Critique My Routine

Hey, new here and I’ve got a question about my training and if anyone had any advice/criticism about it (always looking for improvements). I’m a raw lifter, 18 years old with a 250 bench, 400 squat, 450 deadlift and have been training for 2 years now.

For a while I’ve been training using a pyramid scheme on my lifts (work up to singles on bench and deadlift, triples usually on squat). This means that usually I’ll have a cycle for 5-6 weeks and I’d work up to, say, 230 on bench then next week work up to 235 and so on always hoping to hit a PR at the end of it or close to it. On bench I like to have a back down set too to get more volume in.

I’ve been doing fairly well with it but I have had criticism already by some telling me there is a lack of volume and working up to heavy numbers all the time is just testing strength and not building it. However I’m not maxing every week (that would be silly and would stall very quickly) so I don’t see it as trying to test my strength all the time.

I do take it on board though, but I have seen that some other very strong lifters do train this way. Of course I’m aware that what works for them won’t necessarily work for me, but it doesn’t sound ludicrous as some are saying it is.

So, thoughts/suggestions? Many thanks T-Nation.

Not sure how much you weigh so difficult to know if your lifts show good progress or not. But if you’re making progress with what you are doing I don’t think you necessarily need to change stuff up until it stops working. Plus you’re only young so you have plenty of time to experiment when what you are currently doing stops working.

When it does stop working pick a well known, reputable program and stick with it for at least 12 weeks.

Oh yes, I thought I put that in, I weigh 200lbs.

Yes I definitely agree that if it’s working quite well then there’s not much reason to change it. But equally there’s always things you could do to make it better so that’s really what I’m asking about. Also just general advice I guess, if maybe it’s better to do singles for a while then doubles or just stick to one etc.

Thanks though.

Read a lot of the logs on eliteFTS. If you’re intelligent, you’ll see some of the basic patterns they follow. Obviously they aren’t 100% similar, but there are distinct trends. Success breeds success. See what the best do, then do it. Afterwards, see how well it worked for you and change things accordingly. The best way to learn how to design your programs is to go out and lift. You’ll figure it out.