Texas Weight Training Method

The Texas training method is a training technique that originated from Mark Rippetoe’s Gym in Wichita Falls, Texas. This method of training is designed for intermediate weight trainers who have been lifting weights for more than 18-24 months, and are no longer progressing with their current training program.

When to use the Texas Method

A novice trainer can usually make great strength and size gains with a linear progression program, whereby they attempt to beat the number of reps, sets or weight lifted from the previous workout.

Usually after 18-24 months the progression can slow or become almost non existent, this is due to the bodies ability to adapt to the training method. Once the body has adapted to the novice training routine program modification is the next step to accomplish adaption. A word of caution, do not use this training method if you are still making progress with your linear training, doing so would be a waste of time and possible set you back, this method is for those who have reached plateaus in their training.

What is the Texas Training Method

The Texas method is a 3 day full body routine consisting primarily of compound exercises, such as the barbell squat, deadlift, cleans, bench press, push presses etc.

The 3 training days are all different in terms of the goal, the idea is that the first workout is heavy with volume, the second workout is recovery, which should be performed at approximately 80% of RM of Mondays workout, then the third workout is an attempt to beat your personal record (PR). It is recommended you leave 48 hours between workouts to allow for recovery, a general guide for this program would be to train on Monday, Wednesday & Friday, which provides you with 48 hours rest between each workout.

Below is an example of a Texas Weight Training Routine, the first number is the sets and the second is the number of reps, so for example 3 x 10 is 3 sets of 10 repetitions:

Monday (Volume/Heavy)

• 3 x 10 bench press
• 3 x 10 barbell squats
• 1 x 10 deadlifts
• 3 x 10 push presses

Wednesday (Light/Recovery) @80% Monday RM:

• 2 x 10 bench press
• 2 x 10 barbell squats
• 2 x 10 push presses
• 2 x 10 pull-ups

Friday (Intensity/PR):

• 1 x 1-3 bench press
• 1 x 1-3 barbell squats
• 1 x 1-3 deadlifts
• 1 x 1-3 push presses

The volume/heavy workout is performed at the beginning of the week (Monday), the Wednesday recovery workout is good because it is enough to prepare the body for the Friday PR workout without causing additional stress, it also allows for adequate recovery and improved performance for the Friday PR workout.

The total weeks training is low enough that when you begin again on Monday you are not fatigued from the previous week, yet the Monday volume/heavy workout is enough to cause an increase in strength/size.

The idea is to increase the weight on the Monday and Friday workouts every week. For the Monday training once you have completed the given number of reps for each exercise (so in the Monday example above this would be 10 reps for every set of the exercise) you can increase the weight on next Monday’s workout. Friday is an attempt to beat your personal 1RM, 2RM or 3RM record, don’t be tempted to always go for 1RM, mix it up, just remember the goal is to attempt to beat last Fridays record, for example if you did 1RM on bench press the previous week aim to do 2RM with the same weight, instead of adding weight to the bar and aiming for another 1RM.

Remember that the Wednesday workout should be performed at approximately 80% of the RM of Mondays workout, to give you an example, lets say on Monday you performed 3 sets of 10 reps with 200lbs on the bench press, on Wednesday you would do the same exercise at 80% of 200lbs, which would be 160lbs for 10 reps. The Wednesday workout is good for increasing blood flow to the muscles that may be sore from the Monday workout and also get them ready for the brutal Friday workout without causing additional fatigue.

A Balancing Act

The key to the Texas method and all other training methods is trial and error, as long as progress is being made the program is working successfully.

What can sometimes happen, especially 4-6 weeks into this program is the Fridays PR becomes more and more difficult to beat, this can be resolved by simply reducing the workload on the Monday workout, such as reducing the number of repetitions or lowering the weight slightly.

If you are not able to beat Fridays PR it’s probably because the Monday workout is not stressful enough to cause progress/adaption, adding sets to Mondays workload should solve this.

If progress declines on Fridays PR it could mean you are training too hard on Monday’s workout, to solve this you could drop a set or two from a workout, reduce the weight or reduce the reps or all three!

The key to discovering progression is writing it down, by keeping a log of the following with every workout:

• The exercise
• The weight lifted
• The number of sets completed
• The number of reps completed

You will be able to see when progress increases, slows or stops. If you are technical like me you can import your logs into a spreadsheet and chart your progress, allowing you to visually see when progress slows, decreases or stops which will allow you to quickly correct it.

Good luck with your training!