Since I have a lower back that is partial to injury and a max effort on leg days would be equivalent to playing with a lighter on an oil rig, I was thinking of perhaps doing three week cycles of ME work lower body with a 5 x 5 progrssion. For instance in the first 3 weeks I might do 5 x 5 with the snatch grip deadlift, going up in weight each of the three weeks, along with the standard westwide protocol assistance exercises, and then on weeks 4-6 I could switch to Ultra Wide Squats, and on weeks 7-9 I could perhaps go to Close-stance squats. I would switch up assistance work every 3 weeks by switching between different exercises, volume, or intensity. For upper body I could do a standard max day. Let me know what you guys think.
sounds like it will work fine. i wouldn’t do the ultra wide squats on max effort day. you will be doing wide stance squats on every dynamic effort day, and doing them on the max day would probably be too hard on your hips. Tate talked about this in a q&a or article recently. strengthen u0p that back and in the future you will probably be able to work into 3’s and 1’s. good luck.
Wquitar,
As Scott said, I’d cut the ultrawide SQ out of the program. After a thoroughly-broken back (not a lifting injury), I did lotsa very-low-intensity straight-leg DL and dead-stop DL off a 4" platform, working up to a max-effort 5-set over a period of about 5 years. You could do the same with good morning’s, using a slight knee bend. Looking back on 40 years of lifting injuries (mine and other lifters’), I think all of the above exercises are semi-sorta dangerous at your 5-rep max weight and unreasonably dangerous when you go heavier. (That’s what God invented regular DL’s and rack DL’s for.) And, yeah, I know that “all the big kids” do max-single good morning’s, and some of them never get hurt…
Before you start on this program, you might wanna find out why your back is a magnet for injuries. If you can’t invest $2,000+ in an orthopedic surgeon and an MRI, spend $200 to get a good chiropractor to take X-ray’s and look for skeletal problems. If you’re gonna powerlift for long, now is the time to start looking for a good chiropractor…
Strength & courage,
“Coach Joe”
you would be much better off just droping the max effort squat day totally and adding in assitance work on this day and remove the max effort movement and work up to heavy doubles every other week on your dynamic squat day…check out john botts training log at elite fitness it will show you exactly what to do…bm
thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it, but I was exaggerating slightly about the oil rig 
I looked into John Boitt’s training log and it looks like he does the same squat assists each ME day and then on Dynamic day he only does 5 sets of 2 instead of 10 or 12. Also, I noticed he did speed deads a few days but with only 2 sets. Any reason why?
Wguitar,
If you really want to know address a question to John in the Q & A at elite. I am sure he will be more than happy to tell you. Asking him will be the only way you will know the real answer. good luck
I do this kinda thing all the time and it helped my bench and deads for sure.
However you can only do this for 2-4 weeks in a row unless you change the exercise.
PM and I can help you further.
JA