I’ve honestly never followed a pre-prescribed lifting program other than the ones we used for football back in highschool.
What I tend to do is create my own program, then follow it for an amount of time I’ve felt necessary. Lately however, training has been on the back burner for me after reaching a goal, and I’ve just been maintaining, so my training has been on whatever feels right that day.
If I’ve done low rep, high weight for a few weeks, I’ll switch it up with something higher like sets of 7-9. This september, when I set out for a new long term goal of 180 pounds at single digit body fat, I’m going to be using alot of 9-10 rep ranges, because I haven’t done them in a long time.
One thing I’ve found is that when I stopped following programs, I got alot of strength gains in the big lifts. My deadlift shot way up, and I’m now able to rep deads 3-5 reps in the 425-440 range, something I thought was pretty interesting.
Except for the first month I ever spent at the gym (cardio, dbells and machines), I’ve always followed some kind of program.
Started with a beginners workout straight out of a friends copy of Arnold’s book.
Then one my buddy used to drop weight for rugby (Poliquin principles + HIIT) interchanged with a ‘no-nonsense’ strength one.
Finally, tomorrow I start Poliquin’s German Volume Training with HIIT once a week.
i don’t follow set programs either, i will use general trends for a few weeks like higher volume training or HIIT variations but day to day my workouts are based on the muscle group im targeting and what aspects of it need the most work