Two Years, Two Days a Week: Coaching a Female Novice to National Records

This case study follows the progress of an untrained 11-year-old
female novice, Audrey, across two years. Audrey started her novice
linear progression (NLP) with a 30 kg squat, 15 kg press, 20 kg bench
press, and 40 kg deadlift. Two years later, she holds 8 national
records in both the APF and AAPF. Oh yeah, she’s also my daughter.

Coaching
Decisions: Modified NLP

One day in April
2024, Audrey asked me, “Dad, can you teach me to lift?” My heart
nearly stopped because I suspected this was some sort of trick.
Instead, she was quite sincere. I only found out two years later that
this was motivated by a lost arm-wrestling contest to a boy at
school. After some discussion, she made it clear that she didn’t
merely want to be taught how to lift. She wanted to get stronger. She
wanted, dare I say, to train.

Audrey was
neither willing nor able to commit to a three days-a-week training
schedule. Her competing interests included dance, orchestra, and just
enjoying life as a kid. The coaching decision was simple: run the NLP
but only twice per week. The biggest downside was that each upper
body lift, press and bench, would be trained only once per week.

Her first two
sessions were as follows:

Session 1

• Squat: 30 kg x 5 x 3
• Press: 15 kg x 5 x 3
• Deadlift: 40 kg x 5

Session 2

• Squat: 35 kg x 5 x 3
• Bench: 20 kg x 5 x 3
• Deadlift: 45 kg x 5

There was nothing
particularly remarkable about either of these sessions. We worked up
to these starting weights using a process of titration. Her squat was
rather uncoordinated. Her depth varied from 8” below parallel to 4”
above parallel from rep to rep. Her gaze was anywhere but where it
should be. Her knees caved in unless I yelled at her. Like I said, as
anyone who has coached rank novices would know, particularly in this
age-group, nothing out of the ordinary. We took a 5 kg jump on the
squat and deadlift simply because I felt we were just a touch
conservative with the initial session, and her coordination was
already noticeably improved.

Now, as perhaps
others with children may sympathize, I had low expectations about
compliance and longevity for Audrey. This isn’t anything specific
to her. Rather, children are prone to whimsy. I hoped we’d make it
to 8 weeks at least and see where to go from there. With that in
mind, I decided to progress rather slowly and prioritize comfort
(gasp!). I wanted the toughness to sneak up on her, to see if she had
grit. Therefore, from that second session we simply added 2.5 kg to
the squat and deadlift every session, and 1 kg to the press and bench
press every session. This progression continued for two months (about
18 workouts) without issue. The first deviation was the introduction
of the power clean. This was introduced after the 12th session and
alternated with the deadlift thereafter. The next deviation, after
the 19th session, was the squat.

Introducing
the Light Squat

Right around the
70 kg mark, the bar speed of Audrey’s squat started to
significantly slow down. Her form, which had been solid for weeks,
started to break down. Some reps were high. She had trouble keeping
her knees out, and cueing wasn’t helping. She hadn’t missed a
squat (or any lift) yet, but I could tell that day was soon coming. I
also noticed a hesitance, or a mild dread, when it came time to go to
the gym.

Instead of going right
up to the point of failure, I decided to introduce a light day for
squats. I chose 85% as her light day because I find 80% is often too
steep of a reduction for women lifters, on a light day. Typically,
with a lifter that is training three days a week, you introduce a
light squat on day two of training. Thus the trainee continues to get
two heavy squat days per week. However, we were restricted to
training only twice a week. This means a 50% reduction in heavy
squats. Not ideal, but I worked with what I was given. Remember also,
I was trying to keep this as enjoyable as possible for my daughter.
She had been showing great progress, she was succeeding regularly,
and she was mostly enjoying it. She was developing grit.

From here, her
heavy squats were paired with the power clean, and her light squats
were paired with the deadlift. The difference was immediately
noticeable. Her heavy squats immediately improved without needing a
reset. Her progress continued without significant interruption until
mid-July.

Disruptions

There were 3
noteworthy training disruptions over the course of Audrey’s
training: July 2024, June 2025, and August 2025. The first disruption
was a 2-week sleep-away camp. Audrey went away and had a blast being
a kid with zero parental supervision. She swam every day, sprinted
from activity to activity, and didn’t even look at a barbell.

Upon her return,
I gave Audrey my first firm nudge as a parent and coach. It was
August 2nd, the same day that she returned from camp. I know how easy
it is – through both personal experience as well as years of
coaching experience – to let training slip completely away from you
after a vacation. “I just got back today” becomes “I just got
back yesterday” becomes “I’ll start next week.” Therein lies
doom and weakness. Audrey’s incredulous, “Today?! Can’t we just
do it tomorrow?” was met with “No. We’re going now.” You’ve
never heard a louder sigh nor seen a larger eye roll.

Her workout that
evening was very light:

• Squat: 50 kg x 5 x 3
• Press: 23 kg x 5 x 3
• Deadlift: 70 kg x 5

That’s anywhere
from a 15% – 35% reduction from where she was before camp. Did she
lose that much strength? No, but I didn’t want her first workout
back to be soul-crushing. I was already “forcing” her to train.
Plus she had already begun to adapt to the lifestyle at the camp, and
doing 15 heavy reps of squat was not in the cards: her legs were
unsteady and sore during that first workout back.

From there we
took pretty aggressive steps back to real training weights:

• Squat: 50 kg > 65 kg
  > 70 kg > 80 kg
• Press: 23 kg > 26 kg
  > 27 kg
• Bench: 30 kg > 33 kg
• Deadlift: 70 kg > 85
  kg > 87.5 kg

Keep in mind,
this is still training twice a week. So, after a two week layoff, we
returned to her prior training weights within 1-2 weeks. This is
important to note. It is unwise to take a break longer than one week
and expect to return to training as if nothing happened. It is also,
often, unnecessary to reset some fixed percentage and then resume
conservative linear progression from there. If we would have
progressed 2.5 kg on the squat and deadlift from there, it would have
taken months to get back to actual training weights. This would be a
major waste of training time. It’s also a good way to lose a client
who gets demoralized by their apparent regression.

The remaining
two disruptions in June 2025 and August 2025 were injuries.

After a heavy
set of deadlifts (100 x 5), Audrey complained of pain in her
tailbone. Only after the set did she tell me she was feeling it
during her warmups. It was painful to sit for a couple of days.

We resumed
training three days later. Her squat was 40 kg x 15 x 3 the first
session and 45 x 15 x 3 the subsequent session. Upper body lifts were
unaffected. Deadlifts were omitted. She was back to working weight by
the third workout. This was a brief application of the Starr Rehab
protocol.

Her other
injury was August 2025, which cut her deadlift session short when she
complained of a dull aching pain in her hamstring. The treatment: we
stopped deadlifting that day. Her deadlift returned to working weight
the following week on its regularly scheduled day.

I highlight
these injuries for two reasons. One, to show that training doesn’t
have to STOP just because you’re injured. Two, to demonstrate a
healthy way to approach pain. After Audrey’s initial back injury, I
told her it was very important to let me know if she’s feeling
actual pain during lifting and warm-ups. She honestly thought I
wouldn’t believe her, or would be disappointed in her. She pushed
through the pain. The second time she let me know right away. We
stopped and it resolved itself.

The Road to Competition

Toward the
end of 2024, Audrey’s press and bench were still progressing, but
quite slowly. We had reduced her increments to 0.5 kg for both lifts.
I had also introduced backoff sets for her Press – a top set of 5
followed by 2×5 at 90%. This led into March 2025 when another Chicago
Strength & Conditioning member told me she wanted to compete in
an upcoming “beginner” powerlifting meet in the APF. This planted
the seed.

Audrey overheard that conversation and asked me about it on the way
home that evening. She was clearly very curious. I asked if she
wanted to give it a try, and she told me she was nervous, but yes.
The meet was five weeks out.

At this point
of Audrey’s training, she had literally never done a true single,
outside of warmups. She hadn’t even failed a squat yet, and she’d
been training for nearly a whole year. I decided to take a sharp turn
in her programming over the next 5 weeks to prepare her for the meet.

My goal as
her coach and father was not to see how much we could squeeze out of
her on meet day. It wasn’t to design the perfect peaking cycle. My
goals were simply these:

1. Make this
   as low-key and enjoyable of an experience as possible
2. Expose her
   to singles
3. Practice
   commands
4. Go 9 for 9
   at the meet

The following
workout, we titrated our way to a heavy single on squat, bench, and
deadlift:

• Squat: 115 kg
• 
  Bench: 47.5
  kg
• 
  Deadlift: 110
  kg

None of these
were 1RMs; each could have been done for two or three total reps.

From here I
implemented what I’ll call a 2-Day Texas Method. One day is volume,
the other intensity. We started here:

Volume Day

• Squat: 90 kg
  x 5 x 5
• 
  Bench: 42 kg
  x 5 x 5

Intensity Day

• Squat: 117.5
  kg x 1 x 5
• 
  Bench: 50 kg
  x 1 x 5
• 
  Deadlift: 110
  kg x 1, 115 kg x 1, 117.5 kg x 1

The volume
day progressed by 2 kg every week, the intensity day progressed by
2.5 kg. One week out from the meet we did 3 singles each at her
opening weights.

It’s worth
noting here that her deadlift did not cooperate at all. In training
leading up to this, she had recently completed a PR of 109 kg x 5.
The following week was the 110 kg x 1 “heavy single” with gas in
the tank. After the initial 117.5 kg single she failed to pull higher
than 110 kg before the meet. It was clear that her programming needed
to change to drive progress, but I had to balance this against the
very limited time we had to prepare for the meet. I also had to not
let my own anxiety about her deadlift falling to pieces only weeks
out be felt. So we just got lots of reps at 110 in on the way up, and
I counted on letting the heavy squats drag the deadlift along with
them as they progressed.

Meet Day: May 3, 2025

Total
success. Audrey’s full meet was:

• Squat: 110
  kg, 120 kg, 125 kg
• 
  Bench: 50 kg,
  55 kg, 60 kg
• 
  Deadlift: 110
  kg, 115 kg, 125 kg!
• 
  Total: 310 kg

Her squat and
her total were APF national records (the beginner meet was APF only).
From my perspective her squat had a little more in the tank, but her
bench and deadlift were true 1RMs. Audrey actually chose 125 kg for
her final deadlift over my suggested 120 kg. Again, I had seen her
fail to pick up 117.5 kg repeatedly, and struggle with only 110 kg. I
wanted her to go 9 for 9 and not end the meet on a low. She was
genuinely confident though, so I deferred.

After the
meet, we had a light week, during which Audrey tested her press,
hitting 42 kg x 1. Then we resumed our heavy-light progression that
had been working, resetting to about 75% of her meet-day PRs.

Road to Meet 2: 8 National Records (December 6, 2025)

Her training
progressed through the summer with mostly steady progress. There were
a couple of injury hiccups, previously noted. My philosophy here was
mostly: show up and do work. The program was still working. Steady
progress was made weekly on every lift, even her power clean was up
to 50 kg x 3 x 5.

By October,
she was setting significant training PRs:

• Squat: 110 kg
  x 5 x 3
• 
  Press: 47.5
  kg x 1
• 
  Bench: 57 kg
  x 5 x 3
• 
  Deadlift: 114
  kg x 5

We decided to
compete in the upcoming December 2025 meet. Unlike the first meet,
which was exclusively a beginner meet, this was a much larger more
typical meet. This meant a longer day, more lifters, possibly
stricter judging, etc. Since Audrey’s training was progressing so
well, and we were changing a variable I didn’t control (the nature
of the meet), I decided the best meet prep was no prep. Just train
right up to the meet. Two weeks out, we did 5 singles at her openers,
followed by a regular training day. The week of the meet we just did
a light day, then showed up to see what would happen.

It worked:

• Squat: 120
  kg, 127.5 kg, 135 kg
• 
  Bench: 55 kg,
  62.5 kg, 70 kg!
• 
  Deadlift: 120
  kg, 130 kg, 137.5 kg (locked out but red-lighted for ramping)

I had one of
my prouder moments as a coach talking with Audrey before her final
bench press. After her second attempt, I asked her, “65 or 67.5?”
She replied, “70.” I raised my eyebrows and passed it onto the
scoring table. Internally, I doubted this was probable. I gave it at
best a 50% chance of success. This would be a significant PR and
nothing in her training indicated this was a sound choice. Hopefully,
I didn’t let this show.

While we were
waiting for her attempt to come back around I was frantically
wracking my brain to try to come up with a good way to motivate her
without letting my doubts creep through. As the women were beginning
their third attempts, I said the following to her.

“Audrey,
you’re going to see a lot of missed attempts now. The third attempt
of women’s bench press is always this way. Pay attention to how
they fail. They will almost all fail quickly. A second of effort and
they give up. They quit. What you’re about to do is going to be
very hard. Not impossible, but hard. If you only try for a second,
you won’t get it. You’re going to need to put everything into
this. All that matters is you don’t quit. Just drive your heels and
push and push. Make them take the fucking bar from you.”

It worked. It
took about 8 seconds to lock out, her back cramped mid lift, but she
didn’t quit. Grit.

Audrey came
to this meet with several goals. She wanted all of the national
records. She also wanted to be the first woman at Chicago Strength &
Conditioning to earn The Sticker. The Sticker is awarded to those who
achieve a single rep for each of the following weights:

• Press: 100 lb
• 
  Bench: 155 lb
• 
  Squat: 225 lb
• 
  Deadlift: 315
  lb

She already
had the press and squat. The bench was basically there too, but the
deadlift was the next big challenge to tackle. We also had a specific
technique issue to work on for the next meet.

Meet 3: IL State Meet (March 21, 2026)

At this
point, Audrey was clearly serious. She had been putting up very
impressive numbers. She had her own goals. She was training. She was
a lifter.

As her coach,
I needed more flexibility. The 2-day constraint seemed exactly that,
constraining. I floated the idea of moving to a 3-day a week program,
something called the Texas Method. I sold her on the merits: a light
day with 5 sets instead of 3 called “volume day”, an even lighter
day where she can work on her press, and a really fun day called
“intensity day” where it’s heavy, but only one set. Those of
you who have run Texas Method may call that gaslighting; I call it
selling. She agreed after I told her it would only be for the 13
weeks or so leading up to the state meet.

What followed
was a pretty much textbook implementation of the Texas Method. The
program started with the following weights:

Volume Day

• Squat: 102.5
  kg x 5 x 5
• 
  Bench: 52.5
  kg x 5 x 5

Recovery Day

• Squat: 92.5
  kg x 5 x 3
• 
  Press: 34 kg
  x 5 x 3
• 
  Chin-up: 15
  reps w/ green band

Intensity Day

• Squat: 115 kg
  x 5
• 
  Bench: 60 kg
  x 5
• 
  Deadlift: 116
  kg x 5

I left a
third lift out of volume day because we were still constrained by
90-minute workout times. Also, from personal experience, I’d rather
die than power clean or do anything else after a truly heavy 5×5
squat.

I targeted
75% of 1RM for volume day and 85% for intensity day. This proved
adequate for the squat and deadlift, but too much for the bench
press. She failed her first intensity day bench at only 4 reps. I
consider this evidence of just how far she reached to get that 70 kg
bench at the meet. We dropped down to 58 kg on the subsequent week
and progressed from there.

One of the
first setbacks was, again, the deadlift. After failing intensity day
in weeks 3 and 4, I introduced the rack pull and halting deadlift at
roughly 90% of her intensity day deadlift. This fixed the deadlift.
She didn’t miss any further deadlift attempts.

After the
10th week we switched intensity day to triples and rode that right up
to the meet.

Meet Results

• Squat: 140
  kg, 150 kg, 160 kg (miss)
• 
  Bench: 65 kg,
  70 kg, 72.5 kg
• 
  Deadlift: 135
  kg, 140 kg, 145 kg
• 
  Total: 367.5
  kg

This was done
at age 13 as an 82.5 kg lifter (bodyweight of 81.7 kg).

This was a
truly outstanding performance. Audrey went for 160 kg on the squat.
We knew it was a stretch. She missed it, but it didn’t seem to
discourage her in the slightest. The bench and deadlift both looked
like they had a little more in the tank, but Audrey chose to be
conservative to clinch The Sticker. She secured new national records
in both the APF and AAPF for squat, bench, deadlift, and total. She
secured the Best Lifter – Teen trophy, and placed third overall in
the Women’s Open division. The progression across all three meets
is summarized below.

View Audrey’s full meet history and training log.

Conclusion

I intend this to be an instructive case study for coaches. Audrey’s journey is exemplary of the following takeaways:

• The NLP works every time, even when applied sub-optimally (2x a week)
• Each lift progresses on its own timeline. Advance when ready, not all at once
• Consistency trumps everything. Audrey missed only a handful of training sessions across two years
• Disruptions to training don’t require stopping, they require managing
• A young athlete’s enjoyment is a legitimate programming variable
• A successful first meet is worth more than a big first meet
• Know when to motivate, when to steer, and when to defer

Now, back to training.

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