Multiple day programming for addiction recovery/mental health?
Facts: 42 y/o male, 5'9" or 5'10", 202 lbs. In week 12 of following the novice A/B workout. Lifts as of this week (all 5RM): D: 355, S: 310, B: 195, P: 135. I haven't been doing power cleans because I haven't taken the time to learn them properly, but I've been doing chins.
I was basically untrained until June 2018 when I started doing a half-assed program I mostly made up myself, based around the core-four lifts, and progressive loading. It was a hot mess but I did make a lot of progress on it (of course), but I quit doing it after about 8 weeks when I got laid off and lost access to the gym in the building where I worked. Anyway, the point is that when I started again at the end of February, I wasn't starting from zero.
So here's the thing. I'm closing in on 6 months of sobriety after about 22 years of alcoholism (along with comorbidities of depression/anxiety and a traumatic brain injury). Daily (or near daily) exercise is a pretty critical element for addicts in early recovery (6 months to 2 years). I'm happy to discuss the evidence behind that at length elsewhere. The short version is that exercise mitigates the unpleasant mental and physical effects that are the result of changing brain chemistry (effects which tend to lead to relapse if not managed successfully). In terms of what seems to work, 45 minute of moderate cardio (like a 5 mile run or 10k on the Concept 2) is a good baseline. A novice A/B split workout is even better. Combining strength and cardio on alternating days has the lowering the intensity of the cardio I need to get the same effect.
My training goals are: stay sober, stay alive, feel good. Get strong if I can. My own experience is that in order to achieve that, 6 days a week is perfect; 5 days a week is tolerable, and anything less than that is not enough to meet those goals. Doing all cardio worked fine but mixing cardio and strength seems to be even more effective (not to mention all the other benefits of getting strong). Having said all that, of course I recognize that doing cardio 2 or 3 days a week is impacting my strength progress. I'm still adding weight every week but not consistently every time I lift-- but if I back off on the cardio, I seem to be able to get back to progressive loading-- so I suspect that I'm still in the novice stage. What I'm looking for, is what's the least destructive way that I can work out 5 or 6 days a week while getting the most I can from the novice effect? Here is what I have considered:
- Continue to do the A/B split 3 days a week, with the expectation that I'm going to miss reps, and to proceed accordingly. Reevaluate as I transition into the intermediate phase
- Radically reprogram into a one lift per day split over a 6 or 7 day rotation
- Some other re-program I haven't considered
I appreciate any advice or insights here. I'm *not* going back to 6 days of cardio, though.