Speed work on Texas Monday?

[RRod]

Hi coach,

I've been on the Texas Method since last December. I finally hit a bit of a wall 2 weeks ago: tired, scared under the bar, missing reps on M and F. Monday of last week I was totally drained, couldn't even do 50% squats with any vigor, so I'm looking into changing up Monday and Friday a bit.

I've been becoming more interested in the olympic lifts, but my technique is not quite up to snuff yet to make them the cornerstone of my routine. I'm thus considering using speed sets as my main Monday workout, rather than keeping with 5x5 on M and dropping the volume. The intent is to improve my power output and get my damn speed up (bar's been slowing down for a while now). Here is my current regime as illustrated by my last good week:

Mon: Squat 225x5x5, Push Press 125x6x3, Rack Pull 365x1x5
Wed: Clean 135x5x2, Press 100x2x5, Front Squat 195x3x3, Overhead Squat 95x3x3
Fri: Squat 285x1x2, Press 127.5x1x1, Clean 165x1x1
(note: I took squats down from the previous week since I had started doing 'standing leg presses' for some reason.)

Current 1RMs, (@ 5'4", ~ 150 lb)
Squat 285, Deadlift 380, Clean 165, Press 127.5

Here's the routine I'm considering for next week:
Mon: Squat 170x10x2 (speed), Push Press 127.5x6x3, Deadlift 225x1x15 (speed)
Wed: Clean 135x5x2, Press 102.5x2x5, Front Squat 200x3x3, OH Squat 95x3x3
Fri: Squat 280x3x1, PushP/Press 150x1x2/127.5x1x2, Clean 167.5x1x1

Does this look sound? If so, here are a couple of questions:
1) Is the goal for Monday to keep the weight but increase the speed?
2) Is the goal for Friday to keep the singles across going up in weight?
3) Would some singles across on rack pulls/haltings be a good addition to Friday?

Thanks kindly!

[Mark Rippetoe]

All 3 things are right. But I occurs to me that you have described a guy who may simply need a week off to sleep more and eat too much. You are doing well for your bodyweight and height, and you may just be a little overtrained. This program you have suggested is good and will work well, but not if the reason the first one stopped working was because you were overtrained. So either way, I'd take a week off/sleep more/eat more and 1.) try the old routine again for a couple more weeks to see if that fixed the problem, or 2.) go ahead and change programs if you want to after you've rested a week.

[RRod]

Much obliged for the advice, Coach. I'll give the old routine a try again after some copious feasting and rest.