1) You took singles and turned it into sets of 6 and 5. It's plenty. I don't see you adding weight and then just continuing to progress in the same fashion. I'd recommend turning to a "quality volume" kinda setup. Warmup to 385 and then do triples or doubles or singles adding weight when you feel like it. Try to keep fresh with plenty of rest so that you can get as many reps as you can with low rep sets and put on as much weight as you can. If you wanted you could even do waved sets if you felt more comfortable that.
Whatever allows you to get a lot of work in.
Then, once you've done that look at where you are and the weight range you're at and try to condence the volume again.
This is all the same purpose and the same thing you been doing. If you can get a good quality volume workout or a waved set workout and then increase the density with a heaver weight for the next three weeks..then deload the volume for week you should be ready to try for some big new singles.
2) "I hate front squats" "do you want me to keep them in"
Probably if you hate them it's a good time to switch it up, lol.
Here's an idea for you which you will like (which is mostly the reason I'm suggesting it, lol)
Have you heard of the 1-6 principle? So called and popularized by Poliquan. Well you know how I feel about Poliquans ridiculous claims..but anyway you can use something like this for a few weeks.
Now..I don't know what the hell 6 reps have to do with it but since you were doing six reps or 5 reps with 385 you can use that.
Of course I've modified it to be a little bit more realistic since Poliquan thinks you should do a "max single" and then increase that in between doing sets of 6..good lord.
Simply do something like this:
Warm up to a single of about 395
Then do a set of 385 at 5 to 6 reps
So on and so forth so you have something like this:
395 x1
385 x 5-6
400 x 1
387.5 x 5-6
402.5 x 1
390 x 5-6
You do the microloading whatever way suits you. I just made up a suggestion. This has nothing to do with trying to get big singles. It just has to do with increasing your ability to do more work at the 5 to 6 rep range by gradually lifting bigger singles which gives you posttetanic potentiation. However the problem is most people make grand predictions and give grand plans about what you can do which is of course bullshit. You have to just play it by ear see what happens with it.
Then next week see if you can increase it.
You'd probably have a lot of fun with this but I don't want you going really heavy singles. Just add 5 or 10 pounds to the 385 as in how I did it above and then go slowly from there. It's possible to do more than 6 sets but that's three sets of 6 with 3 singles so it's a lot.
Who ever said that this mesocycle was ONLY sets of 385? If you can't add weight that is fine but you could if you wanted to.
I thought you told me you go micro plates.
No biggy but you really need to get that happening in some way or another. There are all sorts of options.
I doubt I will be able to do 395 for 5 or 6 reps but I think with 10-15 minutes rest I should be good to go. I really like how you have me doing only Deadlifts on Deadlift Day. It makes it really easy to focus on my workout. No need to rush against time or anything.
No room for doubt. And it really doesn't matter if you pick up the bar and do only three reps but the idea is to increase as much as you can.
What I get confused in is: what do you mean by " try to condence the volume again"? Is that the 1-6 principle?
That was before I thought of doing this. If you had done quality volume or waved sets (all low reps) then I would have wanted you do add "density" by by using the same rep range (the average range) and do higher rep sets. But you don't need to do that now because you already are doing higher rep sets. The whole thing you are doing in general is increasing your tolerance to work in this range between about 385 to 405.
I know….I decided to only use 385 to make it easy for me. And so far it has worked. Like a charm too.
Perfectly cool. If you wanted to just keep repping out at 385 for a while it would be a ok with me.
You're welcome of course.
