Reply With QuoteI advice never speaking to her again about weight loss or exercise except to congratulate her on what she chooses to do on her own. My qualifications: married 22 years. But, you know your wife better than I do, good luck!
Member
Weightloss / slimming program for my wife
My wife wants to lose weight. After literally years of gentle persuasion, she finally agreed to try lifting weights. I ran her through the first "testing" workouts of SS, I was slightly humbled by her impressive rank-novice deadlift capabilities, but she quickly lost enthusiasm.
She has a very low boredom threshold, the 5 minute resting periods are more than she can stand. Even when we cut it down to 3 minutes, she still found it boring.
Rather than her doing nothing, is it possible to do something like BBers "supersetting"? For example, sets of squats interspersed with sets of presses, repeat? i know it is far from ideal, but it is also much better than her doing nothing. What would be the best conditioning work to throw in from day one? I know that we shouldn't bother, but if she doesn't see measurable weight-loss right from the beginning, she'll stop.
She is a petite 34 years old, 5ft nothing, 130lbs. She wants to drop no more than 10 lbs, and has accepted that she can and should be happy coming back up to her present weight if she is "toned" as she puts it. She wants to firm up and lose a little weight, in that order.
Her 1st time max 5 rep lifts were:
Press: 50 lbs
Bench: 55 lbs
Squat: 90 lbs
Deadlift: 120 lbs
She had much more in the tank on all her lifts, she wasn't struggling at all, but wanted to stop in case she hurt herself. It's hard to dispel all myths about lifting in the first few days. She is naturally strong and explosive, she used to sprint at school but stopped in her late teens.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
cwd
I advice never speaking to her again about weight loss or exercise except to congratulate her on what she chooses to do on her own. My qualifications: married 22 years. But, you know your wife better than I do, good luck!
Member
That's sound advice, generally speaking.Originally Posted by cwd
However, she's only asked me if there is any way to make the program "less boring". We've agreed that I will not coach her, sit with her, criticize, comment or judge, and she won't ask for any of the above either. As I learned acceptable form and technique from the book and DVD, so will she. If she chooses to continue or give up, it's her choice. But she has asked me a specific question which I think is fairly safe to answer.
For the record, and in my opinion, she doesn't need to lose weight. She is naturally muscular, the BMI may say that she is on the limit of an "acceptable" weight, but we all know here when and why the BMI doesn't apply. She looks slimmer than her friend who is taller and lighter. But I'm not giong to try to convince her she doesn't need to lose weight, just quietly repeat my belief that she's built just right.
Last edited by DutchPancakes; 03-12-2013 at 09:04 AM.
Callador
I superset all my assistance work, just to save time. You could do that for sure, but it is harder to do it for the main lifts. Maybe an SS split (upper/lower) would work better for her? You would have 1-2 main lifts and more assistance work. Superset the assistance work.
Member
Tell her it won't be boring once she's moving more weight and it actually gets hard.
Or maybe switch her to a 5,5,AMRAP setup. People get more excited about that last all out set for some reason.
I like Callador's advice too.
cwd
DutchPancakes, it sounds like you have a good grasp on the situation.
A lot of people don't feel like it's a "real workout" unless they sweat and get out of breath. Maybe Callador's split idea plus a short conditioning workout after each leg day? I've been doing sandbag carries 2x week, I love them, they don't seem to interfere with lifting too much. Prowler is supposed to be ideal if you have one.
I've not had good luck with sprinting or kettlebell conditioning, they cause so much soreness that it interferes with lifting a lot.
Member
Stretching between sets. Some odd yoga pose. As for rest though i find in the early stages people especially women, just blast through the sets with as low as one minutes rest.
Good luck with the hell that is training your Wife. I've tried a couple times at my work and it always turned out bad for assorted reasons. Worst was that people wouldn't know it was my Wife and when she got frustrated she would lose her shit and either cry or swear at me. It was great for my reputation haha! I've told her we are hiring a friend when she is recovered from giving birth and I'm staying the hell away.
Oh and weight loss? Carb nite.
Callador
Heh, I had some issues training with my wife too. I gave her a split routine with more assistance work to follow, but even that got "boring". She likes it when the trainer randomly makes shit up on the fly. I guess you could do that with assistance work, but the main lifts shouldn't get fucked with.
Josiah had a good idea with the AMRAP on the last set. Another good idea would be to have her pick some of the assistance work. Maybe she will find that more enjoyable. Get a list of things she can do and mix it up more. Randomness and all that good stuff! :-)
Member
You don't need to rest 5 minutes between sets on the first workout. Maybe 90s, 3 min tops. Why were you resting that long?
The rest periods are supposed to be long enough for you to recover, not so long that they demotivate you. She'll feel all the heart rate amping destruction at some point at need 5 minutes. Until then, let her go as fast as she wants to get through the workout. The first time she misses reps on the squat and feels the terror of having the weight on her back she'll start to appreciate the rest periods.
Member
I kinda agree with cwd, but whatever. You may want to consider 5X5 ramping sets ala Bill Starr. Start set one (5 reps) at 50% and go up 12.5% per set until doing 100% (of the goal weight) in set 5. That way the earlier sets sorta function as a warm up and need less rest time. And the final 2 or 3 sets are heavy enough to cause constitute an adaptation-inducing stress.
FWIW, here's a link to a thread wear Andy Baker/KSC discusses how he trains some of his clients using 5X5 ramping sets(although see his reply to me in post # 21 of that thread):
http://startingstrength.com/resource...261#post473261
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