Program Help

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

New to posting, but I’ve read a lot of helpful things on this forum before and decided to see if anyone ahs some advice for me.

Quick history: I’ve been lifting for 2.5 years now. I started with Rippitoe’s Wichita Program, then did 5/3/1 followed by playing around with Jamie Lewis’ Chaos and Pain. After that I got a little side tracked and started focusing more on Olympic lifts - Trained shoulders and front squats 3 times a week while maintaining my bench and dead lift on the side. Now I’m back to Power lifting and just completed 2 months of single rep training following a program that had me doing squats and deads for singles 7 days a week. The program was awesome and I did really well with it. I gained over 16 lbs without increasing body fat. Here are my current training maxes:
Squat - 395 ( 35 lbs PR ) / Deads - 475 ( 40 lbs PR ) / Bench - 340 ( 25 lbs PR )

Now after 2 months of that single rep training my body felt dead and I was loosing motivation. I decided to switch it up and that where I have run into trouble. I decided to try MadCow’s 5x5, but I really don’t care for it. I feel stagnant. So I’ve been researching some other programs and I’ve come across 2 that I want input on.

First, Dr. Squat’s 80 day program. It promises nice gains at the end and I’m you sure you can’t go wrong with his program. The thing that I don’t like is the lack of workout days. Also, I haven’t been able to find examples of what accessory work he recommends and what to do in all those off days. I really love lifting 6 days a week and would like to continue so.

Second is the 20 rep squat program. I have kind of created my own program that incorporates the 20 rep program with a Romanian Dead lift program. Bench would be accomplished using a program by Ed Coan. I kind of meshed all three. Here is what I put together:

Monday

Squats s/s/w overhead Pulls - 1x20-225 / 1x20-50

Bench - Excel Program

Heavy Overhead Pulls - 5x5-120

Bent Row - 5x5

Hyper Ex - 2x12

Tuesday

Tire Flips s/s/w pull ups - 10x5

Dead Lifts - Romanian Program and Barbell Curls

Kroc Rows

Core

Wednesday

Active rest - Run / Foam Roll / Stretch / Ruck / Turkish Get Ups

Thrursday

Press - My Matrix

One Arm DB Snatch - 5x5

Squat s/s/w OH Pulls - 1x20- +5lbs / 1x20-50

Incline Bench - 4x6-8

Weighted Sit Ups - 3 Sets x Failure

Friday

Dead Lifts - Romanian Program and Barbell Curls

Machine Pull Downs - 3x10

Cable Work - Crosses / Face Pulls etc…

300s - 3x12

Saturday

Squats - 1x20- +5lbs

Bench - Excel Program

Dips - 10x15

Shrugs s/s/w Bent Rows - 15x3 / 15x3

Sunday

Active Rest - Run / Foam Roll / Stretch / Ruck / Turkish Get Ups

There are the two programs I am thinking of. Could anyone offer some input. My main goal is to increase my 1RM on all 3 big lifts.

Like I said, the single rep training was really good, but brutal doing squats and deads everyday. I was thinking of trying it again, but incorporating a rest / deload week every 4th week.

Just not really sure where to go from here and would appreciate any experience y’all have to offer.

Thanks and take care

Dillon

2

you look at the great workouts and you consistently see 4 days a week. and we know growth happens outside of the gym. so why must you workout 6 days a week?

i guess you can do a proven program and then do conditioning and extra work for weak links on 2 extra days a week. maybe its just me, unless you know how to program for frequency, intensity, and volume against your current and ever changing work capacity then 6 days a week is just an ego thing.

or you could switch to a sport that more readily handles 6+ days a week, like olympic lifting. the eccentric loads especially from deadlifts tear down the body a lot and you need recovery time.

3

6 days is alot

4

The Westside guys get about 12-14 training sessions in per week. The Bulgarians had tremendous success training far more than even that, and John Broz has continued that for both OL and PL. And personally, the more frequently I train the better my results tend to be.

Give it a shot if you think this will work for you. Ignore the people who whine about overtraining and find out for yourself – it’s likely they’ve never pushed themselves to see what their body can adapt to or bitched out when they tried.

5

well if you must do 12-14 workouts a week then you better hire a coach that know this or become an expert yourself on the relationship between intensity, volume, and frequency. if you dont, you will fail miserably.

6

I think frequency and repitition is great for building strength. that being said, you don’t need to always go heavy. pick a few movements you like and practice them alot. go in some days and practice with the bar, 135 lbs, and so on. make yourself the master of your movements. My training partner squats 6 days a week. goes heavy 5’s on monday and thursday, and does extremely light practice sets on tuesday, friday, and saturday.

7

If you are doing a true 20 rep set of squats to failure, you may not want to do anything on the off days. As a matter of fact you should feel like puking and/or passing out after you finish number 20. I do the 20 first, (some like to do them last) and about 2-4 compound movements to accompany it depending on how you feel (nothing under 5 reps.) Maybe just some foam rolling and abs on off days. It is really more a mass building program but you can get some strength out of it, you will need recovery time in between days to grow though.

Eat like you never have before while doing it, and you might need a good nap some days afterwards.