6 Days/Week Low Intensity, Medium Volume Program. Thoughts?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone has experience lifting 6 days / week while carefully toning the intensity/volume down accordingly and if it is sustainable.

Day 1 - Deadlifts / Pulls (Chin Ups) + Pull assistance (ex: Face Pulls, GHR, Reverse hypers, Back Ext, Curls etc.)

Day 2 - Front Squat / Push (Bench) + Push assistance (ex: Lunges, Lateral Raises, all Core work, Triceps, Pushups, Dips, etc.)

Day 3 - Deadlifts / Pulls (Rows) + Pull assistance

Day 4 - Front Squat / Push (Incline) + Push assistance

Day 5 - Deadlifts / Pulls (Chin Ups) + Pull assistance

Day 6 - Front Squat / Push (Press) + Push assistance

Day 7 - OFF

I would obviously keep the work very low, for example on Deadlifts I would do something along those lines:

1st day: 3x3 @ 60%
2nd day: 5/4/3/2/1 @ 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%
3rd day: 10x2 - +20lbs/ sets up to 80%RM

Basically, every workout would be ā€˜ā€˜easyā€™ā€™, but the frequency very high. Iā€™m hearing more and more people and coaches talk about working on the technique, ingraining the movement pattern with a lot of volume, but low intensity. Iā€™m slowly coming off a back injury (back is 95% atm), so my plan is to really go light on the DL and work on the volume/technique and eventually bring back the intensity in 12-20 weeks.

Please tell me your thoughts and what you would add/remove/change.

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It works when volume and intensity are appropriate.

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Deadlifting 3 times a week will catch up with your back fast.
Yeah Iā€™d go with Thib plan above, iā€™d replace the ā€˜Heavyā€™ deadlift work with light stuff like 60% x3x3 that you mentioned. Even just deadlift once a fortnight

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Too much deadlifts and front squats, not enough benching, no back squatting, too much emphasis on ā€œpullsā€. I wouldnā€™t do it, thatā€™s for sure.

Are you training for PL or something else? I just seems weird that the only squat you are doing is front squat.

I have done some high frequency stuff in the past, it can work but it isnā€™t necessarily better than squatting and benching 2x/week and DL 1x, the main benefit is if your technique sucks. Not so much for DL though, light deadlifts donā€™t really carry over to technique improvements on heavy pulls.

What I would do if I was going to train full body 6 days a week is squat first every day, heavy squats on the first day of the week and lighter volume work the rest - not too much on any day and probably 3-4 work sets max on the heavy day. Some kind of benching every day, you could do OHP (technically not bench, yes) and incline once a week each but most of it should be done laying on your back. You could alternate heavy/low volume days with lighter/high rep days, but donā€™t overdo volume. You can deadlift 2-3x/ week, I would do the heavy day the day after heavy squats and maybe as the first exercise (as in no squatting). Keep deadlift volume low. Upper back/ā€œpullsā€ can be done as necessary at the end of workouts, 3-4x/week is more than enough. Donā€™t overdo anything.

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Thank you for that article, I was familiar with the first two regarding hypertrophy, but not this one in regards to strength. I understand that frequency is king, but that volume and intensity have to be managed carefully.

Yeah the lower back is probably my biggest concern, the most Iā€™ve pulled was 475 and 405 for reps but with a bounce. I would like to go back to 135-315 and really work on mastering the form and rebuilding it up with no bounce, etc. I do like the idea of doing 1 day of pulling and 2 days of ā€˜ā€˜back workā€™ā€™ + DL assistance.

Thanks for the input Chris. I am not training specifically for PLing, although I do wish to get stronger. My back squat technique isnā€™t 100% and my quads are much weaker than my posterior chain. With back squatting, my hamstrings and glutes often ā€˜ā€˜took overā€™ā€™ and while I understand that sometimes this is good, I would like my quads to catch up. Plus, with the pulling, I figured that beating up my hamstrings/glutes on back squats too might not be a good idea.

Regarding not enough benching, you donā€™t think 1 day of pressing, 1 day of incline and 1 day of bench would be sufficient regarding upper body pushing?

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Do high bar and/or SSB squats. If your quads are small and weak then a hypertrophy phase (with lower frequency) would be a good idea.

Not if you want to get good at benching

What are you training for and why do you think that competitive powerlifters have the answer to your problems? You did post in a PL forum, you know.

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I would not train 6 days a week.
If you want frequent full body, just squat, push, pull every workout.
Squat, bench, row
Front squat,OHP, DL
Zercher squat, CGBP , curls.
Just a simple example. Add some ā€œ coreā€ work every session and or grip, neck.
Pretty simple. Start light add weight every week or two till itā€™s too much, then pick a more advanced program.
Multiple sets across of lower reps, will improve your technique.
Add 5lbs for the upper and 10 for the lower when you add.
Mix your rep ranges or just do 5s.
Old fashioned,simple and with consistent work will yield excellent progress in the beginning.

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Ive been running Nsuns 6 day deadlift program for 6 weeks now, I deadlift heavy 1 day a week (sumo since thats my preffered stance) 1 light conventional day, and one light sumo day. It is kinda rough on your back but with correct form, nutruition, and warm ups its been fine for me. I strongly reccomend checking out this program. Iā€™ve also seen large improvements on my bench, squat, and OHP while staying at the same BW