I thought I was the one who didn’t read the original post. First sentence:
So your advice is that he should just give up on anything related to powerlifting?
@baumbodies acknowledges that it isn’t powerlifting specific, and a bit of novelty might spur a rekindled sense of enjoyment and allow OP to escape the sensation of being in a rut before potentially revisiting his old — or find new — powerlifting programs.
Sometimes, to accomplish your goals, you’ll need to accept boredom. And I quote,
On this particular day in the gym, there was a coach visiting who had worked with thousands of athletes over his long career, including some nationally-ranked athletes and Olympians.
I introduced myself and we began talking about the process of improvement.
“What’s the difference between the best athletes and everyone else?” I asked. “What do the really successful people do that most don’t?”
He mentioned the factors you might expect: genetics, luck, talent. But then he said something I wasn’t expecting: “At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”
So, while advice to the tune of accepting that boredom is part of the game isn’t wrong, per say, and patience and consistency certainly have their place, I ask: would you argue that OP could not improve his numbers while keeping to his limited schedule and even possibly enjoying himself given the level he is currently at?
As a final highlight, I quote again,
“Fall in love with boredom. Fall in love with repetition and practice. Fall in love with the process of what you do and let the results take care of themselves”
But I, for one, am not at the level where I’m at a proficiency level where I must accept that progress will be a grind and for many of us what will matter more is having the motivation to work hard while we are in the gym.
But then, I’m neither strong nor a coach so my opinion might not matter to you, but maybe the OP can derive some use out of the different perspectives he is exposed to and that would be a win regardless of what perspective resonates with him.
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I would not powerlift if I didn’t like it. Sure, sometimes it is rough, but most days I like going in and working to get better. If you are improving and enjoying the process what else do you want? If you need more variation, pick something that switches lifts (uses bands, chains, boxes, pauses, deficits, exercise selection) more often. People have gotten really strong with that too.
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I don’t think it’s necessary to be an elite lifter to provide sound advice. It may help, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Is the 20 year old kid that beat me in my meet last weekend going to give better training advice than me since he put up good numbers? Probably not. The best coaches are rarely the best players.
What’s more important is to have already experienced and been where that person is right now and have overcome the same challenges. I’m not going to be breaking any records, but compared to the average guy my numbers are pretty good for a 5’11" guy in the 83kg class, and I’ve written tons of programs for many different types of people. I’ve seen them succeed, so I’d say it might be worth trying.
The thing here is that you and Bumbuddy are all focused on his apparent limitation of only being able to train for 40 minutes, but my main concern is his mindset and attitude towards training. I’m sure he could find some other time to get the assistance work done, either after work, on the weekend, or in an accessory workout, but even if he can’t, the fact that he loses focus after 40 minutes and can’t stick with a program despite making progress is a serious problem. That is what he needs to change more than anything.
But to answer your question, sure he could improve his numbers with extremely limited training time, but probably not by very much seeing as you need sufficient volume to increase muscle mass and unless your name is Belkin or Malanichev you should be doing some assistance work.
I suggested checking out CT’s programs. Many of them revolve around building strength in the 4 lifts he mentioned. They’re going to get you stronger on those lifts. Most of them won’t peak you for a meet. That’s not his goal. Just getting stronger is. That’s why those programs are a good fit, plus they’re designed with interesting techniques that make it fun.
So you are the best coach now? Who exactly do you coach? You were posting recently about your success with squatting every day, is that what you consider to be good coaching?
So why don’t you write a 40 minute program with lots and lots of variation?
Ha, nice.
You seem to have gathered a lot of information about his mindset and attitude from a few sentences.
When a guy tells you he loses focus after 40 minutes that says quite a bit right there.
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What? I didn’t even say I am coach. Yes, part of being able to give advice is to only recommend things that you’ve actually tried. That’s why I will constantly experiment with certain aspects of my training.
You’re right it does. Likely he either doesn’t have a strong enough why behind his goals, the program is boring, or his physical/mental energy is mostly spent by the 40 minute mark. Maybe all 3.
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I’ve followed programs that had me bored by the 40 minute mark. My current workout takes 90 minutes (including my warm-up) and I’m never bored. I might want to pass out, express my regrets, vomit, or sweat through my eyes but I’m not bored. Different programs are going to work differently depending on the individual doing the workout, maybe there is something that’ll keep OP more engaged. I sure hope so. It might still only take 40-60 minutes but not trigger that sense of boredom.
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Yes. That’s why programming is both a science and an art. Poor OP having to read through all this haha.
It’ll take less than 40 minutes so it’s cool
(sorry OP, but I laughed when I had the thought so I had to share the joy)
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So why the rhetorical statements about “the best coaches”? Seems like you are just talking out of your ass.
This is an absolutely pointless discussion.
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… but you will be, eventually. Powerlifting is 3 lifts and you can’t get away from programming towards them, so it gets boring. Unfortunately, it’s not boring when you are progressing. It gets boring when you’re not progressing and it gets friggin hard as well.
That’s where you need mental toughness because it gets hard, it becomes pretty mundane but the worst thing you can do is start deviating completely away from your plan.
Not a powerlifter so I have more lifts than that 
but what about lift-variations and stuff?
Well, this kinda is a powerlifting forum…
Variations make it better but really, throwing a pause in makes it better for about 4-8 weeks and mainly because it’s something you can start progressing with. Same with different rep ranges.
Goddamn: I’ve been training wrong for about 20 years now.
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There is nothing about training you enjoy?