Old Man Texas Method. Week 4. Middle Day

BW - 231

Squat - 300X5, 5, 5

Press - 132.5X5, 5, 5

Chin-Ups - BW; 35 Reps; 8 Sets

Squats felt quite a bit easier this week.  By the #'s I started with, I would stay at this weight for another two weeks.  I think I should raise it before then, but I want to see how Squats go on Intensity Day first.  Final set shown.

Press's felt good and hard, however.  The %'s here are much higher because of the decreased frequency.  First two sets were a little rough, but I pulled it all together for the last set, below.

On Chin-Ups, this is the first time I haven't dropped below 4 reps.  May be progress.  I'm on the watch for these to decline with the decreased frequency, but I'm also prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

Old Man Texas Method. Week 4. Volume Day

BW - 228

Squats - 340X5, 5, 5

Bench - 200X5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Deadlift - 300X5, 5

Everything went pretty well today.

Squat technique felt a little all over the place today, but settled down a bit by the final work set, below.

I wasn't sure how many sets of Bench I was going to do here.  On the program, it feels like I've got some latitude to go 3-5X5.  I went 5X5 on Press last week, but my shoulders were feeling a little beat up.  However, by the 3rd set, I was feeling pretty good and so did all 5.  Glad I did, as the final set was moving well.

Something got goofy on my spreadsheet where I was doing 290 for 2X5 last week on DL, and then 3X10 this week and next.  I just decided to split the difference and do 300 this week, and then go to 310 next week.  Everything moved well.  2nd set shown.

Old Man Texas Method. Week 3. Intensity Day

BW - 229

Squat - 375X5

Press - 147.5X5

Deadlift - 385X3

Everything went pretty well on this day.  Tied or exceeded PRs.

375X5 on Squat ties the existing PR.  Moved pretty well.  Depth, as always, is borderline.  Sunk the last rep pretty well, though.

147.5X5 is a PR on Press.  All out effort, but I did get over my toes on the lockout.

385X3 ties the existing PR on Deadlift. These moved well.  The first rep in particular felt really strong.

Old Man Texas Method. Week 3. Middle Day

BW - 231

Squat - 300X5, 5, 5

Bench - 205X5, 5, 5

Chin-Ups - BW; 34 Reps, 8 Sets

As promised, upping the intensity on the middle day results in lower weight squats that feel as hard or harder than the volume day squats.  Weight moved fine, just kind of felt like crap relative to Mondays work sets.  3rd set shown.

Had two options presented for off-week Bench/Press.  One was to go slightly heavier than the last volume day, but the one I went with was 90% of last Intensity Day weight.  Similar to squat, these felt as hard or harder than last volume day despite being lighter and moving relatively well.  With these, it was always the first rep that seemed to feel awful.  Again, 3rd set shown.

Chin-ups actually felt a bit on the strong side.  Got an extra rep in the same number of sets.  Probably due to more recovery with the reduced frequency in favor of more DL.  We'll see if they start to back-slide only happening once a week.

Old Man Texas Method. Week 3. Volume Day

BW - 229

Squat - 340X5, 5, 5

Press - 127.5X5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Deadlift - 290X5, 5

Everything went pretty well tonight.  After adjusting the program to be more in line with the info that's out there about it, Squat weight is light enough that I can really focus in on technique every set.  Still not sure I'm happy with this bar path, but I'm trying to determine where the bar path "starts."  Does it start and end where I'm fully standing?  Or does it start a bit later?  Final set shown.

After the first set of Press, I was skeptical about 5X5 at this weight, but it all worked out!  Glad I had faith in the programming on this day.  Final set shown.

This weight was practically speed work for DL, but we'll see how it goes.  Technically this is a 2X5 PR, as I haven't done sets across on DL since September of '16.

Old Man Texas Method. Week 2. Intensity Day

BW - 230

Squat - 370X5

Bench - 225X5

Chin-Ups - BW; 33 Reps; 8 Sets

Everything went pretty well on this day.  I've been listening to the Starting Strength podcast with Matt Reynolds, and they've elaborated on the Old Man Texas Method.  To keep in line with that, I started by dropping the AMRAP back-off sets from this day. And starting this week, I will be making some other little tweaks, and we'll see how it goes.

Bar path on Squats still looks troublesome, although these felt good.

Was supposed to do 222.5 on the bench, but I just couldn't take it anymore and went on to 225.  Moved well.

Chins started off feeling a little stronger, and got a few more reps on the initial sets, and was able to get the same total reps as last time in one less set.

Starting with the next workout, we'll see Squats on Volume Day get a little lighter, but heavier and more sets on the light day.  I'll start alternating Press with Bench again this week, and there will be many more sets on Volume Day for these with a little less weight.  Also DL will happen on both VD and ID for as long as that works.  Not resetting the DL to sets of 5 yet though. Want to see if DL on VD can help keep driving the weight up on ID.

Old-Man Texas Method. Week 2. Press/Deadlift Day

BW - 231

Squat - 290X5, 5

Press -
145X5
115X8

Deadlift -
380X3
340X3

Press and Deadlift were both pretty hard on this day.  On both the tops sets and back-off sets.  Both top sets definitely felt like RPE 9-10, as I think you can see in the videos below.  We'll see what happens with these lifts over the next couple of weeks.  I may need to find a way to introduce a bit more direct volume.

Also, I listened to a podcast with Matt Reynolds, Starting Strength coach, about the "Old Man" TM, which is what I'm doing a version of.  They talked about the "light" day squats needing to feel as hard or maybe harder than the volume day squats.  The idea being that you shouldn't be recovered enough from Monday for these to be easy, but they're light enough that you will be mostly recovered for Friday's Intensity set.  These were pretty easy, and I likely will need to add weight or sets.  However, since the switchover from what I had been doing to TM is already an overall increase in volume, I don't want to rush to make more changes, before I see what happens with the initial programming.

Texas Method. Week 2. Volume Day

BW - 229

Squat - 350X5, 5, 5

Bench - 210X5, 5, 5

Chin-Ups - BW; 33 Reps, 9 Sets

Fully onto the "old-man" TM with a short term bench focus (meaning bench every Monday and Friday).  Squats and Bench both went well.  Squat bar path was better than last week.  I need to start super-setting the chin-ups into other movements again.  It takes forever to get all these chin-ups sets in after the rest of the workout is done.  3rd Squat and Bench sets below:

Texas Method. Week 1. Intensity Day

BW - 230

Squat -
365X5
290X8

Bench - 220X5, 5, 5

Chin-Ups - BW; 32 Reps; 8 Sets

Top set of Squats felt pretty good at the time, but looking at the video I can see that I was getting on the front of my foot on almost every rep.  May need to video my warm-ups on Intensity day to try and get that dialed-in before the work set.  Back off set felt very easy.  It's probably somewhere around 70% of my max so it should.

220 for 3X5 is an LP PR on Bench.  REALLY thought I wasn't going to get this after the 2nd set.  And you can see that the last rep on the last set in the video was absolute limit strength, RPE 10.  Depending on how this went would determine when I would switch over to TM for Bench.  I don't see any reason to wait.

Manage to get my chins in one less set than last time.  Need to watch myself, as I think I  might be starting to cut depth a little bit.

Texas Method. Week 1. Press/Deadlift Day

BW - 229

Squat - 285X5, 5

Press - 130X5, 5, 5

Deadlift -
375X3
340X3

While I'm getting back into the Texas Method, this day is a bit of a trial day in the program.  Because my Bench has been moving so well, I'm running it 3X5 on Monday AND Friday until it stalls.  In the meantime, I will be alternating Press volume and intensity days weekly on Wednesdays.  Also, I'm trying out the Deadlift here to see if it interferes with recovery for Friday.  I'm skeptical that it will as I've seldom had trouble pulling and squatting within 2 days, and Friday is low volume.  We'll see.  Anyway, that's why this isn't the normal TM "light/recovery" day mid-week.  Press should switch back to standard fairly soon as the Bench is likely to stall quickly. 

Press sets were all fine.  I wasn't sure if this would be a challenging enough weight, but I think it was good.  3rd set shown.

Deadlift was a little harder than I expected.  We'll see how that goes again next week.

Texas Method. Week 1. Volume Day

BW - 229

Squat - 345X5, 5, 5

Bench - 217.5X5, 5, 5

Chin-Ups - BW; 32 Reps, 9 Sets

First day back on TM.  Squats went fine.  3rd set shown.

217.5 for 3X5 is an LP PR on Bench.  These are definitely starting to slow down.  Also, frequency will be increasing a bit.  Initial plan is to Bench on Monday and Friday, Volume Day and Intensity Day.  Press will be done on Wednesdays alternating Volume and Intensity.  This is just to try and run up the Bench as fast as possible and see where it's at before I switch over to full TM.  Could hit that wall this Friday or a week or two hence.  3rd set shown.

Chins were a bit tougher today.  I think my back is actually getting bigger from this.  That's cool and all, but what I want to see is the reps on the initial sets start to rise.  I'm still averaging 4 reps/set, with the first set being 5-6 reps, and the second set being 4-5 reps.  But I'm prepared to take this thing all the way to 50 reps/session before I start looking for new tack.

Training

BW - 229

Squat -
375X4
340X5

Press -
155X2
140X5, 5

Chin-Ups - BW; 31 Reps, 8 Sets

Had the day off and so trained a bit earlier than usual.  I usually don't perform well in the gym on a day off, but this was particularly poor performance.  I knew coming in that something was off, so tried moving Squats to the front of the workout so that I would be "fresh," but it didn't help.  The top-set was brutal and wiped me out for the back-down set.  Press was more of the same.  Did get some more reps on chins, though.

I'll be switching back over to Texas Method with 3X5 on volume day.  If that's not enough to drive progress after a few weeks, I'm prepared to switch to HLM instead.  Full, 5X5 Texas Method buried me last time and I'm not interested in revisiting it.