Programming advice

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi,

Been resistance training pretty consistently for ~16 years. I’ve just finished a cutting phase post-Christmas, dropping about 12 lbs and 3 inches from my waist circumference. I’m now relatively lean and I imagine somewhere in the region of 12% body fat. I would like to experiment getting <10% body fat and plan on resuming my cut in 6 weeks time and dropping the remaining 3-4lbs. I have noticed since my cut that my maximal strength has declined significantly (losing ~20% on my 1RMs), especially on the bench press. I imagine the strength loss isn’t due to cutting per se (although a common anecdote is that pressing strength tends to fall off during a cut), but rather due to my programming over the last 12-16 weeks (sacrificing heavier work for more time-efficient work in the 8-30 rep range and removing the ‘big three’ from my program). In an ideal world, I would love to improve my squat, bench, and deadlift simultaneously, but I’m training around some low back issues (pain with ^axial loading + extension). So it may be wise to spend some time focusing on my bench press, while programming lower-body exercises that I can tolerate well (Belt squats, leg extensions, back extensions, leg curls, lunges). As I’ve been enjoying (and making good progress on) my current program, I feel like it’s sensible to keep it largely similar but replace some of the pressing volume with the barbell bench press. So it looks something like this:

Bench press - Work up to single @ 8 RPE- 3 sets of 5 @ 75% of E-1RM
Pull-ups - 4 sets of 6-8 reps
Dips - as many reps as possible in 3:00
Side-lying lateral raises - 4 sets of 12-15
Preacher curl - 3 sets of 15-20

Belt Squat - 4 sets of 8-10 reps
Leg curl - 4 sets of 12-15 reps
Calf raises - 3 sets + 1 drop set - 10-15 reps
Decline sit-ups - 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Bench press - Work up to a single @ 8 RPE - 3 sets of 7 @70% of E-1RM
Cable row - 4 sets of 8-12 reps
Lat pulldown - 4 sets of 12-15 reps
DB shoulder press - 3 sets of 12-15 reps
Overhead cable tricep extension - 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Pendulum squat - 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Back extension - 3 sets of 10-12 reps
Lunges - 2 sets of 12-15 reps
Calf raises - 3 sets + 1 drop set - 10-15 reps

That’s 2 upper and 2 lower body sessions per week. 8-12 sets per muscle group. The aim is for each session to last less than an hour. In addition to the above, I’m doing 2 conditioning sessions per week, 30 minutes of low-intensity running on one day, and 15 minutes of intervals on the stationary bike on the other day.

The progression scheme for the bench press is

Weeks 1+2 - 5/7 reps
Weeks 2+3 - 4/6 reps
Weeks 3+4 - 3/5 reps
Weeks 5+6 - 2/4 reps
Week 7 - 1/3 reps

I’m hoping that will gradually accustom me to heavier loads and result in some decent bench gains.

My questions are, does seem like an appropriate and efficient way to program the bench in the context of what is pretty much a hypertrophy-focused program? Could I just program one heavy bench set (or even a single) twice per week on the bench before lighter sets and expect similar gains in strength? Can you think of a more time-efficient way of programming the bench press to boost my 1RM?

I expect that my maximal strength will largely recover anyway now that I am actually benching and consuming maintenance calories, regardless of how I program it.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hey Tom,

This is definitely wading pretty deep into consult territory. I’ll try and comment on some general themes in the post, but a thorough review of your proposed program is beyond the scope of this forum.

With respect to maximal strength expression, it is not surprising to me that strength is down without regularly training them. I would agree with your assessment on the programming being the likely culprit, though low energy availability associated with very low body fats could certainly be playing a role.

I don’t really like programming singles at all when people are losing weight and not competing in a barbell sport, as I think the fatigue cost and training resources aren’t really worth it. In your case, removing the single from your bench training could save you a considerable amount of time in the gym. Doing some maximal strength work is advisable, but I’d prefer it for multi-rep sets in this context.

For your programming, I think this is likely sufficient to preserve size. Save for that, I can’t tell much without knowing the intensity of the sets (e.g. RPE, %'s, RIR, etc.). The progression scheme in reps is not really something I use for strength development, but more for peaking. Even then, I don’t really like shifting the goal posts every few weeks. Rather, I like selecting rep, loading, and proximity to failure ranges that drive adaptations I’m programming for and see how the individual responds.

If forced to comment, it looks a bit low on pressing volume for strength for someone with your training history. I don’t think the dip AMRAP is likely to be beneficial from a strength or hypertrophy standpoint. For upper body strength, I think there’s a lot of non-contributory accessory work programmed in, e.g. lateral raises, curls, lat pull down, cable row, pull-ups, etc. If you have plenty of time to train, then I certainly like having accessory work in there, but if the goal is to bench press a house - that stuff doesn’t make much sense to me.

I’d like to see some more specific steps being taken to manage the low back pain stuff, e.g. some sort of hinge (DL variant) and progression from the leg press(es) to squats- if for nothing else than to have unrestricted movement options.

Finally, the cardio is likely under the current guideline minimums for conditioning. 30-min of low intensity running is probably ~ 150 MET-minutes and the 15 minutes of intervals may be as high as 130 to 150 MET-minutes. 500 met-minutes per week is the goal, so if this is the allotted training time AND you’re trying to get peeled, I’d likely dedicate more time to conditioning.

If you’re dead set on chasing down some bench gains, I’d do the upper body programming from Strength I or similar. I still would advocate for a more direct approach to managing the low back pain, e.g. the low back pain template’s lower body programming.

Just my 0.02.

-Jordan

3

Hi Jordan,

Thanks for taking the time to post what is a really through reply. I appreciate it.

I’ve decided to make a few changes based on your comments:

  • Replace the pendulum squat and back extension with a squat and RDL - use pauses and slower tempos to obtain a training effect without having to increase load. Work within symptom tolerance and progress load as able. In conjunction with the belt squats and leg curls on the other lower day, this should be enough to maintain or even increase lower body LBM.

  • Add more pressing volume at the expense of some isolation work. Add some incline DB presses for variation and additional volume for pressing musculature. I wasn’t certain if the goal is to increase bench press strength, it would be better to add additional bench sets or a new exercise (I’m guessing it depends on the individual)

  • Changing the bench programming and progression. Instead of gradually increasing the intensity in a sort of peaking progression, stick with the same rep scheme week to week and increase the load after I hit a certain rep target at a certain RPE. Such as:

Bench press (upper day 1) - 3 sets of 5 @ 7 RPE - increase load once hit 6+ reps at 7 RPE.

Bench press (upper day 2) - 3 sets of 7 @ 7 RPE - increase load once hit 8+ reps at 7 RPE.

Also removing the single @8 from both of these days to save time.

  • Adding in some additional conditioning to obtain >500 MET minutes per week. Also hitting an average daily step count to achieve 1000+ MET minutes in total per week.

I’ll run this for a while and consider the strength template. If you think that’s the most appropriate template.

Thanks again.

4

Sounds good to me!