good and my fatigue was good but I don't like that low of a frequency. I felt kind of flat this past Monday after a 4 day layoff and my upper body lifts suffered this week ( I know the 2 day program says go Sunday but I couldn't make it).

This week I did Monday (normal) and hit my squat Monday 240 but I couldn't complete reps for bench. Wednesday (yesterday) I did a light squat day, PR'd my deadlift at 315x5x1, failed on press 3x5 but got 5x3 of the recommended weight. I feel good today.

Going back to the first 3 questions what is obvious to me is I'm doing mostly everything right except nutrition can be tuned. If I get my first set of 5 I get my last set so I know I'm resting enough inbetween and getting better at knowing how much to.

For nutrition 1) I'm eating more than I've eaten in years and 2) it's not enough, especially carbs, because my bodyweight stalled at 185...so not getting heavier is obviously the problem. Coming from a history of lower carb eating it's really hard for me to get 400 grams of quality carbs per day but I'm focusing more on the details of carb/protein intake and tracking macro's better.