I bet you’re looking for a challenging powerlifting program to continue making strength gains. This program is my best intermediate powerlifting program, designed to take you to your next PR in 8 weeks. While this program isn’t for new lifters, or the faint of heart, I expect that it will add significant weight to your back squat, deadlift, and bench press. I’ve also included links to my nutrition and strength potential calculators. Keep reading for all the details.
As the name implies, this program is for an intermediate lifter. If you’re new to the gym, then I recommend starting with something a little more basic, as this program builds to a lot of volume. You should expect to lift heavy weights during every session, with plenty of accessory strength work to hammer your weaker muscle groups.
Most lifters at this stage of their fitness journey want to know just how big and strong they could potentially be. As a coach I get this question quite often. While I don’t have a crystal ball, I do have a great calculator that has been validated with the result of thousands of athletes.
This calculator will help predict your overall strength levels, and just how much muscle mass you can build, as you reach your genetic potential. You can find my physical potential calculator here. I bet you’ll be surprised just how much room you have to improve, as most athletes aren’t anywhere near their physical limits. Here’s a quick overview of the program.
My Best Intermediate Powerlifting Program
- Designed for athletes with a minimum of 1 year of experience in the gym
- Must have good technique on all lifts
- My best powerlifting program that’s 8 weeks in length
- Heavily focuses on building strength and volume
- Rep ranges focus between 1-8 reps for primary movements
- Multiple muscle groups trained each session
- 5 Training day split program
If you have some experience with strength training, but aren’t sure if this program is right for you, then I highly recommend checking out my 7 Week Free Strength Training Program. I would still classify this plan as an intermediate program; however, it has a slightly lower amount of volume. It’ll be a great program that’s full of big lifts, to help you develop maximum strength.
Next we’ll talk about the details of this program, including things like warming up correctly, and how to maximize your time efficiency in the gym. We’ll also cover some of the common acronyms I use when writing my programs.
My Best Intermediate Powerlifting Program Overview
This program is written in sequential sessions. Most athletes will chose to do this program as a 5 day split, with 2 days of rest. As a coach, I don’t care when you chose to do the workouts. It’s your responsibility to make sure that you get in at least 5 sessions per week.
It also doesn’t matter if you want to do certain exercises before others, in a given session. If you want to do bench before squat, more power to you! You’ll find what works for you. Now let’s talk about some of my programming acronyms.
Programming Details
You’ll see the term RIR quite often. This stands for reps in reserve. If I wrote 10 reps at 2 RIR, I expect you to pick a weight that you could do for 12 reps, if you really had to. I use this method for exercises that you most likely don’t have a 1 rep max for, and consequently can’t use a percentage.
I also use the term technical max (TM) quite often. A technical max is the heaviest weight you can lift with perfect form. This should be a few percent under your rep max, as in any true rep max you’ll have some amount of form disruption.
A TM isn’t a hard number either. Some days you might be able to do a set of 5 at 300 pounds TM, where as other days you might only get 290 lbs. This is ok. I don’t want you to push for that extra weight if it isn’t there. This is the point of using a TM, and not a rep max.
I expect that you’ll rest between 2-3 minutes on most sets. It’s fine to take up to five minutes (any more is too much time) on your most challenging sets. It’s a good thing to recover fully, as we’re looking to gain strength not fatigue. We’ve chatted enough. Let’s get into the first week of the program.
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My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 1
This is the first week of the program. The primary goal for this program is to acclimatize your body to increased lifting volumes. You can see that each session has a minimum of one primary lift. Some sessions will feature two primary lifts. This is important because it gives your body a greater opportunity to increase efficiency in those lifts.
At the end of each session you’ll see that I’ve programmed a super set. These are great, as they allow you to maintain a high volume, that can help build some muscle mass. I expect you to perform these supersets in the following manner.
You’ll do the first exercise, and then immediately move on to the next exercise, with no break. You can rest as long as you like before you start on your next super set.
I’ve also given you some latitude on picking your weight for these super sets. If you’re not sure what to go with, I recommend aiming for lighter weights in the first week. As you’ll see, each week becomes progressively harder, and you don’t want to start out with too much volume.
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 2
For each of the primary lifts, I’ve increased the load slightly. Most of the main, or competition lifts, are increased linearly for each week. I’ve found that even experienced lifters benefit from linear periodization. While there are heavy weights this week, nothing should take you to failure in any of the sets.
The next big change for week two is the addition of extra sets. In many of the secondary movements I’ve added another set, heavier than the previous week. Most research shows that increasing lifting volume is a key component of gaining muscle mass and strength.
I’ve also included movements that allow you to maximize the load you can lift. This is why I have the trap bar deadlift in each week of the training program. Research shows that the trap bar, or hex bar, is one of the best movements to build overall strength and power.
If you like building massive amounts of strength, but don’t want to neglect overall fitness, then this is the program for you.
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 3
In week 3, the program becomes very challenging. You’ll start to handle weights within 6% of your old 1RM. This is very important for an intermediate powerlifter. One of the biggest differences between beginning lifters, and an advanced lifter is their experience handling high percentage loads. As a coach, I believe this is more mental confidence, rather than any physical ability to lift the weight.
I also want to point out that you may not be able to do every single movement, depending on what equipment your gym has. This is fine. You shouldn’t stress out about one or two movements that need modification. Check out this article where I go over scaling movements correctly. It’s not as simple as you might think it is.
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 4
This is the deload week. It’s one of the biggest differences between a beginner program and an advanced program. Generally speaking new lifters aren’t using heavy enough loads, with enough volume, to warrant a deload week. For my beginner lifters I normally recommend following a three-day or four-day program at most. This amount of volume doesn’t require a deload.
The whole focus for this week is on recovering, in preparation for the next training cycle. Most of the movements are slightly lower in overall weight, and the volume is cut by a third. Rest assured you’re still lifting fairly heavy, and you can still go to town on some of the assistance work.
Just keep in mind that this is the week where your gains come from. If you push too hard, or decide to try heavier weights than are prescribed, you’re just stealing your future gains in strength. Follow the plan!
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 5
This is the first week of the second training cycle. Astute observers, or folks who’ve read my ebook, “Programming Your Fitness,” might have noticed that the movements were more generalized in the first cycle, and are more narrowly focused this cycle.
For these weeks I’ve replaced some of the accessory work with things like speed deadlifts. These help you increase your rate of force production. They also increase neural efficiency with these lifts. It’s the best way to increase strength rapidly.
You’ll also note that I haven’t replaced every single movement for a very good reason. Accessory movements are designed to improve your weak points. These areas aren’t going to improve enough in only four weeks. We need to maintain focus on them throughout the program.
This is why you’ll see many of the same movements on the supersets, as well as things like rear delt flys that are very important for joint stability. Ask an experienced lifter how important it is to work the opposing, and supporting muscle groups, and you’ll understand why I always include this type of accessory work.
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 6
By now you should feel more confident with your heavy loads. I can almost guarantee that you’re now stronger than you were just a few short weeks ago. The best way to ruin this progress is to try for new PRs now. I know you’re itching to set some new records, but you need to wait a few more weeks.
On many of the blocks this week you’ll see the notation, try to increase load. Don’t over think this. I simply want you to try and increase at least one set by some amount. You don’t have to increase all sets unless you’re really feeling it. Focus on making some progress, and don’t get greedy!
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 7
This is the last and heaviest week of the program. You will lift just short of your old PR on each of the main lifts. My goal for programming 99% percent loads is to keep you just shy of your old PR, so you can see how much stronger you are at that level of force production. This will give you great confidence going into next week, when you’ll set your new PRs.
This week is very high total volume. Take session 33, which is primarily a squat day. Over the total session you’ll be working 7 heavy sets for squats, and 5 heavy hamstring sets. This isn’t even including the upper body movements.
My advice to you is to make sure you complete a thorough warm up, and take as much rest as you need between sets. I’d plan on being in the gym for at least 90 minutes this week. It’s important not to rush yourself, as each heavy set requires maximum focus. Now let’s get to the PRs!
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program: Week 8
This is the week you’ve been waiting for. It’s finally time to show off all your hard work. It’s important to maintain as much of the same routine that you’ve built up over the previous weeks as you can. Don’t start doing crazy warm ups, or stretches, that you haven’t been doing. Think of these days as just another training session.
I’ve included some guided warm ups for each of your primary lifts. You don’t have to stick to these percentages exactly. They’re just there to give you something to shoot for when warming up for you PRs.
I always advise my athletes to plan on taking three PR attempts. The first attempt is a small PR. The next attempt is what you really want to achieve, and the final attempt is a moonshot. Make sure you pay attention to safety, and use spotter arms, or an actual spotter if necessary. There’s always a risk of injury with new PRs, so make sure you’re being as safe as possible.
If you’r ready to try some advanced training techniques then check this program out.
Next, let’s go over some recovery and performance enhancement methods that are research based, and very effective.
My Best Intermediate Power Lifting Program Nutrition and Recovery
The best way to tell the difference between and advanced powerlifter and those with lesser experience is to see how much attention they pay to the details outside of the gym. It doesn’t take much effort to do your sets and reps, and turn your brain off after that. Needless to say, that’s not a recipe for success.
Powerlifting Nutrition Recommendations
Nutrition for powerlifting doesn’t have to be a complicated topic. The advice I’m going to give in this section is for those who generally want to gain strength and muscle. I’m not going to go over cutting weight for competitions, or anything like that. Generally speaking, your body weight should stay about the same or slightly increase for this program.
My best advice is to make sure that you’re eating in a small caloric surplus, with an emphasis on carbs. That’s right I said carbs, not protein. Most of you already eat enough protein, and many of you don’t eat enough carbs, to support high training volumes.
I recommend checking out this nutrition guide, which covers the basics of eating like an athlete. You can then download this calculator, which will give you calorie and macro recommendations based on your body size and composition. You should use the muscle gain tab on the spreadsheet.
Recovery and Performance Enhancement Methods
Recovery doesn’t have to be complicated, nor does it have to be expensive. You don’t need massages, cryo baths, or electric guns that assault each major muscle group. These things don’t have a good track record when compared with the basics of eating well, sleeping 8 hours a night, and moving throughout the day.
There are a few research based methods that will have a big impact on your workout recovery. The first is hyper ventilation breathing. Research shows that HV breathing prior to your set, can increase the amount of reps you can do by about 35%. Not bad for free!
There is also some research indicating that wearing compression tights can reduce muscular soreness, and help build more muscle mass than you would otherwise. If you read this article, you’ll see that you don’t need to wear expensive tights, as anything will work.
Lastly, my best tip for increasing recovery is to perform a 10 minute cool down after each training session. Research has shown that that has a measurable impact on your ability to train the next day. It also helps increase your muscle mass. All you need to do is 10 minutes of easy movement at the end of your workout. Now let’s talk about finding your next program.
Finding Your Next Program
If you’re reading this website, then you like fitness. That’s great because I have dozens of free programs for all types of athletes. In the section below, I’ll list some of my more popular programs for building muscle mass, strength, as well as functional work capacity.
- The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
- 9 Week Functional Strength Program
- 6 Weeks of Muscular Growth for Functional Fitness Athletes Program
- 9 Week Advanced Functional Strength Program
- 12 Week Free Bodybuilding Program
- 10 Week Functional Power Building Program
- The 11 Week High Intensity Bodybuilding Program
These are just a sampling of all my programs. While the majority of them are functional fitness programs, that emphasize strength and muscle mass, there are others that focus purely on lifting. Take a look around, and I bet you’ll find a new program that fits your fitness goals.
Final Thoughts
I want to leave you with a few key pieces of advice before we go. First, don’t sweat the small stuff. Agonizing over which exercise to do first, or a whether you should take an unplanned rest day, won’t impact your strength gains in the long term.
The most important aspect, by far, is your dedication and consistency in the gym, and outside of the gym. Simply showing up, putting in solid work, and paying attention to your recovery is the most important thing you can do to improve your overall strength and physique. Hard work pays off!
If you have any questions or comments put them in the section below, and I’ll get you an answer. Now get out there and get training!
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