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**UPDATED 14/06/11**

5x5/4x5, progressive overloading routine:

Monday - Heavy squat 5x5, 110%RM walk-outs

Tuesday - Heavy bench press 5x5, 110%RM static holds, dips (assistance)

Wednesday - Heavy deadlift 5x5

Thursday - Light squat, light bench press (4x5)

Friday - Light deadlift (4x5)

The poundages for heavy sets are at 80%RM. Static holds are done for no more than 8s/set for 2 sets. Light sets are done at 80% of heavy sets' weight, 4 reps x 5 sets, and the primary focus is to improve form. If 5x5 is achieved for a heavy work set, 5kg will be added the following week.

Do critique.

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Unique program I am not familiar with such a schedule. I recall seeing static holds in some of Fred Hatfield's programs. Good luck with training.

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Hey Shaun. Yeah it's a combination of Dr. Squat's (without the cycles) + Alexander Faleev's program. I customized it a little myself.

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Laying off from overloads for next week's session. Tried 120% for the squat this week but it didn't do well for my left shoulder blade, hence the reduction to 110% instead.

Did a light squat + bench press session today and it felt like it was placed under tremendous amount of stress.

The bench press on the other hand hasn't been treating my left elbow well. The funny thing is that I got the pain when I laid off from training weeks back. The cause of that was due to the way I slept.

Gonna increase my GLA intake to reduce the inflammations.

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I used to have elbow pains from squatting last year
I googled it up, and lots of the results pointed to curling lol
I started implementing at least one type of curl in one of my days, condition got better and now pain is gone

You could try walk outs instead of static holds, but with walk outs the focus is more on fixing your technique and getting your foot placement right
its also a good way to 'get used' to the weights
What about your accessory work?

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The static holds that I'm doing are walk-outs actually ie. walking out from the rack and then hold statically. Yeah, they've been really useful under heavier loads.

I don't do any accessory work, not at the moment at least. The current program I'm on keeps things as minimal as possible. Thus far, my progress is pretty steady - I'm setting PRs every week. Might include some accessory work and extra assistance exercise later, but right now nothing's broken so nothing needs fixing. If it's working, don't change it.

Oh, and thanks for the tip on curling. But I'd like to know if we're experiencing the same sort of elbow pain. The pain I'm getting feels like 2 ends of the bones rubbing against one another at the elbow joint area. Got better today despite having a deadlift session. It could be the increased intake of the GLAs.

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I think my left elbow joint area is inflamed. It's not an injury yet, but it's about to turn ugly if I don't do something about it. The first thing that comes to mind is to lay off from the bench presses, but IMO that should always be the last resort if all methods to alleviate the pain fail.

I can bench a full 5-rep for 3 sets for the weight that I'm currently benching before the number of reps diminishes on latter sets. I feel a slight pain when I press to lock-out, which IMO shouldn't be - I'm not the kind who believes that lock-outs can cause injury but if it does, then something else is the problem instead of the lock-out itself. If you'd like to argue against that, then you'd have to explain why elite Olympic weightlifters who clean and jerk more than 200kg do not have such a problem. The lockout isn't so much of a problem, because the elbow hurts the most when I unrack the bar. I train alone in case anyone's wondering.

I suspect that a weak muscle group(s) is causing this, but the problem is that I don't specifically know which is the cause. For that, I'm going to decrease the poundage in the bench press (maintenance) and include some accessory work to help strengthen the upper body. When the secondary muscle groups get stronger, I'll then proceed to increase the weight on my bench press and see how it goes.

There are so many accessory works that I could throw in - pull ups, bent over rows, overhead presses, bodyweight/weighted dips, skull crushers, closer grip bench presses etc. I'm going to pick 3 - bent over rows, bodyweight dips and skullcrushers - that will hit the lats and triceps. I'm a minimalist when it comes to training, so picking only what's most necessary and conducive towards my goals is important.

Oh, and I might include bicep curls as Joseph mentioned that it helped to alleviate his elbow problem. I'll try to throw it in one of these days. Have to say though, that a sudden inclusion of 4 different accessory work is quite a lot.

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I think its best to keep one exercise per body part for the accesories for when you first start, in this case, pick either skullcrushers or dips, not both.
Whats important now is that you find a comfortable way to progress with the exercise, and find what works for you. I used to throw in more accessories than needed, and i was always, always sore e.g. On a squat day, i'd have goodmornings, pullthroughs, hyperextensions and cable crunches (I'm having much more progress compared to how i do things now, with less soreness). Recovery is key here, and i know for some folks who've been through a bodybuilding oriented program that this feels like undertraining. start off simple, than gauge according to your ability.
Whats more if you do it this way, you can actually tell whats helping you progress and what isnt, and when dips get stale/no progress, you can always use skull crushers as an alternate.

Have you deloaded since the joint pain started showing up?

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I'll take your advice, Joseph. Including 1 assistance per primary lift would be a good start. And I'd always prefer to have that feeling of under-training so that it doesn't get me all tired (and sore) the next day.

I'm not on a cycle, but I'll be taking off 5kg from my bench press. If you count that as deloading, then yeah, I am deloading. If the pain still persists, then I'll deload some more. The problem with bridging is that it decreases the reach of my arms to the bar, making it hard to unrack the bar; most of the pain comes from unracking. I might be hyper-extending my elbows as a result, which could've caused the elbow pain. I might have to bridge at a lesser degree. Damn these unadjustable bench racks..

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The week's my 4th for training, and the previous week was pretty messed up. I did great on the squats (Monday) at the new weight, but it came with a price - the DOMS were so great that I couldn't even lift 100kg on Wednesday, not even a single rep in the deadlift. I was also feeling pretty tired actually. I went to the gym, did my warm-up sets, attempted my main worksets for 3 sets to no avail and then went back home feeling defeated.

I went back again on Friday, and managed to hit the new weights, but that also came with a price - I injured my left leg muscle (from the frontal side, 3-4" down from the hip bone, no idea what muscle is that). The fact that I was sumo-deadlifting further aggravated my condition. It was a minor injury, and I actually got it not from my main work sets, but from my warm-up sets. I realized that I was jumping the weights too fast even as warm up sets; I've been going by percentages ever since I started the program and usually go with just 60 & 80% of heavy work set's weight. No more sumo deadlifting for me, at least for now, and more warm up sets, about 4-5.

No light worksets were done the previous week. My left leg has been pretty much recovered now and I might give squat a try tomorrow.