Geezer recovery and when to move to intermediate level

[Roadrogue]

I'm asking here cause the youngsters and Rip will give some curt, condescending answer about doing the program. I feel that I am doing the program but I have to admit that my weight gain has slowed to only a pound every other week. I've gone from 135 lbs. to 149 lbs. in 3 months. I'm 5'7" and 58 years.

Rip has stated that older folks recover more slowly and would benefit sooner to moving to an intermediate program with gains being weekly instead of each workout. I'm wondering if I'm at that point even though my lift weight improvements after 3 months are pretty meager.

I'm finding that I feel pretty tired most of the time. Could be winter malaise or some other factor or it could be I need more recovery from lifts. Also all of my lifts have stalled to some degree. For weeks I've failed one to three or four times before succeeding with my weight increase even though I'm microloading by 2.5 lbs. in everything but the deadlift that I'm increasing by 5 lbs. usually.

I took a week off for rest but when I came back I was weaker in all lifts and it took me two weeks to get back to where I was. WTF?

I've seriously deloaded my squats because I realized that I wasn't going deep enough and I'm determined go consistently go below parallel before increasing weight. I seem to have a problem with this. I think I'll video it and get some feedback. Was doing 175 lbs. and backed it down to 145.

Other lifts:
press: started at 65 and just did 90 lbs. 3x5
bench: started at ? now at 145x3x5
deadlift: started at 165 now 205x1x5
pullups/chins: started at bw x 8 now 35x3x5
squats: started at 105 now 145x4x5

So I'm wondering if the Texas Method might not work better for me. Sometimes when I can't do the full 5 reps after a weight increase I go back to my previous weight and do an extra set with the goal of more volume improving strength but this might be a bad idea by tiring me out too much to recover. It's not as simple as it sounds; at least to me.

[hbriem]

Although I'm not 58, I started lifting at 41. I'm now 48. See my log if you'd like to see what I lift and how I look. I started lifting at a fattish 80kg (176 lbs) and I'm now 95ish (~210) and approximately 2.5x stronger. I feel as fit as when I was a 20 year old athlete and I'm at least twice as strong as I was then.

I think you're right that at 58 you shouldn't try to progress every workout. Weekly or even bi-weekly is enough. Don't push it too much. Simply by lifting at all at your age, you're way ahead of the game.

Short answer, keep doing SS, but add weight a little slower.

Your press and chins are quite good, actually for your size and very short training time. The other lifts are well acceptable. I know bigger, much younger guys who have trained longer who squat, bench and deadlift less. So don't be overly critical of yourself.

BTW, 3 months training is nothing! Think long term.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I'll echo what hbriem has already said as far as slowing progression. I might add though, that 2.5 lbs. on every lift might be a bigger jump than you want to make unless it's for squats and deadlifts. Maybe adding 1 lb. jumps for the upper body will keep you rolling along for months yet, especially in the overhead press. Even 1 lb. jumps can be hard. Unless you are recovering ground on an old really big deadlift PR, 2.5 lbs. would be better. The 5 lb. jumps alone could be taking a bigger bite out of your recovery ability for the rest of your body. Slow and steady wins the day. As opposed to the race, since there's no need for hurry right? Other than the impatience every single one of us has for results.

[tennisgod]

To me, your key sentences are: "tired all the time"... "took a week off and lifts went down".

Have you looked at your diet? Seems you may not be getting the fuel the body needs.

When you took the week off did your energy come back, at least?

The best thing to do is experiment: try a light squat day (80% of Monday) on the Wednesday and see if it helps.
I have found that the Texas Method (on squats) has helped me now that my lifting-weights are higher.

[Kyle Schuant]

I second the advice to consider your diet. Are you getting plenty of fresh fruit and vegies, nuts and beans, meat, eggs, fish and dairy? And then some good starchy stuff to help it all along?

Assuming you've sorted out your diet and are still finding progression difficult, there are a few things you can. One is to always do more - if you can't do more weight, do more reps. If you can't do more reps, do more sets.

So let's say you put your press to 92.5lbs and go for 5,5,5 - but you only get 5,4,3. That's okay, you did more weight. Next session you want at least one more rep - whether it's 6,4,3 or 5,5,3 or 5,4,4 doesn't matter. Let's say you got 5,4,4. The session after that, you get 92.5lbs 5,4,4 again. You did the same weight and the same reps... oh well, do another set - even if you just get 1 rep. In this way, always doing more, you're still progression.

The second thing you can do is simply follow the routine as written, but instead of "get 5,5,5 then add weight" you say, "get 5,5,5 in 3 separate sessions with that weight, then add weight."

The first suggestion will be more challenging than the second. If your diet and rest are good, and there's nothing in your life stressing and distracting you, go for the first one. If you simply can't get diet and rest and stress level right, then the second is better. This is the approach I have found works best for people whose recovery is less than ideal, such as a 65 year old who went for the Atkins diet.

[tennisgod]

Also, you wrote 145x4x5 for your squats... you might want to reduce that to 3x5.

[Roadrogue]

Thanks for all the thoughtful advice, guys; that's what I was hoping for since I need the benefit of other's greater experience and another perspective.

It's good to hear where I stand in comparison to some others. It sometimes feels like I'm so pathetically weak and progress is so slow that it's discouraging, especially when I see the numbers many guys are doing here.

Some good ideas for me. I'll try them. I'll start loading smaller amounts and trying the extra set or increasing after doing 3x5 more than once. My diet is pretty good; I got a good handle on that doing P90X, but I'd better increase the amount; I'm averaging a pound a week increase but it's bogging lately. Also I do a good multi-vitamin, fish oil, whey. Being tired so often is troublesome. I had my testosterone checked and it was within tolerance. Guess I should make myself go to bed earlier and see what happens.

So I'll experiment like suggested with Texas Method for squats since that's where I seem most tired. The week off didn't really make me feel any more energized. Kinda weird.

Patience. Good to be reminded. At my age I sometimes feel like the clock is ticking and I can't afford to waste time with inefficient training.

[jimk]

I'm almost 57 and give thanks to the day I found somewhere on this forum Rip saying the elderly should squat no more than 2x per week. I've got pretty strong legs and a pretty weak upper body, and I think the heavy (for me) squatting in the 250 range 3x5 each workout was just beating up the whole body too much and impacting all my lifts. Now I squat 3 x 5 every other workout (variable schedule, I work out every 2-3 days depending on work), alternate presses with benches 5 x 5, DL 1 x 5 every other weekend, and on the non squat days I do power cleans and an assistance exercise or two (rows, chins, dips) more focused on the upper body. This has kept me making slow but steady linear progress. I use Platemate 5/8 magnets on the end of the bar to let me move in 1.25 lb increments.

Quite frankly I've resisted going to the Texas method because I think squatting heavy 5x5 even 1 day a week would provide more stress than the body can handle right now, I am going to stick with what is working.

Rip's chapter on the elderly in Strong Enough provides me with some inspiration strongly grounded in reality, I find myself rereading it every 3 months or so. And Lon Kilgore's age adjusted strength standards have provided helped me set what I think are more realistic goals for myself. Good luck!

[bob g]

I’ve been using a TM template to accommodate recovery in my dotage (I’m 54) and am making weekly gains. When the weekly gains stall I’ll change it up to something that will drive improvements over a longer span. The biggest differences to true TM are: I work 3x5s instead of 5x5s, I squat twice a week and I dead lift less frequently than the main plan.

Volume: Sq 3x5, BP or Press 3x5 alternating weekly adding 5 lbs a week for squat and 2.5 lbs a week for presses. Sometimes I’ll add some light pulling.

Recovery: Sq 2x5 @ 80% of volume day, BP or Press 2x5 @ 80% of previous volume day, DL work up to 2, 3 or 5 RM for the day. I add occasional Oly work to get some extra pulling plus I enjoy these lifts.

Intensity: Press or BP doing 1, 2, 3 or 5 reps with linear progress over the last time using the same scheme plus heavy deads or Oly.

The key for me is 1) eating enough to feed the gains and 2) walking away from the gym every so often and doing a slight reset when I return. I went for a press PR a week or so ago and ate a crap load extra meat the week leading up to the attempt. It worked. I’m eating fairly clean, slowly leaning out and gaining weight at the same time. Like Mark said, don’t focus on a set amount to add each work out if it ends up kicking your ass. Micro load as needed and you’ll keep moving forward.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Heh, you said dotage. Ya' pup! Now THAT'S a word you don't see every day. Only in geezerville.