Template suggestion for low power/high endurance lifter

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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I am a 57 year old weak female who probably has at least 80% Type I muscle fibers*. I started SSNLP 5 years ago, and after number of resets, plateaued with a press of 65 lbs, bench at 55 lbs, squat at 150 lbs and a deadlift at 200 lbs for 5RMs at a body weight of 125lbs. As an older lifter, I was advised to decrease my training sessions to twice per week. All of my lifts continued to be stuck except for my squat which cratered to 120 lbs. After reading Matt Perryman’s “Squat Every Day”, I increased the volume on all my lifts, increased the frequency of my presses and pulls to 3 times per week and my squat to 4 times/week. This volume and frequency increase has added 10 lbs to my press, 30 lbs to my bench, 15 lbs to my deadlift, and 50 lbs to my squat.

My question is: ​I would like to continue to make gains using one of your templates; is there one that includes 4 days of squat variations or that can be modified to add an extra day of squatting? Is there one that would be better suited for low power/ high endurance types? I love participating in powerlifting completions and would like to do my best. I know I don’t have championship potential, but competing motivates and humbles me.

*The reason that I believe that I have predominantly Type I muscle fibers is that I have plenty of endurance but no power and I cannot sprint. At the end of my SSNLP my standing vertical jump had increased from 5" to barely 12". I cannot spike a volleyball or slam a tennis tennis ball, and all of my lifts look like tempo lifts. I have the build of a stereotypical long distance runner with narrow shoulders and an even narrower pelvis. I have decades of running 50 miles/week (never faster than 8:50) under my belt until my feet couldn’t take the abuse anymore, and once hiked 50 miles in 14 hours with no preparation and still had additional miles left in my tank.

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CCL,

Thanks for the post and I hope you’re doing well.

I don’t want to beat around the bush here, but I also want to be careful with my explanations.

I think it is highly unlikely you’re 80% Type 1 fibers, as that would represent a larger proportion of type 1 fibers than the best endurance athletes. I also think that you have evidence to the contrary in your squat and deadlift numbers, both of which require some modicum of type II fibers (and their adaptability). You also have evidence that you respond to training once given the appropriate dose, as you note all your lifts have improved since adding volume.

I think your career -to-date results, build, etc. are more a function of your previous training as an endurance athlete and some bad advice about training, e.g the decrease in frequency to twice a week.

I see that you enjoy powerlifting, which makes me smile :slight_smile: If you want to get better at powerlfting with the aim to compete in a meet, I think regular exposure to the competitive lifts (squat, bench, and deadlift) with some practice in performing singles, and challenging weights that produce improvements in performing that task.

I think that if you’ve been doing a higher volume version of LP, you could move to the Bridge 1.0 to get your feet wet in our programming. After that, I’d do the Bridge 3.0 and see how you do. I think that both of these templates have components that should improve your ability to perform the squat, bench, and deadlift. It is possible that you might not respond as well as I’m predicting and in that case, I would likely adjust the training volume and average intensity up in a similar program to see if that yields a bigger improvement.

3

Thank you. I will be doing the Bridge 1.0. I assume it’s always best to doing the program exactly as written; however, I have an irregular work schedule. How bad would it be occasionally move my GPP day to Day 6?