Adjusting SSLP

Hello Doctors,

first of all, thanks for your amazing work and the content you put out. I have binge listened to all the BBM podcasts in the past couple of weeks and I learned a lot!

So, some of my background. I am 34, male, currently at 116kg, probably 27-28% body fat on a 300kcal deficit diet. I 've lost 6 kgs in the past 3 months. I discovered SS around September 2016 and started lifting for the first time in my life, around November 2016. I have always had relatively more lean mass than average but I was also fat and struggling with my weight for a couple of decades, losing a lot of weight and putting it back on. I run my first SSLP from around 70kg/100kg/50 (kgs,SQ/DL/BP) in Nov 16 to 160/180/95 in late June 2017 at which point I was failing reps every single workout. I moved to Texas Method and within a few weeks I got up to 172.5/192.5/102.5. I found TM to be quite ok, at least for the first weeks, in contrast to what a lot of people in the community have experienced, though I am not sure if that would hold if I stuck with it. These were beltless btw, because at that time I thought, hey, if it’s not hard, it is not training, right?

After 4 weeks of summer vacation without lifting, I got back in the gym around the mid of September 2017 and I very foolishly tried to started with 10% of my top intensity day set. I pull my adductors on both sides quite bad, probably because my knees were too far out and I stretched them too much at the bottom of the squat. I could barely walk and get out of bed and though I tried to do a Starr rehab after 3-4 weeks I only managed to give my self knee pain with no improvement whatsoever on the adductor pain. I, again foolishly, stopped training completely to give time to my injuries to heal. I could have progressed by bench and my deadlift, but I suppose I got lazy as well. Around the start of February I felt healed enough to start another LP, from 50kgs for the squat, while I started a diet, counting macros and measuring everything. It has so far gone great and in my last training I was up to 165/180/90kg for the squat, deadlift and bench press. From 160kgs on I started using a 4’’ leather belt. I am still figuring how to use it efficiently, but it sure helps a lot!

Anyway, on to my actual question. I find that putting weight on the bar every single workout is too much. My joints ache, my tendons ache, I am really sore the next day and losing weight is not helping either. However, it seems I can manage biweekly increases in weight, if I limit my deadlift to once a week and do barbell rows the other days. Would you suggest something like a HLH programming where I increase weight on Mondays and Fridays on my squat, do a 10% off lighter day on Wednesday and on that day do my deadlift but with 5 reps on all warmup sets to increase volume?

We would suggest doing our programming instead of the options presented thus far. I would start with The Bridge:

http://www.barbellmedicine.com/the-bridge/

You need to transition to post novice programming and any template you run that does not accomplish those tasks is a poor use of training time IMO.

Jordan, thanks a lot for taking the time and replying to my question. I am surprised at the answer, I was almost sure it was coming, but I wanted to confirm. Fortunately I already have the Bridge, from R last November (not sure if it has changed since), now all I need is to figure out RPE. :slight_smile: