High Performance Training Matrix

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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https://www.T-Nation.com/training/high-performance-training-matrix

I might seem new but I’ve been around for a few year, just lurking in the shadows. I’m wondering if anyone’s tried this training method? I’ve been doing alot of strength stuff over the year and its made me kinda fat. I’m 6’4 @260lbs and around 25% bf. Wondering if this would be a good system to help reach my goal training 3x a week. Plus I like the Olympic lifting you can incorporate into the program. Thanks

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Just so we understand each other.

The program is fine. Lots of self programming here, as it gives you a lot of options.

Now for the hard part. You didn’t get fat with a program. You got fat by eating to much, eating crap, eating the wrong foods and/or eating at the wrong time.

Get the diet in order, be consistent with your work out and make small adjustments as needed.

Good luck

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The diet is in order. I guess I should have worded it my question differently. Would the High performance training matrix be a good style of programming to help me reach my goal. Most strength programs(5x5, ss, 5/3/1) require you to eat more. So would it be a good program with a calorie deficit?

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Not being a dick, but how is your diet order if you’re kind of fat? I’m with JFG 100%.

Just because you’re doing a strength program and eating loads doesn’t mean you’ll get fat. You’ll just get fat if you eat shifty food and/or don’t work hard enough.

I’d recommend doing the program and taking a long, hard look at your diet and how hard you work. One or both of those might need some amendment.

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  1. I agree with what was said earlier: if you gained too much fat, your diet was misadapted to your training and/or goal. it doesn’t mean that you ate crap or had a dumb diet. It means that relative to your goal and workload, you ingested too much food relative to how much energy you expended. When they embark on a strength program a lot of people start to overeat ‘because you have to consume a surplus to gain muscle and strength’… while this is true to some extent a lot of people exaggerate what “caloric surplus means”… they are so afraid of undereating and killing their strength gains that they eat too much “just to be sure”… but eating just a little too much everyday for months can add up.

I also mention goal because that is important too. Some people value strength over everything, they actually don’t care about how fat they are/get (I personally don’t understand that but I know it exists). Others want to get stronger and they accept a small fat gain to do so and still others want to get stronger while maintaining their bodyfat level. Depending on your goal the dietary approach will be different. What is “in order” for one wlll be “out of whack” for another. Since you seem worried about your body fat level it indicates that you do care about leanness and that you probable ate too much for your “REAL” goal.

  1. No program works well on a caloric deficit. Meaning that if you consume a caloric deficit and you aren’t a beginner or using drugs you will not have a huge increase in strength, and even less muscle size. You will get rapid neurological gains at first but progression will become really slow afterwards.

That doesn’t mean that such a program should not be used in a caloric deficit (although the high volume from the performance matrix isn’t that fun in a caloric deficit); it means that you shouldn’t expect huge performance improvements.

You can either lose fat and progress a small amount performance-wise or improve performance more while maintaining body fat levels; so when you have a lot of fat to lose it’s sometimes best to bite the bullet and focus on fat loss for several weeks, accepting that gains will be small. And when you are leaner you can focus on maximal gains again, this time not allowing yourself to get too fat.

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One thing I’m reminded of…

It’s NEVER the diet but it ALWAYS is!

Everytime someone gets too fat they always say that diet is not a problem. They assume that they are training the wrong way.

Why? Because changing training program is fun.

Eating less and cutting out some of the food you like isn’t.

We would all prefer if the problem was always the training, easy to fix, not hard to stick to. But in some cases it’s just not the training.

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@MarkKO: Yes my diet wasn’t in order but, it has been this past month. So far I’ve lost 4lbs. I know that isn’t alot but I’m pretty bad at discipline. I’m currently doing Greyskull’s LP. Before that I was doing 5/3/1 and before that a strength biased crossfit program. I’m really good A putting in hard work. I’ll admit that I’m horrible at the diet. It a changed alot though.

@Thibaudeau: would you suggest staying on this program? I’ve modified it to where I only go up in weight once a week because I know strength gains will be tough with a low calorie diet.

Thank you guys for the responses

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[quote]A-ron88 wrote:
@MarkKO: Yes my diet wasn’t in order but, it has been this past month. So far I’ve lost 4lbs. I know that isn’t alot but I’m pretty bad at discipline. I’m currently doing Greyskull’s LP. Before that I was doing 5/3/1 and before that a strength biased crossfit program. I’m really good A putting in hard work. I’ll admit that I’m horrible at the diet. It a changed alot though.

@Thibaudeau: would you suggest staying on this program? I’ve modified it to where I only go up in weight once a week because I know strength gains will be tough with a low calorie diet.

Thank you guys for the responses [/quote]

Get your diet discipline in order. The way you JUST put it, it’s your problem, not the training. But at least you took a good step in going from “my diet is in order” to “I’m horrible at the diet”.

If you really want to be successful fix the problem. don’t try to compensate with training.

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I’m reminded of that old maxim: ‘You can’t out-train a bad diet.’

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[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]A-ron88 wrote:
@MarkKO: Yes my diet wasn’t in order but, it has been this past month. So far I’ve lost 4lbs. I know that isn’t alot but I’m pretty bad at discipline. I’m currently doing Greyskull’s LP. Before that I was doing 5/3/1 and before that a strength biased crossfit program. I’m really good A putting in hard work. I’ll admit that I’m horrible at the diet. It a changed alot though.

@Thibaudeau: would you suggest staying on this program? I’ve modified it to where I only go up in weight once a week because I know strength gains will be tough with a low calorie diet.

Thank you guys for the responses [/quote]

Get your diet discipline in order. The way you JUST put it, it’s your problem, not the training. But at least you took a good step in going from “my diet is in order” to “I’m horrible at the diet”.

If you really want to be successful fix the problem. don’t try to compensate with training.[/quote]

Agree.

OP, IMO 4 lbs in a month isn’t bad, though, especially if your discipline is somewhat wanting. Now you’ve acknowledged the problem, once you fix it you’ll be in a really good position to decide where to go from there.

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So I’ve decided to do 5/3/1 with a emphasis on conditioning and training to maintain. I also cleaned up my diet a lot more. I quit eating as frequently and I have 4 meals a day with alot more protein. It’s not perfect but so far I’ve lost 13lbs and 3.9% bf.