Swap out Cleans on 4 day TM?

[John Harper]

Hi Andy

Age: 34
Weight: 231lbs
Squat/Bench/Dead: 375/265/405

I have been doing the four day TM as described in Practical Programming (Bench/Press/Assist & Squat/PC or DL/Assist). I'm struggling with my Squat Volume / Power Clean days, both to accomplish them and recover from them. My power Clean is up to 220lbs and being I'm not going to play in the NFL anytime soon I'm thinking it might be good to chuck out the Power Clean for something more useful that doesn't make my squat volume days so much harder.

So I'm thinking either just flag altogether, or do BB Rows? Would I do rows in a similar vein - 5 sets of 3 with decent weight for strength, or 3 sets of 10 with minimal rest as i do it as assistant exercise?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Cheers,

John

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Have you considered switching your PCs from sets of 3 to timed singles? So instead of 5x3 you can do like 15x1 with 1 rep every 30-60 seconds. I love doing cleans this way, especially when tired. After a certain point, 3s get hard to do on cleans as that third rep always seems to go to hell and you require longer rest time between sets to get in 5 good sets of triples. You actually don't have to do 15x1 either. Could be 10x1 and still be adequate volume