newbie with a different agenda

[Dan]

Mark,
After lurking on Crossfit for awhile, and trying WODs (Linda) which indicated a total lack of basic strength, I discovered SS. My goal was to use SS to build basic strength then try going back to WODs. I have both editions of SS as well as read PP and Strong Enough? All great info. I have done SS for about a month and have seen nice increases in strength, and feel firmer and stronger. I am just now starting to stall and so have dropped the work set weights by 10% and expect I'll see increases again.

I am 54 yo, 5'-8 1/2" and 160 lbs. Completely deconditioned. I am not trying to gain mass in any appreciable way. I would like to lose 5-10 pounds of fat from my waist (34") and replace with muscle mass. I guess I am atypical in this regard. I have not changed my diet, meaning I have not increased my caloric intake.

So what can I expect, to just stall and asymptotically plateau at a certain weight for my work sets? If that happens and I just keep doing the routine with the same weight I am obviously not getting stronger (or bigger anyway), but for a middle aged newbie I'll be stronger than anytime in the last 10 years and can possibly keep the new strength as I age ???

[Mark Rippetoe]

Older novices need to be careful to take small enough jumps between workouts that adaptation can occur. If you got stuck in a month, your increases were too big. Reset and come up slower this time. Even at your incredibly advanced age it should still take 3-4 months before anything fancy needs to be done. But this is contingent on the fact that for adaptation to occur you will have to grow some muscle mass. This means a bodyweight gain most usually, and if you try to arrange your diet to avoid this I can promise you that you will get stuck early.