Yes. I'm 38, started hrt back in august of 07'. training each lift once a week has allowed me more time for recovery and recovery IS the secret to getting stronger. I do the progressive overload with a small twist. When you get to a certain level You really can't go up on every working set every week. What you can do is drop a few lbs off the working sets and add a few reps to it. It is a balance you must play with your cns, you don't want to go maximal effort on all three lifts every week.
When training for a MEET I do this:
sun - dead / or squat; sunday is a heavy day
mon - back
tues - bench; heavy singles one week, heavy doubles/triples the next two weeks then start over again.
thur - squat / or dead; thursday is a speed day
Yeah, thats basically kinda sorta what I'm doing. I've dropped some of the extra stuff I was doing and revamped things a bit. One thing I've noticed is severe loss of speed in my lifts. I think thats a key to moving heavy weight, so I'm trying to get some of that back too.
This is what I did essentially for the last year and a half before:
Sunday: DE Bench (speed work)
Monday: cardio/stretching
Tuesday: ME Squat/deadlift
Wednesday: Cardio +/- sled work/truck pushing (for "recovery") + stretching +/- "farm work"/Sandbag work/splitting wood
Thursday: ME Bench
Friday: DE Squat (Speed work)
Saturday: Cardio +/- Sled work + Yoga +/- "Farm work"----- go move 200 haybales and tell me you aren't getting some sort of a workout.
I'd start a ~3 week circamax of really heavy band tension ~6 weeks before a meet to make sure I had maximal speed development out of the hole, then drop back to straight weight 3 weeks before a meet and make sure I could hit my openers as I cut back on the volume.
I've sat down and looked really hard at what I've been doing and in all reality, i've probably been overtraining too. I've cut back on the total volume of the workouts, dropping back on the accessory work from what I'd done in the past, basically cutting it in half so I can focus on squat, bench and deadlift. I can't get out of the farm work, because it has to be done, but I'm not going oto go home and hop on a bike for 20 minutes if I spend all morning moving hay or digging out water pipes or cutting grass or something like that. I grew up doing that sort of work, so you'd think my body would be used to it by now, but its probably something taxing on my recovery.
I'm also limiting cardio to 20 minutes (or 5 miles) when I do it instead of the 30-35 minutes (I'd bike 8 miles, then quit) I'd been doing. I really think there is a recovery benefit to cardio, especially in a diabetic like myself who has to be concerned about cardiovascular health. Plus it warms me up so I can stretch pain free. Its not like I go all out on the bike either, I'd consider it a "causal" bike ride type pace----interval tension with an average HR around 125 BPM. If I'm tired that day, I'm going to cut it in half and still stretch. My flexibility has gone to shit the last 3 years and I need to work to keep what I've got.
What I'm looking at now:
Sunday: DE Bench
Monday: rest +/- cardio + stretching
Tueday: ME Squat/deadlift
Wednesday: Rest +/- cardio + stretching
Thursday: ME Bench
Friday: DE Squat/Bench
Saturday: rest +/- cardio + stretching.
I'm not going to do any band work prior to this meet, instead stick with straight weight and work with the gear a bit more.