The Short: I have barely improved e1RM since finishing Novice LP over 6-months ago.
The Long: Starting specs: BW: 135lbs , 5’9" , 30yo , marathoner - collegiate distance runner - high school varsity soccer.
Summer 2016, I ran Starting Strength (first interaction with weightlifting) for the Summer and got my Squat/DL up to around 200lbs before running injury and I quit lifting.
Start - December 2017: I unfortunately modified the SS NLP to two times a week while running LSD a couple times a week as well for the first 5 months. Ate as much as I could (didn’t do GOMAD) and in 5-months my specs became the following (before I stopped running and began working out 3-times per week).
End of April 2018.
BW: 160lbs
3x5 Squat: 260
1x5 Deadlift: 285
3x5 Bench: 185
3x5 OHP: 130
Switched to the Texas Method June 11, 2018 - I was pushing through lifts at RPE10 since May I’d say and finally found the Bridge 1.0 and started July 9th, 2018.
July 2nd numbers:
BW: 170
e1RM
Squat: 353 lbs
Deadlift: 353 lbs
Bench: 238 lbs
OHP: 156 lbs
Fast Track: I did Bridge 1.0 into 3-day Hypertrophy 2.0 into Bridge 2.0 into Bridge 3.0 (now in my 7th week).
Current Specs:
BW: 180
e1RM
Squat: 361 lbs
Deadlift: 372 lbs
Bench: 241 lbs
OHP: 168 lbs
I have definitely progressed in technique and learned a ton from BBM, Alan Thrall, and Brian Alsruhe channels. But I am amazed that my lifts have barely gone up in 6-months post-novice. I work extremely hard (potentially too hard), never miss a workout or a set, always go into a workout with the intention of adding weight, video-tape myself and critique my form all the time, almost never skip GPP.
I used to beat myself up that my Deadlift isn’t significantly higher than my Squat, but I’ve recently found out that due to my short limbs and long torso, I don’t need to hold myself to that standard anymore. My work capacity is much greater than it was back in July. This past week I’ve been cutting 40-minutes of cumulative rest time out of my workouts by not resting between warmup sets and only 2-3minutes on working sets — still hitting the same numbers.
Bottom-line, anyone have any clue why the programming hasn’t been working for me?
My suspicion is that I need a 4-day a week program because I feel pretty well recovered and always have a good attitude going into a workout. I know I’m still young to lifting, so I expected a much greater response, especially based on my Novice response while I was NDTP.
My plan moving forward is rerunning the 3-day Hypertrophy plan using Bands/Chains on all the main lifts (to get use to it) and then running Brian Alsruhe’s free conjugate program. Regardless, it feels like the programs I’m running are not giving me enough volume to make an adaption. Add an additional set to each lift?
I’ll figure it out eventually through trial and error, but thanks for anything you consider helpful.
Marty