Hello, gents. Anyone here got experience with the texas method? Ive just started running a setup like this:
MON
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5 (alternate with military press every other week)
Pendlay Rows 5x5
WED
Power Clean 3x3
Front Squat 3x3
Military Press 3x3 (alternate with light bench every other weekend)
FRI
Squat 1x5
Bench 1x3 (alternate with military press every other week)
Deadlift 1x5
My only concern is that deadlift may not get as much work as needed to bring it up. For those of you who have used TM succesfully, how did you go about programming the DL?
How long have you been lifting and how strong are you?
I ramped up to a heavy set of 5 on deadlifts once a week for a long time. Took my deadlift from 315x5 to 475x1. After that I stalled out and had to try new things.
I have also tried the Texas method but never got it tuned in where I was making steady linear progress every week as is the goal of the program.
Got a 300 bench, 350 squat (terrible) and a 460 DL. Pretty low numbers so I think I can get some tonnage out of weekly linear progression for a while - especially for my squat
There seems to be all different versions of these 5x5 programs but you could probably get away with doing slightly more volume on the light day if you wanted to. Starr has people on their light days who are using front squats ramp up to in five sets top set of five. Once they hit 300 for the top set of 5 they change the last 2 sets 3’s.
Although my numbers were downright pitiful on the TM, I’ll share my experience of it.
Pros: Can use for a long time of you are pretty ‘in-tune’ with your body(learning when to take it easy etc). Training sessions are pretty straightforward and challenging. Will give you a good indication of where you are. I got my strongest squat, bench and press on that programme.(I had a pretty serious neck injury in the summer that set me back BIG time and I’m only starting to regain some strength now)
Cons: I did it for about 8 months and actually grew to hate it. My deadlift suffered terribly due to the the volume/heavy squatting done first at every workout. The emphasis on squatting eventually wore me down a lot. My lower body was just too tired to deadlift(especially after benching/pressing) and my numbers plummeted.
Be prepared for long-ass workouts. Getting through a monday with 5x5 squats, bench and 3x5 deadlift is not easy. You are so drained that almost any assistance work is done poorly or simply gets thrown out of the window on some days. It’s almost asking for imbalances due to lack of room for assistance work.
Conditioning is brutally hard cos you feel like you are about to collapse any second before you even get near your prowler/hill.
The endless repetition of the same exercisesin the same order on alternating days really got me. I know it’s easily changeable but still got to me.
I never hid the fact that I hate squatting. I don’t shy away from my squats but I don’t exactly have the love that I do for deadlifts either. I think a lot of this has to do with SS and the TM. Squatting every single time I was in the gym(it being the first lift in every session also) really made me sick of it. I loathe it less now on 5/3/1 and actually kinda enjoy BBB squats.
Long-ass workouts. Worth mentioning again.
These are simply my experiences. Others may rip this post apart but thats just what I thought of it. Either way I hope you have good success with it.
[quote]Jereth127 wrote:
Although my numbers were downright pitiful on the TM, I’ll share my experience of it.
Pros: Can use for a long time of you are pretty ‘in-tune’ with your body(learning when to take it easy etc). Training sessions are pretty straightforward and challenging. Will give you a good indication of where you are. I got my strongest squat, bench and press on that programme.(I had a pretty serious neck injury in the summer that set me back BIG time and I’m only starting to regain some strength now)
Cons: I did it for about 8 months and actually grew to hate it. My deadlift suffered terribly due to the the volume/heavy squatting done first at every workout. The emphasis on squatting eventually wore me down a lot. My lower body was just too tired to deadlift(especially after benching/pressing) and my numbers plummeted.
Be prepared for long-ass workouts. Getting through a monday with 5x5 squats, bench and 3x5 deadlift is not easy. You are so drained that almost any assistance work is done poorly or simply gets thrown out of the window on some days. It’s almost asking for imbalances due to lack of room for assistance work.
Conditioning is brutally hard cos you feel like you are about to collapse any second before you even get near your prowler/hill.
The endless repetition of the same exercisesin the same order on alternating days really got me. I know it’s easily changeable but still got to me.
I never hid the fact that I hate squatting. I don’t shy away from my squats but I don’t exactly have the love that I do for deadlifts either. I think a lot of this has to do with SS and the TM. Squatting every single time I was in the gym(it being the first lift in every session also) really made me sick of it. I loathe it less now on 5/3/1 and actually kinda enjoy BBB squats.
Long-ass workouts. Worth mentioning again.
These are simply my experiences. Others may rip this post apart but thats just what I thought of it. Either way I hope you have good success with it. [/quote]
Thanks for sharing. I agree that the volume day is hard, but I kind of like that. As far as squatting each workout, Im digging that at the moment cause it really let me work on technique. Also, at this level my squat seems to respond very well to high frequency work (thats the main reason I switched to this from 531)
531 is great, no doubt. But as I stated earlier, the main reason I switched from 531 to TM was so I would be able to squat 3 times per week, and so far it is working great. The downside, as mentioned by Jereth, is that sessions are really long-drawn. This would be fine if I went to good gym, but unfortunately Im confined to a university gym overflowing with retards and half-wits.
When I was doing this, I split it up into a 4 day split, and split up the volume days into an upper and lower. Then I did the back off days and intensity days as they are stated in the program. My reasoning for it was to cut down on the session times and to stay highly motivated throughout the workout.
I also think my failure to progress on the program was due to eating like an anorexic.
I also experimented with alternating between 5rm, 3rm, and some heavy singles on intensity day as well.
This is not the Texas Method from the article just published on T-Nation. I did Monday’s workout yesterday and did 3 sets of curls / 3 sets of skullcrushers and the entire workout took me under an hour. I did not wait 8-10 minutes between sets because that didn’t make any sense to me. It came out to be like 2 minutes between sets.