Ignignokt
Level 1 Valued Member
Alright so as for the obligatory primer on me, I'm almost 30 but still feel 22 and am physically injury free, though I think I have mild ADD. Anthropometrically I've been described by my doctor as proportionally having slightly longer limbs than average, but not that much. I'm about average height and I look really slender but I'm about 175 lbs which is a bit much for comfort - I might be fat on the inside 
So long story short, I read a bit of what Pavel write about the benefits of training with a higher frequency and wanted to try it out. However, I don't think I found the PTTP routine and didn't want to buy the book, and I didn't want to do "easy strength" either because if I recall, you do the same thing basically 5x/week for like 40 days or something and according to Charles Poliquin the body can adapt to a stimulus after as little as 6 exposures, so I wanted to wave the load up and down a bit. Also I'm not stupid enough to try the "bulgarian" method as I have always done better with low-bar squats and even Cory Gregory, despite his work capacity, only does high bar every other day or something in his routine, to say nothing of LBBS every day.
Before you ATG fanatics attack me, I have good natural hip mobility and I wear shoes with a slight heel, such that even with LBBS I can go quite deep without lumbar flexion and my knee angle is only slightly less than my HBBS - a small price to pay IMHO for the improved stability, consistently straight bar path, reduced risk to my C7 vertebra AND higher percentage strength gain over a given time frame.
Enter the norwegian method: I found this article here and decided to give it a whirl. He says it works for beginners as well as more advanced lifters
www.t-nation.com
so basically in the famous norwegian frequency project, powerlifters who dispersed their workload over 5-6 days instead of 1-2 got bigger and stronger, due I think to keeping the body in a continual anabolic state (testosterone levels go down after like 48 hours post workout or something like that if I recall)
My current routine is as follows (note: I wasn't about to do the 2x5 he suggests here - that would put me to sleep).
week 1-2
mon: 3x3@80%
tue: 3x3@65%
wed: 3x3@75%
thu: 3x3@60%
fri: 3x3@75%
week 3: same as the first two, except retest your 1RM on monday and base the following percentages off of that. (Note: to ensure poundage accuracy and not fry your CNS, you should stagger the weeks such that you do not max on two exercises in the same day/week.)
Much to my surprise - I made some of the fastest gains in my life. My squat jumped from 265 to 315 over the first cycle! And I was never particularly sore either!
Could I have gotten similar gains from other routines? Probably. But if I get the same gain by working smarter not harder, I'm all for it. Also I have a gym at home so the frequency isn't an issue even in a pandemic. if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and yes I'm fully aware of using "max tension" even with light weights too.
So here are my questions: I'm off to a good start for the time being I think, but some improvements need to be made.
1) what do you all recommend for deadlifting during this? The DL is notoriously hard to recover from, especially when squats are factored in, and I'm told one shouldn't test a 1RM on it more than a handful of times per year. Right now I'm simply assuming that my DL is at least as much as my LBBS (which seems safe given the leverages/muscles involved) and whatever I do for 3x3 on a given day for squats, I do 1x3 of that exact same weight for DLs. After this cycle is over I'm debating whether to either just add 10 lbs to my max and base my percentages off of that, to simply use whatever I use for the squat as before, or perhaps do a 6-10 reps max test and estimate my 1RM based on that.
2) there's a powerlifter by the name of Mike Tuchsherer who uses heavy singles at 8 RPE in his routines to better train his lifters for maxing out in competition - something I was a little concerned about given that my training loads are 60-80%, and I enjoy 1RM testing occasionally even though I'm not a PL. He says it's the adrenaline more than anything else that taxes the body and as you lift near-max weights more often you get more confident under load and thus it's less taxing: I'm wondering if I can replace the 80% day with a single @ 8-9 RPE and maybe do a backoff triple or two if needed to maintain volume.
3) eventually my body will get used to this routine, although there are certainly other norwegian-style routines out there. Anyone else have any success stories/recommendations?
So long story short, I read a bit of what Pavel write about the benefits of training with a higher frequency and wanted to try it out. However, I don't think I found the PTTP routine and didn't want to buy the book, and I didn't want to do "easy strength" either because if I recall, you do the same thing basically 5x/week for like 40 days or something and according to Charles Poliquin the body can adapt to a stimulus after as little as 6 exposures, so I wanted to wave the load up and down a bit. Also I'm not stupid enough to try the "bulgarian" method as I have always done better with low-bar squats and even Cory Gregory, despite his work capacity, only does high bar every other day or something in his routine, to say nothing of LBBS every day.
Before you ATG fanatics attack me, I have good natural hip mobility and I wear shoes with a slight heel, such that even with LBBS I can go quite deep without lumbar flexion and my knee angle is only slightly less than my HBBS - a small price to pay IMHO for the improved stability, consistently straight bar path, reduced risk to my C7 vertebra AND higher percentage strength gain over a given time frame.
Enter the norwegian method: I found this article here and decided to give it a whirl. He says it works for beginners as well as more advanced lifters
Bench, Squat and Deadlift: How Often?
Most people train the big lifts once or twice per week. But the strongest people in the world use a much higher frequency. Here’s what you can learn from them.
so basically in the famous norwegian frequency project, powerlifters who dispersed their workload over 5-6 days instead of 1-2 got bigger and stronger, due I think to keeping the body in a continual anabolic state (testosterone levels go down after like 48 hours post workout or something like that if I recall)
My current routine is as follows (note: I wasn't about to do the 2x5 he suggests here - that would put me to sleep).
week 1-2
mon: 3x3@80%
tue: 3x3@65%
wed: 3x3@75%
thu: 3x3@60%
fri: 3x3@75%
week 3: same as the first two, except retest your 1RM on monday and base the following percentages off of that. (Note: to ensure poundage accuracy and not fry your CNS, you should stagger the weeks such that you do not max on two exercises in the same day/week.)
Much to my surprise - I made some of the fastest gains in my life. My squat jumped from 265 to 315 over the first cycle! And I was never particularly sore either!
Could I have gotten similar gains from other routines? Probably. But if I get the same gain by working smarter not harder, I'm all for it. Also I have a gym at home so the frequency isn't an issue even in a pandemic. if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and yes I'm fully aware of using "max tension" even with light weights too.
So here are my questions: I'm off to a good start for the time being I think, but some improvements need to be made.
1) what do you all recommend for deadlifting during this? The DL is notoriously hard to recover from, especially when squats are factored in, and I'm told one shouldn't test a 1RM on it more than a handful of times per year. Right now I'm simply assuming that my DL is at least as much as my LBBS (which seems safe given the leverages/muscles involved) and whatever I do for 3x3 on a given day for squats, I do 1x3 of that exact same weight for DLs. After this cycle is over I'm debating whether to either just add 10 lbs to my max and base my percentages off of that, to simply use whatever I use for the squat as before, or perhaps do a 6-10 reps max test and estimate my 1RM based on that.
2) there's a powerlifter by the name of Mike Tuchsherer who uses heavy singles at 8 RPE in his routines to better train his lifters for maxing out in competition - something I was a little concerned about given that my training loads are 60-80%, and I enjoy 1RM testing occasionally even though I'm not a PL. He says it's the adrenaline more than anything else that taxes the body and as you lift near-max weights more often you get more confident under load and thus it's less taxing: I'm wondering if I can replace the 80% day with a single @ 8-9 RPE and maybe do a backoff triple or two if needed to maintain volume.
3) eventually my body will get used to this routine, although there are certainly other norwegian-style routines out there. Anyone else have any success stories/recommendations?
