Texas Method (review and advise, please)

[Hut*Hut]

After a period on 5/3/1, where I've concluded progress could probably be quicker at my stage of advancement (early intermediate) than that program allows, I've decided to switch over to Texas Method for the first time.

However I have a couple of particular goals (one related to my training situation), that I want to work around in the template, and I was hoping some of the more experienced guys could look over my plan and suggest any amendments that spring out at them.

A) I train at home, and my bench is in the cellar. Living in frigid Scotland it effectively becomes unusable in the winter months and I concentrate on dips instead. This means 1) while my bench is less developed & ingrained than my other lifts and I think has some quick summertime progress in it 2) I still want to continue to focus on dips as it's my staple year round pressing movement and effectively keep bench as almost an assistance lift.

B) In an admitted concession to vanity I want to build up my forearms a bit. They're disproportionately skinny. My solution is to include fat grip kroc rows on wednesdays recovery day. Despite the higher reps, I figure that the reduced weight from the fat bar makes this approach fit with the template, but again, advice welcome. And obviously any experienced input welcome on my assumption that fat bar kroc rows will be a good 'forearm' lift as I've never included them before.

Bodyweight about 210 @ 19%.
Squat 310x5
Dead 365x5
Press 162x5
Clean 205x3
Dips BW + 85x5
Bench 195x5

My plan:

Monday

Squat 5x5
Dips 5x5
cleans 8x3
Chins 5x5
Bench press 2x5 @ 80%5rm (play progression by ear on this, probably just move it up in line with fridays progress rather than 80% until that becomes problematic)

Wednesday
Squat 2x5 @80%5rm
Press 2x5
Kroc Rows 2x20
Bench press 2x5 @ 80%5rm (just keeping that weight where it started for a while or progressing very slowly in order not to compromise wednesdays recovery function)

Friday
Squat work up to max 5 (and rotate reps when needed as per PP)
Bench work up to max 5 (and rotate reps when needed as per PP)
Deadlift 1x5
Chins 3x3

Any help appreciated.

[METAL VIPER]

I'll go ahead and take a stab at it with my opinion. Firstly, that's quite a bit of volume on Monday. If you can get away with it and keep getting stronger, more power to you; however, you may need to adjust so that you're recovered in time for PR Friday. Personally, I'm not a fan of doing 3x5 @ 80% 5rm on Monday and Wednesday. If you just want to maintain bench strength, perhaps doing a heavy set on Friday would be more appropriate, subject to your discretion. With all the dips, your bench strength isn't going to plummet if you only do it once a week, since you stated it isn't your main goal. As another option, you could rotate dips and press on Monday and work the movement that you don't hit for volume on Wednesday @ 80% (or depending on how you feel).

I would advise you about the chins on Monday coupled with the Kroc rows on Wednesday. Even though you're doing higher reps, remember the rep range continuum; that much work could carryover into Friday's deadlift and affect back stability. Personally, I am always too fatigued on Monday to execute with precision the necessary technique of the clean. I like them on Wednesday, since skeletal loading is minimal.

As far as grip work, are you doing double overhand until your grip starts to slip? That's one consideration. Another would be static holds or farmers walks.

My two cents, welcome to any comments

[Hut*Hut]

I'll go ahead and take a stab at it with my opinion. Firstly, that's quite a bit of volume on Monday. If you can get away with it and keep getting stronger, more power to you; however, you may need to adjust so that you're recovered in time for PR Friday. Personally, I'm not a fan of doing 3x5 @ 80% 5rm on Monday and Wednesday. If you just want to maintain bench strength, perhaps doing a heavy set on Friday would be more appropriate, subject to your discretion. With all the dips, your bench strength isn't going to plummet if you only do it once a week, since you stated it isn't your main goal. As another option, you could rotate dips and press on Monday and work the movement that you don't hit for volume on Wednesday @ 80% (or depending on how you feel).

I would advise you about the chins on Monday coupled with the Kroc rows on Wednesday. Even though you're doing higher reps, remember the rep range continuum; that much work could carryover into Friday's deadlift and affect back stability. Personally, I am always too fatigued on Monday to execute with precision the necessary technique of the clean. I like them on Wednesday, since skeletal loading is minimal.

As far as grip work, are you doing double overhand until your grip starts to slip? That's one consideration. Another would be static holds or farmers walks.

My two cents, welcome to any comments

FWIW, the monday and wednesday bench sessions were actually planned as AM sessions to limit fatigue. They're light sets so I figure just get up and do them before work/study and alleviate the volume/time taken on mondays pm session. The thinking behind adding them at all is simply because I haven't benched regularly in 6 months and I figure there's allot of quick neural gains there to make just by practicing the lift regularly. GTG type thinking. Im looking to up the bench on fridays session quickly. I've had some experience with doing light Am sessions of that kind and ive never found that they impact the later session at all. But as I get stronger, that might change! (?)

Re: grip, yeah I do double overhand deadlifts on all my warm ups. Usually warm up with about 90+% of my work sets for a single with no problems, so I don't think my grip is weak. I just figure the higher rep fat grip approach will have some hypertrophy effect (vanity thy name is Hut*Hut).

Re; your good point about the rows carrying over to friday, I thought because of the reduced weight with the fat bar (fat gripz dumbell) that the upper back would come out relatively unscathed, and if anything it would probably help upper back recovery. (?)

Finally re:cleans - I've always went against the gospel of Rip on cleans and did them first, before squats. Works better for me, so far.

Good points mate, cheers, I look forward to what others think about them.

[Alex Bond]

Don't over-complicate it and get ahead of yourself. The point is to add 5# a week by stressing on Monday, recovering in the middle of the week, then proving you got stronger on Friday. All this GTG, neural gains stuff is you overthinking. On Monday, do some squatting, some kind of pressing, and some kind of pulling, and do a lot of each. On Wednesday, do the same thing, except less and lighter, and mix up the exercises some. On Friday, go heavy on some stuff. Simpler is usually better. Realistically, I wouldn't expect to make progress doing more than 3 or maybe 4 exercises a day. Cut the fat, and work really hard on the three things you care about the most. If you try to do too much at once, you don't actually get that much better at anything specifically.

[Hut*Hut]

Don't over-complicate it and get ahead of yourself. The point is to add 5# a week by stressing on Monday, recovering in the middle of the week, then proving you got stronger on Friday. All this GTG, neural gains stuff is you overthinking. On Monday, do some squatting, some kind of pressing, and some kind of pulling, and do a lot of each. On Wednesday, do the same thing, except less and lighter, and mix up the exercises some. On Friday, go heavy on some stuff. Simpler is usually better. Realistically, I wouldn't expect to make progress doing more than 3 or maybe 4 exercises a day. Cut the fat, and work really hard on the three things you care about the most. If you try to do too much at once, you don't actually get that much better at anything specifically.

Ok, duly noted, thanks. However with due respect mate, I have a couple of specific goals which will require a specific plan of action & I don't think my plan is overcomplicated with that in mind. It's a couple of minor amendments to a flexible template which leaves room for assistance work. Im not in the habit of overcomplicating things, just to progressing on more than 3 lifts at once!

Do you not think it'll be possible for me to progress on (a late novice) bench ,dips & press on the TM template? Or do you just think Im going about it wrong?

[METAL VIPER]

Do you not think it'll be possible for me to progress on (a late novice) bench ,dips & press on the TM template? Or do you just think Im going about it wrong?

Speaking from personal experience, I found that progression on press is possible on Wednesday using 3x5 and a volume bench on Monday. You might be able to squeak out some gains on bench for a while just by driving up your dip and press, but your mileage may vary. Experiment and see what works for you.

[beast]

You'd be better off just alternating presses and benches on mon and friday and doing some dips on wednesday if you desire. Your forearms are small because you need to get a bigger deadlift and bench (minimum 455*5 and 275*5 - this is actually quite low and very achievable on ss). You may even have some linear gains in your squat too. When you get to the point when your deadlift grip stalls then you mess with fat bar things for back off sets, though theirs no reason why you can't do towel chins now.

[Hut*Hut]

You'd be better off just alternating presses and benches on mon and friday and doing some dips on wednesday if you desire. Your forearms are small because you need to get a bigger deadlift and bench (minimum 455*5 and 275*5 - this is actually quite low and very achievable on ss). You may even have some linear gains in your squat too. When you get to the point when your deadlift grip stalls then you mess with fat bar things for back off sets, though theirs no reason why you can't do towel chins now.

You think dips with 295 incl BW are easier to recover from than 160+lb presses? I woulda assumed the weighted dips were less suited to recovery day. (?)

But no, I don't personally have a 455 deadlift in me on linear progression. I gained >40lb bodyweight and reset several time, I don't think there's any more SS in me. I don't think the majority have 455 on SS in them & Im quite content with my deadlift progress. But my forearms continue to grow at a slower rate than any other body part and I think a non-competitive athlete can be allowed the occasional concession to vanity in the peripheries of their training without having their goal dismissed!

True, there's no there's no reason why i cant do towel chins.....just as there's no reason I can't do fat grip krocs. Both are specialized assistance exercises and frankly one isn't more exotic or specialized than the other. Do you think towel chin ups would grow my forearms better?