Wife Wants Something Different

[Bradley Gish]

My wife has been training for a few years, and due to “life stuff” she is one of those individuals that is constantly in LP/early intermediate programming, but she’s worked really hard, ground out many difficult reps, and has set several respect worthy PRs. Now she claims to be mentally burnt out on heavy 5’s,3’s, and 1’s, and wants to take on a routine with higher rep ranges. So in an attempt to keep her from going to some dumb Purple commercial gym and doing worthless exercises on a Smith Machine, I made an effort to script a hypertrophy template based off of HLM principles. If you wouldn’t mind taking a look, I would greatly appreciate it. I’m aware that it may be silly, and that I may be widely off base, but this is my first attempt at creating a high rep based progressive program.

Monday
Squat
125x10x3

Bench
70x10x3

DL
130x10
**********
Wednesday
Squat
100x10x3

Press
55x10x3

BB Curls
33x10x3
***********
Friday
Squat
112.5x10x3

Incline Press
62.5x10x3

BB Rows
65x10x3

Ok, so for the second week I was thinking of overloading with reps instead of weight. So it would look like this for the Heavy Day: Squat 125x11x3 Bench 70x11x3 DL 130x11. I was thinking of repeating this again the following week, and after she gets
everything x 12, I was going to bump the weight up and go back to 10s. So the fourth week would be: Squat 130x10x3 and so on? Ok, is this even logical?

[Brent Carter]

Sure. I don't know how much mileage you will get out of it but it sure beats the alternative of her training looking more like exercise.

[Cdodd07]

Andy Bakers modified powerbuilding template using the 8/5/2 rep scheme would be a good alternative.

HLM for women and 8/5/2

[Brent Carter]

My mind jumped to that as well but wasn't sure "different" the program needed to be considering OP said wifey is burnt out on 5's, 3's, and 1's. Certainly would be more effective than the original idea...

[Bradley Gish]

Well, I’ve talked her into “doing her faves” for a while longer. I’m trying to convince her to enter a meet in order to stay motivated. I’m also going to look into the above sited program. Thanks.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Yeah, so a lot of people get burnt out on always pushing everything heavy all the time. Probably more so in women, but men too. Usually relates back to goals. If they want to just be "healthy and fit" or "tone up" or whatever then they aren't gonna wanna train heavy all the time. So like with my personal training clients, I don't lighten EVERYTHING up....I just keep the front end of the workout heavy and then finish with higher-rep faster paced stuff. So like starting with heavy squats and then doing higher rep stiff legs, leg curls, and abs or whatever it is that will keep them interested in training.

Honestly, I don't get it. To me the higher rep shit is way harder, but whatever...it's mainly a mindset thing. If you want to keep them training, sometimes you have to give a little bit to keep them in the gym. Keep the bigger picture in mind. If she's in the gym squatting, deadlifting, etc, that is a win.