Every day is heavy HLM for older trainee

[AndrewLewis]

Andy,

I have a client right now that is ready for intermediate programming. She's 57, very motivated by seeing the weight go up, and very demotivated by failing any rep.
In BBRx, under the HLM section, I did not see anything like the following:

Squat day:
Heavy squat 5x3,
Light deadlift 2x5,
Medium bench 3x3

Bench day:
Heavy bench 5x3,
Light squat 2x5,
Medium deadlift 3x3

Deadlift day:
Heavy deadlift 3x2,
Press 3x2,
Medium squat 3x3

Do you see any problem with running HLM this way for a master's athlete and if so, can you explain why?
I really want her to see every day as a day of progress and success.
Thank you for your time and experience.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

No, no problem at all. May need to increase overall set volume some, but the layout/template is good.

[AndrewLewis]

No, no problem at all. May need to increase overall set volume some, but the layout/template is good.

Would this be better? She's very characteristic as a female, in so far as she can do an obscene amount of reps at weights just below her 3RM.

Squat day:
Heavy squat 5x3,
Light deadlift 3x5,
Medium bench 5x3

Bench day:
Heavy bench 5x3,
Light squat 3x5,
Medium deadlift 5x3

Deadlift day:
Heavy deadlift 3x2,
Press 5x2,
Medium squat 5x3

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

It's all reasonable, I really can't give you an exact set/rep scheme for the girl without knowing anything about her.

Go with what you got and as long as she is progressing up in weight you are fine. When she stops, figure out if she needs more work or less work in a particular area and adjust accordingly. That is programming in a nutshell. Really nothing more to it than that.

[SteveL]

Andy,

I have a client right now that is ready for intermediate programming. She's 57, very motivated by seeing the weight go up, and very demotivated by failing any rep.
In BBRx, under the HLM section, I did not see anything like the following:

Squat day:
Heavy squat 5x3,
Light deadlift 2x5,
Medium bench 3x3

Bench day:
Heavy bench 5x3,
Light squat 2x5,
Medium deadlift 3x3

Deadlift day:
Heavy deadlift 3x2,
Press 3x2,
Medium squat 3x3

Do you see any problem with running HLM this way for a master's athlete and if so, can you explain why?
I really want her to see every day as a day of progress and success.
Thank you for your time and experience.

What % are your using for the back off from the heavy vs medium and light days? Asking for myself as at some point I may pick up this program.

[AndrewLewis]

What % are your using for the back off from the heavy vs medium and light days? Asking for myself as at some point I may pick up this program.

Very small, because she's 57 and she's a she.

For example, she squatted 90x2x5 (5 sets of 2) yesterday. Saturday, she'll squat 70x5x2. Tuesday, she'll squat 80x3x3. If I were programming this for a man, the heavy days would be for 3x5, and the light/medium days would be a lot lower than this. She's essentially doing the same %1RM but at different rep ranges on the program I'm running her on.

"Go with what you got and as long as she is progressing up in weight you are fine."

Will do, Andy. Thank you. She could use some volume dissipation after the linear progression anyway. She's doing 3-5 days of 30 min cardio on her own on top of it, so I have to program accordingly.

[AndrewLewis]

What % are your using for the back off from the heavy vs medium and light days? Asking for myself as at some point I may pick up this program.

Keep in mind that programming is highly individual in the details. You basically start with a cookie cutter program and try to modify it based on what you know about the trainee, but for the most part, it's like "well fuck me. I don't know. This has worked for people before. Let's see how it goes."

I'm doing online program consultation with Andy, and I ask all these dumb questions that if someone asked me, in my head I'd think "well, it depends, dude. I have no idea. Strength programming isn't Hooke's law. You can't just plug in inputs and have it spit out a number."

[SteveL]

Keep in mind that programming is highly individual in the details. You basically start with a cookie cutter program and try to modify it based on what you know about the trainee, but for the most part, it's like "well fuck me. I don't know. This has worked for people before. Let's see how it goes."

I'm doing online program consultation with Andy, and I ask all these dumb questions that if someone asked me, in my head I'd think "well, it depends, dude. I have no idea. Strength programming isn't Hooke's law. You can't just plug in inputs and have it spit out a number."

Those are great points. I don't like that reality but it is in fact reality. Thanks for posting this. I get it now.

[AndrewLewis]

Those are great points. I don't like that reality but it is in fact reality. Thanks for posting this. I get it now.

Anytime, man. This is part of the reason why I think Rip gets pissed about people asking for percentages in programs. I mean, they did an entire edition revision of Practical Programming because readers wanted to be spoonfed percentages and sample programs, and people STILL bitch about how wide the ranges are on the percentages.

If I'm saying anything out of line, let me know Andy.