What's next?

timg760

I may be jumping the gun here... but - on paper - I have 3 weeks left of the 12-week Madcow intermediate program, and I am wondering what to do next.

Not sure if this will affect the choice of next program, but at the end of my current Madcow program - again, on paper - i should have the following maxes:

squat 350x3
bench 220x3
DL 315x5
OHP 130x5
Row 210x3

I have added front squats and reverse-grip bench presses for assistance for the middle day of my 3-day-a-week schedule. I tend to keep my workout time to 1.5 to 2 hours per session, only because I need to actually work for a living. In a perfect world I'd probably spend closer to 3 hours and get paid for that too!

My only concrete goal is to get stronger. Getting bigger would be a really nice bonus. (I would also like to get better with caloric/macro adherence in a carb/treat rich household, because that would help my waistline, but perhaps that's another topic for another thread?)

As always, your feedback is much appreciated.

-TG

nossmf

Personally, I recommend repeating Madcow a second time, starting lower with reset maxes from the first time you started. However, take 3-4 weeks first to try a full-body routine where you alternate heavy with light sets. For example:

Monday: squats & OHP heavy, DL & bench light
Wednesday: DL & bench heavy, squats & OHP light
Friday: repeat Monday

Monday: repeated Wednesday

Keep alternating between the two. By "heavy" it would be 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps; "light" is 3 sets of 10-12. This is what I currently do since my work schedule limits me to twice per week lifting, and I have continued to gain strength. (I would love to return to a 3/wk routine, but alas, not in the for-seeable future.)

timg760

nossmf wrote: »

Personally, I recommend repeating Madcow a second time, starting lower with reset maxes from the first time you started. However, take 3-4 weeks first to try a full-body routine where you alternate heavy with light sets. For example:

Monday: squats & OHP heavy, DL & bench light
Wednesday: DL & bench heavy, squats & OHP light
Friday: repeat Monday

Monday: repeated Wednesday

Keep alternating between the two. By "heavy" it would be 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps; "light" is 3 sets of 10-12. This is what I currently do since my work schedule limits me to twice per week lifting, and I have continued to gain strength. (I would love to return to a 3/wk routine, but alas, not in the for-seeable future.)

Interesting. Questions:

1) Based on the numbers in the attached image – taken from my Madcow spreadsheet – if I went with your Option B (full body light/heavy alternation), what would be my starting heavy/light weights for each lift?
2) Also, for Option B, How much load would I add per week? Something standard like 10lb for squat, 5lb for everything else?
3) For Option A (repeating Madcow), I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “starting lower with reset maxes”, would you please elaborate? (start with lower numbers in the "Starting Weight" column?


Thanks!

DopeItUp

I would mainly like to know how your lifts have gone. If you have been able to add the requisite 5/10lbs per week then hell, keep it up. If you keep failing, having to deload, have recovery issues then it might be time to consider a more intermediate program with slower progression (like 5/3/1 for example which only adds 5/10lbs monthly).

Great progress though, assuming your form has been holding up your numbers are pretty solid. If you get 350x3 I think you will have a better squat than me already!

nossmf

For my full-body workout, "heavy" means working from 80%-90% 1RM, while "light" means using only 50% 1RM. Sure, I could do heavier on the light day, but the point is to recover while working on form, because I can either do 10-second negatives or explosive positives, keeping ultra-strict form.

As DopeItUp mentioned, if you have been able to keep up the progression, then you can simply keep going where you are. But if you're having problems, then from what I've read about MadCow where you start off aiming for hitting max in week 4, meaning you start at 90% in week 1, I'd say do that again now. Whatever your current max, set that as your week 4 goal, back off 10% now and re-ramp up.

timg760

Thanks guys for the advice!

_benjammin

MADCOW doesn't end at 12 weeks. If you haven't stalled keep going. If you stall on one exercise you can deload and reset that exercise individually. You'll have to manipulate the generic spreadsheet but in theory you can run MADCOW to eternity. When you get to the point where after you deload, ramp back up and immediately stall on most lifts, you might consider switching to 5/3/1 or DUP.
What are your goals?

cajuntank

Also, if you wanted to stick with Madcow (which is a program based off of Bill Starr 5x5), read the primer Bill goes into about changing up variables to break through platueus. So as an example, maybe instead of 5 ramping sets of 5 using weight and volume that is meaningful to overall fatigue, maybe just do ramping warmup sets (so 5, 3, 1, 1 to prime the CNS) to your top set of 5. You could do this till several failures, then change variables again, and say work up to top set of 3 instead of 5, then do back-off sets of 5 with the 4th set's weight, moving up weight in fractionals instead of 5-10lbs jumps, etc... Many ways to address these issues and is good learning experience if want to figure out things for yourself.

timg760

Good stuff guys. I am learning a lot and reading about MC/Bill Starr more too. Looks like i will just keep going for a while!