# Changing program from old faithful to self made feedback wanted



## Gatrie (Nov 8, 2020)

New member here I have been doing a personalized version of PH3 since April or so. With Covid it hasn't been ideal for my squat or deadlift since I won't do that at home but I did keep up my bench press so my before and after is squat 335 to 385 bench 265 to 355 deadlift 385 to 445. I took up arm wrestling when the arm bet app came out so I'm adding in arm wrestling practice 2 times a week one easier and one harder as well as mild accessories everyday. Anyway the new routine is 6 days a week ABABAB style with less volume to counteract the increased frequency. I'm doing this to try and keep a more even level of fatigue so that I can incorporate my arm wrestling in. A is bench, deadlift, lower body accessories and very mild arm wrestling exercise. B is Overhead press, squat, upper body accessories and mild arm wrestling exercises. The volume I'm doing each day I'm keeping pretty low and sometimes I leave the gym early if I'm not feeling good. Everything I do is 2 or 3 sets based on feel. I do waves for reps so 8,6,5,4,3 or 9,7,6,5,3 or whatever random lower number I feel like doing until resetting to a higher number. I use a percentage based off my max or previous lift experience to determine weight for PL movements and accessory work I pick a weight and the reps for that I just keep in the 5-10 range based on how heavy it is for me. What are you guys thoughts on the high frequency low volume and areas of concern or improvement that you can think of?


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## BrotherIron (Nov 9, 2020)

Accumulated muscular and neural fatigue is my concern...  You going to squat and deadlift 3x a week? This won't last long.


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## CJ (Nov 9, 2020)

BrotherIron said:


> Accumulated muscular and neural fatigue is my concern...  You going to squat and deadlift 3x a week? This won't last long.



I think I agree with this. 

You say only 2-3 working sets per exercise, but when you factor in all the warmup sets you'll be doing, I think you might be better off doing less days of Squats/DLs, but just a little more work on those days.

Fatigue will build from warmup sets too, so I'm of the opinion that maybe the same number of weekly work sets but less warmup sets, couple with an extra day off from those exercises, could give you a better stimulus to fatigue ratio. Doing Squats or DLs every single workout might be overkill, especially when you add in the other training you do. 

You'll know soon enough though, either you'll wear yourself out, or your progress will stagnate.


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## Sicwun88 (Nov 9, 2020)

3xs a week is definitely too much, 
Especially if you're training intense which should be done in any exercise!


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## Gatrie (Nov 10, 2020)

Makes sense so I'm going to cut out squat on Tuesday and deadlift on Friday. Bench 3 times a week has been good to me so I'm keeping that.


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## dreamscraper (Nov 10, 2020)

As a stupid example, anyone could squat and deadlift the empty bar everyday so it is not the frequency but the frequency of intensity that is the problem.

Pavel Tsatsouline on Joe Rogan got pretty deep into Soviet weightlifting ideas and it is just interesting how no one does what he was talking about. 75% for 3 as an example. If you do 4 or 5 sets it doesn't even feel like you have done anything. There is no adrenaline needed but I think that is actually the point.
You can do that 3 or 4 times a week no problem.  Maybe even 5. 

As a total absurd example imagine two programs 
a. 10 sets of 96-99% singles twice a week. 
b. 4 sets of 75% for 3, 4 times a week 

Program A would feel astronomically harder to do than program B. You are actually though doing 40% more volume with B even if only 3 times a week.

I think we probably make this mistake all the time. People want the program to feel like program A even if you are not doing as much actual work as program B.


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## CJ (Nov 10, 2020)

Let's make it apples to apples, would you rather see:

A) 6 days of Squats/Deads for 3 sets 
B) 3 days of Squats/Deads for 6 sets  
Volume of work sets is equal

With A, you'll have more TOTAL volume, because some warmup sets before the work sets are heavy enough to cause fatigue, without much benefit. I'd argue your systemic fatigue will rise more quickly because of that, and performing the lifts day after day. 

With B, less systemic fatigue because you're giving your body a break from Squats/DLs while still getting in the same amount of work. 

Even when I was Weightlifting, we only squatted 3-4 times per week, max. It was like 3x5 BS on 2 days and 3x3 FS on 2 days. We didn't DL, but we did Pulls, but they were submax, performed for speed and technique, like 3x3. There were 3 days to recover from that, and even that wasn't crazy volume.


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## dreamscraper (Nov 10, 2020)

Ok, I thought about this quite awhile and would systemic fatigue just be equal in what you posted?
Like some movement with a 100lb PR. 
You do 3 sets of of 70lbs for 1, 6 days a week 
You do 6 sets of of 70lbs for 1, 3 days a week

I am not sure how systemic fatigue could be measured besides perceived something but it would seem pretty close? 




CJ275 said:


> Let's make it apples to apples, would you rather see:
> A) 6 days of Squats/Deads for 3 sets
> B) 3 days of Squats/Deads for 6 sets
> Volume of work sets is equal
> ...


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## CJ (Nov 11, 2020)

dreamscraper said:


> Ok, I thought about this quite awhile and would systemic fatigue just be equal in what you posted?
> Like some movement with a 100lb PR.
> You do 3 sets of of 70lbs for 1, 6 days a week
> You do 6 sets of of 70lbs for 1, 3 days a week
> ...



I don't know, because you're doing warmup sets 6x per week, vs 3x per week. It all adds up.

Plus, you're not giving the body a rest, I see it as sort of like you keep picking the scab instead of letting a wound heal.

It's all hypothetical though. I could be wrong.


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## Gatrie (Nov 13, 2020)

My warm up sets are very light so I don't think they negatively affect me. My last warmup set is only around 50% of my max the others obviously even lighter and I do at most 4 sets ramping up so the 4th set would be 50% like 45 95 135 185 for bench then do my working sets say 285 for 3 sets of 5 just an example from last week. Also my warm up sets are at most 5 reps


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## ATLRigger (Nov 13, 2020)

What do you do in weightlifting practice ?


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## CJ (Nov 13, 2020)

ATLRigger said:


> What do you do in weightlifting practice ?



Were you asking me?


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## dreamscraper (Nov 13, 2020)

I think you have to isolate warm up volume from the program though. Go ride the bike for 15 min instead. The real problem though is how do we know anything really? I assume pushing volume up over time makes a person stronger but what proof is there of that? 
I read a study that had 33 people tracked for 2 weeks.  That is just not a good dataset. There is even risk that dataset is worse than nothing. 





CJ275 said:


> I don't know, because you're doing warmup sets 6x per week, vs 3x per week. It all adds up.
> 
> Plus, you're not giving the body a rest, I see it as sort of like you keep picking the scab instead of letting a wound heal.
> 
> It's all hypothetical though. I could be wrong.


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## Gatrie (Nov 25, 2020)

Alright so far my results have been a burnout. The problem is me though so I don't know if this is too much or not by itself. I also arm wrestle on top of wanting to improve my powerlifting numbers. My elbows just can't keep up with benching 3 times a week overhead pressing 3 times a week doing accessory work and 1 or 2 arm wrestling practices. Also my squat and deadlift aren't doing that hot either as I'm not getting enough rest in between days to do a more serious weight. So I'm not responding to this well. My new plan is to start a new training cycle of PH3 next Monday after Thanksgiving and just do a full body accessory workout Wednesday and then rest during Thanksgiving and do another accessory workout Saturday.


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## CJ (Nov 25, 2020)

In my opinion, you're going about this backwards.

What you're doing is loading yourself up with volume, to see if you can handle it. If you can't, you're going down. 

What I would recommend is to start with LOWER volume, and if all goes well recovery and progress wise, then add a little bit.

Maybe try a Wendler's 531, and go from there. It's easier to go up than down. I ran it alongside crossfit training many times, the volume was perfect(and could be tailored) in addition to the other stuff I was doing. I also tried other programs that had much more going on, Hatch is one I remember specifically not going well.

And you know how Layne Norton is. If you asked him if he thought it was cool to do all the extras you want to do alongside his standalone program, he'd call you a dumbass. That you can't keep piling shit up, because then you're left with a big pile of shit. :32 (18):


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## Gatrie (Nov 25, 2020)

Yeah I see what you're saying. PH3 has worked very well for me in the past so it's just easy for me to stick to what works and that I like.. As far as arm wrestling goes I'm thinking one practice a week going forward. I can definitely handle one or the other but both is rough so I'm going to compromise them a little to take some of the stress out. It's hard for me to go back to low volume since doing stuff 2 to 3 times a week is when I see a lot of progress but I have no choice.


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## Gatrie (Dec 7, 2020)

Well I went back to old faithful PH3 with no modifications and only 1 arm wrestling practice on Saturday. I feel much better. I was not resting enough before. Another thing I noticed is that the intensity that I decided on by myself was much higher than I thought it was. I noticed this when the weights went down a bunch.


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## CJ (Dec 7, 2020)

Gatrie said:


> Well I went back to old faithful PH3 with no modifications and only 1 arm wrestling practice on Saturday. I feel much better. I was not resting enough before. Another thing I noticed is that the intensity that I decided on by myself was much higher than I thought it was. I noticed this when the weights went down a bunch.



Yeah, the weights going down is no bueno. Regression is not cool, don't keep banging your head against the wall. Glad that you're resting more now.


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