add a heavy day on Bill Starrs HLM schedule

[science]

Dear Mark,

I bench currently 3x the week,following Bill Starrs approach, you have written about in PPST:

mo 5x5 with 5x5rpm /heavy
wed 5x5 with 90%of this week mondays load /medium
frid 5x5 with 80% of mondays load. /light

i am stalling know for 3 weeks-so i thought to take the next step and change the medium workout to the heavy one, like the book suggests.

Because i also want to gain weight,i thought of doing for the new heavy day 3x10 with 75%of 1rpm-it constitutes a heavy day for this set/rep scheme-does that fits the bill?
so:
mo:5x5 with 5x5rpm
wed:3x10with 75%of 1 RPM
frd:5x5 with 80%of mondays load.

Is that the way its meant to be?
Or does the light day also has to be changed to 4x10(with80%of wednesday 4x10 load)

Does the 4x10 affects the performance of the 5x5 day in a positive fashion? Or is the weight too light to drive the lifts with 5x5 up?
As i understood in the book that when using the texas method you do 5x5 one day and 1x5 the other.
Here the 5x5 has the purpose to drive up the 1x5 weekly Prs.

When doing my example the 5x5 seems to drive the 4x10 up.but what should i do to improve the 5x5?s then?

hope its not TOO weird-what do you think?
thank you

[Mark Rippetoe]

KSC, this is your baby.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Damn it Rip, why do I always get science's posts???

Science, I will attempt to answer your question, but not sure how much help I can be, Bill Starr's HLM intermediate set up is not something that I use alot in my programming. Nothing wrong with it, its just not part of my system.

That being said, I don't really need to be an expert in the system to tell you that you need less benching, not more. No matter what system you are using I don't really know anybody who has had alot of success benching 3 x week. I suppose it could be done and has been done by others but they are the exception, not the rule. You can do pressing exercises three days per week but I wouldn't make all three of the exercises the flat bench. You should be going overhead as well.

I have actually used a HLM system on myself before for pressing exercises but in an advanced program...same concepts can still apply though. I organized my pressing like this:

Mon: Bench (heavy)
Wed: Press (light)
Fri: Incline (med)

This worked well for me and I made gains on all 3 lifts. I know Mark is not a huge fan of inclines but I am of a firm belief that pushing my incline press up is responsible for some of my gains in both the bench and especially the press. That point isn't really all that critical and if you would rather flat bench press a second time that would be fine. Speed sets might also be a viable option on the Friday workout.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Damn it Rip, why do I always get science's posts???

Because he BLINDS me. Sorry.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Its poetry in motion.