Durata/Journeys/Texas Method in Durata: one training max, three different days
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Texas Method in Durata: one training max, three different days

Texas Method is the intermediate program that stops trying to add weight every session and adds it once a week instead. Monday is volume, five sets of five at 90% of the training max. Wednesday is recovery, two sets at under three quarters of it. Friday is intensity: one set at the full max, taken for as many reps as you have. Clear the rep target on that one set and the training max goes up, which moves Monday and Wednesday with it.

Every weight, rep and estimate below was computed by the real engine on a live drive: six weeks, eighteen sessions, one number per lift doing all the arithmetic. The squat opens off a 140 kg training max.

Starting the program

The finder asks three questions, goal, experience and days per week, and Texas Method comes back for a lifter who has outgrown daily linear progression and wants a weekly wave instead: hard volume early, a light day in the middle, and a Friday built around one heavy set.

Setup splits the program in two. Squat, bench press and overhead press are not given a starting weight, because none of their three weekly sessions is a weight you choose. They are given a training max, and every set is a percentage of it. The deadlift sits outside that system and takes a plain working weight, so the app asks for it separately and starts at 130 kg.

Texas Method opens deliberately below what you could hit today. The point is not the first week.

Durata first-run onboarding sheet
A fresh install opens on the first-run funnel. We take the program route.
Durata program finder with goal, experience and days answered
Three answers: goal, experience, days a week.
Durata finder results with Texas Method as the top match
Texas Method comes back as the top pick for this profile.
Durata program page for Texas Method showing the schedule and progression rule
The schedule, the progression rule and each session, all before committing.
Durata starting-weights sheet with the deadlift at 130 kg
Texas Method uses both kinds of setup. The lifts outside the training-max system still need a working weight, and the deadlift opens at 130 kg.
Durata start-date picker with the block marked on the History calendar
A start date, and the whole cycle's session dates flow from it.

Volume, recovery, intensity

Monday's squat is five sets of five at 125 kg. Nothing about that number was entered. It is 90% of the 140 kg training max, resolved by the app, and it is the hardest session of the week by total work rather than by weight on the bar.

Wednesday drops to 102.5 kg for two sets. That is not a bad day or a missed one. It is under three quarters of the same training max, prescribed light on purpose, and it is what makes Monday's volume survivable while keeping the squat at three days a week. Alongside it sit chin-ups and back extensions, neither of which carries a progression rule, because they are there to be done rather than to be pushed.

The presses work the same way, with one wrinkle: bench press and overhead press alternate as the week's primary press. Whichever one is primary that week takes the heavy volume and the Friday set, and the other drops back to the recovery day.

Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) volume day at 125 kg
Monday's volume work opens at 125 kg: five sets of five, at 90% of a 140 kg training max.
Durata session-complete screen with the session's sets, reps and volume
The session tallied before it saves: 7 sets, 35 reps, 4225 kg. The deadlift's single top set at 130 kg is in there too.
Durata History calendar with the first week's three sessions filled in
Week one on the calendar: volume, recovery, intensity.

The one set that changes anything

Friday is a single work set at 140 kg, the full training max, taken for as many reps as you have. Five is the target and the range runs to eight. This run logged seven.

That set is the entire progression rule. There is no weekly increment to apply, no decision at the end of the session, and nothing to type in. Clear the target and the app raises the training max, and because Monday and Wednesday are both percentages of it, the following week's volume day moves without being touched. It goes from 125 kg to 130 kg on the same 90% prescription.

The presses climb at half the squat's rate, and the reason is scheduling rather than progression. Bench press finished the block at 107.5 kg from 100 kg, and overhead press at 67.5 kg from 60 kg, because each one only gets an intensity day every other week. The deadlift is outside the wave entirely, showing up once a week for a single top set on plain linear progression, and it ran 130 kg to 160 kg.

Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) intensity-day rep-out at 140 kg
Friday's rep-out at 140 kg, the full training max. Five reps prescribed, seven logged.
Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) volume day now at 130 kg
The following Monday already carries the bumped max: the same 90% prescription, now 130 kg.
Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) intensity-day set at 150 kg
Halfway through the block, Friday's set is 150 kg.

Six weeks of it

Repeated for six weeks, Friday clears its target every time and the training max takes a step each week. It starts at 140 kg and finishes at 170 kg. The last Friday of the block is a set at 165 kg, and the volume day that fed it was 147.5 kg, above where the intensity day started.

The estimated one-rep max chart shows the shape this produces: a stair rather than a slope. It holds flat through Monday and Wednesday, then moves after each Friday, because that is genuinely the only session where anything changed.

None of the thirty kilos was chosen. The lifter's input for the whole block was a rep count, once a week.

Squat (Barbell): top set, every session

  1. 125S1 Session 1 — wk 1 volume
  2. 102.5S2 Session 2 — recovery
  3. 140S3 Session 3 — intensity
  4. 130S4 Session 4 — wk 2 volume
  5. 105S5 Session 5
  6. 145S6 Session 6 — intensity
  7. 135S7 Session 7 — wk 3 volume
  8. 110S8 Session 8
  9. 150S9 Session 9 — intensity
  10. 140S10 Session 10 — wk 4 volume
  11. 112.5S11 Session 11
  12. 155S12 Session 12 — intensity
  13. 145S13 Session 13 — wk 5 volume
  14. 115S14 Session 14
  15. 160S15 Session 15 — intensity
  16. 147.5S16 Session 16 — wk 6 volume
  17. 120S17 Session 17
  18. 165S18 Session 18 — last intensity day
Eighteen sessions in order. The sawtooth is the program working as designed: volume Monday at 90% of the training max, recovery Wednesday at under three quarters of it, then the full max on Friday for the rep-out that raises it. Every Friday in this run cleared its target, so the whole pattern shifts up a step each week.
Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) intensity-day set at 165 kg in week six
The last Friday of the run: 165 kg on the same single set.
Durata History calendar with all eighteen sessions of the block
Eighteen sessions on the calendar, three a week for six weeks.
Durata analytics: strength index per lift across the block
Strength index per lift, and weekly volume across the whole run.
Durata exercise chart: the squat's estimated one-rep max across six weeks
The squat's estimated one-rep max, stepping up each time Friday moves the training max.
Week 1, Friday Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) rep-out at 140 kg
140 kg → 165 kg
+25 kg

The same set, on the same day of the week, six weeks apart. Every jump between them came from beating the rep target.

Week 6, Friday Durata logger: Squat (Barbell) rep-out at 165 kg
FAQ

Common questions

What is Texas Method?

An intermediate strength program credited to Mark Rippetoe and Glenn Pendlay, built on a weekly rather than a session-by-session cycle. Monday is high-volume work at a percentage of a training max, Wednesday is a deliberately light recovery day, and Friday is a single heavy set that decides whether the training max goes up. It is the usual next step once adding weight every session stops working.

What is a training max, and why doesn't the program just ask for weights?

A training max is one number per lift that every prescribed weight is a percentage of. Texas Method squats three times a week at three different intensities, so asking for three weights would mean keeping three ladders in step by hand. One max keeps them in step automatically: raise it once on Friday and Monday and Wednesday both move with it.

Why is Wednesday so much lighter than Monday?

Because it is meant to be. Wednesday is under three quarters of the same training max, so it runs at 102.5 kg against Monday's 125 kg in the first week. It keeps the squat at three days a week without three hard days, which is what leaves enough left in the tank for Friday.

Why do bench and press go up more slowly than the squat?

Two reasons, and neither is that they progress worse. The upper-body bump is smaller than the lower-body one, and the two presses alternate as the week's primary lift, so each of them only gets an intensity day every other week. Over six weeks the squat had six chances to move and each press had three.

What happens if I miss the reps on Friday?

The training max holds instead of climbing, and the following week repeats at the same weights. Texas Method starts you below your current best precisely so the early Fridays are comfortable and the climb has room to run first.

Is Durata free?

Yes. Durata is free to use, with the full program catalogue, automatic progression maths, rest timers and PR tracking. Everything in this walkthrough is in the app.

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