Praise and Question

First some very sincere praise for Jim, followed by the compulsory "which templates"question.

Being the father of a child with an eating disorder makes one read fitness and training related websites with new eyes.
That is, I have stopped reading them. The poisonous message of anorexia is repeated again and again on these sites as well as in other media.

Now I don’t care if grown up men starve themselves in their mid life crises, however young girls are left quite unprotected when the message that the most important thing in life is being as lean as possible is repeated perpetually. The message that the outside is more important than the inside.

Jim stands for something different: performance beating appearance . Every time I see people wanting dieting advice, Jim has sound and straightforward answers: to sustain life in general and training in particular, one must eat. Jim could easily earn buckets of money with dieting templates ( Boring But Biggest Loser, 3 month Simple Weakness challenge, Ripping the Monolith, Breaking Fast…) however he constantly goes the other direction. His writings are truly anti anorectic. This is very rare and I wish others would follow his example.

Now to the templates question…
Background: 44 year old, lifting modest weights. Goal: get as strong as I can, get deadlift up from 2x bodyweight to 3x,stop sucking at squats. Really enjoying 531, just finished my first 5 cycles; 2xBBB and 3xFSL. Lowering my TM now considerably, only got doubles in my last 531 sets the last cycle. Switching from lifting 4/w to 3/w, should help recovery.

What would be the recommended setup regarding templates for the next 5 cycles? I just want to do a macrocycle that’s tested and approved. I could of course do the 28 weeks or the Beyond 1.1-4, but I guess those are for more advanced lifters, so continuing to switch between FSL and BBB would maybe be best? I saw Jim mentioning SSL being used the first cycle after resetting, but I haven’t found it in the books, except for the up/down ladder. How would SSL be utilised? Otherwise I was thinking this:

5’s PRO FSL 5x5
5’s PRO FSL 5x5
BBB
BBB
FSL 3x5

Any thoughts/insights?

Thank you, Norseman - I appreciate the feedback and support. You are seeing a bigger picture in what I’m saying and how important it is to develop a great attitude and habits towards eating and physical culture. I hope you and your daughter work this out. This shit is not easy and this is when you earn your stripes as a parent. You have my respect.

If you are in MORE THAN reasonably good shape and can handle volume, this is the most basic 5 cycle program that there is. Remember that not everyone is ready for this as it’s 100% wrong to take an untrained person and start with high volume. Whoever is still swallowing that shitty myth might as well swallow poison - it’s not ignorant, it is stupid. So the following is ONLY for those that are in GREAT shape - if BBB makes you sore or tired, this is not for you.

Cycle - 1-3: BBB
Cycle - 4-5: FSL

If you don’t feel you are in good enough shape:

Cycle - 1-5: FSL, move fast, do a lot of work, low TM, superset lots of things, etc. We work specifically on total body, 7 day/week training program that is programmed to make progress, NOT about lifting like a moron.

For SSL, you would do that for 2-3 cycles in place of BBB (see first example).

Good luck Norseman - keep fighting the good fight.