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Thread: Detraining, volume, eating, stretching

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
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    11

    Default Detraining, volume, eating, stretching

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    Recently picked up The Barbell Prescription. Very heavy book (literally and figuratively) but it's been super helpful.

    Biggest things I learned from it:
    1. Detraining! I was lifting pretty seriously (I thought) last year, on a couple of variants of 5/3/1. Most versions of that system give a week in between sessions for any given lift. Going back to a starting strength advanced novice program, with multiple lifts each session, squats every day, and never backing off very much, has helped a lot. Last year my biggest squat was 190 for 2 reps and gaining very slowly, now I'm at 210 for 3 sets of 5 and still adding weight every week.
    2. Volume! By midyear last year, I was suspicious that I wasn't responding to the low rep / high weight phases of 5/3/1, and started to work in a lot of volume instead. Barbell Prescription advises that this is harder for the older athlete to recover from.
    3. Gotta eat to gain! I've found that I can get a lot of extra protein into my diet. I'm gaining a little weight but my pants still fit and my fitbit scale with its unreliable bodyfat sensing says that my % bodyfat is going down.


    The above isn't meant to put down 5/3/1, I think it's a good system esp for younger athletes. Best about it was it gave me a framework where there were no excuses - if there's just one lift you must do today, it's hard to rationalize skipping out on 15 minutes bare minimum time in the gym. So it got me to a point where 3-4 trips a week was routine. Also, my evaluation of it wasn't really fair, because I hadn't progressed fully through a novice program before I started with it; I probably wasn't strong enough to really get the benefit of it.

    But as I said above, with the detraining that happens over the lower intensity weeks, and the 7-day gap between lifts, it doesn't work for me any more.

    Biggest things I learned elsewhere that didn't get much or any mention in Barbell Prescription:
    1. Stretching! I injured my knee in 2015 when I first started to do some squats w/ over 100 lbs. Physical therapy diagnosed it was a combination of a tight IT band on the outside of the leg and weakness on the inside portion of the quad. Foam rolling and a little targeted work on machines got me fixed up. In retrospect I think I could have avoided the whole issue with a combination of using a foam roller and getting some early coaching on form.
    2. Glucosamine etc! Makes a big difference for me on reducing knee pain, and this is backed up in some clinical studies. Doesn't help me much for other joints (hips sometimes complain about deadlifts).


    Here's the Agile 8 stretching routine that is popular with the 5/3/1 crowd, that I still like and do 4-5 times a week:
    The Agile 8 gets You Mobile, Loose, and Ready. Train Heroic's favorite warm up! - YouTube

    Oh, and also: Baseball warm-up weights seem to fit the barbell perfectly, so if the smallest weights in your gym are 2.5 lb plates, some smaller bat-weights can help you progress by smaller weight increments. I really needed this to avoid stalling in my new run at a Novice probram, for the bench and overhead presses.

    Since posts like this usually wind up with people asking about people's details :
    51 year old male, 180-ish pounds
    Controlling type II diabetes with diet and exercise and no meds
    Various knee injuries, arthritis beginning
    210 squats 3 X5, still adding weight twice a week with one "light" day of 90%
    easing back into deadlift after a groin pull late last year, hope to be back in the 250-300 range soon
    105 bench 3 X5, making about 2lb progress per week
    75 press 3 X5, making about 2lb progress per week
    Trying to learn power clean, some on my own, some with coaching, will give it a couple more months to decide whether I'll continue.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2015
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    Yep, I did that. Dragged out my LP and then went for 5/3/1 as I thought it was the less strenuous option. Well, it is less strenuous, but I felt that a lot of the time I was lifting too little. On 5's day, only one of the sets was really challenging.

    I recently saw somewhere that 5/3/1 is great for late intermediates, i.e nearly advanced lifters. I guess if you are pulling over 2.5x bodyweight then the 1 of 531 day is enough stimulus to provoke change. Singles when the weights are still low don't seem to do much for me.

    Of course there is Carson the poster boy for 531, who is ploughing ahead making PRs year after year. He is an exceptional human being.

    Likewise on the volume. Bench and press once a week stalled. Adding in a light session for both seems to have unstuck them. I think you can train to withstand a bit more volume on a lift.

    Good luck with the power clean. I changed to doing the clean because stopping in the half squat seemed to stress the knees. Absorbing with a front squat feels better, and besides it's extra squatting. I just heard Rip's podcast where he recites the bit about barbells being good because after the first session you have learned how not to fall down; this does not necessarily apply to my cleans.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Ohio
    Posts
    5,557

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    This matches my experience as an older beginner. (51 now, 45 when I first touched a barbell)

    A 5-3-1 basic variant hit the main lifts too infrequently, I lost strength. The "boring but big" hypertrophy program was far too much volume, I was horribly sore all the time, and aggravated my tendon problems.

    I think you need a lot of lifting experience to figure out which 5-3-1 variant is right for you. And experience is exactly what someone coming off their first linear progression *lacks*. So we screw it up.

    A heavy-light weekly program is a much simpler transition from SS. You can do it one lift at a time w/o resetting the weights. And BB Rx has a bunch of examples on exactly how to do this.

    Re: power cleans, I eventually learned to do them correctly (stef cleaned them up at a seminar!), and I enjoy them. But I gave them up as non-productive for me.
    I'm so unathletic that my best PC single was about 45% of my deadlift 5 rep max, meaning they don't function as a lighter pull variant to drive strength. Probably related to my sloth-like vertical jump.
    Snatch-grip deadlifts aren't fun, but work for me.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
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    11

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    I've changed a bunch of things at once (lifting shoes, getting some coaching recently, going back to a novice progression w/ lower volume, eating like a beast), so it's hard to say what the cause is, but...

    Not only am I making better gains, but I feel so much better after lifting currently, as compared to times last year when I was training as hard as I could manage. Little soreness, more energy.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Posts
    11

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    Since the original post, I had a few months of off-again, on-again. Illnesses, vacations and business travel were the disrupters. Around that time I had just re-read the part of Barbell Prescription where he talks about this, which helped to keep perspective. The idea he communicated was that when you're older, you have a pretty full life, and you should prioritize the things that matter most to you. That may mean that you miss some weeks and have to reset your weights. That's ok, just keep moving.

    I've probably gained 10 lbs in the last 10 months, my pants still fit and I feel good; next doctor's office visit should be interesting (she wants me to do lots of cardio and lose lbs).

    Since late June, I've been back on track; making progress on upper body is still challenge. In addition to the below, try to get in some lat pulls a couple of times a week.

    240 squats 3 X5, with one "light" day of 90% 2 X5
    265 deadlift 1 X5, still proceeding slowly after an injury last year
    115 bench 3 X5
    80 press 3 X5, this has been the hardest exercise to recover after my recent periods of not going to the gym.
    Still trying to learn power clean, my form still sucks (elbows come out and am pulling with the arms too much) but maybe getting better. Working at 95 lbs.

    52 year old male, 185 pounds, 5'10"
    Managing type II diabetes with diet and exercise and no meds; was pretty sedentary and 190+ pounds before diagnosis a few years ago.
    Various knee injuries, arthritis beginning
    As I mentioned in the original post, since taking the Barbell Prescription approach to programming I've been lifting heavier and feeling fewer aches and pains. This is still true, knock on wood.
    Last edited by Prunesquallor; 07-10-2017 at 11:11 AM.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Palos Hills, IL
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    396

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    starting strength coach development program
    Thanks for the update. It's interesting to hear people's experiences and I often learn from these.

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