Eric Cressey's Maximum Strength Program

Anyone have any experience with this program? Pros/cons? I like the strength bias and the variety of movements. Just curious if anyone in here has completed it and what the results were like?

Loved it. One of the top three set programs I’ve ever done. Got stronger and leaner while maintaining bodyweight. Unfortunately, the day I was supposed to do “moving day” I got severe food poisoning and had to go to the hospital. Not sure why I haven’t ran it again.

Sorry to hear about the food poisoning! Bummer deal. But I’m happy to hear the program is solid. I’m going to give it a go. Just curious, what approach did you take with conditioning? Cressey offers guidelines in the book based on somatotypes, and even though I would consider myself an ectomorph, I would like to incorporate some sprinting and prowler work.

I did zero conditioning when I ran it. I was a month or so removed from knee surgery and was getting back into the swing of things. Got leaner through carb cycling and the relatively high volume the program has for an upper lower split. If I were to do it again, I’d sprint or sprint with the prowler on lower days and skip rope or use the battle ropes on upper days. Also, EAT. This’ll bury you if you’re not pounding food.

Cool, thanks for the insight. I’m excited to get started. I’m just finishing up a hypertrophy focused program and the strength bias will be a welcome change of pace.

Definitely enjoyed it too. Would highly recommend.

Pros:
Lots of variety
Teaches you movements that will better your posture and get rid of muscle imbalances
Definitely got stronger from it
Learn about cycling for recovery. I think Cressey is a big fan of 90/80/105/60 or something like that which works.

Cons:
I didn’t like a few exercises.
I really wanted to get to the singles and hated waiting 3 months because I was obsessed with strength

Sorry, no tangible stat increases.

[quote]oso0690 wrote:
Definitely enjoyed it too. Would highly recommend.

Pros:
Lots of variety
Teaches you movements that will better your posture and get rid of muscle imbalances
Definitely got stronger from it
Learn about cycling for recovery. I think Cressey is a big fan of 90/80/105/60 or something like that which works.

Cons:
I didn’t like a few exercises.
I really wanted to get to the singles and hated waiting 3 months because I was obsessed with strength

Sorry, no tangible stat increases.[/quote]

Sweet. Yeah, I’m only 5 days in, but so far I like it. The warm-up is great, I feel like my recovery between workouts is better because of it and I feel like my ROM on my lifts is improved during training. I do agree with your sentiment about not liking a few of the exercises, though this might just be because some of the movements are new to me, so determining loads can be difficult at first. Overall, I think I’m going to see good, tangible results when I’m done.

This thread and your log inspired me to run the program again. Did the bench day yesterday and good lawd I’m sore this morning. Used straight weight but had to drop 10lbs on the last two sets. Was thinking of this go round working up to a top set or two and keeping all sets within 90% of the top weight. Thoughts?

Pretty sure this is the program Jskrabac and I agreed to do together come August. Interested to see the results

Can we get a link to the program?

[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Can we get a link to the program?[/quote]

It’s a book. Think the T-Nation bookstore still sells it. Also, if you Google it I’m sure something will pop up…

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
This thread and your log inspired me to run the program again. Did the bench day yesterday and good lawd I’m sore this morning. Used straight weight but had to drop 10lbs on the last two sets. Was thinking of this go round working up to a top set or two and keeping all sets within 90% of the top weight. Thoughts?[/quote]

Sweet! I’m loving this program. I think your idea is solid. If I were to redo the program I would probably make some similar tweaks. But just doing the program as-is has been really fun so far. I’m stoked you’re going to do it again, I think it is a really solid piece of programming.