Maxed Out

A few weeks ago I started doing Stronglifts 5x5 program again. After about a week of it I found that I was struggling to do both squats and barbell rows. Some days, I wouldn't be able to finish my sets at all. I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I wasn't making much progress.

Sometime last week I was going through a bunch of Alan Thrall videos on YouTube and I found one where he was talking about Stronglifts and Starting Strength and he said that it's common for people on those programs to start struggling after about two to six months, because they're made for beginners (I never felt like a beginner, but after all my injuries, I was definitely lifting like one). Since you lift five pound more every workout than you did your last, eventually you will max out your lifts with these methods (Thrall did the math and found that if you added five pounds to your squat three days a week for a year, you'd end up squatting 780 pounds more than when you started).

I forgot which video he posted that mentioned it, but he was citing this report throughout the video, and it said that eventually, doing five reps isn't enough. You have to start building more muscle mass, and you do that by lifting with lower weight with higher reps (essentially, bodybuilding).

In the comment section, there were a bunch of comments praising the Candito Six Week Training Program for intermediate lifters, so I checked that out. It looks like a good enough plan, so I'll be starting it tomorrow.

The first two weeks are high rep, moderate weight routines. The next three are high weight, low rep routines. The last week is a deload week, where you find your new one rep max and do a mild version of week one. Then you start over with your new one rep max being the basis for all your lifts.

There's a lot of days where you're not working your legs on this plan, so hopefully I can start running again, too.

Now here's a picture of two bunnies kissing that I'm posting just so my Facebook post has more than a title: