Workout or Recover

[Pterodactyl]

Well, through football I have to do a lifting Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

I was wondering if on Saturday I could do a set of heavy deadlifts and maybe the press or something. I'm still fairly weak. I'm 15, 6'3, 200 pounds, and my squat max would be around 300 and bench around 150. Should I get in the deadlift since I don't get any otherwise or should I just use the time off to recover?

On Monday we basically do squats, hang cleans (I know), and lunges. Then we do a bunch of other crap but I basically don't do it or do it real easy.

Tuesday we do bench press, incline press, and military press (3 sets of each). Once again we do a bunch of other crap but I try to stay away from it as much as I can.

Thursday we do Squat, hang clean, and incline press with a bunch of other crap I try to stay away from.

We also do about 45 minutes of running every day. It isn't all hard running but it is enough to wear you out most days.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This is a pretty terrible program, one almost specifically designed to keep you from getting strong and not allow you to recover. If you add deadlifts, you're going to have to do them on one of the days at school you're doing now, preferably Tuesday. Sneak them in if you can.

[Pterodactyl]

This is a pretty terrible program, one almost specifically designed to keep you from getting strong and not allow you to recover. If you add deadlifts, you're going to have to do them on one of the days at school you're doing now, preferably Tuesday. Sneak them in if you can.

I know. The sad thing is, this might be a better program than it used to be. It used to be 4 days and a little longer each day. I knew how crappy this was but to make a long story short I didn't have much of a choice about going to this and I thought it might be better because they cut down on the time and made it three days instead of four. I thought they might have been getting smarter but now I think they just wanted more time to golf.

I guess there isn't much I can do and I'm going to be stuck with a 40 pound increase on the squat this summer? The 40 pounds of course were from using your program early in the summer. This sucks, I can't believe I got stuck in this again. I guess I do have the week of the 4th of July off! Maybe I could get some gains then!

Is it okay if I deadlifted in the evening? There isn't really anyway to sneak them in at the school. It would be easy to do them on Monday evenings, not sure about any other time that I could consistently get in and do them.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Yes, you'll have to do them at home at night.

[Pterodactyl]

Yes, you'll have to do them at home at night.

Well, I was actually going to do a different gym to do them. So this isn't going to effect my recovery more than it is going to be worth? I haven't fallen in love with deadlifts, I just thought they were kinda important to leave out of a weightlifting program.

[Polynomial]

I'm assuming that you're in high school? My suggestion would be: drop the football program, start doing the right workout, and get into something like strongman (teen division) events. When your former coaches see what you're capable of, they'll be knocking at your door, and you'll have a lot more leverage with choosing how you train. You might find that you like other strength sports more, however.

Now is a great time for you to become as strong as you can, and you shouldn't let others interfere with that. I've seen a whole lot of freshmen college students get here after 4 years of playing in high school and they were all injured in some way. A lot of them gained a decent amount of fat during their first year.

[Pterodactyl]

I'm assuming that you're in high school? My suggestion would be: drop the football program, start doing the right workout, and get into something like strongman (teen division) events. When your former coaches see what you're capable of, they'll be knocking at your door, and you'll have a lot more leverage with choosing how you train. You might find that you like other strength sports more, however.

Quitting a sport that could eventually pay for my college in hopes that they will come knocking at my door and let me train how I want isn't really an option. It's a not a bad thought but the whole idea falls through when they don't come knocking at my door.

[Mark Rippetoe]

And this is what is so bad about an incorrectly applied high school strength program: it deprives some kids that would have a scholarship the opportunity they might have were the program designed correctly to develop their potential.

[Tuesday]

Quitting a sport that could eventually pay for my college in hopes that they will come knocking at my door and let me train how I want isn't really an option. It's a not a bad thought but the whole idea falls through when they don't come knocking at my door.

A middle ground could be to negotiate with your coach. Go to his office and say something like, "Coach, can I talk to you about something important? I'm not recovering well from the weight training program I'm on now and I'm going to do this (hand him a copy of the program you've devised) for the next month instead. I'll still be at every practice and there to spot the others every workout. And if at the end of the month I haven't made better progress on this program than I have so far (1RMs, or combine scores, or whatever you use at your school to gauge performance), cut me from the team."

Or you could get a job and save all the money for college then work your way through school and train however you damned well please.