If you don't have time, you can try that. Also, how well are you eating? You mentioned losing 20 lbs, possibly due to disease. How hard are you trying to gain that weight back? Have you made any progress towards getting back to 190~?
After reading some more in SS, it does say that 10 minute rest periods are to be expected for advanced athletes, however I definitely would not say I am advanced.
This is what I'm considering: dropping squat sets back to 185 lbs or so, and keeping strict 5 minute or under rest periods. I should then be able to work back up and keep the rest periods the same. Do you think this is the best option? I would possibly take 5 lbs off the others lifts, or maybe no weight, since I typically don't rest so long in between those.
If you don't have time, you can try that. Also, how well are you eating? You mentioned losing 20 lbs, possibly due to disease. How hard are you trying to gain that weight back? Have you made any progress towards getting back to 190~?
That seems way long without any accessory stuff (chins, dips, back ext.). For what it's worth I do a 500m row (2 mins.), rest 3 mins between my 2 sets of bar-only squats and do the remaining warmup sets as quick as it takes to load up the bar, then 3-5 minutes between works sets depending on how I feel. Same with the the other lifts. I don't think any extra stretching should be necessary. 1.5 hours +/- with accessory work usually does it. I might be a little A-type, but I'm also 52. PS - Your squat weight seems high in comparison with your other lifts which doesn't necessarily mean anything, but sometime can be an indicator that depth isn't quite where it needs to be. And also food = energy!
Last edited by Vader; 02-05-2011 at 09:31 PM.
I am eating as much as I can with a full class schedule at my university. Typically over 4k. I really like squats, and am very comfortable getting deep into "the hole." I have problems with tapping the sides of the squat rack if I try to drop down too much, so I'm definitely a good ways under parallel. I've gotten videos of myself before just to be sure I'm not doing something funky.
I used to take a liter of whole milk to class in a lunch box to keep it cold. Also, I always had trail mix and beef jerky on me. You're having issues progressing because you're 50 lbs too light. Your body wants to progress linearly, but you're not giving it what it needs to do so. I'm 5'7" and ive got 10-15 lbs on you - and im pretty lean.
At this point in your training, 10+ minutes rest between sets of squats is too much. Theres a reason why Rips says 3-5 minutes. Once things start getting legitimately hard, and you start coming up on the the end of your linear progression (or move on to intermediate programming), you definitely are allowed to take 5-10 minutes rest in between sets, but you arent at that stage. Reset the weight, try to keep the rest time between 3-7 minutes, and EAT.
edit: first off, we all tend to inflate the amount of calories we get a bit, so is it safe to say you average in the 3500-4000 range? secondly, you need to be up in the 5000-6000 range to really start growing. if you're worried about getting fat, you can cut the intake down closer to maintenance once your lp starts to crap out. but right now, your body wants the food and will use it to pack on muscle.
Last edited by scoppi; 02-06-2011 at 12:10 AM.
I'm not worried about gaining fat. I'm at a very low %BF already so I'm not holding back because I think I'll get tubby or a gut or something.
I played around with my rest periods quite a bit. I tried to keep them to 5 minutes during most of LP, but bumped it up to 7 minutes in the last month or so. When I'm having a good day I'll just wait until my hearbeat goes back to normal, and I stop sweating like a whore in church. My workouts were around 90 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes towards the end. Now I'm out of the gym in an hour on 531. It's nice, but i wouldnt have changed a thing i did on SS LP. 3 heavy lifts a day for multiple sets are going to require some time, thats all there is to it.
I have read in about a million different places that a workout over an hour is simply a waste of time. While I don't believe this is an absolute, as I am still making progress, I would really, really prefer to reign my workout times back in, at least to 1 h 30 mins. I feel like taking 2+ hours to finish a workout that should theoretically take an hour is simply trying to compensate for a lack of strength/endurance/whatever.