Coach, your thoughts on programming TM for higher reps, please.

[Rainier Wolfcastle]

Sir,

The deal is this: I'm in a sort of a different position from most of the guys who've begun lifting; more in this thread if you can spare the time to read the first message. A short version: due to my skin and its general effect on my mental well-being, I need to put more focus on hypertrophy until I get enough muscle to compensate for the (apparently) permanently lost skin elasticity. It's doable, but I dunno how long it'll take, a year or a few more is my guess judging by my current progress. At this point in my life, I don't want to get on the juice, but I've been thinking about it seriously as I'd have a relatively easy access for the stuff and general knowledge via family links.

The general reasoning is that I also want to get stronger at the same time just to get bigger quickly and vice versa, and I have some experience programming SS/TM type of things. I got Justin's ebook a while ago, and he basically outlines the 3x10/1x5-10 type of volume/intensity deal along with some anecdotal evidence, which sort of confirmed my idea that I can just go ahead and do TM with higher reps, maybe go for the pump on assistance work to promote some extra growth as long as I keep the focus on big lifts.

Now, I know these type of questions aren't probably something you want to be involved with, but I figured you can still easily spot if there's something tremendously wrong with my approach. At the moment I'm doing plain old TM pretty much like you laid it out in PP, but I split the volume day into two consecutive days for squat & assistance and bench/press & assistance. The light and intensity days I do as usual--minimal volume. I've been running the current version for almost six weeks, four workouts per week, and so far I've had pretty much no problems and it looks like I'm slowly creeping towards 1x10x300 lbs on lowbar.

When I get into hard times with the 10s, hopefully not before another six weeks, I plan to go back to 5x5 and I'll also keep on lowering the intensity day reps as I get higher in the weight. The idea I have is that I can get away with the occasional hypertrophy-focused periods as long as I finish them with another more strength-orientated period, where I go for ~5x5 on volume and some amount of lower reps on intensity. 2-3 months on higher reps, another 2-3 on lower, repeat until required.

So, the actual question: Do you have any advice or thoughts about the whole ordeal? I'm completely committed to this stuff, but I'd like to get "there" ASAP without any additional health issues.

Thanks for your time!

[Mark Rippetoe]

How many fucking times do I have to state this? Once a week? Maybe make a sticky, which you won't read anyway?

The fastest way to get strong muscles is also the fastest way to make them bigger. We know what works best to make them strong in the shortest time possible. If you want to get big, do the thing that makes them strong. There is no magic version of this program that works faster than the one you already have.