Between Texas and Advanced

[BVBellomo]

"Practical Programming" says "The advanced trainee is one for whom a weekly training organization is no longer working." It then says "The best way to jump into longer training cycles is with a very simple model, with a structure that consists of nothing
more than a pyramid that lasts for a two-month period". Is the recommendation really to go from a 1 week to 2 month cycle? Doesn't it make more sense to go to a 2-week, then a 3-week cycle?

Texas method isn't working for me anymore. Benching 5x5x235 takes so much out of me that I am still sore and tired trying for any PR 4 days later. 5x5x225 is too easy to build any strength, and I feel like 5x5x230 is the worst of both (tires me out without being enough to get stronger). 5 rep max 245, true 1 rep max 265. But even if you can recommend a way to continue with 1 week cycles, I don't think it is too soon to think about what comes next.

40 years old, never lifted until I turned 30, and didn't really make progress on bench until 3 years ago - and no bench PR over the past 9 months. Texas method is the last program I made progress with, but have tried a few other things since that didn't work.

[Michael Wolf]

My copy is sitting packed in a box somewhere between NYC and Texas, so I can't reference it right now, but we certainly do make incremental increases in cycle length all the time, too. Jumping from one week to 2 or 3 week cycles is a common step we take, and then 4-6 week, and then often the person goes into ~3 month cycles of either block or DUP style programming, depending on lots of particular details.

I would disagree with you about your observation that 225x5x5 is too easy to build any strength. That's over 90% of your 5RM, and even if it doesn't feel hard or killer while doing it, I can almost guarantee you it's building strength, just not the kind that is expressed 3-4 days later in a new PR.

I'd ideally like to know more about your training history and time with the TM, but in short, yes, you can certainly try a 2-3 week cycle. And that's why I went out of my way to mention the utility of the 225x5x5 thing. You're going to have to get used to the idea of accumulating stress. 225x5x5 might not be enough stress to stimulate a PR 4 days later, but you're now at the point where there probably is no way for you to collect enough stress in a single session, recover from that, and PR 4 days later anyway. So 225x5x5, or maybe even a little less, could be part of the accumulated stress over multiple weeks that leads to more progress.

For example:
Week 1
Volume Day, Harder: 230x5x5
Intensity Day, Easy + a little more volume: 240x2x2, 205x8

Week 2
Volume Day, Easier: 215x5x5
Intensity Day: 247.5x5 or 250x3x2

Volume day in a weekly program should be hard, but generally not take you right up against the wall of failure an any given set. Intensity day will do that sometimes, though the longer you train, the less often that will and should happen. Your first pass-through, you have no idea what your limits are and how your fives translate to three and to doubles and singles. After running it out down to 3s, 2s, then 1s over 8-12 weeks and then a cycling of intensity day for an 8-12 week run or two, you'll both have a much better idea of these things and also be sufficiently strong and advanced that going to failure will be a less frequent occurrence. But even early on, volume day should generally not be bringing you right up against the wall of failure. And the longer you train:
1. More of your volume days will be done with lower %s of your xRM.
2. Even intensity based days will not push you up against actual failure as often as they did earlier on, since you can no longer recover quickly from these bouts as they get heavier. Both relative intensity (% of xRM), and absolute weight on the bar matter here, i.e. a 700 lb squatter even at 92% is still 645. Doing 5 singles across at 645 will be pretty taxing and the guy isn't going to turn around and do a hard volume day at 555x5x5 a few days later. Whereas for a 315 lb squatter in his 7th week of TM, doing five singles across at a higher %, like 95%, which is 300x1x5, would be fine to do a similar % volume day of 250x5x5 a few days later.

[BVBellomo]

Thanks, I think I figured out what I was doing wrong. Today was the wierdest workout ever. I felt too sore to lift, but at the same time, I felt the load was so light that it was more of a recovery day like the usual Wednesday in Texas.

In 10+ years, I have tried cycles that reduce volume and increase intensity, but I've never got anywhere with them. But I've always cycled with the easiest workout the first day, and every following workout progressively harder.

Day 1 was the day before I posted, I did 235x5x5, so adding 5lbs to your recommendation.
Day 2 did pushups and bodyweight exercises, sore and stiff.
Day 3, which would be my Texas light day, I did 5 sets of bodyweight dips, 15 reps on the highest set.
Day 4, mostly rested
Day 5, was today, the next 2 days will be rest or light recovery/assistance work

So now I think I understand the point of periodization, I didn't before. You accumulate both fatigue and strength, but the fatigue goes away faster. Now day 8 I will feel ready to lift and 220x5x5 will feel ridiculously easy. Then I will be fully recovered on day 12 and try for a set of 250x5.

[Michael Wolf]

I don't know that it's quite as cut and dry as you laid out - we don't know for sure if and that you'll be fully recovered for day 12, more that the balance sheet between fatigue, recovery, adaptation will be tilted enough towards adaptation to do it.