Travel and micro-loading / programming

[zepled37]

Hi Mark,

I travel quite a bit for work (every week). It is just by car, but is far enough (2-5 hours one way) that I usually stay overnight. I've been able to follow my Texas Method programming, but lifting at 3 or 4 different gyms makes it damn near impossible to use the same weights.

I have washers that I could take along and use for micro-loading, but I'm not sure this even matters since the plates and bars I'll be using will be different. That is, the variation in the plates and bars might be more than the 1.25 pound increments I can add with washers.

Given this situation, would it just make more sense to progress as much as I can (say on intensity day) and then when I stall, change the rep range and start over? So, right now if I'm doing a max set of 5's on presses, if I can't make any more progress with 5lb increments would I still go for the washers anyway or would I just maybe reset a bit and start with singles, doubles or triples and progress as far as I can on that before switching programming a slightly again?

Any thoughts on this situation?

Thanks.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sounds like a fucked-up training situation. Not all fucked-up training situations can be dealt with successfully.

[dawson]

Since I may have to start traveling for work soon and was wondering how it might affect my training means and methods the question of what to do about weight variations between locations also occurred to me. The simplest thing to do that I could come up with was to just loosen up the parameters a bit. In other words, just lift and not worry too much about what I might, or might not, achieve if the circumstances were not quite ideal.

[Mark Rippetoe]

That's the practical -- if not ideal -- approach. There are certain unalterable requirements for optimal training progress that must be provided. Progress is possible for novices in most circumstances, and this is what makes them novices, but the more advanced the trainee the more rigid these unalterable requirements become.

[isis]

Why not take a scale with you and weigh the bar and plates?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Take a scale? That's a bit anal, isis, if not impractical.