Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Stronger is Better podcast brought to you by Starting Strength Gyms. Thank you for tuning in to episode one. If you remember or if you've been around for a while, we had a Starting Strength Gyms podcast a few years ago hosted by Ray Gillenwater. What I intend to do with this podcast is sort of continue the tradition that we started with Ray, bring you more interesting guests, more interesting topics, and expand upon what we had already started with the foundation that Ray established in that original podcast. The one thing that we're going to focus on on the Stronger is Better podcast is the concept or the concepts of principles and process. So with each episode, what I'll try to do is regardless of who we're talking to or what the topic is, I'll try to distill the, conversation down to the most basic principles that we can identify. And once we've done that, with the help of the guests or just through the progression of the conversation, we'll try to establish a process that you can implement in your own training, in your own business practices, or in your own interpersonal relationships, depending on the nature of the talk. So to give the podcast some focus and some direction, that's the way we'll head. And I feel like that is one of the things that I can bring a value to our listeners and our viewers and our coaches. So today's topic, what we're going to do is talk about programming. So we started the original podcast with an episode on the novice linear progression. So Ray and I spoke at length, I think for at least an hour on the novice linear progression, what it is, how it works, and all of that. And we're going to talk about the sort of bits and pieces and nuts and bolts of how to how to assemble it and the why. So obviously, the novice linear progression is very simple. and it's simple for a reason. And I'll get into that a little bit more today. But about a year after that, we did a episode on intermediate programming, sort of the same approach. So talking about what it is, how to do it, and some best practices in terms of implementing intermediate programming into your training. What we'll do today is go into advanced programming. So, in order to do that, I'm going to hit again on some novice concepts, hit again on intermediate stuff, and then we'll get into some more specifics in terms of advanced programming. Before we do that, though, we need to establish some ground rules and establish some basic principles, obviously. So for the background material on what we're going to be discussing, obviously, Starting Strength, the book, is the foundational text for the novice linear progression. Practical programming serves as the application of the starting strength method in terms of programming. And practical programming takes you from novice in the real world to the real world. And so we're going to get into some more specifics in terms of and the stress recovery and adaptation. all the way through advanced programming, covers a wide variety of topics. So those two books should serve as the foundation for anything that we're discussing, or they do serve as the foundation for anything that we're discussing today. And if you haven't already, you should read those. You should purchase them and take a look. So you can get them on Amazon or you can get them on startingstrength.com. The one thing to remember about programming books, and this applies also to practical programming, is that you want to – and by the way, there's not a lot of value if you're learning or trying to apply basic barbell training into a program that's going to specifically work to make you stronger. There's not a lot of value in starting out with even some of the more well-known and established texts on programming. So that's why I'm talking about starting out on strength training. Now, I'm trying to think of a way to say this that doesn't sound self-serving, but there's no better material out there than the two books, Starting Strength and Practical Programming, in terms of learning how to do the lifts, learning about why we do the lifts, and then implementing those lifts into a program, and then how the variables work together, the training variables work together, and then how to progress those training variables in order to get stronger. So anyway, if you're just getting started with strength training or performance training, and you're just getting into the whole world of barbells and how they work, and how you should program for them, just get started with those two books, right? Then obviously, there's also the seminars. We have Starting Strength gyms around the country where you can go in and be coached by a coach three days a week, and then we have affiliates around the world, and we have coaches around the world as well. So anyway, to get started. The Starting Strength... Obviously, the material, the source material is going to be in Starting Strength. Primarily, the intermittent intermediate material is going to come from practical programming and some of the concepts outlined concepts and application outline there. And then for the advanced topics, I'll get into where my ideas come from and how I've implemented those and then how you can you can think about implementing them yourself. The thing is, with with novice and intermediate programming, it can be fairly templated, especially novice programming. If you're doing it in the most optimal way, meaning the way that's going to get you the most amount of strength as quickly as possible, then there's no other way to do it that maximizes your ability to continue producing more force than the novice linear progression. Once you get an intermediate programming, the concept and the application is similar, but it just slows down a little bit. So there's a little bit more complexity once you get into intermediate programming and with complexity. Comes a little bit of personal preference. So I'll discuss that a little bit, and then once you get into advanced programming, for lots of reasons that I'll get into, there is quite a bit of room for not only complexity but also for personal preference. So keep in mind that we're going from fairly rigid in terms of application in the novice program to a tiny bit more flexible in intermediate programming, and then intermediate programming can take a while. So throughout your intermediate phase, so to speak, you will be adding a little bit of complexity. There's room for personal preference in terms of how the coach applies the programming concepts and then how you do them yourself. And then for advanced programming, it's going to require knowledge of not only the outcome and the goal that you're looking for but also tradeoffs in terms of what things that you can do based on your personal preference that are going to be beneficial and good versus which ones are going to be bad. Okay, so before we get – again, before we get into the – specifics on the actual programs here, let's lay out the fundamental concepts or the first. principles. So I want to make a little bit of a distinction between fundamental concepts or just concepts and first principles. So first principles being those ideas, those concepts that are difficult to refute or irrefutable based on our current understanding, or that the way I like to think about it, first principles are concepts that you are not going to get disagreement on. So in other words, they're the common ground. Whenever I'm speaking to anybody in any profession. about strength training, or I'm speaking about any sort of complex topic, if we can get down to the principles that underlie the processes that we're going to use, those principles should be fairly universal. So for example, in barbell training, the way that we're going to use the principles that underlie the processes that we're going to use, we're going to use the principles that underlie the processes that we're going to use, is going to be informed by the gravitational framework that we live under, right? So a good conceptual understanding of gravity and how it works and for the coaches understanding terminology and understanding the interaction of gravity with things in your environment and then how that applies to barbell training is really important. So the first principle would be would be a mechanical concept, right? In terms of moment arms and gravity and so on. When you talk about programming, the first principle that we want to consider at all times is the principle of the general adaptation syndrome. So you can you can talk about general adaptation syndrome as as sort of as the stress recovery and adaptation, which is how it's presented in practical programming. That's very useful in terms of talking about strength. Training because there's a there's a slight difference between just something. reacting to a stressor and adapting to it or not adapting to it versus stress recovery and adaptation, which usually is moving into driving an adaptation purposefully, right? Or at least that's the way I think about it. So the general adaptation syndrome would be a first principle, the said principle, which is the specific adaptation to impose demands. And all these things mean are that whatever adaptation you're looking for, whatever adaptation you're observing is going to be the result, the direct result of the stress that was applied. And you understand. this because you've had a sunburn, you've deadlifted, right? And you've noticed that calluses appear on your hands at the points where the bar is interacting and pulling on your skin. You've maybe learned how to play guitar and you've noticed that you get calluses on your fingertips, but those responses, those adaptations happen in direct proportion to the stress that's applied. And so that's the general adaptation syndrome. And I think that's the general adaptation, syndrome applied to it. One of the things to remember is that your body is generally pretty efficient with this kind of stuff, so you're only going to get an adaptation up to the level at which you're no longer having to deal with that stress. So in other words, you're going to get calluses on your fingertips in direct proportion to how much you play the guitar and how aggressively maybe you press the frets, right? So if you're playing a lot or you're pressing really hard, you might get thicker calluses. If you spend a lot of time in the sun, you're going to have a deeper tan than somebody who goes out occasionally, right? So again, general adaptation syndrome or stress recovery adaptation, and then the SED principle, which is specific adaptation to impose demands. And that's pretty almost self-evident, and it would seem like there's not a reason to talk really in-depth about this. But once we get into... Once you get into actual application, unless you keep this, these concepts and this principle in mind at all times, as you're making decisions, um, it's easy to lose, to lose sight of what the objective is. One more thing before we move on to the specifics of, of barbell training and. the, uh, force production adaptation, the concepts that you learn in barbell training, both as a lifter and as a coach are actually pretty far reaching in terms of anything that involves a complex, complex, uh, process or complex mechanisms or complex, uh, just complex situations in general, because the idea or the, the, the progression of a process going from simple to complex, from basic to individualized and, from, um, general to specific. which are all programming concepts that we talk about at starting strength at the starting strength seminar and are addressed in practical programming. Those that progression of variables along that spectrum or along that, along that progression, and then also layering in the idea of the law of diminishing returns, where as you make more progress towards some improved outcome, the effort, the resources, the time, the money that's needed in order to continue making progress along the same trajectory, actually, actually not along the same trajectory along over time actually becomes more difficult, right? So it's easy to make gains, so to speak. It's easy to make improvements when you're starting out in anything. And the longer you do it, the more, the more difficult, the more time and the more resources it takes in order to make the next jump in performance improvement. So that, that line of thinking and systems, systematize, The process that you're using in varied topics and varied endeavors and varied domains of your life is actually very, very useful. And one of the things that barbell training does for you, because having that thought in your head or that line of thinking in your head is sort of a framework, is obviously helpful. But with barbell training, almost every person on the face of the earth can implement it in practice on themselves, sort of like running the experiment and learning lessons along the way. So to be self-serving here, this process of training with a barbell has far-reaching implications to a lot of things in your life, aside from the fact that it's a hard physical endeavor. And let me talk about that just a little bit. It's really important that as human beings that we engage in hard physical endeavors. It's a part of your physical existence, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that there are mental and emotional benefits along with the physical benefits of engaging in these things. So the question is, what are the things that we can do that are very difficult? And I would say that the one thing that is universally accessible to everybody, whether you're a young kid or an 80-year-old person, whether you're overweight, underweight, engaged in a physical hobby of some kind, the one thing that's accessible to everybody that's relatively safe, and when I say relatively, I mean it's extremely safe, is barbell training, is heavy barbell training. So. If you think of other things that are really hard, for example, martial arts, you could go and do wrestling or jiu-jitsu or boxing or MMA or something like that. I would argue that those are some of the hardest things that people can do. Fighting another human being is very, very difficult, and training to fight other people well is very, very difficult, but there's tradeoffs. It's more dangerous. Not everybody can get on a mat or put boxing gloves on and take a beating on a consistent basis in order to make progress, and so on. You can do training for marathons. You can do training for endurance cycling, but all of these things, while they're fine, the degree to which they're truly difficult, you're going to have to spend quite a bit of time, and there's a lot of wear and tear and lots of potential for injury and other issues that come along with where you just don't have that with a bar. So, So anyway, in terms of things that are hard physical effort that require hard physical effort, and a lot of times hard mental effort as well, it's going to be very hard to think of something that works as well as a barbell. And on top of that, you know, it also just makes you better, makes you better physically, it makes you better at your sports, it makes you healthier, it makes you more robust, and it makes you less prone to problems in almost every domain of your physical existence, right? So, okay, let's move on. So the first thing we need to do is let's come up with some definitions. So we've covered the principles, right? We've covered the law of diminishing returns. We've covered. The general adaptation syndrome, stress recovery and adaptation. And then in order to tie it together now, so if we're going to outline a process for doing something, we have to think about what is the. that we're looking for? What is the outcome that we're looking for? And when you're doing. barbell training, you're looking for an increase in the ability to produce force. So if we're going to define strength and, uh, rip a toe has a beautiful, very clear, very simple, definition for strength. And it's just the ability to produce force against an external resistance. So if you can come up with a better definition for strength than that, uh, we would love to hear it. I would love to hear it, but that's nice and clean. It makes perfect sense. Uh, it doesn't violate any of the, um, any of the sort of principles that you can, you can put around. this situation. And, um, it's, it's a solid definition, right? So we'll go ahead and use that as a functional definition, the ability to produce force against an external resistance, resistance, uh, it's clear, simple, effective. So if force production is what we need, because we understand that force production improves performance. Force production improves health. Increased force production improves performance. Increased force production improves health. And increased force production improves longevity. Then having a clear definition of strength is important. And then now we can talk about, okay, so how do we generate a process that's going to apply a stress that's going to result in a force production adaptation, right? So force production matters because bigger muscles equals more strength, right? So more strength in every instance, folks, equals bigger muscles. Now, the timeline matters, right? Because at the beginning, you're getting stronger, but you're not really gaining much size. But if you look at the long timeline, if you look at a training history of six years, a month, I'm sorry, six years, one year, three years, five years, 10 years. The thing that is going to determine whether or not you are continuing to get stronger or you're. or you are, or you are stronger is how much have your muscles grown? And the way to get bigger muscles is to demand a force production adaptation out of your body. Okay. It's, it's, it's really that simple. So we get, we get, things get sort of sidetracked with, um, and off track with discussions about, you know, sports specific performance, especially with discussions about aesthetics, um, and, and bigger muscles in terms of, uh, isolating muscle groups and isolating. muscles. But, but the truth is the reality, the simple reality is that your body responds to force production stress by becoming bigger and stronger. So your bones get thicker, uh, more, I'm sorry, your bones get denser, your connective tissue gets thicker and your muscles grow. That's how it works. It's very simple. And the way that it's going to grow is through increasing, increasing, increasing, increasing force production, So, increased strength demand. For most people, most of the time, and when I say most people, most of the time, I mean almost everybody, the way to produce that stress is going to be by loading your body as heavy as you possibly can and moving it through a complete range of motion. So, that sentence has just described barbell training, and that's why barbell training is so effective. You can apply a massive stress to your body going to the gym and running through a circuit of machines, doing body part splits, but what's missing from that that barbell training comes with is a level of efficiency that is necessary in most of our lives, right? So, the question is how would you, if you want to take a traditional, and when I say traditional, I mean like young guy, on the internet, uh, bodybuilding approach and, and argue for that. That's fine. What you're going to have to do though, is break up your body into the specific, into the components that you want to train. You're going to have to find a group of machines or exercises that you prefer to do in order to make those, those areas of your body grow. And then you're going to have to figure. out a way to stress them enough so that they do grow. And what happens is that they will, right? You will get stronger. You will get a bigger for a period of time. And what that period of time is, is going to be dependent on a lot of factors, how much time you're spending in the gym, how, how hard you're going, how heavy you're doing these things and, uh, how much motivation you have. Right. And you may, you may have quite a bit of success, but as a result of that, you have lost time, uh, because you can get all of those things with a barbell because the barbell works. your body as a system. Thank you. And it produces a high level of systemic stress. So when I say systemic stress, what I mean is that there's something about putting a heavy bar in your hands or on your back that makes your body respond in a way that is very difficult to do efficiently in any other way. All right. So I don't want to say that you can't get stronger or you won't get bigger doing anything else because that's not true. It happens all the time. But if you want to do it as quickly as possible and you want to do it with the least amount, and here's an important point, with the least amount of wear and tear on your body, because three to four hours in the gym six days a week equates to a whole bunch of wear and tear. That's not directly contributing to you getting stronger, a.k.a. getting bigger, more muscles, more healthy, more robust, right? So you're almost working against yourself in a lot of those instances. So. The barbell provides for a huge dose of stress because all it does is make you heavier. It just makes your body heavier. And then it doesn't disrupt your normal movement patterns. So squatting, picking things up off the floor, pushing things, pressing things. Those are the three fundamental human movement patterns that we've all executed since we started getting up on two feet. And they represent complete ranges of motion. And if you can just make yourself heavier incrementally over time and keep loading yourself heavier and heavier and heavier, your body will respond by producing bigger muscles, right? So whether you're a power lifter, right? So if you look at a spectrum from power lifting, Olympic lifting, strength sports down on one end as the highest force production requiring activities all the way to the other end of the spectrum, which would be something like marathons or ultramarathons. Ultramarathons. So that represents sort of the spectrum of human activities, at least in terms of force production. It's flipped. It's opposite for endurance, right? So when you look at that range or that spectrum, everybody along that spectrum, even the endurance athlete, will benefit from being able to produce more force, all right? The degree, the only difference is the degree, right? So the power lifter, the Olympic lifter, the strongman require the most amount of force production capability. And the only distinction, the way I see it, is how much effort and time they're going to put into the force production side of things versus the skill or the endurance side of things. And the other argument that I'll make is that for almost every activity that we do outside of specialized long distance endurance activities, higher. Air Force production should be the majority of training time outside of the activities. Uh, because force production makes everything better. Being stronger makes everything better. Having bigger muscles makes everything better. Okay. So, so you can, you can go ahead and layer on things like, uh, body weight for body class, uh, body weight competitions, like where you're, you're in a weight class, um, whatever, whatever other things, but this is the fundamental truth. All right. And the, the, the idea is that you have to understand the reality of the situation. You have to understand the concepts. You have to understand a fundamental truth, and then everything outside of that is going to be decisions and trade-offs based on the, the, based on the specific situation that we're working on. Okay. Meaning that there's, there's never a perfect solution. Uh, everything is always trade-offs, but in order to navigate these complex scenarios, uh, and complex situations, you have to outline and understand what the optimal, what the best possible scenario. Okay, so to kind of take us through through the line of thinking here, where we're at is that we're understanding that force production is important. We're understanding that more muscle mass includes greater health, better longevity, and better performance in any activity that we're doing. The way to get bigger muscles is to get stronger. And the best way to get stronger is using barbells and then demanding a force production adaptation out of our body. Right. So if we understand that line of thinking, and we agree with that line of thinking, right, so if you if you disagree with anything along those lines, then we're not speaking the same language, right. So no matter what activity that you're doing, no matter what outcome you're looking for, in terms of health, or long term health, so longevity, or just your ability to do things that you want to do for as long as possible. Our contention is that being stronger is the best way to get that accomplished, at least on a fundamental level. So if you don't. agree, with that line of thinking, then, And, um, we're, we're not speaking the same language and, uh, continue, continue listening if you want to, and I'll make my best case, but, uh, we have to at least agree on those things, right? If we're, if we're moving along those lines, then really all I need to do is think about, how to, how to make that process as efficient as possible. Because if I have, if I have the process that is optimal for making that outcome happen. for making an outcome happen, then I can use that as a guide. I can use it as a, as a road. I can use it as a, as a map for making good decisions. Okay. And this is why this is also important because you have to have a clear, clearly defined best way to do things. And that best way to do things needs to be informed by good first principles and their integration. So if you can do that, then the real life is going to dictate. what you can and cannot do according to that best way of doing things, okay? The people who are going to get the most out of the starting strength novice linear progression, in terms of just raw strength and numbers are going to be the youngest young guys, who have very little responsibility and eat a lot and train a lot. That's not most of us listening to this, right? But that doesn't mean that you abandon it and go to something else just because you can't do it in the best way possible, right? So the trade-offs are minimal in terms of not being 17 years old and doing this program. There's still a lot of benefit to it, but everybody can understand that. But then we tend to lose sight of it when the situation gets a little bit more complex, all right? So I want you to keep that in mind. We're going to talk about the best way to do something. And before you can make really the best decisions about how to proceed forward, you at the very least have to have a clear understanding of what is obvious. What's the best way to do stuff? That's why we spend so much time talking about how to do the lifts. That's why we spend so much time and effort coaching people on proper execution of the lifts. And that's why we're so dogmatic, quote, unquote, on at least the novice linear progression and how it should be delivered in almost every instance, because there's no need to deviate from it, especially if you're looking to optimize the outcome that you're looking for. Right. Let's talk about the novice program first. OK, I'm going to try to be brief here. So the one in the in the context of this discussion, which is about advanced programming, the novice linear progression is the entry point for a lifelong of training. All right. So it's called the novice linear progression, but novice only refers to the ability to add weight to the bar. By the next workout, that's all it means. Okay. So in the, in the, within the framework of barbell training and programming barbell training, at least how we approach it, anybody who can add weight from workout to workout is doing a novice program. The great thing about the novice linear progression, the starting strength novice linear progression is that it minimizes variables, which is a really good thing to do when you're dealing with a complex situation, which, which, uh, physiological adaptations are it's complex, right? There's all of these things going on. So if the training program that we're involved in can deal with as few variables as possible. Um, and in the novice program, there's only one variable we're considering and that's the weight on the bar. Uh, because we're assuming that you at least have a little bit of proficiency with the, with the lifts enough that you're not, uh, uh, you're not leaving a ton of weight off the bar. Uh, but all of the other training variables are accounted for because it's a very simple program. And the only thing that we're. manipulating is the load on the bar. Okay. Now that fits in really nicely with what I've been talking about, because if strength increased force production is what I'm looking for, for all the reasons that I mentioned, then I'm going to do a program that optimizes strength. And I've already discussed how strength equals bigger muscles and strength is measured by the weight on the bar. All right. So because the barbell is ergonomic, because it makes you. heavier, because it doesn't disrupt your movement patterns, your normal movement patterns, you can use the weight on the bar as a, as an excellent proxy for whether or not you're getting stronger. So not only are you dosing yourself with the barbell with stress, with stress for force production adaptations, but you're also able to measure your progress and your performance in this process using the weight on the bar. So it's super clean, right? What the novice is doing is they're measuring the weight on the bar. So it's super clean, your progression is does is optimizes the, to produce stress, a force production adaptation very, very quickly. All right. And we can do that. because the physiological process at that point is such that your body is able to recover fast enough that you can take advantage of it. So that's kind of the other side of the novice of your progression is that you can do this basically because you can, right? So if you can add weight to the bar every single time, and you're trying to optimize force production adaptations, then that's what we're going to do. And the novice linear progression takes great advantage of that. So in terms of universality, so the novice linear progression. applies to everybody who hasn't done that program before. Doesn't matter if you're squatting, 75 pounds the first day. It doesn't matter if you're squatting 275 pounds the first day. It doesn't matter if you can't squat all the way down and you have to use a box or you have to use a leg press or something like that. But the, uh, the approach is, it's the same. Everybody does the same program as a starting point, and then it also serves as a great way to evaluate how you will react, how you'll respond and react to variables along the way. So as a coach, I'm using the novice linear progression to test a lot of things as well. I'm testing compliance to see if the individual I'm working with can stick with a program, so that's great. Right. I'm evaluating how their body is responding to the increased stress over time. I can also serve as a proxy for recovery is the individual recovering well, because if the process is slowing down early, then I have I'm having I'm having good information about what is happening outside of the gym. Right. So this is all within the context of minimizing variables. It works really, really well. So you get rapid. Progress in force production, fewer decisions means fewer mistakes. The only decision. Five more pounds, two more pounds, whatever it is, making another increase in weight at the next workout. And then there's side benefits, too, like a clear progression makes you more excited about it, right? So if you're adding 60 pounds to your squat every month, that is a powerful motivating factor. So we've defined the optimal process. We have – we're understanding kind of where the tradeoffs are. Very little tradeoffs for the novice linear progression. And this is kind of the last thing to talk about with the novice program. In terms of force production stress, in terms of force production adaptation, getting stronger, getting bigger muscles, there is no tradeoff. There's absolutely no tradeoff. So really, if you're looking to improve performance, if you're looking to improve health, if you're looking to improve your ability to do the things you want to do for as long as possible, doing a barbell-based strength program that intentionally drives a force production adaptation out of you is – the best thing you can do for yourself. Uh, if you're a jujitsu player, if you're a marathon runner, if you are, uh, if you have no other physical hobbies and you just want to get in shape, uh, there's, there's the longer I do this, the more I'm convinced that there's no better thing that you can do for two to six months. Just stop everything that you're doing, within reason, right? If you're, if you're doing a high skill activity, uh, you're not going to. stop. You're just going to shift your focus a little bit. Prioritize. In other words, prioritize strength training through the novice linear progression. And in the same amount of time in that same two to six months, two to eight months, depending on who you are, there's nothing that you can do that will improve the outcomes across the board and not just force production, but across the board than just, uh, than just getting stronger. Right? So that's what the novice program does for you. So the primary downside of the novice linear progression is that it doesn't last forever, right? So there's a, there are constraints there. constraints to the process and how long the process can run. At this point, I have done, things in a way that's minimized as many variables as possible. So again, in the novice linear progression, the only variable that I am manipulating for the programming is intensity or load. And I've done that because the adaptation that I'm looking for is a force production. adaptation. And therefore, it's how do I constrain the process so that that's the only thing that I have to worry about. So I've done the most efficient possible thing in order to gain more strength through the novice linear progression. The reason that things get confusing for people is when that process starts to slow down or stops, the question is, what do I do next? And the 0. I think one of the reasons that it's really tough is because of all of the things that I mentioned that are benefits of the novice linear progression. Basically, that everybody can do it and the results that that program and that process delivers for people of all demographics, all activity levels, and who participate in all kinds of different hobbies isn't as simple once that initial process has run its course. The good news is that it doesn't have to be super complicated. We just have to think about what our constraints. Are and then start expanding a little bit in terms of in terms of what variables we're going to start manipulating. So let me be a little bit more clear and a little bit more direct with with how this works. So basically, what people want, I think, out of an out of a. Intermediate program, or I should say, because the problem is that all of your lifts don't become intermediate all at one time, right? So it's the right way to do it is run a process. Whenever there's a problem, evaluate specifically what is going on with that issue. So for example, your press is no longer going up. So evaluate what's going on there, figure out what you need to do next, and make the smallest possible change, and then see what happens and then make another small change, right? So that's how you that's how you intelligently progress your programming from one phase into another. So if you want to know how to do that, again, watch the videos that I've the podcast that I've done with Ray in the past, becoming an intermediate lifter, and then the novice linear progression, they're available on on the starting strength gyms YouTube channel and on the starting strength YouTube channel. So we're going to progress the variables carefully. And we're going to progress the variables as, As, as, as minimally as possible. All right. There's a lot of reasons to do that. My point was that what people want is to have the same simple structured approach basically for the rest of their training lives. And the reality is that as things move into more complexity and there's a necessity, there's a necessity for more individualization and there's a necessity for being a little bit more careful about your specific situation, you can't necessarily apply the same broad, broad applicability structure and process to everyone at this point. Okay. Now I will say, because. Going from novice to intermediate isn't that much of a change. It's actually, it's actually not a huge change, but we're moving towards a little bit more individual out individuality and a little bit more specificity. Okay. So the, the good news is that we don't have to make a. But we do have to make changes. And that's the key. The other thing to understand is especially all you have to do is go to practical programming and then look at the structure of the book, right? So there's a novice chapter. And in the novice chapter, you get all of the information, right? You get all of the background information. And then you get one program. It's the novice linear progression. Okay. And then there's an advanced novice that gives you a couple of options or ideas about how to progress past that initial simple program. When you get to the intermediate chapter, now you've got a handful of programs, right? And they all have a different, they all follow the same principles, but they are different in terms of the actual rep schemes, exercises, and so on. Right. So there's more things at play and there's more options. These aren't a menu of options, right? are just, these are just ideas of how to implement the principles and the ideas and the concepts, into a program. Okay. So, and then once you get to advanced programming, there's even more programming examples, right? So these programs, uh, if, if you just think about how the book is structured, that's how it works in real life. There is no, in other words, let me just make it really simple. There is no approved intermediate program for starting strength. Like there's no, there's no template. There's no, like once you're an intermediate do this. And a lot of people think there, there is right. A lot of people think it's a novice linear progression and then Texas method or novice linear progression and then HLM, whatever their idea of HLM is. All right. Uh, but that's not how it works. Okay. And then, and then it's even more true in advanced programming. There is no approved starting strength advanced program. All right. Because at that point you are dealing with the, individualized and most specific version of things and probably the most complex version of things. Okay. So that's why no one can tell you, uh, if they're being, if they're being reasonable and honest, no one can tell you, okay, you're an intermediate do this program and you'll have, uh, the same level of success as you had before, because it does take some tinkering and some modification that are specific to your needs. Okay. And then there's also this, this is also the point at which, um, there's room for some personal preference, right? So you may want to. try something like a Texas method. You may want to try something like HLM. You may want to do more Olympic lifts. You may want to do less Olympic lifts, whatever, but this is where you can start tweaking and modifying things. So it becomes even more important to get back to our guideposts and get back to our fundamental concepts and make sure that we're following, the path. Uh, otherwise this is the point where things start to get a little bit more, complicated. And people go in all kinds of different directions, and then also start believing lots of things that people are saying that are actually inaccurate. If we go back to the very beginning, and we reestablish what is our desired outcome, how are we going to achieve that outcome? So at this point, it becomes pretty important to define how we're going to gauge progress. And again, it's very, very simple. The way I do it, and I don't think anybody will disagree with me, at least in the starting strength world. Is your progression, your key performance indicators, so to speak, for programming, are going to be PRs in the squat, the press, the bench and the deadlift, and PRs in an appropriate timeframe. Okay, so if you go back to the novice on your progression, your PRs in those lifts happen every single time you see them. Okay, not necessarily on the power clean, at least after you've done them for a little. So it doesn't, that doesn't quite apply, but in the novice linear progression, if you're doing it correctly, you're doing all the things you need to do. You're going to see a PR in the squat, the press, the bench, and the deadlift every single time you do those lifts in intermediate programming, you should see a PR in those lifts about once a week, right? Whether every two weeks still qualifies as intermediate programming. I don't care. It doesn't matter, but there should be a logical progression, right? So it goes from every workout, you see a PR in those lifts, or I'm sorry, every time you see them to then maybe every other time and then every third time, right? And then every fourth time and so on. So then you can start getting into weeks and you can say, okay, every week I hit a PR on the squat. Every two weeks I hit a PR on the squat. Every three weeks I hit a PR on the squat. Every four weeks, right? Most people, at least in my experience, can continue to hit a PR in those four lifts for, you know, every four to six weeks. Four to eight. weeks for the rest of, you know, as long as they're training productively. So, um, obviously it wouldn't be true to say for the rest of their lives, but you know, for a long period of time, three, four, even, even, you know, I've had people who trained with me for five years and are still hitting PRS on, on those lifts. So that's a great way to measure progress. And it, and it keeps us in line with what we're trying to achieve and it helps us not stray too far. All right. So what I'm proposing is that you can do whatever you want, as long as you're hitting a PR in the squat press. bench and deadlift in the appropriate timeframe. And the appropriate timeframe is, uh, dictated by what was the last appropriate timeframe. Was it every, every workout? Okay. Then now it's going to be every other workout. Then it's going to be every week. Then it's going to be every two weeks. Then it's going to be every three weeks. Right. And, and you usually don't have to go much further than that because life gets in the way. Okay. So with intermediate programs, I need to have a heavy, day, every week for each of these lifts. And then, you know, you can go ahead and open up. practical programming, look at templates that people sell online. And if it's a true intermediate programming, you're going to see exactly that structure, right? How that, how you make that happen, um, is dependent on the program that you're doing and how, uh, how, how that thing is laid out. Okay. So up to you to make your decision there. One thing that I should, I want to mention now too, is, uh, as an intermediate programming that program, the Texas method, it's like the Texas method is, is a, is a program. Um, and it's a program that has clearly defined, uh, application. and a clearly defined, um, method for how that program is done. So just because you're doing a volume day and an intensity day doesn't mean you're doing Texas method, right? So this is just one of those like pet peeve kind of things, a true, a true Texas method, at least the way, the way I, I see it. Um, and I don't, I don't think I'm wrong on this. Um, a true Texas method. It means that you're trying to hit a PR on your volume day and you're trying to hit a PR on your intensity day. So you have a volume day and an intensity day, but the approach is that you are actually trying to hit a PR on both of those days. So the weight needs to go up on both of those days, and you need to do all the things that are required in order to make that happen. So all of that in totality is what creates the Texas method and is what creates the outcomes that you get in the Texas method, which is very, very rapid strength gains, almost on par with the novice linear progression. But for that reason, it's also very, very demanding, right? Everybody else can do something like that where it's structured, and in fact, that's what you should do. You should have a more volume-centric day and an intensity day. The difference is that for almost everybody else who's not doing… You're not doing the Texas method, meaning you're not gaining weight, you're not getting bigger intentionally, and you're not trying to drive a PR on both of those days. You can structure it the same way. The difference is that you're not going to hit a PR on volume day every time you do it. And then the older you are, the more beat up you are, the more true that is, right? So even in that structure, though, whatever the intensity day is, whatever the heavy day is, you need to hit a PR that day. So that's the priority. So the priority always stays on the heavy work for the week. And then the priority always stays on hitting a PR on one of those, not on one, on all four of the lifts, of the basic barbell lifts. So the outcome is still increased force production. Now, in intermediate programming, typically you're going to be manipulating intensity, volume, and then also you're kind of related, but also you start messing around with rep schemes, right? In the novice program, the only variable you're manipulating is load. You're doing sets of five. Women are doing sets of three, but you're staying with one rep range. You're staying with one. uh, number of, of sets. And then, um, and then you're just adding weight to the bar every time, and the intermediate programs, you're going to be manipulating, uh, intensity still, right? Because that's the goal. But within that intensity, it's not going to be, just with sets of five. You're going to start messing around with triples and singles and other things. And then you're also going to be manipulating, you're going to be doing volume. work. Uh, and then the rep ranges can vary now. So you have more things to play with more knobs or levers to, to manipulate, but the key performance indicators, the same squat press bench and deadlift continue to go up. All right. So as we move from novice to intermediate to advanced, I like to think of it in terms of the primary method by which we're manipulating variables. And this is kind of where we're getting here. So with, uh, novice programming, you're manipulating intensity or load intermediate. You're manipulating the basic. variables, right? Intention, intensity, volume, rep scheme. Right. Um, if you're following along in a, in sort of this traditional barbell programming approach, which is exactly what I do, right? Um, once we get to advanced programming, this is the point where I start to focus on getting things heavier across the board. So where I think a lot of people think about, I need, or even say the terms, I need more volume. Um, I disagree. I think you need to be heavier more often. Um, so in order to get that accomplished, what you're going to have to do now is your primary, um, method by which you're going to manipulate programming now is going to be through exercise selection. Okay. So this is where we're going to start doing variations on the barbell lifts through most intermediate programming. Um, I'm going to have people do very little variations on the lifts. We're still going to do the basic barbell lifts. Maybe we'll incorporate some close grip benching. Maybe we'll incorporate some, uh, uh, pause squats or something like that. that, but not much change. Everything's going to stay pretty much the same. We're only going to manipulate, uh, volume intense intensity, so to speak. Um, and advanced programming is where we'll start introducing some, uh, some variations on the lifts. And again, the reason for that is only so that we can continue to go as heavy as possible as often as possible. All right. And traditionally advanced programming, at least according to practical programming and starting. strength, advanced programming means that you're making increases on the bar at about the month mark, right? Three, three weeks, one month and beyond. All right. So let's, again, let's keep the goal in mind, increasing the squat, the press, the bench, and the deadlift in an appropriate timeframe. So if I'm going to start, let's take the bench press, for example, because it's a very simple way to think about this. If I'm finishing out an intense, um, a volume, I'm sorry. If I'm finishing out an intense, uh, volume, I'm sorry. If I'm finishing out an intense, uh, volume, I'm sorry. If I'm finishing out an intense, uh, volume, I'm sorry. If I'm finishing out an. programming on the bench press. And we're doing something like week one, it's a set of five heavy PR. Week two, it's a bunch of triples heavy PR. And then week three, it's a bunch of singles, for PRs. And then that rotates, right? Okay, great. So we're doing the bench press on a three week rotating basis with varying reps. And we're trying to hit PRs every single time we see it. That's fine. So what you can do now, when that stops working, so I'm asking myself, why is that. not working anymore? It's provided that everything else is going fine, provided that you're doing what you need to do on the recovery side of things. The reason it's not working anymore is because it's not heavy enough. It's not producing enough of a force production stress. So what I want to do next is make that day as heavy as possible every single time. An easy way to do that. is to switch to singles, right? Because singles are going to be the heaviest thing that you can do. And we're in advanced programming now. So I'm talking about somebody who's been training for a year, year and a half, two years in a lot of cases. So we're pretty far down the line. The lifts are, there's no issue with the lifts. All the variables are dialed in and we've gone through whatever we need to do. So we've been training for a while now. And we've been training for a while in very basic rep ranges using the same, same, generally the same five or six or seven lifts. And it's time to make a change, right? So let's keep that heavy bench day heavy. by doing heavy singles. The problem is that a lot of heavy singles cause problems. So a good way to do it is to do one heavy single. And that heavy single should be a PR. That should be a PR every time you see it. And then you do some back offsets. So a way that I approach it is to do three, sets of three. Let some percentage back off, right? So for the bench press, I might do like 85%. So you're going to hit a PR on the bench press for a single. And then you're going to do three sets of three at 85% of that. And then that's your heavy bench workout. Okay. And that's great. That's awesome. It's a lot of fun. You hit a PR, you're going to hit a PR, try to hit a PR every time you do it. Main thing is that you can't fail that single when you get into this kind of a programming. So you cannot fail. So that means that you're going to have to start figuring out and learning where you are at for the day. And that at the beginning, you will hit a PR every single time. But over time, as you progress further and further into advanced programming, you have to learn to, to regulate, to auto regulate at some at some point. Here's the problem. It's not feasible to bench press a heavy bench press every single week, it will start to cause problems. If you can do it. If not, you're going to have to modulate. the stress over a time period. So let's, let's just say that every Wednesday is your heavy bench day. Okay. So maybe we're on a three on a, actually let's, let's think about it in a four, four day a week program. So every Thursday is your heavy bench press scratch that Monday's international bench press day. So we'll make it Monday. Every Monday is your heavy bench press day. All right. So on week one, you're going to hit your bench for a PR. Okay. And you're going. to do that as many weeks as you can before you fail. So before you're, before you, uh, you, you show up to the gym and you try to make the next increase and you fail it, um, you're going to make it, you're going to make one small modification. And instead of changing rep schemes, instead of changing, um, volume, instead of, of messing with anything else, all we're going to do is substitute in a, uh, variation. So, Because of all the things that I spent like 20 or 30 minutes talking about at the beginning, I want to make the smallest possible change. So when I think about the bench press as the parent movement or the main movement, what is a variation on the bench press that I can do that's going to cause as little disruption to the amount of force production that I'm producing? All right, so it can't be like a high skill movement. It can't be something that I have to totally revamp how I'm doing my lift, and it probably can't be something that's going to require new equipment or anything like that. So the thing that makes the most sense to me is we'll just add a pause to it, right? So the next variation we'll do is a pause bench. So on week one, you're doing the bench press. And then on week two, you're doing the pause bench. And then every week, you're hitting a heavy bench press on Monday. One week's going to be bench press. Following week's going to be pause bench. And then it goes back to bench press, and then it goes back to pause bench. And then you run that for as long as you can without failing, all right? When the time comes that you need a new... Another variation. So if you're thinking about this now, your single on your bench is increasing. Your single on your pause bench is increasing. The reason that you can do this every two weeks is because there's a little bit of a skill component or a familiarization component with the pause that you're going to have to get accustomed to. And once you've done that and you're actually lifting a really, really heavy weight for the pause, again, you'll get to the point where you need to add another variation. And the next one that's going to cause as little of a disruption might be a close grip, right? So then now we're on a three-week rotation with a close grip. And once I'm on a three-week rotation, whenever the bench press comes up, because that's the lift I'm most familiar with, it's the one I've been doing the longest, and it's also the one that's going to be the best gauge of my... upper body strength, the bench press has to be the PR. So I'm going to aim for a PR on the bench press every time I see it. The other two are going to be coming along. Yes, I do want PRs on those. but they're going to be lighter by nature. And therefore they're not the ones that are going to be the ones that I use to gauge whether or not I'm making progress. All right. I hope that makes sense to you. Um, so by the way, let me stop for a second and back up and, and talk about, um, talk about, talk about where this comes from. So, um, I don't want to, I, I can't say too much about Westside Barbell because I, because honestly I, I'm, I'm not well informed. Okay. So the, um, the, the conjugate method, um, developed and popularized by, uh, maybe not developed, but popularized by Louie Simmons, Westside Barbell. Um, people have talked about for a very long time. Uh, and generally the things that were done and are done at Westside Barbell do not apply to almost anyone else for a lot of reasons. And you guys have heard Rip say this, but you, you can't even walk into West, and start training there unless you've achieved a certain strength level, a pretty high strength. level, right? So a way to think about it is that the people who train there are selected. They're not developed. All right. They've developed themselves. Yes, of course. But whatever methods are being done at Westside Barbell or similar places are being done by people who have been selected to do them. That doesn't mean that there's not value in some of these approaches. So a few years ago, Andy Baker started writing articles on his website, andybaker.com or bakerbarbell.com. Do both. You'll probably be able to find them pretty easy. He started writing. articles on the conjugate method. And I believe it was in the context of home gyms during lockdowns and stuff like that. So I became interested because of Andy and his writings on the conjugate method. And for the first time, I was interested in the conjugate method. And I was interested in, it. And for the first time, advanced programming clicked for me, thanks to Andy. Andy is the co-author of Practical Programming and the co-author of The Barbell Prescription. So anyway, shout out to Andy. A lot of this comes from him with a lot of modifications. So the thing that I did was read his articles, and they're very good, but still a little too confusing for me. And not through Andy's fault, mostly because of the nature of the material, right? So what I did is I went through it, just read as much as I could from Andy, tried to read some stuff from Westside guys, and that wasn't any good. So basically I was like, okay, so how do I put this into a framework that makes sense to me, right? So anyway, the... Heavy single and back-offs comes from Westside Barbell through Andy Baker. The idea of dynamic effort work comes through Westside Barbell, from Westside Barbell, through Andy Baker to me, and it's extremely, extremely helpful. And I remember Andy and I talking about this on the Starting Strength Network a while back as well, and I don't know if he's still using this style of programming generally, but this is where people end up for me, and this is how I advise coaches to handle advanced programming as well. So there's a lot of benefits to this. Number one, you're keeping things heavy very often, which as lifters, as people who are doing barbell training, it's a good time. You get to lift heavy weights. You're starting to learn variations on the lifts, and you don't have to get crazy with it. For example, in the bench press, it's bench, pause, bench, and close grip bench. Most people don't ever go much beyond that. For the really strong guys, I'll incorporate some partials, and that's about it. For the strong guys, I'll incorporate some partials, and that's about it. For the squats, I use very few variations. I use the squats. the squat. I use pause squats. Um, for some people we'll do front squats for some people we'll do tempo squats. Uh, you can do, you know, you can do pin squats, whatever, uh, for the pulls. It's very simple on the heavy days. It's going to be deadlifts, rack pulls haltings. Uh, and that's, that's really all you need there. So you can, you can keep this fairly simple without getting really, really deep into like a lot of people equate conjugate with, with endless variations and doing all these, all these different things. But you can stay within the. context of, of a heavy barbell training with few variations and, uh, and get a lot of progress out of this. Okay. So for the upper, upper body lifts, um, I've already outlined the bench press. So let's say Monday is your, is your heavy bench press day. So you're going to do your heavy single and your three back offsets, trying to hit a PR every time you see every variation and the variations. There are bench, bench, then pause. Then close grip, maybe a partial at the end of a pretty long period. So then you've already got a setup. If you're doing a typical four-day split, you've already got a setup where you're prioritizing a lift each day. So if Monday is the bench press priority day, then you're going to be doing the press as the second lift that day. And for the press, it's just like basically the way you were doing it for intermediate programming, which is going to be some sort of volume work. Most people are going to be doing five sets of five. People who have really big presses are going to be doing three sets of five. And by big presses, I mean upwards of near 300 pounds for guys. Women can almost always stick with five sets of five. So day one, you've got heavy bench press, and then you've got five-by-five press, and then you've got some third lift, whatever you want it to be. It can be a chin-up, whatever assist. If you want to start. You're messing around with... Assistance lifts because you think isolating and dumbbells is bodybuilding training, cool. You know, if you need additional pressing stress, you can do that through some, you know, incline benching or adding some other kind of pressing movement. It doesn't matter, right? The first two lifts, the first lift for the day is the priority. The second lift is sort of a primer and also increasing overall stress and preparing you for the following upper body lift later in the week. And then the third one is sort of like just to fill in the gaps and whatever you want or need there. So that's the place, that third slot every day is where you put whatever you want. If you want to mess around, great. You've earned it at this point. Day two, let's say that's going to be our volume lower body day, all right? So on volume lower body day, I'm sorry, let's make that heavy lower body day. So heavy lower body day is going to be at the beginning. Of the week in this program, it doesn't. So the way to handle the lower body is, again, this is a personal preference and also just the way it's worked for me, is to alternate lower body lifts on a two-week rotation. So when you were doing intermediate programming, you were hitting a PR on your squat and your deadlift every week, all right, or your rack pull or whatever heavy lift you were doing for the lower body. So now that we're moving into this more advanced programming, the first thing you're going to do is split up the heavy work, the heaviest work on your lower body lifts. So on a rotating basis, on Tuesday, on day two, or whatever your heavy lower body day is going to be, on a rotating basis, week one, you're going to do the heavy squat. And then week two, you're going to do the heavy pull, all right? And then... the way you set this program up to start is it's going to be just the squat and the deadlift through this rotation. So on week one, you're going to squat and you're going to do your heavy single and three backoffs. Typically for men on the backoffs for the squat, I'm going to, I'm going to have them do 80%. Totally arbitrary. I mean, not totally arbitrary, but it, you know, it could be 85, could be 75, depending on the situation, right? The older guys might do a. bigger offset. Uh, women might do a smaller offset, but somewhere around 80%. Okay. So week one in this example, Tuesday is the heavy lower body day. So we're going to do one by one, which is your heavy single PR squat. And then you're going to do three by three at 80%. All right. That's the squat normal squat. I don't need to put any variations in yet because I'm splitting up my heavy days, right? So one week to deadlift is going to be the main. lift for that day. And we're going to do it the same way. One by one, three by three by 80%. All right. If you've been doing rack pulls as your primary heavy pull during your intermediate programming, you can do rack pulls. It doesn't, it doesn't matter at this point. All right. But whatever your heavy lower body lift is in your intermediate program, split them up over two weeks. All right. And put them on that heavy lower body day. So Monday is heavy bench day, one by one and back offs, then five by five press. Tuesday is heavy lower body day. That's. going to be squat on week one for one by one and three by three at 80%. And then week two is going to be deadlift one by one and three by three at 80%. All right. So, and then that just rotates. It switches every, every week. So you're going to hit a PR on the squat for the single every other week. You're going to do the same for the deadlift every other week. It works because you haven't probably been focusing on heavy singles. So, um, not only are you getting your heavy singles, but you're also getting nine pretty heavy. So it's a pretty good dose of high force production stress. So it aligns beautifully with what we've been talking about since the beginning. All right. So let's talk about the second slot on the heavy lower body day. So we're still on Tuesday. What do I do for the second slot? So on the week that you squat, you're going to deadlift for volume. All right. So you're going to do your heavy work and you're going to do your volume work on the same day. So on week one, it's going to be squat for a heavy single plus your back offs. And then you're going to deadlift four by four. And I did four by four just because that's how Andy set it up on the examples he used in his program. And I haven't had any reason to change it. It works great. So four sets of four for the lift. You're going to do heavy the following week. All right. So let me be clear. So week one, we're going to squat the heavy single and the back offs. Then you're going to deadlift four sets of four. So you may be asking what weight do I use? Whatever weight you can. do for four sets of four. Think about probably about 70% of your one rep max. Okay. You don't have a one rep max cause you just started this program. It's okay. Um, just, just guess. All right. So if you're doing a, if you're doing a heavy set of five, um, you can go at like, seven or I'm sorry, you can do 85% of that or something. Right. So it doesn't matter. You're going to re you're going to calibrate this over time. Not terribly important. Okay. The important thing is the heavy work for the day. Then week two, it flips. So you're going to do the deadlift. for the heavy single and back offs. And then you're going to do squat for volume. And then again, staying at four by four for the volume. Okay. And then week three, it goes back to the squat, try to hit another PR and then four by four deadlift. And then week four, you're back to the deadlift. And then you're going to squat, you're going to hit a PR on the deadlift. You're going to squat four by four. So the, framework, what you're going to do is once that stops working or, However, working or not is going to be difficult to measure. But what you do when you need to make a change, that's probably the better way to say it, is start adding variations just like we did with the bench press. With the bench press, it's simple because you only have one lift or one slot that you're rotating through. With the lower body, you're doing it on a two-week rotation. So the variations that I'll start with to put people on a four-week rotation is squat, deadlift, pause squat, and rack pull. So on week one, heavy day, you're doing the squat. Week two, you're doing the deadlift like we already covered. Then week three, you're doing the pause squat. And then week four, you're doing the rack pull. And then for the second slot, you're doing the deadlift. You're just doing the next week's lift for a four-by-four. So week one. the workout's going to be squat, heavy single and back offs, deadlift four by four. Week two is going to be deadlift, heavy single and back offs. Then it's pause squat four by four. Then week three, it's going to be pause squat, heavy single and three by three back offs, and then four by. four rack pulls. And then back to the beginning, you're going to squat and then try to hit another PR. Okay. So that's how you handle the heavy days now. So again, this gives you a great structure for your advanced programming. It's super simple and it's applicable to almost everybody that you'll train with, with small variations, right? If I have people with recovery issues or people who are older and aren't going to tolerate four sets of four, well, we'll do three sets of three for the volume instead of four sets of four. So it's very flexible. And again, I don't have to. think much about where I'm going and I'm also beating people up with tons of volume. This is one of the things that I want to dispel or I want to dispel or I want to dispel or get your head wrapped around with it. Advanced programming is it actually doesn't require massive amounts of volume on these heavy days. You are doing quite a bit of volume here in this program, but it's not to the degree that you're having to essentially taper down over weeks and weeks and weeks in order to hit a PR. You're going to be hitting a PR in something every single week, multiple lifts actually every single week, which is pretty cool. All right, so third day, we're going to do press priority, right? So you guys all know about my press stuff. We're going to do the singles, the heavy singles on the press day, and then we'll do the volume bench, which is going to be five by five, three by five, depending on how heavy the bench is. So that's the third day and the press upper body day. So give me heavy singles on the press, pin press if you're doing pin press, whatever, all kinds of different ways to deal with that. Maybe we'll do a whole other episode on just the press and the upper body. And then fourth day of the week. All right, so the fourth day of the week is going to be JT. Just straight. A volume day. All right. Now, this is where like you get the conjugate terminology or conjugate wording of dynamic effort. I think there's a there's an episode of programming on the starting strength network where Andy and I discuss this. But I think that dynamic efforts probably a misnomer doesn't matter. If you want to tell yourself you're doing dynamic effort, do it fine. But we're going to do another volume day. Okay. And the idea here is to keep it fairly light. Right. And use bar speed as kind of the limiter on how difficult we're going to make this day. So I'm not looking at dynamic effort, quote unquote, day as a day to work on power, because I seriously doubt that's what's actually occurring. What I am doing is giving you another volume day. That's going to be that's going to have a governor or a limited limit on it. That's based on bar speed and short rest times. Okay. So here's how it works. We're going to do. Uh, pause, squat. And by the way, you can choose whatever variation you want, but I usually start off with pause, squat and rack pulls on dynamic effort day or the fourth workout day. So this is going to be, in other words, this is the, so I have Tuesday in this program as my heavy lower body day. And then Friday in this program is my light lower body day. So use whatever terminology you want, whatever makes you feel the coolest. Um, you can call it dynamic effort if you want, but again, I don't think that's quite accurate. So on my light lower body day, we're going to do pause, squat, and we're going to do 10 sets of two, 20 reps. All right. So it's a volume day, right? Cause volume days are traditionally, you know, five by five, you know, whatever. So it's 10 sets of two. And the way I want you to do those is with a fast concentric bar speed. And all I mean by fast is that the bar has to move faster. On the way up than it did on the way down. All right. And then I want you to control the bars. meaning that I want you to evaluate it. And when the bar speed starts to slow down, over time, right over time, if the bar speed starts to get too slow, you're going to adjust the weight and make it lighter. And that, that lighter, that adjustment is going to be heavier than it was last time because you're getting stronger over time. Okay. So basically we're going to control for the load on this day by number one, keeping a fast bar speed, quote unquote. fast. Right. Um, so the rule I give people is that the bar has got to move faster up than it did down. Very simple. Okay. The other thing that we're going to do is we're going to keep the rest time very short. And when I say very short, it's, um, no more than 90 seconds, more like a minute. So you're going to keep your belt on. You're going to do a double, fast bar speed, rack the bar, set a timer. If you want to a minute later, you're back under the bar doing another double. So it's like every minute on the minute type thing, however you want to think about it. But what that'll do is it'll force you to. keep the weight fairly light at a, at a volume intensity also does a lot of, it's, it's tiring, right? So there's, there's other benefits to it as well. So, uh, if you need to pick, uh, well, you do need to pick a weight, the way to, the way to establish the starting weight there is start at like 65 or 70% of whatever your squat is, right? So, uh, whatever that works out to. And then the rack pull is going to be the same thing, but on the rack pull, we're going to do five sets of two. All right. Five sets of two fast bar speed. Um, very short rest minute or less rest time. Okay. Um, this workout is pretty cool. It takes you about 45 minutes, but it keeps you from detraining going into the next week. And it gives you a lot of volume work in a very short amount of time without a lot of wear and tear. Okay. So that's it. That's, that's a simple structure for advanced programming. The things that you're going to, um, play with are going to be the third slide. So that's it. That's, that's a simple structure for advanced programming. And every of those, every one of those, uh, lifts, one thing to consider, that on your, on your light lower body day, um, you don't have to do rack pulls, right? That's a. great place to put in your power cleans, your power snatches. And then really you can, you can power clean or power snatch any day you want in this program. If for the people who I work with, who, who like and want to do the Olympic lifts, we're, we're mixing them in wherever, usually on an, even on an upper body day. So just a quick run through again. All right. So day one, heavy bench day, right? So your bench rotation, heavy, single three back offsets, then volume press, and then a third exercise, whatever you want it to be. Day two is heavy, lower body. It's going to. be squat, heavy, single, and three back offs. Then your pull variation, your deadlift for volume four by four the following week at flip-flops. And you're going to have a heavy pull and then a squat for volume. And then that rotates every two weeks. Day three is your, second upper body day. And that's going to be heavy press day. So whatever protocol you're using. And then your volume bench day, and then add a third exercise, at least of some kind. And then on your fourth day, that's your light lower body day. That's when you're going to do your pause squat for 10 doubles with a short rest at about 70% of your squat. And then you're going to do your five doubles rack pulls. Same deal as the squat short rest, about 70% of your heaviest pull. Also, that's the day that you can put in, instead of the rack pulls, put in your power clean, put in your power snatch, or rotate those through on a biweekly basis. All right, so whatever slot you have the main variations of the parent lifts, so not main variations, the parent lifts, meaning the squat, the press, the bench, and the deadlift, those are the priority. If we're going to stay with what we're trying to accomplish here, and if I'm going to have good results. Information on whether or not my program is working, those are the priority. I want to be hitting PRs on every single lift that I'm doing singles on, but the reality is you're not going to hit a PR every time. So if you have to make a choice, because this happens, right? If you have to make a choice, do I hit this heavy rack pull PR today that could potentially mess me up two weeks from now from hitting the deadlift? I would say that the tradeoff is not worth it, and I would rather you hit the deadlift PR than the rack pull PR, all right? So that's the way I look at it. In the novice program, we're manipulating intensity, so load, because it's the quickest and most efficient way to get us our desired outcome, which is more muscle mass, increased force production capacity, and everything that comes along with it. When you move into intermediate programming, you have more variables to work with and more to manipulate. You're going to be messing with intensity, volume, rep ranges, maybe a little bit of exercise selections, but not much. You're still going to be basically doing the same lifts at just varying. Volumes and varying rep ranges. Uh, especially as you get toward the end of intermediate programming and advanced programming, a lot of the structure carries over from intermediate programming, but your primary. method for manipulating the program is going to be through exercise selection. So now we're hitting heavy lifts multiple times a week, uh, as heavy as we can actually, but you're using the variations of the lifts in order to moderate the stress, to modulate the stress programming variables. Ultimately what that, what that comes down to is how you vary and manipulate the stress over the week or over the month or whatever time period you're looking at. So, uh, in advanced programming, exercise selection is a solid way to do it. All right. So. in, to wrap up here, folks, you can do it. Remember what I said at the beginning, you can do it however you want, and you can look at practical programming and look at all the programming examples, uh, according to each of these categories of training progression, and pick whichever one you want. One makes the most sense to you. you. But when you do that, make sure that how you implement the program isn't in like a cut and paste fashion. Make sure you, you implement the pieces of those programs gradually and make sure. they make sense to you. The way I've laid this out from novice all the way through advanced programming is the way I do it. And remember that I mentioned that going into intermediate and especially in advanced programming, there's a lot of room for personal preference. This works for me because it's very systematic. It's, uh, it makes sense in terms of keeping the, uh, keeping the outcomes and the performance indicators, uh, well-defined and just in front all the time. If I'm only measuring singles and I'm measuring progress on those singles, that's, that's a. very clean way for me to know whether or not we're making progress. And, and, and arguably it's the best and only way to, to gauge whether or not I'm actually making force production adaptations. Right. And then also it's, uh, it's systematic enough. that I can see at any time how things are going. I don't need to, I can look at a training log, I can look at numbers and I can know at a glance how things are going, where we've been and where we're going. All right, folks, I hope that was helpful. If you have questions or if you have podcast topic ideas, please email them to podcast at ssgyms.com. And thank you very much for joining me on the Stronger is Better podcast brought to you by Starting Strength Gyms. See you next time.