Programming around change in life

Hi everyone,

Here is the deal. I’m a 35 old man, 6 ft 1, started SS 3 months ago, weight at the start 178, now 202 lbs

My stats:
Squat from 103 lbs to 260 lbs x 5 x3
Deadlift from 136 lbs to 244 lbs x 5
Press from 59 lbs to 101 lbs x 5 x 3
Bench Press from 77 lbs to 141 lbs x 5 x 3
Power clean from 81 lbs to 127 lbs x 3 x 3

I am about to be a father for the 3rd time (as in anytime now!) I know for a fact that my training will get compromised due to lack of sleep and time, is there any maintenance training or lighter training I could do during this time without loosing the strength I gained?

I’m sure there are parents in the community that have experienced the same. Any tips would be really useful.

Many thanks

Alexis

There isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to this as it's hard to know exactly what the baby will demand and how you will respond to those demands (reduce sleep, etc.). One approach is to just keep training as you have been, but be prepared to modify on the fly based on how you are feeling each day. However, being only 3 months into SS, you might not have a good gauge on what days are truly hard and needing weight adjustments. So, another option is to reset your weights down by 10-20% and build back up slowly with small jumps. This might buy you enough time where you will have to make less modifications by the time you get closer to your old numbers. Side note, your DL still appears to be lagging behind your SQ after 3 months, so might want to get some form checks on that during this period (and any other lifts you might have form questions on).

Thank you very much for your response and advice, appreciate it!
I have reset the load down by 15%, I think that’s the better option for now and we’ll see how things play up in the next few weeks.

Also is there any tips on reducing the training time? It sometimes takes me 1h30, 2h including warm up, is that common? Again being busy with 3 kids now (the baby was born on the day I sent that message!), maximising time is critical.

Thank you for the DL note, I will try to organise some form checks.

Thanks again!

90 min is pretty common for NLP once you are deep into it. 2 hours is a bit long for a novice with just 3 lifts. In any event, first place to look is your warm-ups. Since these are designed to not fatigue you, they don't need that much rest at all. In many cases the rest between these warm-ups can begin with just the time it takes to switch weights. Towards the end of the warm-ups you could add a bit more time, but you can still often get away with very little (2 min or less). For the work sets, I would set a timer to make sure time isn't lost. You will be surprised to see how much time can be lost to distractions if you are "winging it." There is some flexibility with work set rest times as well. When you first start training 2-3 min could be enough, but if you are deep into things 5-6 min is often needed. However, if there are certain lifts you are good at, or certain days with lighter weights, you can try reducing the rest a bit and see how you respond.

Why is your deadlift lagging behind your squat? How have you approached the deadlift programming from workout 1 up until now?

Thanks Will for your response, it does help but I have to admit with 2 kids under 5 and a 2 weeks old new born, training is a bit all over the place... priorities I suppose.
Thanks again for you time.

Hi Rob,
I never really paid too much attention to this, I didn’t know that DL should be somehow on par with the squat. Anyway I’ll look at my old training sheets and come back to you with more details. I’ve also done a video that I need to post for form check.
Thanks for your message.

Hi Rob,

From workout 1 and for 2 months my DL was in front of my squat, but when the power clean was introduced, DL was only every 2 workouts whereas squat was still 3 times a week. Therefore mathematically, the squat took over the DL as I was adding 2 kgs every training for these 2 exercises. After 3 months back extensions and chin ups were added as per the program, so DL was only executed once a week and squat still going up 3 times a week.
So from my perspective, this was quite normal. I asked for a form check but apparently the load wasn't heavy enough to get some useful feedback.

Thanks