How can I balance strength training and the military?

[Michael_P]

Hi coach,

I'm a 19 year old male 6'5 and 202 lbs. I've been in the army for over 2 years now. My lifts are,
Squat 235, 3x5
Bench press, 215, 3x5
Deadlift 305, 1x5
Press 120, 3x5
Power clean 135, 5x3

I've read "Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training (3rd Edition)" and am currently reading "Practical Programming for Strength Training". I'm writing to ask you what I should do, because I can no longer progress on my squat every workout.

I'm constantly fatigued between heavy squats 3 times a week and 1.5 hours of PT 5 days a week. We usually do long distance runs on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. Tuesday and Thursdays we train "muscular strength and endurance" which is just calisthenic exercises.

I feel like my body does not have ample time to recover. In PPST it talks about how an intermediate athlete is one who cannot make progress every workout any longer. Although I still consider my lifts to be weak should I move onto an intermediate program? Should I do a twice a week A/B routine as discussed in "Roundtable: Programming & Military Training"? How about replacing the Wednesday workout with a light squat day?

Obviously I need to gain body-weight, but it is very hard for me. I think this is because I have a naturally high metabolism + all that cardio. As far as my diet goes, I've been doing GOMAD for the past 2 weeks and have yet to gain any weight. I try to eat as much food as I can every day. My breaksfast is usually 6-9 whole eggs, bacon, patatoes, fruit, and mixed nuts. I eat my meals at the dining facility so lunch and dinner is always a different meat, startch, and cooked vegetable. Often times the meal portions suck so I go through a 40 oz jar of peanut butter in about every 3 days. I usually have tuna and mayo before I go to bed. A couple of times a week I eat 5 double cheeseburgers from burger king or a $5 hot and ready pizza from Little Ceasars.

I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction. My primary goals right now are improving my squat and gaining weight to at least 220 lbs.

Sorry for having so many questions.Thanks for your time and I look forward to your reply.

[veryhrm]

There's more than a couple of threads on this topic kicking around the site. search for them (via google) to see what others have done.
Looks like you already found that video, which is good.

To me (random forum guy) it sounds like you're doing everything right with eating big, but that's just a huge volume of work. Unless you can get out of some of that PT, you'll just have to cut your workouts. The simple first step would be to go to light wednesday, but you'll prob have to move to an intermediate program like that split routine soon.

[Eric Larousse]

you should consider squatting every two days.....gains are obviously going to be harder to come by doing all that extra stuff on top of lifting...just take your time the strength game is a marathon it will come....if squatting every two days is still too much consider squatting twice a week at the least....any idea what your bodyfat percentage is?