Program Report: cwd's 8-5-3 Heavy-Light-Medium variant

[cwd]

Sunday
squat 4 heavy sets
bench 4 heavy sets
deadlift 1 heavy set, backoff set of 5 on 3s week
vanity
Monday: grippers & abs
Tuesday:
squat 2 light sets beltless (skip overwarmup)
press 4 heavy sets
chins or pullups, unweighted, 4 sets of as-many-as-possible
Wednesday: grippers & abs
Thursday:
squat 3 sets medium, paused
bench 3 sets medium
deadlift 1 set medium, paused
vanity
Friday: grippers & abs
Saturday: rest

Definitions:
Heavy sets alternate between 8, 5, and 3 reps on a 3-week cycle.
Medium and light sets are always 5s.
Use an overwarmup, i.e. single at recent 3RM, before sets of 5 or 8.
Grippers is 4 sets of 5-10 reps with a static hold on each, using a whatever gripper allows this.
Abs is hanging leg raises x a few, then plank walkouts x a few.
Vanity lifts are upright rows, curls, and wide-grip presses for sets of 8-15. Bodybuilder stuff for bigger biceps, delts, and traps. Skipped when I'm short of time or really tired.

Progression:
Increase working weights by 5lbs for lower body every 3 weeks and 2.5lbs for upper body.
Weight for heavy sets across is chosen so the last set is @8 for lower-body and @9 for upper-body.
But if a heavy set RPE goes too high, I'll lower weight for the next set and not increase that "heavy" weight for next week.
On 3s week I work up to a new 3RM @9 then back off for any remaining sets.
Goal is to use 90% of my recovery capacity, w/o injury. Expect to have DOMS going into light and medium days, be fully recovered only in time for the next heavy day.

The Good:
In general this is working great. I'm setting lifetime PRs and staying healthy. Have done (6) 3-week cycles in a row with no resets and steady-ish progress.

The Bad:
* I'm sore about 6 days per week from all the squatting. Tired of being sore.
* Chins need more volume & frequency, they are not progressing. Worry that my pressing:pulling is unbalanced and will risk my shoulder health long-term. But there's no room for more chins right now.
* Would like to work in loaded carries 2x/week for conditioning & general awesomeness. Again, no room for them right now.
* Heavy and Medium days are really long.

[cwd]

Target lifter for this program is me: 51 yo man with shitty tendons and spine, but plenty of time to lift. It's exactly as much volume as I can recover from, and as rapid a progress as won't injure me. This is an "intermediate/advanced" program.

There are no explicit deloads in the program. 3s week is a break from volume, 8s week is brutal but low-intensity -- they are sort-of deloads from each other.

[broseph]

I’ve done something very similar to this a few times in the past with good results, but as a 4 day upper/lower split to make the workouts shorter.

5’s week was always the higher stress week for me, and the 3’s week was ruff stuff- but enough of a volume deload that 8’s felt nice and fresh. Rinse and repeat.

[cwd]

Yeah, my program is nothing new, just recycled ideas from near and far -- most especially from Andy Baker.

My big breakthrough this year was figuring out how to manage progression correctly, to avoid going too heavy and hurting myself. RPE to the rescue! The 3-week rep cycle is mostly a scheme to slow down the weight progression to match how fast my muscles grow.

For 2018 I'll probably switch to a 4-day upper-lower split version of this, with more chins, loaded carries, and maybe dropping the grippers & vanity work to make room.

[cgeorg]

This looks pretty solid and similarish to what I'm doing. Couple suggestions-as-questions:

Chins need more volume & frequency, they are not progressing. Worry that my pressing:pulling is unbalanced and will risk my shoulder health long-term. But there's no room for more chins right now.

Do more deadlifts? Titrate it in over time - maybe start with adding another set to medium day, then next cycle do the lighter backoffs all weeks, not just 3s week? I also split Heavy squat and Deadlift days for low back recovery - this may or may not make sense in your situation. If you think it might though, just moving the heavy DL to Thursday and medium DL to Sunday would accomplish this.

You say heavy and medium days are very long - how long? How much rest do you take between sets? Again if you split the H stuff across different days, you should be able to keep rest times lower on M and L exercises. I do find that my day of 2 H exercises runs significantly longer than other days.

[cwd]

Do more deadlifts? Titrate it in over time - maybe start with adding another set to medium day, then next cycle do the lighter backoffs all weeks, not just 3s week? I also split Heavy squat and Deadlift days for low back recovery - this may or may not make sense in your situation. If you think it might though, just moving the heavy DL to Thursday and medium DL to Sunday would accomplish this.

I could use more deadlift volume, and that would probably "count" for the push:pull parity==shoulder health theory.
With multiple sets for "medium deads", you are right that they'd be better on Sunday, with the heavy pull on Thursday. Hmm.

You say heavy and medium days are very long - how long? How much rest do you take between sets?

I'm not measuring rest times lately, or even entire session times. Lazy. I lift at home, and have gotten sloppy about this.

I'll measure these in my next round and see where I am.

[KarlM]

Solid program CWD. If the DOMS is becoming tiring, maybe do a few cycles cutting out the 8's week. Maybe a 6/5/4 cycle (a la Andy Baker). Also Baker-ish, maybe put your heavy deadlifts on your medium squat day, and your medium deads on your heavy squat day. Spreads the stress throughout the week a little more evenly and might help with DOMS. At least for me, DOMS comes about more from putting too much stuff in one workout and not so much when stress is more spread out.

[cwd]

@KarlM, The 3-week cycle helps keep me from increasing weights too often. Could try a 6/5/4 cycle, or 6/4/2 cycle maybe, hadn't thought of that.

I think my DOMS is mostly from squats. That's most of the high-volume eccentric work I do. I'm currently not doing enough volume on deads that they cause very much DOMS.

[unruhschuh]

I'm doing a similar program with 8/5/2, twice per week H/M. I can't decide whether these three week rep cycling schemes are either tiny linear periodization, WUD (weekly undulating periodization) or block periodization with one week for each block. Anyway it's been working nicely thus far for 7 cycles.

I'm doing 3 sets across for each rep range on squats and deadlifts. The medium variants are paused with the same 3x8/5/2. That's alot of deadlift volume coming from a kind of StSt LP.

[perman]

Do more deadlifts? Titrate it in over time - maybe start with adding another set to medium day, then next cycle do the lighter backoffs all weeks, not just 3s week?

Yeah, roughly my thoughts too, though I like having a dedicated deadlift day.

Jordan's 3 day programs tend to roughly have this structure for instance:
Monday:
Comp squat
Bench press variant
Deadlift assistance

Friday
Comp deadlift
Bench press variant
Squat assistance

This might involve sacrificing some squat volume, but doing deadlifts fresh is a wonder if you've never tried it. If you follow Mike T's straight back rpe-logic where any non-negligible back flexion qualifies as @10, that makes deadlift volume far easier to handle to in my personal experience. Which I think is both from lower loading, and from the back itself not getting as fried from more pure isometric loading.

[DoctorWho]

I have a compliment. For somebody as elderly and decrepit as you, I'm surprised that the volume agrees with you. I wonder if it's the burning resentment of living in Ohio that gives the energy.

[cwd]

@DoctorWho, it's the pitifully light weights that make it all possible, despite my great age.

[Wilhelm]

I like that i have peers here.

[DoctorWho]

@DoctorWho, it's the pitifully light weights that make it all possible, despite my great age.

Well, people from Ohio are not only inherently untrustworthy, but also strong, so I don't be believe you lift light weights.
(PS. Penn State and Ohio State wrestling teams this year are referred to as "super teams" because they are so good. At one point, the number one ranked guys at 8 out of 10 weights were on one or the other. OSU might have 10 all Americans. Even though growing up and living in big-time PSU country all our lives, my son and I are now OSU wrestling fans. Not sure how to break it to my friends.)

[cwd]

@DoctorWho, it's the pitifully light weights that make it all possible, despite my great age.

Well, people from Ohio are not only inherently untrustworthy, but also strong, so I don't be believe you lift light weights.
(PS. Penn State and Ohio State wrestling teams this year are referred to as "super teams" because they are so good. At one point, the number one ranked guys at 8 out of 10 weights were on one or the other. OSU might have 10 all Americans. Even though growing up and living in big-time PSU country all our lives, my son and I are now OSU wrestling fans. Not sure how to break it to my friends.)

I must sadly report that I was never invited to participate in the sport of wrestling, despite attending high school in Ohio.

Possibly this is because I was a stick-thin nerd until age 45 (and a slightly-less thin nerd since then).