50 year old lifter, at 7 weeks of Novice gains

[John Watson]

Standing Press; 95lbs, 3rd time in a row I didn't complete the sets at this weight.

Bench Press; 140lbs, missed the last rep of the last set, previous workout.

Squat; 195lbs. Today is the first day I didn't finish all 3x5

Deadlift; 255lbs. Haven't stalled yet. May happen fairly soon. These feel so awesome to do.


Conclusion: Standing Press I will go down from 95 to 85lbs next workout, and microload my way back up using .625 lb washers

Bench press; I have two more sessions to go with 140lbs, before I have to deload 10%. I think I can push the weigh up before then, only missed 1 rep.

Squat; 2 more tries at 195. Really want to break 200lbs.

When the deadlifts stall, I guess it's time to introduce Power Cleans on alternate days.

I'm 6'1" approximately 180lbs.

I'm growing a big gut, so I switched to skim milk, and drinking about 2 gallons a week.

Feel like my arms could use some work, but I don't want to interfere with my novice gains, so I will keep going until it's time to add chins/pullups.

I believe the next phase starts when dead lifts get "stale," which is when I add Power Cleans.

Not exactly sure exactly what is meant by "stale" I'm guessing a couple of deloading/slow gain periods.

I'm also wondering how the deadlifts will stall, If I just lose confidence to pull another rep, or I fail to get it all the way up? I keep thinking i will hear a loud crack, and that'll be it. Haha!

[Joe Murphy]

Re: the dead stall: It either won't break from the floor or you won't be able to lock it out. There's a chance that your arms might detach from your torso at the shoulder but that happens rarely, and only when one's grip is much stronger than one's pull....

[dietlbomb]

Good work so far.

The most common culprits for stalling on the novice program that I have seen on this board are the following:

A. Food. Are you eating enough? For young men, this is a simple question, but for older lifters there is a lower limit to how rapidly you can convert calories into increased muscle mass. If you are gaining weight, then this probably isn't the problem.

B. Recovery. In PPST3e, there's a section on programming for lifters over 50. The basic gist is that older lifters require more time to recover between workouts, and this time increases with age and with workout difficulty. If this is your problem, the book's main recommendation for this situation is to decrease the frequency of your workouts from 3 times a week to something more manageable. But 50 years old isn't on the elderly side of that demographic, however, so your first few weeks shouldn't be too different from the standard progression. Are you getting enough sleep?

C. Form. Is your form good? If there are problems, they could be interfering with strength gains.

D. Rest between work sets. Are you waiting long enough between work sets? These sets are hard, so it takes 5-8 minutes to get ready for the next set. It feels kinda awkward to wait in the gym for 6 minutes to do work for 30 seconds. But that's the nature of the stress -> adaptation cycle.

E. Increment. Maybe it is time for micro-loading. This goes part and parcel with food and recovery. The older you get and the stronger you get, the more difficult it becomes to add more weight every workout. Are you increasing the press by 2.5lbs every workout, or by 5lbs?


I wouldn't wait for the deadlifts to stall to introduce the power clean. "Stale" is ambiguous, but the point is just to get the deadlift to a point where it is significantly higher than where it was when your started (i.e. you have gotten used to pulling a heavy barbell off the ground). Now is a good time to start terrifying the other people in the gym with flying barbells.

[John Watson]

@dietlbomb Excellent analyses, thanks. I think we're at item E. Increments. Definitely on the standing press. Up until recently I only owned plates as small as 2.5 lbs. So the barbell increment was 5lbs. I bought some 2" washers at mcmaster.com that will allow 1.25, 2.5, and 3.75 lb increases.

I have my barbell set up in my living room. (man's union card status: intact). The only one to terrorize would be my Yellow Lab, but he's pretty mellow. Might have to make a special trip to the gym though, just to scare people, particularly the jackass curling the empty barbell in the squat rack.

As far as the other items;

Food: I think I'm doing pretty good with at least 1 gram per lb bodyweight.

Recovery: I workout Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday. This enables good rest on the weekends. I definitely feel recovered between workouts, so no need to go one day on, two off at this point. Recovery is much better than my former dumbell exercise routine, which looking back I was probably over-training, hence the fact that I could never stick with it. By comparison, SS feels easy.

Form: I've videoed my self to review my form, and feel like it's pretty good. Feeling correct squat depth is tricky, noticed I wasn't going quite low enough on some reps, but now I'm slightly too deep.

Rest: I set a stopwatch and was doing about 2 - 3 or 4 minutes between sets, or wait until my breathing has normalized. Maybe I should bump that up?

Beginning next week I'll introduce Power Cleans.

I'm really enjoying this! I don't want to chase gains so aggressively as to risk injury, I'm just trying to stay in shape, and lifting big iron (relatively, for me) is a great measure of that.

I hope to continue this type of training over the long term, so rapid increases are nice, but not a must. More important is staying injury free, so I guess that's where micro-loading will help.

[dietlbomb]

Rest: I set a stopwatch and was doing about 2 - 3 or 4 minutes between sets, or wait until my breathing has normalized. Maybe I should bump that up?

Definitely bump this up. If you are getting all your reps on the first set and the trouble is with the later sets, this could be the issue. Someone else will correct me if I'm wrong, but strength training is an anaerobic stress, so breathing won't indicate whether your muscles have recovered from the previous set. What needs to happen between sets is for your muscles to resupply themselves with ATP, which is a slower process than cardiovascular recovery. 5-8 minutes is closer to the norm, with 8-10 minutes being what you need near the end of linear progression.

Otherwise, I think you are on the right track. But maybe post some form videos to the technique forum and let the more practiced eyes there dissect your form.

[John Watson]

Definitely going to try that on today's workout.

Been working out in my underwear, so I promise I'll wear sweats if I do a video.

[John Watson]

I set my stopwatch for 5 minutes between sets and got through 195lbs squats, 140lbs bench, and 260lb deadliftt.

Gonna continue with these rest periods.

I'm enjoying the gains on the deadlift so much, I didn't want to do power cleans just yet.

[peez]

I second everything dietlbomb said.

Also, I find different lifts have different recovery needs for me. I probably need closer to three days for the squat, and two for all other lifts. I stalled on my bench and press after two months of novice gains, so I added extra stimulus in the form of dips and chins. But as they say around here - titrate! Experiment and find out what works for your body and lifestyle.

[HandPlaneSteve]

Subscribed. Keep it up dude!

[John Watson]

Thanks @HandPlaneSteve!

Ok, i made all my lifts again today. 5 minute break minimum between sets.

The reward? Add more weight next time! Doh!

I just completed week 7.

Squat 200 lbs - I had to knuckle down to get the 5th rep, breathe a few times, and the bar felt like it wanted to roll down my back, but I kept my elbows up.
Press 90 lbs - (down from a stalled 95. I think I was supposed to go down to 85 for the 10% reduction, but I felt greedy and didn't want to give up gains, and figured I could microload from there with my .625 lb washers).
Deadlift 265 lbs - This one is really feeling like a beast, I'm back to doing it like singles, chalked my hands between reps even.

So I'm kind of off course (YNDTP), because I didn't incorporate power cleans yet. Next week I will. (My week is Fri, Sunday, Tuesday, works well for me.) I think PC will help to give the deadlifts some recovery time.

I feel like I'm approaching a stall on the deadlift, and the squat, and maybe the bench press. The question is, should I microload now, or do 5 lb increases until I fail? And then fail 3 times before deloading? I think that's what the book says. I must re-read programming.

I think I may need to back off the deadlift so i can do a full set of 5 with minimum pauses between reps. To tell you the truth, it's a little bit about ego, my buddy (who does pyramid workouts) did 260 on deadlifts, (and gave himself a hemerrhoid in the process) so I just wanted to top his weight, which I did (and then pitch him the book). But he's doing 200 lb bench presses, and I'm only at 140, so oh well.

Next week; power cleans. My arms are feeling wimpy, so I will add chin ups and pull ups at some point too.

Feeling great!

Amazingly, I thought I had a bad back, but I haven't felt a thing.