Texas Method modifications.

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

To keep this as short as possible, lifts will be 1RMS, with me being Sex:Male Age:20, Bodyweight:98KG (on creatine) and Height:185cm

Deadlift:220KG
Squat:140KG
Bench Press:120KG
Press:90KG
Power Clean:100KG

Now as for addressing the question in the title, I will be giving some more context. I have managed to keep these lifts from a bodyweight of 112KG while losing body fat and getting to 98KG in 4 months. Something strange happened at that time though, I had tonsilitis for 2 weeks, leaving me unable to practically eat anything more than 800 calories a day, resulting in me losing about 4KG in a week. Strangely enough, 3 weeks after my initial day of the infection, I hit a PR on my Press while maintaining everything else???
Anyway, let’s head to the present. Present me still has these lifts BUT now also trains boxing 3 times a week (training is not VERY taxing in my case as the trainer knows about my lifting and trusts me doing strength training there instead of the class).
I had been training an Upper Lower 4 times a week but now this feels impossible because I would have to train twice a day for boxing and lifting because Sundays are unavailable, resulting me to reach for a 3 day Full body split. The Programs in my sight were the Texas method, Madcow 5x5 and HLM and I chose the Texas Method because it looked more exciting but I felt the need to modify it for both hypertrophy and strength purposes in the upper body lifts, while keeping the strength-only approach on the lower body.My calories will be set around maintenance/slight surplus so I don’t get out of control as I still have weight that needs to go. I took some advice through Jordan Feigenbaum’s article “12 Ways To Skin The Texas Method” and more specifically his 8th “Problem:IÂ’m a bodybuilder. I need to train for hypertrophy. Can I use TM?”. Now I am not a bodybuilder, but it wouldnt hurt to look more aeshetically pleasing after getting decently strong would it? Anyway, this is what I came up with:

Day 1:
Squat 5x5 90%5RM
OHP or Bench press 5x8 73%5RM
Pendlay Rows 3x6
Arms Superset x15’
Day 2:
Squats 2x5 (80% of Monday)
OHP or Bench Press 3x8 70%5RM
Deadlift 1x5
Chin up 3xFailure
Day 3:
Squat 1x5RM
OHP or Bench Press 5RM (95KG)
Power Clean 6x2 or Pendlay Rows 5x10
Arms Superset x15’

As you can see I modified the Upper body lifts to have more volume in them with the purpose of driving strength up through hypertrophy in the first 2 days but still kept the 5RM on the last day as an indicative of strength increase. The percentage I used is through Prilepin’s chart, resulting in about an RPE 8 on about the first 3 sets and RPE 9-9.5 on the last 2 and also added some arm and side delt work in the end of day 1 and 3.

Problems I am worried about:
1)As you can see my squat is not the greatest, could it use a different approach? (I have had Patellofemoral Syndrome which doesnt allow me to train VERY intensely for many sessions a week but I feel this is doable), my worry is that it might lack intensity for my current strenght or even volume, what do you think?
2)On Upper body lifts, could that approeach give me my desirable effects?
3)Would you find use for back off sets on friday since a 5RM is (in my opinion) not that stressing and not enough of a stimulus by itself?(I acknowledge that it is there as an indicator only but why not take some more advantages)

I hope what I wrote was well documented and didn’t tire you out. Feel free to notify me of ANYTHING wrong with it. Thank you for your time.

2

LAGman,

Thanks for the post and for joining our forum. A few ideas here:

• If you’re trying to lose weight, eating in a calorie surplus isn’t going to work. I’d aim for a slight deficit :slight_smile:
• I would not recommend the program you came up with. A few glaring issues: 1) you probably can’t squat 90% for 5 sets of 5, given that a 5RM is ~86%. I especially wouldn’t recommend that for someone with PFPS 2) Squat volume looks very low for someone looking to improve their squat. 3) Deadlift volume is also low if you’re looking to improve that. 4) Doing 5 sets of 8 @ a near 9 RM (on day 1) doesn’t seem feasible either. 5) No autoregulation. 6) Very specialized programming for a non-barbell sport athlete

For your questions:

  1. Would not recommend TM for squat or any programming. For this situation, I’d prefer either hypertrophy I or general S/C I templates.
  2. Possibly, but unlikely.
  3. I would not use the 5RM approach at all.
3

You gave me a decent insight, however regarding your #1, it is doable as it’s 90% of 5RM, not 1 RM (140kg=1RM, 140x0.86=120kg 5RM, 120x0.9=108) 108 kg is doable for 5x5 for me using breaks of about 5-8 minutes
#4,The weight feels like a 10-11RM, only reaching RPE 9-9.5 on the fifth set doing 3 minute breaks, isn’t that a decent stimulus without excessive fatigue?
#6, Primarily I am a barbell sport athlete with experience with only lifting, only took up boxing to learn the sport as an amateur while only fighting in sparrings. Also keep in mind that since the coach knows this he doesn’t bother me with extreme amounts of conditioning, mostly technique work and enough cardio to last 3-4 rounds of sparring.

4

Ah yes, sure. That said, I don’t recommend this approach either for calculating load or for rest periods. You’ll note this is not how I recommended programming the Texas Method either

Since you’re a barbell sport athlete, when is your next meet and how did you do at your last competition?

5

[quote=“Jordan Feigenbaum, post:4, topic:8141, username:Jordan_Feigenbaum”]
Since you’re a barbell sport athlete, when is your next meet and how did you do at your last competition?
[/quote]I do practice barbell sports cause of my own liking but not very competitive as of yet, only competed once in oly lifting when I was 19 years old (last year) and won the gold medal in the junior category locally with a total of 250kg.

Also, my Uni internship suddenly turned up so I will have to quit boxing because of the schedule and will only focus on lifting. For this reason what do you find most beneficial, a 3-day classic TM or a modified 4-day template? The problems I have with the modofied ones that I’ve seen around are:

  1. They all turn into a ULDUP where the frequency of each lift is only twice a week whereas I need to squat atleast 3 times a week. How would you suggest for me to make a template where I increase pressing and pulling volume (not just deadlifts)? I managed to tinker with the low squat volume by adding 2 back-off sets on ID at 2x3@90%1RM and so far have gained 7.5kg in my squat.
    2)Could I keep the template as I have, while just adding a day between VD and RC for accessories such as Hip Thrusts, Good mornings, Dips/Chins etc?