Program selection for a lagging squat

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi

I’m a little lost in the programming jungle as I struggle more than others with progress for squats and deadlifts while the bench and press has kept moving without much difficulties except for some minor injuries. I hope some of you might have a suggestion on which program to try in my case.

I started lifting in May 2018 with an empty bar with no athletical background were my goal was to get stronger. I did the usual SS NLP. Long story short my lifts have progressed a little unevenly since then, and I’m now in a position where my recent 1RM (tested) are:

squat 315 (this was by far the hardest one to achieve and took me 1.5 years of consistent lifting)
deadlift 415 (have stalled around this weight a few times the last year)
bench press 320
press 200

Now, the problem is that I squatted 260x5 and deadlifted 330x5 at the end of LP in July 2018. That means my progress since then has been quite poor especially regarding the Squat, but also the DL.

The last 1.5 years have consisted of lots of resets and stalls on squat and DL while the bench and press have progressed slow and steady.
My programming has been done by a coach since late 2018. It has been variations of the TM with volume days (5x5) and intensity days with reps from fives to singles and squatting mainly two days a week aiming for weekly progress of 5lbs. Although I seem to struggle a lot with making such consistent progress.

My lifting goal is to get stronger in the long run, but I wouldn’t mind some aesthetic improvements either.

Male 29yo
BW: 160->200lbs (quite some fat gain)
Height: 6ft

Any help appreciated.

2

Andreas,

Thanks for the post and I hope you’re well. A few things:

  1. As I understand it you ran LP for 2 months and since then have been running TM as programmed by a “coach”. We would recommend dissolving the relationship with the coach and trying to get as far away from that style of programming as possible. I am not sure that your coach is qualified based on this management.

  2. I’d recommend you run our free program The Bridge to see if you respond well to that type of programming. From there, it would be up to your personal preference which way to go programming wise.

  3. I’m not sure what your waist is, but if it’s > 37" you may consider losing some weight to reduce risk of health problems. While this strategy isn’t consistent with the simplistic and absolutely wrong programming model of gain weight = get stronger week to week, you are likely to gain strength while losing weight if the programming is correct :slight_smile:

-Jordan

1 Like
3

Thanks Jordan.

  1. Looking in my log I switched to intermediate in August so I basically ran LP on all the lifts from the beginning of May to August. From August I switched to intermediate programming for bench and press, while resetting and messing around with LP to get my numbers up (unsuccessfully). Got a coach in December which had me run a short LP again before switching to TM.

  2. Cool, I’ll give The Bridge a go.

  3. I’m hovering around 37 and would love to get rid of some.

Thanks again for taking your time.