That sounds like a decent plan, rabid_goose. I'm not sure though that you'll want or need to stick to a rigid timeframe. I'll explain why in a second. I also get the impression that people aren't quite grasping the big picture behind the whole 5x5 business. Madcow's website lists two "programs": the intermediate and advanced 5x5. They aren't really "routines," and I think people understand that. What they ARE, are snapshots in time of a person's training plan. They represent a particular stage in your training. Those programs, if the time is right in your training, will lead to some serious long-term adaptations. You'll get stronger. You'll get bigger. That's all any program can do: organize your training in a way that leads to adaptations.
But eventually your body will adapt, and it'll be time to change something in order to make NEW adaptations (e.g., continue getting bigger and stronger). Now, a couple points. First, what many people don't realize is that they can continue with a linear 5x5 "type" of training for a long, long time! Second, and this ties into #1, people seem to go off the tracks when they think they've "finished" the 5x5 "program." The two programs are written up separetely, but the lines dividing them are not as crisp and distinct as it might appear. The two "programs" are just snapshots in time. If you looked at somebody's journal during the year of 2003, for example, you might see the "advanced' 5x5 program being run exactly as written. But when they stopped seeing adequate progress on that program, they figure out what they need to make further progress and they make a change. For some people, that might mean more volume. But rather than going online and searching for a "high volume" program, you just take the basic plan you've been running, and figure out how to add some volume to it. So, for example, if on Monday's you were working up to a single top set of 5 on squats, and then doing 5 straight sets of 5 on Friday, and you need more volume, you might try squatting 5 straight sets of 5 on Monday AND Friday. Now, you're doing 50 total heavy reps of squats each week, whereas before, you were doing 30-35. Well, at that point, technically, your're NOT doing the 'advanced' 5x5 "as written." But it sure as hell looks like it! LoL You took the program as written, you made a very small tweak, and that tweak was necessary FOR YOU at that particular stage of your training. And that's what these programs are all about. The linear / intermediate 5x5 is a fantastic STARTING point for most people. By making slight adjustments along the way, you can run this "program" for years. After a while, the program "as written" will not be enough or you'll go stale, etc., and you'll just need to make a small adjustment. And by making that adjustment, you can continue making gains . . . and this can continue for YEARS for most people.
I hope that example kind of makes clear that rather than looking at the "intermediate" and "advanced" programs as two very distinct programs that you run for X weeks, and then change to the next program, they are really just two periods of time in your training. By making a very small tweak here and there, you can continue following the "program" even though you're not doing exactly what's written on Madcow's site.
rabid_goose: I said I'd address your specific situation later . . . I wouldn't really think of it like "I'm planning to switch to the advanced program in March" b/c you may find that you can run the linear/intermediate plan for several months, but then make a slight tweak and run it for a few more months (another 8 wk. cycle, for example), and then make another tweak . . . In the end, you may WIND UP doing something awfully similar to the advanced 5x5, but that may not come for another year or so. It's individual. I'm not saying you won't need the advanced plan in March (I also know you weren't asking for my advice, LoL), I just want people to see that that's not really the way to think about it. It's not "stop one program and begin another." You can definitely do that. But you want to try and learn to see the big picture: it's all just training. LoL It's all just different ways of structuring your sets & reps over a week, or over a month, etc. When progress slows down, you restructure something. You add a little here. You subtract a little there. You substitute one exercise for another. You add an extra day of work. You remove a day of work. Etc. etc. etc. You may wind up doing the advanced 5x5 exactly as written. But you may not reach that point for a year or more. And once you reach that point, you may only wind up doing the advanced program for 6 months or something. And at that point, what's next? LoL There's no 'super advanced" program on madcow's site. LoL That's because by this point in your training, you should have gained enough knowledge that you KNOW what adjustments to make to keep progress going and you know enough about your own body and about trainiing in general that you don't go searching for new "routines". Eventually, your training from year to year is not rigid and predetermined . . . it just kind of ebbs and flows as you make adjustments to keep progress going.