I’ve had quite a few e-mails on how to taper the Texas Method for a meet, so we are going to discuss the general strategy here. The TM itself is not set in stone and can be tweaked for an individual lifter. As the lifter you will have to make well-informed decisions to ensure that your program is helping you and not hurting you. This taper method I am talking about is something I have used a few times and it worked well. The lifters that used it were all young guys who are in the upper echelon of strength and they were all on some different ‘tweak’ of the TM (although I’ve had a 30 and 40 year old taper pretty much the same way with success). They were also new or still relatively new to competing in meets, and this is an assumption that the taper makes. As someone advances in skill (in the meet) or training (needing more complicated program or needing to almost periodize), the taper will function differently. Not to mention that when someone has a lot of meet experience, they will start learning how they need to taper (everyone will be slightly different). Let me clarify once again: this is a beginner’s taper on a TM program. In the grand scheme of things, TM is still a beginner powerlifting program, albeit a useful gateway.

I will assume someone is running a 5×5 volume day with a rep max on intensity day. If you differ, then just apply the changes to your format (instead of doing 8 sets of 3 on volume day, you’d shift to 4 or 5 in the example below). The number on the left indicates how many weeks out from the meet the lifter is. Zero is the week of the meet, one is one week out, etc. Basically at the start of this taper volume is reduced on volume day down to three sets instead of five sets. Intensity day was hopefully consisting of heavy triples in the last couple months, and now it will be converted to singles with the taper. This is for a few reasons: A) it reduces the volume a little, B) it allows the lifter to start adapting to heavier weights, and, most importantly, C) it allows the lifter to practice the lifts within the regulations of the federation they are lifting in. Deadlifting will be a little different, but you shouldn’t pull within ten days of the meet, and lately I’ve been leaning towards a full two weeks out.

I will treat the training schedule as MWF. If you lift on different days, then intelligently slide the schedule over.

3 – MON: 3 to 5 sets of 5, WED: normal light day w/ regular press, FRI: singles* with rules**, heavier deadlift workout
2 – MON: 3 sets of 5, WED: normal w/ light press***, FRI: singles with rules, medium deadlift
1 – MON: 3 sets of 5, WED: normal (no press), FRI: singles with rules (no deadlift)
0 – MON: Work up to last warm-up, WED or THU: A few sets of very light work****, SAT: meet

That may be weird to read, but fuck it, I’m not going to make a nice, shiny table for you.
*If I was working with someone, I would have had them doing triples on intensity day for at least a month prior to this taper (and more comfortably for two months). Triples allow more weight to be put on the bar for intensity day than fives, and they are very descriptive for choosing openers at the meet. I’m assuming triples have been done up until this point for the taper above. When the lifter starts doing singles, they will single what their best triple is, and then based on how they feel they can go up or stay around that weight. If it was easy, they can put on five or ten pounds. The following week (two weeks out) they can really push the weight up based on how they did the previous week. One week out from the meet won’t be a max out session, but some singles around where they plan on opening with, and maybe a little above. I aim for three to five singles on these preparation days — more the farther out from the meet, then reducing the singles to about threeish the week before the meet unless the lifter is having issues with following the rules. The first day of singles they can do as many as seven in order to practice the rules.

**Look up and read the rules of whatever federation you’re in. USAPL has two commands on the squat: “start” and “rack”. Bench has three: start, press, and rack. You need to know the criteria you have to meet in order to be given permission to any of those actions. If you fuck this up, you will look silly, especially at a national meet like Mike and AC when it was no more than two seconds after I told them to listen to the commands.

***When the taper starts, you’ll be benching on volume/intensity day. In the TM, there is an emphasis on either press or bench every week, and I like to alternate it so that the last press week is four weeks out. This probably isn’t a big deal, but I like doing shit like then in programming. Just press on the light day as I have described. Same with the deadlift. That heavy deadlift workout could be a medium triple. I like to have the lifter pull a very heavy single somewhere between five and seven weeks out. Maybe eight. This constitutes as a heavy deadlift day and then is descriptive for what the lifter is capable of doing. Young and/or inexperienced meet lifters dislike not deadlifting a lot leading up to the meet, and they also dislike not deadlifting heavy. Mechanics differ when the weight gets heavy, so this makes sense for a lot of reasons. The last deadlift workout two weeks out could be working up to pulling a single around 80 to 85%.

****”Light work” constitutes doing a few sets of light fives. Chris, who has squatted 600 in competition will usually do a set of five at 135, 225, and 315, then move onto bench. After a few sets in squat and bench, go home. Oh, and cut out all your assistance work at the start of this taper. This includes doing stupid mother-fucking-ass-dipshit conditioning workouts. The whole fucking purpose of a taper is to allow a systemic peak via hormones. If you are causing systemic inflammation by being a fuck head and continuing your conditioning program, then you aren’t tapering and you sure as hell aren’t peaking. This is something that pisses Gant and I off, because it shows that the person is not committed to being a good athlete in the sport they are competing in and shows a huge level of incompetence (among other reasons). It’s okay to have some conditioning in your TM, but cut that shit out when you start tapering. Same with the assistance stuff.

More Notes: If you are particularly beat up in your training and you have been too stupid to alter it (this happens a lot, too much in fact), then you may consider starting a week earlier. Or you could reduce the volume and keep the intensity the same until you start the full-on taper. I know it’s hard, but don’t act completely oblivious to how your body is responding to your training. It makes my ears bleed when I ask someone, “Why did you keep doing it?” and they don’t have an answer.

This is not the only way to taper, but a taper is typically associated with a reduction in volume and less overall reps so that there will be a hormonal peak. Doing anything extra during this time, whether it be conditioning, assistance, or something stupid like max kipping pull-ups will be extremely fucking counter intuitive. If you are going to take the time in your life to train, then allow yourself proper cycles of hard training and light training. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen that fuck this up, and it’s easily corrected. Start doing it now.

If you have questions or comments, post them in the comments. We can generate a discussion and I can make amendments to the above.