The Brazos Valley Barbell Intermediate Program is an 8-week powerlifting program with 5 training days per week, written by David Woolson. It’s two 4-week blocks, each with three hard weeks and a deload. You squat 3 times a week, bench 4 times (counting feet-up and close-grip bench), and deadlift twice, and every session pairs the main lifts with a few accessories.
The first block uses tempo and paused variations to clean up technique at moderate weights. The second block moves to the competition lifts and builds to a heavy triple on the squat and bench press and a heavy double on the deadlift in week 7. Every main lift has both a percentage and an RPE, so you get a target weight and room to adjust it on the day. David’s 10 Week Powerlifting Program and Full Year of Powerlifting Programming are also on Lift Vault.
David wrote it for the lifters who asked for it, who mostly had one to three years of training and fewer than three meets. He says in the video that it might be a little advanced for that group, and you’ll need to be comfortable judging RPE. If you’re newer than that, start with something simpler like GZCLP.
Program credit: this program and the original spreadsheet were written by David Woolson, a national champion powerlifter who ran the powerlifting coaching at Brazos Valley Barbell in College Station, Texas. He gave it away for free through the gym’s original 2019 release page and explains it in the video below. David now coaches through Brazos Valley Strength, where he also shares his own training for free. The spreadsheet on this page is our rebuild of his, with the same programming.
Table of Contents
Brazos Valley Barbell Intermediate Program Video Overview
David walks through the spreadsheet in this video, including how he uses percentages and RPE together and what the first and second blocks are for.
Brazos Valley Barbell Intermediate Program Spreadsheet
This is David’s program rebuilt as a Lift Vault spreadsheet. Every exercise, set, rep, RPE, and percentage matches his original, with one tab per week plus Setup, Summary, and Calculators tabs.
- Enter your squat, high bar squat, bench press, and deadlift maxes on the Setup tab and pick your rounding (5 for lb, 2.5 for kg). Every load for all 8 weeks fills in from those maxes. The high bar lifts use your high bar max, and everything else uses the matching competition lift.
- Log the weight you used, your reps for each set, and the RPE of your last set in the green cells. On the competition lifts, the sheet estimates a new max from those numbers, and next week’s tab shows an “Adjusted Load” from that max next to the original one.
- Only the competition lifts feed that estimate. A tempo or paused variation is harder on purpose, so it would pull your estimated max down.
- For accessories, the Last Week column shows the weight you logged the week before.
- The Summary tab tracks your planned reps, average intensity, and estimated maxes by week, and the Calculators tab has the RPE chart David used.
Brazos Valley Barbell Intermediate Program Overview
- Written by David Woolson with Brazos Valley Barbell
- 8 weeks: two 4-week blocks, with deloads in weeks 4 and 8
- 5 days per week
- Squat 3x per week (one of those days is light)
- Bench press 4x per week, counting feet-up and close-grip bench
- Deadlift 2x per week
- Builds to a heavy triple on squat and bench press and a heavy double on deadlift in week 7
Weekly Layout
The days keep the same jobs in both blocks. Only the variations and the rep ranges change.
| Day | Main work | Accessories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | High bar squat and bench press: a heavy single, then back-off sets | Belt squat or leg press, close-grip incline press or dips, triceps pushdowns |
| 2 | Light bench (feet-up in block 1, close-grip in block 2), then a heavy deadlift set and paused deadlifts | Rows, plus RDLs in block 1 |
| 3 | Recovery day: light squats at 65% | Chin-ups or DB rows, pulldowns, rows, biceps |
| 4 | Bench press: tempo doubles in block 1, triples in block 2, then back-off sets | Dips and DB incline press in block 1 (pin press in block 2), chest flyes, skull crushers |
| 5 | Squat (tempo doubles in block 1, triples in block 2), a heavy bench single with back-off sets, and deadlift singles | Belt squat or leg press |
Top Sets by Week
Each lift has one day where its top set climbs week to week: squat on day 5, bench press on day 4, and deadlift on day 2. Percentages are of your max, with the target RPE in brackets.
| Week | Squat (day 5) | Bench press (day 4) | Deadlift (day 2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1-1 tempo squat, 2 @ 85% (7.5) | 1-1 tempo bench, 2 @ 85% (7.5) | 3 @ 80% (6.5) |
| 2 | 1-1 tempo squat, 2 @ 87.5% (8) | 1-1 tempo bench, 2 @ 87.5% (8) | 3 @ 82.5% (7) |
| 3 | 1-1 tempo squat, 2 @ 90% (8.5) | 1-1 tempo bench, 2 @ 90% (8.5) | 3 @ 85% (7.5) |
| 4 (deload) | 1 @ 90% (8) | 1 @ 90% (8) | 1 @ 85% (6.5) |
| 5 | 3 @ 85% (7.5) | 3 @ 85% (7) | 2 @ 85% (7) |
| 6 | 3 @ 87.5% (8) | 3 @ 87.5% (8) | 2 @ 87.5% (7.5) |
| 7 | 3 @ 92.5% (9.5) | 3 @ 90% (9) | 2 @ 95% (9.5) |
| 8 (deload) | 1 @ 90% (8) | 1 @ 90% (8) | 1 @ 90% (8) |
On the 1-1 tempo sets, the first rep is a tempo rep and the second is a normal competition rep. Day 1 also starts with a single on the high bar squat and bench press, at 85% to 90%.
Program Description by David Woolson
This was written by David Woolson with Brazos Valley Barbell.
This program is designed for lifters with a solid foundation in strength training looking to increase their performance on the powerlifting competition movements. Through the course of seven weeks, the athlete will build up to 3RMs on all of their competition movements followed by a deload on week 8. The program follows three weeks up, one week down, structure that most of my athletes follow through the course of their training. The programming style, exercise selection, and formatting are all that in which my standard coaching is delivered.
The spreadsheet that I have built for my programming can perform a number of interesting functions for the purposes of our training. Most cells on the spreadsheet will be locked, but the ones that will be useful to you will still be editable. Those cells are the ones for you estimated maxes at the top of the page on week one, and all of the cells in black at the bottom the page that will track your performance and estimate load. The numbers that are input into those cells will populate the following week and fill out the “adjusted” column next to the originally estimated numbers based on your performance from the previous week. An important note when using that tool to track your performance is that you should only track competition movements. Meaning that variations of the movements should not be tracked as these are intentionally meant to be harder and would give you an artificially lower number for you estimated max for the following week. The program will also only track intensity above 6.5PRE, so sorry no sub 6 around here.
You will see that I use a combination of percentage and RPE. To me, one without the other doesn’t mean much. The percentage should give you an idea of where you should be but, especially on top sets and the heavier work, you will need to be smart. That means increasing or decreasing load when necessary. Some percentages and RPEs stay the same from week to week. This doesn’t mean that you need to use the same load every time but it can. Think of these as readiness tests. We need to have a standard of performance and many times we use singles at a given load to understand your response to training. Go up when the training dictates or be conservative when you need to. Don’t overthink the need to be exact with the RPE numbers and don’t live in fear of overshooting from time to time. It is not the end of the world regardless of what many of the internet coaches would have you believe.
Use the originally projected loads, along with the new adjusted loads from week to week to make good choices. These numbers are here to help suggest numbers and decisions but nothing is set in stone. As a general rule, top sets should be much more variable from week to week based on your performance, but back down work and straight sets should usually follow a pretty standard weekly progression.
Many of the videos are hyperlinked that will show you how to perform some of the exercises that you are unfamiliar with. From mobile, you should just have to click on the “Drive” option when you select the hyperlinked cell and you will be taken to the videos. The last page labeled “Data” gives you a birds-eye view of the program and might be interesting to some to see some of those numbers.
Brazos Valley Barbell Intermediate Program FAQs
8 weeks. It’s two 4-week blocks, and each block has three hard weeks followed by a deload in week 4 and week 8.
5 days a week. Day 3 is a light recovery day with squats at 65% and back work, so there are four hard sessions each week.
Squat, high bar squat, bench press, and deadlift. If you don’t know your high bar max, use a conservative estimate and let the RPE targets tell you if it’s off. The RPE calculator can turn a recent set into an estimated max.
Both. Each main lift has a percentage for a starting weight and an RPE for how hard it should feel. David’s advice is to adjust the top sets based on how you’re moving that day and keep the back-off sets closer to what’s written.
Week 7 is the heaviest week, with a triple at 92.5% on squat, a triple at 90% on bench press, and a double at 95% on deadlift. Week 8 is a deload. David’s write-up says the program builds to 3RMs on all three lifts, but the spreadsheet and his video both have the deadlift working up to a double.
It’s a better fit once you have a year or more of training and can judge RPE. David wrote it for lifters with one to three years of lifting and said it might be a little advanced even for them. Look through these other 8 week programs if you want something simpler.
Updates
- September 2026: corrected the program summary (deloads in weeks 4 and 8, bench 4x per week), added clear credit to David Woolson with links to his original release page and his current site, rebuilt the spreadsheet (same programming, now with loads rounded to your plates, set-by-set logging, and plain exercise names in place of video links that no longer work), and added the weekly layout, top sets by week, spreadsheet instructions, and FAQs.
