Methods and apparatus are provided for adapting transmitter equalization coefficients based on receiver gain adaptation. Equalization coefficients of a transmitter that communicates over a channel with a receiver are adapted by determining if a gain value for an amplifier in the receiver is within a limit of the amplifier; and preventing one or more adjustments to the transmitter equalization coefficients if the gain value does not satisfy the upper or lower limit of the amplifier. The gain adjustments comprise, for example, up and down requests for the transmitter equalization coefficients. One or more enable flags can optionally be set based on whether the gain value is within the limit of the amplifier.