I am in week 15 of Stronglifts and am trying to make a long term plan on what I will transition to once I start to plateau. I am seeing both Madcow and Texas Method listed as good follow ups, each with their pros and cons.

I work out at home and like the 3 day split of Stronglifts and the 40-60 minute time commitment of the workout since I have little ones at home.

I am 228 right now (started at 250), hoping to get down to 200-210 eventually. I am focusing on building strength for the most part right now and will worry more about the weight loss later as that is slowly happening on its own from just not being a lazy sack of crap anymore.

My personal goal is to be repping 2 plates on bench and 3 plates on squats before I focus on any serious weight loss goals.

Any input is appreciated, thanks!

I would suggest sticking with Stronglifts or slightly modifying it (even if that means not strictly following the app) things like adding in a light squat day when it's your heavy deadlift day, going up only 1-2.5 lbs on upper body lifts, etc. have you already dropped down to 3 sets of 5 instead of 5x5?

I tried Madcow and even though it's "5x5", it's really more like one heavy set after a bunch of warmups. So the workout goes faster, but after a few weeks, I felt like my progress stalled due to not getting in enough heavy reps. I admit I don't always get 3 workouts in each week, so that probably hurts much more in Madcow than regular Stronglifts.

Never tried Texas Method, but I understand it is very time intensive on the volume days.

No, I haven't (hopefully) gotten close to that point yet. I bought 1.25 pound plates so I can go up in 2.5 pound increments when I start to hit the upper limit on my lifts.

I had not considered dropping down to a 3x5. Is that something you'd consider after hitting a plateau of 3 deloads?

Part of it is I eventually want to do some accessory lifts, if anything just to add some variety. But I am not doing that now because I don't want to jeopardize my recovery and strength gains.

ETA: Any thoughts on the 5/3/1 programming?

If you like the full body routine aspect of stronglifts, I would definitely move down to 3x5 if the workouts are getting difficult and particularly if they are getting time consuming.

In my mind stronglifts is really a dumbed down version of Starting Strength, which is 3x5 from the get go.

I've tried 5/3/1 and some of the Starting Strength 4 day split programs, which are similar to each other.

Just my opinion, but I had trouble staying on those because you basically do a heavy workout of each major lift (squat, bench, deadlift, and press) only once a week plus accessory or light versions of the main lifts. I inevitably have 3-4 days where I can't get a workout in for whatever reason, so it makes progress on a 531/ or 4 day split program tough. It's very hard to make up for missed days.

And as a disclaimer, I am by no means very strong advanced lifter. I'm just someone who has tried some of these programs that I've found online. I tend to go back to the strong lifts/ starting strength linear progression approach as those have worked the best for me. If you think you can consistently get ~45 minute workouts in each and every Mon/Tue/Thurs/Fri, then a 531 or 4 day split is probably a better program than a Mon/Wed/Fri starting strength full body workout if the workout is getting too long or difficult.

Starting the advanced 9 week program this morning. I was doing Candidto, and like it, but I need to scale back to 3 days a week (need more sleep...wake up at 330AM to lift). Wouldn't be that tough if I wasn't doing bjj 3-4 days a week which 3 of them going until 830 pm.

Man, blast from the past - how much I've learned/changed since this post!

Madcow 100% burned me out quick and I stalled after maybe a month or two. Switched to 5/3/1 and have been making progress ever since.

How did you burn out? On squats?

I'd have to look back at my spreadsheets but if memory serves I think I stalled on basically every lift. I don't think I could keep up with the speed of the progression anymore. Doing 5/10 pounds a month vs a week seems to be working much better for me.

My top sets on squat and DL were a hair over 300 and I started failing them so I deloaded and stalled at the same spot. I think I could've kept going on lower body but it was terrible for my upper body lifts so I switched.

I wonder if there would be a benefit to always take 2 days off (so don't follow a traditional MWF schedule but sliding). I'm thinking that would give an extra day for the back and also 2 nights of good sleep. Thoughts?

I don't think it could hurt. It is a lot of squatting. I was initially worried about going to squatting 1x a week after being so used to 5x5 but it hasn't slowed me down.

I think it would've been more manageable if I had been doing it in my mid 20s, but mid 30s is a tougher task.

Try almost 43!