Thibarmy 2A Program with the Big Three?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Hey Coach,

Hope your Christmas and new year was good.

I purchased your 2a program quite a while ago but now am getting around to actually doing it.

I did notice that only in the phase 3 “heavy day” is there a workout of Squat, Bench, Deadlift. I did notice a general lack of those moments throughout the program. As my preference is powerlifting and I have a meet in June. What tweaks can be made so that I am training the big 3 regularly and the program still do its thing?

My first thought was to just replace all the Squat, Bench, Deadlift variations with my competition lifts. The only problem is that the only time there is “heavy work” is on the “heavy” day. It is impossible for me to do proper powerlifting training on all 3 lifts in one day.

My second thought was to replace all of the set/reps to something more consistently progressive instead. Like 915 or 531 as an example.

Do you have any thoughts or recommendations?

2

The 2A program is more of a muscle gain/strength plan. It is not optimal for powerlifting. Modifying it to fit that goal would be too complex and might not work ,especially for peaking your strenght for a competition. That having been said, the competition is in 6 months, so the 2A program could be used almost as-is for 3 months then you do a specific phase (e.g. the 915 program) for the last 3 months.

Whatyou can do is replace one of the days in the 2A program by a powerlifting day where you do squat, bench and dead likely with a scheme like 531