Is Everything Really (70's) Bigger in Texas: The Texas Method – What It Got Right, What It Got Wrong, and What We Can Learn Today
🔓 The Forgotten Giant of Intermediate Programming
Once hailed as the perfect intermediate program, it’s vanished from modern discourse. But does it still hold up?
Scroll back to the early 2010s and the strength world was a different place.
The online lifting community was thriving, forums still mattered, and YouTube was full of low-res training montages instead of curated TikTok sets. The big names (people and program wise) in programming were Rippetoe, Wendler, Sheiko, Smolov, and the emerging influence of PowerliftingToWin. The Starting Strength novice linear progression was gospel for new lifters, and Practical Programming was your graduation gift when you stalled. For those who made it through that first six months of consistent training and wanted more, one name kept coming up:
The Texas Method.
Co-signed by Mark Rippetoe and systematised by Justin Lascek, it promised a simple, brutal answer to intermediate programming. Three days a week. Heavy squats twice. One day for volume, one for intensity. Progression every single Friday. That was the promise. And for a while, it delivered.
In an ecosystem dominated by complexity (like Sheiko spreadsheets with 47 working sets a week) and chaos (Smolov and its injury cult), the Texas Method offered a practical, barbell-based solution. It gave lifters a framework that felt hard but doable. It was manageable for most people, built around basic lifts, and promoted weekly progress without the day-one exhaustion of Bulgarian maxing or the endless percentages of DUP.
Enter Justin Lascek—and 70s Big
Lascek took what Pendlay and Rippetoe discussed and made it work in the real world. Through the 70s Big blog and community, he became a key translator of barbell dogma into something digestible—and flexible. He applied the method to general strength, to powerlifting prep, to conditioning, to CrossFitters who wanted to actually get strong. In doing so, he created a whole generation of lifters who could explain what a Volume Day was, even if they’d never done one.
But what many forget is that The Texas Method was a fork in the road between two coaching giants with very different visions.
Pendlay vs Lascek: Same Base, Different Brain
Glen Pendlay, yes—the same man behind the Pendlay Row—came from a weightlifting-first background. His emphasis was on intensity, frequency, and athletic development. Pendlay’s version of intermediate programming wasn’t about managing weekly volume—it was about exposing athletes to heavy, near-maximal work more often. If you look at Pendlay's templates, especially his Texas Method-style Olympic lifting programs, they're inherently more aggressive and less forgiving. They demand you recover well—or get left behind.
Justin Lascek, by contrast, aimed to make those same principles survivable and repeatable for the average lifter. His Texas Method focused on volume control, stress-recovery balance, and phasic progression. He introduced progression models, bench press ladders, pressing alternatives, and contextualised recovery. In his two-part Texas Method ebook, Lascek not only refined the weekly structure but explained why most people were stalling: too much stress, not enough structure.
You could argue Pendlay was programming for athletes who already recovered well. Lascek was programming for those trying to become that.
So why don’t people talk about it anymore?
Today, the Texas Method is rarely mentioned. Its templates live on in old spreadsheets and buried forum posts, but modern programming has moved toward hybridisation, conjugate-style variation, and autoregulated models. Lascek’s brand has quieted, 70s Big faded, and strength culture shifted toward Instagram coaching collectives and elite club apps.
These days, most powerlifters—especially in tested federations—have shifted toward ultra-specific, four- to six-day SBD-focused programs, often with multiple competition lifts per week and a heavy bias toward specificity over variability. Bench gets hit three times. Squat and deadlift are usually in close proximity. Every accessory is selected to mimic or extend the comp lift. The Texas Method, with its once-per-week top set and general strength bias, looks almost quaint by comparison. But there’s a reason so many lifters made progress on it—and a reason it still has lessons to teach.
But that doesn’t mean the Texas Method is dead.
If anything, it’s been absorbed—its best ideas live on in other systems, often without credit.
And that’s why we’re revisiting it. Because when something was this popular for this long, it’s worth asking: What did it get right? What did it get wrong? And what can we learn from it now?n.
What Is the Texas Method?
The Weekly Cycle That Defined a Generation of Intermediate Lifters
The Texas Method isn’t flashy. It doesn’t promise Bulgarian frequency, Soviet complexity, or Westside variation. But what it does offer is structure—a weekly cycle that speaks directly to the needs of the early intermediate lifter: someone who’s outgrown linear progression, but not yet ready for advanced periodisation.
At its core, the Texas Method is a weekly undulating program, built on a simple idea:
Apply a high volume stimulus early in the week, recover with lighter work midweek, and hit a new personal best at the end of the week. Then do it again.
For years, it was the gold standard of “what to do next” after your novice gains dried up. “It felt hard—but doable—when you first started it. But that early sense of control doesn’t always last.”
Let’s break it down.
📅 The Weekly Structure
Monday – Volume Day
The heart of the program. Typically written as 5x5 at around 90% of your most recent Friday top set.
This isn’t an AMRAP or a balls-to-the-wall grind session—it’s planned volume, designed to generate stress without wrecking your recovery. The goal is to accumulate meaningful tonnage across multiple sets, usually with the same load, although ascending sets are sometimes used as a modification for more advanced lifters or those who struggle with early fatigue.
For example:
Squat 5x5 @ 85–90% of last week’s 5RM
Bench Press 5x5
Assistance work (RDLs, chin-ups, rows)
This is the session where you "do your homework.” You’re building muscle, reinforcing motor patterns, and creating the systemic stress that makes the rest of the week work.
Wednesday – Light Day
Think of this as a recovery and technique-focused day, not a throwaway session.
The original template calls for ~80% of Monday’s load, with 2–3 sets of 5 reps per lift. Pressing often alternates with benching here, and squats are kept light and snappy. The goal is to maintain movement quality, promote recovery, and avoid accumulating unnecessary fatigue before Friday.
This day was often overlooked by impatient lifters—but when used properly, it’s the glue that holds the week together.
Friday – Intensity Day
The payoff.
Intensity Day is where you hit a new 5-rep max, or eventually transition to triples, doubles, and singles as you become more advanced.
This day pushes the envelope just enough to force adaptation without sending you off a cliff. And it’s psychologically important too—it gives you regular exposure to heavy, near-maximal work, which builds confidence, technical resilience, and familiarity with actual limit loads.
Example:
Squat – Work up to a top 5RM
Bench Press – Work up to a top 3RM
Deadlift – Top set of 5, 3, or 1 (depending on training age and fatigue)
This isn’t the max-out-once-a-month approach you see in some DUP plans. It’s frequent, controlled, and progressive.
🧪 The Original Philosophy: Dose → Recover → Adapt
Lascek’s genius wasn’t inventing something new—it was stripping programming back to the essential elements:
Apply stress.
Recover from it.
Adapt to it.
Do it again next week, slightly heavier.
The Texas Method assumes the lifter can handle a moderate weekly frequency (three days), decent tonnage, and weekly progression. It assumes a lifter who’s committed, drug-free, and serious about getting stronger. And it works—until it doesn’t. More on that later.
🏋️ The Emphasis: Barbell Lifts, Stress & Adaptation, Minimal Fluff
The original Texas Method revolves around the Big Three: squat, press/bench, and deadlift. Accessories exist, but they’re minimal and highly targeted. No fluff. No biceps curls unless you’ve earned them. No endless supersets or circus tricks.
This barebones approach was both its strength and its weakness. It created structure in a world flooded with templates. But it also lacked the flexibility and nuance that many lifters would need later in their training career.
The Backstory: Lascek, Pendlay, and the 70sBig Influence
Barbell Icons, Cult Forums, and the Program That Almost Defined an Era
To really understand the Texas Method—and why it hit so hard for a while—you’ve got to go back to the weird, wonderful corner of the internet that was 70sBig.
Before “influencer coaches” and Canva infographics, strength culture was built on message boards, blogs, PDFs, and grainy YouTube clips of lifters doing horrible things to themselves with barbells. The Texas Method was born from that era, when what mattered most was whether the program worked, not how it looked in a template.
And behind that program? Two very different brains: Glenn Pendlay and Justin Lascek.
🥇 Pendlay: The Olympic Lifting Mad Scientist
Glenn Pendlay—yes, the Pendlay Row guy—was first and foremost an Olympic lifting coach. He coached countless national champions and spent years developing weightlifters in an American system that lacked the institutional support of the East.
So what did he do?
He coached harder. He programmed smarter. He made volume and frequency the norm, long before they were repackaged by Instagram coaches and sold in 16-week hypertrophy blocks.
Pendlay’s intermediate templates weren’t gentle. They exposed lifters to heavy squats and pulls multiple times a week. They taught you to recover, or they chewed you up. There wasn’t a whole lot of nuance—just intelligent brutality and the expectation that you’d rise to the occasion.
And it was from this environment—Olympic lifting gyms, 5x5 progressions, frequent squatting—that the Texas Method emerged.
📘 Lascek: The Translator
Enter Justin Lascek—the guy who made the Texas Method accessible.
Where Pendlay was blunt-force genius, Lascek was structured, systematic, and careful. He took Pendlay’s core ideas and framed them for a broader audience: strength athletes, general lifters, early-stage powerlifters. He didn’t just write a program—he wrote the system, complete with rules, logic, and progression options.
Justin didn’t invent the weekly undulating cycle. But he refined it, explained it, and applied it in ways that worked for everyday lifters. His writing was accessible but intelligent. He never pandered. He educated.
And through the now-legendary Texas Method eBooks and the 70sBig blog, he built a kind of cult following. Not because of hype—but because the shit actually worked.
🖥️ The Cult of 70sBig
70sBig was a phenomenon.
It started as a joke—“stop trying to get six-pack abs and get 70s Big instead”—but became a genuine movement rooted in barbell culture, milk, heavy squats, and unapologetic strength training.
Lascek used the platform to push smart, no-frills content that didn’t talk down to you. He published training logs, in-depth programming breakdowns, and actual reasoning behind every template tweak. For years, 70sBig was one of the few places where you could get a real explanation of why 5x5 worked, or how to program your first powerlifting meet.
And while the Texas Method was the flagship, it wasn’t just one program—it became a way of thinking:
Stress–Recovery–Adaptation as the core idea
A focus on weekly progression, not day-to-day noise
Emphasis on basic barbell lifts, real food, and work ethic
It sounds simple now. But at the time, it was a breath of fresh air in a fitness world still obsessed with bodybuilding splits and supplement stacks.
🔁 Pendlay vs. Lascek: Different Athletes, Same Barbell
Pendlay was programming for athletes, or at least olympic weightlifting atheles. Lascek was programming for lifters. That’s the key distinction.
Where Pendlay expected his lifters to recover from squatting 4x a week, Justin designed his version of the Texas Method for people with day jobs, poor mobility, and no massage therapist on call. He respected the lifts—but he respected the context more.
And that’s why the Texas Method took off.
It wasn’t just smart—it was doable. It offered structure without complexity, toughness without burnout, and results without spreadsheets that needed a math degree.
For many, it was the first time we saw a program that they actually felt tailored to where they were in their journey.
🧪 4. Variations, Applications, and Who It Was For
Common variants (bench/press alternation, 3x5 for upper, ladder reps, paused bench).
How it evolved in Part 2 of Lascek’s writings (powerlifting tweaks, off-season structure, beginner tapers).
Who it suited best: untested, drug-free, mid-20s males, post-linear-progression with good recovery.
Variations, Applications, and Who the Texas Method Was Actually For
How One Program Tried to Fit the Masses—and Mostly Succeeded
At first glance, the Texas Method looks rigid.
One volume day, one light day, one intensity day. Squat, bench, deadlift. Five sets of five. End of story.
But dig deeper into Justin Lascek’s books and blog posts—and especially Part 2 of his Texas Method series—and you find something surprising:
The Texas Method was never a one-size-fits-all program.
It was a framework. A philosophy. A weekly rhythm you could tweak, twist, and expand depending on your goals, your recovery, and your sport.
And over time, Lascek did evolve it—because lifters, unsurprisingly, needed more than one path to get strong.
🔄 Common Variants: The Stuff That Made It Workable
As lifters tried to survive week after week of 5x5 squats and max-effort Fridays, modifications naturally appeared. Lascek didn’t just allow for this—he encouraged it. Here are some of the most common and useful variations:
✅ Bench/Press Alternation
Early versions of the Texas Method alternated overhead press and bench press—bench on Monday and Friday one week, press the next. This gave a nice balance of horizontal and vertical pressing volume, kept shoulders healthy, and allowed raw lifters to develop both lifts in tandem.
Eventually, Lascek acknowledged what many lifters figured out themselves: you need to bench more than once a week to get good at benching, especially in powerlifting. So bench frequency increased, and pressing was either dropped to accessory work or rotated in more strategically.
🔁 3x5 for Upper Lifts
Volume day for squats was brutal but manageable. But doing 5x5 on bench and press? That quickly became a nightmare for recovery, especially when paired with squats.
So many lifters shifted to 3x5 for bench/press, using ascending sets or a top set with back-offs to keep the volume effective but sustainable. Lascek supported this shift, especially as lifters got stronger.
🪜 Ladder Reps, Volume Modifications
Another common tweak—particularly in Part 2—was ladder rep schemes (e.g. 5/4/3, or 3x5 ascending) on Volume Day to manage fatigue. This preserved intensity while reducing the cumulative toll of straight 5x5s.
Similarly, intermediate+ lifters started using 3x3 or 4x4 instead of 5x5 once progress stalled. These were logical shifts—still high volume, but more recoverable and mentally manageable.
⏸️ Paused Bench and Intensity Bench Singles
As powerlifting took hold, Lascek incorporated more sport-specific variations: paused bench press on Intensity Day, back-off volume, and even bench singles @ 90%+ for technical exposure. This added specificity without turning the program into a full peaking cycle.
📚 Lascek’s Evolution: Part 2 of the Texas Method
The first Texas Method ebook gave you the system. The second showed you how to adapt it.
In The Texas Method: Part 2, Lascek goes deep on different templates for:
Powerlifting meet prep (with a 12–16 week structure)
Off-season hypertrophy blocks
Beginner/intermediate transitions
General strength with added conditioning
He didn’t just add variations for the sake of it—he taught lifters to think in stress–recovery–adaptation cycles, and to recognise when a volume day needed to change, when intensity needed to drop, and when fatigue was derailing progress.
It became a toolset, not just a template.
And more importantly, Lascek acknowledged that lifters would outgrow the Texas Method. He never pretended it was the answer forever. He just said it was a damn good next step for people stuck between beginner gains and complex periodisation.
🧬 Who It Was Really For
Despite all the tweaks and adaptations, the Texas Method had a clear ideal lifter:
Male,
Mid-20s,
Drug-free,
Reasonably lean,
Out of novice phase,
With a 2–2.5x bodyweight squat,
No major mobility or recovery limitations,
In other words: a motivated, genetically average guy with decent recovery and a flexible schedule.
It can work for others, but let’s be honest—if you’re over 30, working a full-time job, recovering from injury, or trying to manage stress and family, running the Texas Method exactly as written caused some lifters issues within six weeks.
Even Lascek admitted this—hence all the progressive overloads of the programming itself across his later templates.
🧭 So, Was It Versatile? Yes. Was It for Everyone? No.
The Texas Method became popular because it met people where they were—but only for a while. It had just enough room for modification without becoming a free-for-all, and just enough structure to let lifters learn why they were doing what they were doing.
But like any good intermediate plan, its strength was also its expiration date.
Next up, we’ll look at what the Texas Method nailed—and where it completely fell apart.
Because it might be a forgotten classic... …but not every classic needs a comeback tour.
What the Texas Method Got Right
Hard Lessons, Heavy Lifts, and a Legacy That Still Deserves Respect
You don’t get to be the most popular intermediate program of a generation by accident.
The Texas Method wasn’t perfect—far from it. But there’s a reason it exploded in popularity and stuck around in training forums, blog posts, and gym folklore for the better part of a decade. It spoke to lifters in a way that overly academic programming didn’t. And more importantly?
It worked.
Before we dissect what went wrong (and we will), it’s worth giving the method its due. Because beneath the squatting fatigue and the fried CNS memes, the Texas Method actually taught lifters some invaluable lessons—and got several things very, very right.
🧠 1. Weekly Exposure to Heavy Work—Without Advanced Complexity
At a time when most intermediate templates required you to wade through five spreadsheets and six intensity waves just to figure out what to lift, the Texas Method offered something better: clarity.
Volume on Monday
Recovery on Wednesday
A new top set on Friday
No percentages, no rep max calculators, no ten-week cycles that punish you for having a bad week of sleep.
You knew what you were supposed to hit, and you knew when it mattered.
That kind of weekly, predictable exposure to heavy lifting was massive for lifters transitioning out of novice territory. It taught you to push. It taught you to show up. And it taught you that you could hit lifetime PRs without maxing out every session or overhauling your entire life.
This rhythm made the method feel manageable, even when it was hard. And for a lot of lifters, that alone made it worth doing.
🔄 2. Built-In Autoregulation—Without Needing to Call It That
Before RPE charts, percentage drop-offs, or AI-generated load prescriptions, the Texas Method snuck autoregulation in through the back door.
If Monday’s volume felt like trash, Friday’s 5RM wasn’t going to be a win—and you’d learn that the hard way.
If your stress and recovery were dialled in, you could ride momentum into your next week and keep building.
The system encouraged lifters to pay attention to their recovery, track their own progress, and adjust as needed.
No fancy jargon. Just real-world feedback.
It might not have been autoregulation in the scientific sense, but it was practical autoregulation, and for most lifters, that was more important.
💥 3. It Builds Grit—Because It Has To
Let’s not mince words: the Texas Method is hard. Volume day sucks. It always sucks. And just when you think you’ve recovered, Friday dares you to beat last week’s top set.
This wasn’t fluff training. It wasn’t designed to keep you perfectly fresh. It was designed to make you stronger through exposure to discomfort—in a way that was just sustainable enough to not wreck you completely (until it did).
You couldn’t coast on this program. You either got stronger, or you folded.
For many lifters, it was the first time they learned how to grind. Not in a motivational-poster kind of way—but in the three-more-sets-of-5-at-a-weight-that-feels-impossible kind of way.
And in that sense, the Texas Method didn’t just build strength—it built resilience.
🧱 4. It Prioritised Movements That Actually Work for Raw Lifters
One of the method’s underrated strengths was its emphasis on the lifts that actually make raw lifters better:
Triples over singles: Unlike advanced peak cycles, the Texas Method often used 3RMs as a bridge between 5RMs and heavy singles. These built strength, confidence, and technical consistency—without crushing CNS or risking form breakdown under true max effort.
Paused Bench: Lascek incorporated paused benches on Intensity Day for powerlifters early on, long before it became trendy in Instagram programs. It gave lifters practice under meet-like conditions and helped build control at the bottom.
Romanian Deadlifts and SLDLs: Used frequently on Volume Day or as accessories, these taught posterior chain control and built real raw pulling strength—not just brute force off the floor, but lockout integrity and hamstring resilience, which many novice lifters sorely lacked.
These movements weren’t added for fun. They were added because they worked, and Lascek had the receipts to back it up.
💡 So Yeah… The Texas Method Got Some Big Things Right
It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t even particularly cutting-edge.
But it was realistic, grounded, and effective—especially for that sweet spot of lifters in the early stages of their strength career who needed a system to push them without burying them.
It taught you to lift heavy, to recover smart, and to keep showing up. And even if you outgrew it, those lessons stayed with you.
Example: 3-Week Classic Texas Method (Squat-Focused Intermediate)
Assumes a lifter with a 5RM squat around 160kg
Week 1
Monday – Volume Day
Squat – 5x5 @ 145kg
Bench Press – 5x5 @ 100kg
RDL – 3x10 @ 100kg
Chin-ups – 3xAMRAP
Plank – 3x30s
Wednesday – Light Day
Squat – 2x5 @ 115kg (~80% of Monday)
Overhead Press – 3x5 @ 60kg
Dumbbell Row – 3x12
Band Face Pull – 3x15
Reverse Crunch – 3x15
Friday – Intensity Day
Squat – Work up to 5RM @ 160kg
Bench Press – Work up to 3RM @ 110kg
Deadlift – 1x5 @ 170kg
Barbell Curl – 3x10
Week 2
Monday – Volume Day
Squat – 5x5 @ 147.5kg
Bench Press – 5x5 @ 102.5kg
RDL – 3x10 @ 105kg
Chin-ups – 4xAMRAP
Hanging Leg Raise – 3x10
Wednesday – Light Day
Front Squat – 3x5 @ 100kg
Overhead Press – 3x5 @ 62.5kg
Dumbbell Row – 3x12
Banded Pull-Apart – 3x20
Farmer Hold – 3 rounds, 30s
Friday – Intensity Day
Squat – Work up to 5RM @ 162.5kg
Bench Press – Work up to 3RM @ 112.5kg
Deadlift – 1x3 @ 180kg
CGBP – 3x8 @ 90kg
Week 3
Monday – Volume Day
Squat – 5x5 @ 150kg
Bench Press – 5x5 @ 105kg
RDL – 3x10 @ 110kg
Chin-ups – 5xAMRAP
Weighted Sit-up – 3x12
Wednesday – Light Day
Squat – 2x5 @ 120kg
Overhead Press – 3x5 @ 65kg
Machine Row – 3x15
Band Face Pull – 3x20
Ab Wheel – 3x8
Friday – Intensity Day
Squat – Work up to 5RM @ 165kg
Bench Press – Work up to 3RM @ 115kg
Deadlift – Work up to 1x3 @ 185kg
Chest-Supported Row – 3x10
What the Texas Method Got Wrong—Or What We’ve Simply Outgrown
Why the Most Popular Program of the 2010s Rarely Gets Run in 2025
The Texas Method earned its reputation by getting lifters stronger, fast.
But like all things that go mainstream, its flaws showed up just as quickly. And while it worked brilliantly for a very specific type of lifter in a very specific phase of their training life, most people hit a wall—and hit it hard.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t a hit piece.
It’s a reality check.
Because while the Texas Method absolutely helped lifters build their first big squat or grind out their first 140kg bench, the deeper into the training journey you go, the more the cracks start to show.
Here’s what it didn’t do well—and why so few people run it anymore without serious changes.
🛑 1. Volume Day Fatigue Kills Progress—Eventually
The cornerstone of the Texas Method is Monday’s Volume Day: 5 sets of 5 at ~90% of Friday’s top set.
But here’s the problem: as your strength increases, so does the absolute load you’re lifting—and the fatigue cost skyrockets.
A 100kg lifter squatting 5x5 at 180kg isn’t just building volume—they’re flirting with burnout. Recovery stops being a 48-hour process and becomes a multi-day stress response. That means Friday’s Intensity Day suffers… which means the weekly progression slows… which means the system starts eating itself.
Volume Day becomes too heavy to recover from, and Intensity Day becomes too inconsistent to keep moving forward.
Unless you reduce the volume—at which point, you're no longer doing the Texas Method. You're just using its skeleton.
⏳ 2. (Could be) Brutal for Lifters Over 30 or Anyone with a Job, Kids, or Joints
If you’re in your early 20s, eating five meals a day, working retail, and sleeping 9 hours a night, the Texas Method feels hard—but doable.
But if you’re 35, working a stressful job, parenting toddlers, have a chronic condition and trying to train at 6 AM or 8 PM, this system may ruin you.
The volume is too high.
The recovery demands are unrealistic.
The linear expectation of weekly PRs doesn't respect life stress or joint health.
The Texas Method assumes ideal conditions—and most people past their novice phase don’t live in ideal conditions.
That doesn’t make it a bad program. It just makes it a young man’s game unless it’s adapted.
🧮 3. It Doesn’t Scale Well Past the Early Intermediate Phase
You can’t run the Texas Method forever.
Even Lascek admitted this. In Part 2 of his writings, he introduced advanced versions, volume modifications, intensity progressions, and meet prep adaptations—but the underlying weekly structure eventually breaks down.
Why?
Because once you’ve squeezed out your weekly progress, you need either:
More frequent exposure to higher intensity,
Smarter block periodisation,
Or a system that regulates volume dynamically.
The Texas Method, as written, doesn’t include autoregulation past its beginner-friendly intuitions. No RPE. No fatigue management. No daily adjustment. And once you hit a bad week or two, the wheels fall off.
There’s no "get out of jail free" card baked in.
🧲 4. Deadlift Progress (Sometimes) Stalls Quickly
Let’s be honest: the Texas Method is a squat program first.
Deadlifts are often thrown in at the end of Friday’s session—usually as a single top set. Sometimes you’ll see RDLs or SLDLs as assistance, but they’re rarely prioritised.
This is fine when you’re new and can PR off one top set a week. But as you get stronger? That frequency and volume just isn’t enough to move your deadlift meaningfully.
No speed pulls
No variation
No accumulation work
No technique reinforcements midweek
If you're built to deadlift, you might get away with it. But if you're not? The Texas Method doesn’t give you enough firepower to actually develop the lift long-term.
🏋️♂️ 5. Strongman and Event Athletes? Forget It—Without Major Modification
If you’re a powerlifter, you can make the Texas Method work—for a while. But if you're a strongman competitor?
You're going to need to tear it apart and rebuild it from the ground up.
Why? Because the Texas Method is built on barbell specificity, not event readiness. There's:
No room for carries, loading, or throws
No plan for conditioning outside barbell fatigue
No flexibility for rotating movement patterns or managing impact stress
Strongman demands variation, resilience, and multi-modal strength. The Texas Method demands that you get better at squatting, benching, and deadlifting. Those are two very different beasts.
Can you shoehorn strongman work into a Texas Method base? Sure. But at that point, you’re doing something entirely new.
📉 So... What Killed the Texas Method? Nothing. It Just Got Left Behind.
The Texas Method didn’t fail. It just got surpassed.
By Conjugate. By RTS. By emerging hybrid models. By lifters and coaches who needed more than a linear week-to-week plan could provide.
It still works—for the right lifter, at the right time, in the right context. But most of us? We’ve outgrown it. And that’s okay.
Because if the Texas Method taught us anything, it’s that you can’t just keep doing the same thing forever and expect to keep progressing.
The lesson of the Texas Method isn’t “do this forever.”
It’s “learn from this—then move forward.”
How I’d Apply (or Adapt) the Texas Method Today
More Variation, Smarter Stress, and What Louie Simmons Would've Really Thought
Let’s say you love the spirit of the Texas Method—the simplicity, the barbell focus, the built-in structure.
I get it. I do too.
But if you’re still trying to run it as written in 2025, I’ve got bad news: you’re leaving gains on the table and stacking fatigue that doesn’t need to be there.
That doesn’t mean the whole system is dead. It means it’s time to adapt.
I’ve coached everyone from rank novices to world champions. I’ve run my own versions of the Texas Method. And I’ve also spent over a decade immersed in Conjugate, GPP-based strongman prep, Westside philosophy, and advanced programming models.
If I were applying the Texas Method today? Here’s how I’d do it.
🔄 1. Replace Volume Day with DE Waves or Rotating ME Lifts
The 5x5 straight-set Volume Day is iconic—but it’s also a recovery killer.
Rather than trying to grind through 5x5s week after week at ever-increasing loads, I’d use either:
Dynamic Effort (DE) waves: 8–12 sets of 2–3 reps @ submaximal weights with bands or chains to develop rate of force, bar speed, and skill under load. You’re still creating volume—but without the same systemic toll.
OR
Rotating Max Effort (ME) lifts: One top set of a squat or pull variation, rotated weekly. Think SSB box squat one week, cambered bar the next. You build strain tolerance, top-end strength, and skill—all while managing fatigue.
The goal is the same: stress → recover → adapt. The method is better: you now manage fatigue instead of drowning in it.
This alone adds months of sustainability to a Texas-like structure.
🎯 2. Triples on Intensity Day—Then 2RMs and 1RMs as You Advance
One thing the Texas Method absolutely nailed was weekly exposure to top sets. That stays.
But 5RMs forever? Not happening.
Instead:
Start with 3RMs for newer intermediates
Progress to doubles
Transition into singles (90–97%) closer to a peak or competition block
This mimics both old-school peaking and modern Conjugate ideas: keep the strain high, keep the volume low, and practice lifting under pressure.
Bonus: it keeps lifters sharp without burning them out.
🧼 3. Light Day Becomes Restoration, GPP, or Upper Back Volume
Wednesday’s “Light Day” was always the oddball. Underappreciated but essential. In 2025, it deserves a rebrand.
Instead of under-loading the main lift, I’d make it one of three things depending on the athlete:
Restoration day: sled drags, belt squat marches, reverse hypers, blood flow-focused work. Keeps recovery high and joints happy.
Upper back & trunk day: pull-ups, rows, loaded carries, abs, grip. These don’t interfere with main lifts but pay dividends.
Conditioning & GPP: for strongman athletes or those needing work capacity—short circuits, strongman implements, sandbag carries, prowler pushes.
This turns the week into something more holistic. You’re not just lifting—you’re training.
🧠 4. Bench and Press Both Weekly—with Specialty Bars and Tempos
The old “alternate bench and press weekly” setup doesn’t cut it anymore—not if you want real upper body strength.
Instead:
Bench and press both every week, but alternate the emphasis
Use specialty bars (football bar, axle, Swiss) to manage stress
Introduce tempo work, pauses, and slight ROM changes to build positional strength and reduce joint strain
This not only builds pressing strength—it reduces overuse and makes your bench actually competition-ready.
🪓 5. For Strongman? Swap the Lifts Entirely
The Texas Method is not strongman-friendly out of the box. It’s built around the squat, bench, and deadlift—which is fine if you’re competing in powerlifting.
But for strongman athletes, I’d sub in:
Front squats or SSB box squats instead of back squats
RDLs, block pulls, or axle pulls for posterior chain development
Yoke walks, sandbag squats, keg loads as conditioning/volume
Log press or incline axle for overhead pressing
You’re still training with the same weekly rhythm. But the tools? They’ve got to reflect the demands of your sport.
Otherwise, you’re just training hard—not training smart.
🤔 What Would Louie Simmons Think?
Here’s where it gets fun.
Louie wouldn’t run the Texas Method as written. He’d laugh at the idea of repeating the same lifts for 12 weeks straight, then walk away muttering something about specificity being the enemy of adaptation.
But you know what Louie would respect?
The weekly exposure to heavy weight
The simple dose–recovery–adaptation loop
The work ethic it required
The ability to tweak the system for the individual
He’d throw chains on it, rotate the movements, add sleds, and call it Conjugate. And honestly? That’s the best path forward.
Because Louie understood what the Texas Method flirted with but never fully embraced:
Variation isn’t the enemy of progress—it’s what makes long-term progress possible.
🧭 The Bottom Line: Keep the Spirit, Change the Structure
The Texas Method gave us one of the most accessible ways to understand training stress, recovery, and progression. But that doesn’t mean we need to worship the spreadsheet forever.
Take the idea. Take the rhythm. Then evolve it to match the real demands of your body, your goals, and your sport.
You don’t need to abandon the Texas Method. You just need to outgrow it with purpose.
Takeaways and Lessons for Lifters Today
What the Texas Method Still Teaches Us—Even If You’ll Never Run It Again
The Texas Method might not be trending on TikTok. It might not be wrapped in a sleek app or pushed by today’s influencer coaches. But let’s get one thing straight:
It helped a generation of lifters get strong.
Not theoretically. Not in some abstract “training age” sense. Actually. Practically. Tangibly.
It taught people how to push through plateaus. It taught discipline, consistency, and programming logic. And it did it in a way that didn’t require a coaching degree, a sports science lab, or a six-figure recovery routine.
That alone earns it a place in the hall of fame.
But strength training has evolved. So let’s talk about what stays—and what gets left behind.
🧠 Lesson 1: It’s Not Dead—But It Needs Better Tools
The Texas Method isn’t obsolete. It just needs updating—better tools to handle the realities of modern training:
Lifters who work real jobs
Athletes who need more than squat/bench/deadlift
People who don’t recover like 22-year-olds on milk and peanut butter
The weekly stress–recovery–adaptation model still makes sense. But rigid volume days, predictable overload, and under-programmed assistance work don’t cut it anymore.
The method’s philosophy holds. The execution needs to evolve.
📈 Lesson 2: Dose–Response Structure Still Wins
One of the most powerful ideas the Texas Method gave us was this:
Stress your body early in the week. Recover midweek. Express strength at the end of the week.
Simple. Elegant. Logical.
That rhythm shows up in:
Conjugate Method: DE work early, ME work later
RTS: stress management through emerging strategies
Modern hybrid models: volume → fatigue management → peak effort
You don’t need to copy the template. You just need to understand the training impulse over time.
That’s the legacy. Not the spreadsheet. Not the 5x5.
The principle outlived the method.
🧭 Lesson 3: Take What Works, Leave What Doesn’t
Most people get stuck in one of two traps:
Blind loyalty to a method (“It worked for me, so it must be right”)
Constant novelty-seeking (“If it’s not the latest trend, it’s trash”)
The Texas Method teaches you to reject both.
It invites you to think, not just follow. It’s not flashy. But it forces you to understand why you’re progressing—or why you’re not.
And in a world full of automated programs and algorithm-driven coaching, that’s more valuable than ever.
You don’t have to run the Texas Method to learn from it.
You just need to know what parts still serve you—and which parts belong to another time.
⚖️ Lesson 4: Know Your Context
It always comes back to this:
Are you 24, sleeping 9 hours a night, and chasing a 200kg squat? Cool—Texas Method could work just fine.
Are you 38, recovering from a knee issue, training strongman twice a week, and trying to stay unbroken between comps? You need something smarter, more adaptable, more resilient.
Every program is a tool. If you use it in the wrong context, it fails—not because it was bad, but because it wasn’t meant for you right now.
This is what separates lifters who make long-term progress from those who bounce between templates hoping for magic.
You need to understand the context—not just the content.
Progress Demands We Evolve
The Texas Method Earned Its Place—But It’s Time to Move Forward
The Texas Method had its time—and it deserves real respect.
It bridged the gap between novice linear progression and advanced programming. It taught lifters about stress, recovery, and how to earn a PR. It wasn’t fancy—but it worked.
But here’s the truth: we don’t stop with what worked in 2012.
We refine it. We test it. We adapt it to the real lives, real stress, and real goals of today’s athletes.
That’s what progress demands.
Because the goal isn’t to stay loyal to a method. It’s to keep getting better—and to help others do the same.
That’s what I do now. I coach lifters, competitors, and real people who want strength that actually lasts. No cookie-cutter templates. No outdated systems. Just training that fits your body, your context, and your goals.
➡️ Want programming that blends proven principles with modern methods?
Apply for coaching and I’ll build it around you. Simple. Smart. Effective. Just like the best parts of the Texas Method—but evolved.
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