One year in ... a retrospective on SL 5x5Beg. for 9 months

[holvoetn]

Noticed this week that I am weightlifting for a bit more then a year during which I went from SL5x5 Beginner, over a short spur with Korte 3x3 (to fill a gap towards a holiday period ), some experiments with Coan/Philippi Deadlift program towards SL Advanced.
Thought it might be useful to describe how it went, what went wrong, what went right, ... using the SL 5x5 Beginner program.

First the stats:
Male
Age 40, now 41
Height: no change, 180cm, 5'11"
History of basketball (7 to 14) and volleyball (14 to 31), so not really a couch potato

Started on Oct 10th, 2008
BW at that time was 83kg
Squat: 40kg
Bench: 30kg
OHP: 30kg
Deadlift: 40kg
IR: 12 reps on first set
Pushups: 30 on first set
BF: electronic thingy said 27%

When I stopped, June 18th, 2009 stats were as follows:
BW: 87.5kg: + 4.5kg
Squat: 5RM 142.5kg (could not get it for 5x5 though), 1RM 155kg
Bench : did 75kg on Bench Press but form was lousy so deloaded again to 60kg
OHP: 5RM 52.5kg
Deadlift: 5RM 155kg, 1RM 200kg
BBRows: 5x5 85kg
Bf: tape measure: 21% which means (if I calculated correctly) an increase of about 9kg lean mass.

Diet:
eating lots and lots of eggs, tuna, cheese, chicken ...
And milk, skimmed milk, but also there, easily 2 liters a day (mainly for the protein).
My wife was questioning why all of a sudden 'I had seen the light'

Sleep was sometimes an issue, especially in the beginning (specifically: lack of it).
I was working with a client in Brussels and to avoid traffic jams, I got up at 05h00, in the car at 05h20.
It took a while before I got into the habit to get to bed with my son 3 times a week around 21h15/21h30.

During this period I only had 1 serious injury. It was an old quad injury from over 10 years ago when I played volleyball (scar tissue formation) which popped up again in January.
It stopped me for over a month to make any progress at all at squat (though I did not stop squatting, low weight and high repetition work as per Bill Starr Rehab routine to work your way back up).

I did the SL 5x5 Beginner program up til June of this year at which point I stopped since
a) recovery was becoming a problem (may also have been a result from not working out frequently enough, see below)
b) I stalled several times (and deloaded) on squats (I could not nail 142.5kg for 5x5)
c) mentally it was becoming very challenging

Worthwhile to be mentioned:
on average during this period I ONLY got 1.5 sessions per week.
37 weeks with 56 sessions ...
Sometimes it was work, sometimes family, sometimes the gym was not open when I was free, ... various reasons.
I am 100% convinced my progress would have been better if I had been able to go more frequently.

Biggest BIGGEST positive point (to me) is that as of September 2009 I have my home setup.
An oly barbell and 240kg worth of plates, enough to keep me busy for some time.
Since having that set up, I have missed 0 workouts, a consistent 3 sessions per week.

Personal comments:
- milk the program for AS LONG AS YOU CAN. This is one of the only chances you have on increases per workout session.
- You only get out what you put in. Effort is needed and a lot of sweat and cursing (and sometimes a drop of blood ...)
- read, review, read again, ... on the correct form for the exercises. When in doubt, double check and if needed deload to start building up again.
- If you can do them, go for barbell rows instead of inverted rows. I believe BBRows do a lot more then IR.
- OHP is indeed THE most challenging as far as stalling and determination is concerned

What did not go so well:
- opening hours of the gym weren't really in my favor but I worked around that eventually. I understand not everyone is able to do that.
- nobody in my gym on the same program. I had to find it out all from reading and discussions over here.
- OHP is a bitch There, I said it again ...

Currently I am in Stronglifts Advanced, 1st cycle.
Where I am now, you can see in my signature (hasn't moved that much yet at time of this post, the peaking weeks are still to come).
I am having a bit of issues with deadlift since the first two weeks I mixed it with Coan/Philippi program (wasn't the wisest decision since it does not mingle that well when going back to regular SL Advanced with its 5x5 scheme). If all goes well I am planning to stay on this scheme for several cycles since I like it so far. After the 3th or 4th cycle I may reassess my options.
But that's going to be subject for another thread later on

Thanks again Mehdi for this program and the place you offer where we can share our experiences, raise our concerns, ask our questions.
I have said it various times, I'll say it again: this community is for a large part reason of the success of this program !

[jfh26]

Congratulations on your progress. I am hoping to get my squat and deadlift up like yours in the time that I'm on 5x5. Thanks for sharing your success and advice.

[atypical1]

Good review! I wonder what your progress would have been like if you had been able to get all three sessions a week in on a regular basis.

Funny how convenience trumps all else isn't it? Having a home set up is certainly the right thing for you.

james

[Mehdi]

added you in sl5x5 success stories!

[sgtrock]

Hey H, I have a similar problem. For the past two months or so I've been down to 1-2 workouts a week on average, and my sleep pattern sucks. As a result I'm pushing essentially the same weight now (late October) as I was in September 4-6 weeks ago. Nice to see that you are still able to stick it out and discipline yourself to keep going, as it does get frustrating sometimes. Great job!

[holvoetn]

Hey H, I have a similar problem. For the past two months or so I've been down to 1-2 workouts a week on average, and my sleep pattern sucks. As a result I'm pushing essentially the same weight now (late October) as I was in September 4-6 weeks ago. Nice to see that you are still able to stick it out and discipline yourself to keep going, as it does get frustrating sometimes. Great job!

Actually since mid September I am simply going down the stairs into my basement.
MUCH easier

I do agree though it can get frustrating knowing you should go and you can not.

[jfh26]

Hey H, I have a similar problem. For the past two months or so I've been down to 1-2 workouts a week on average, and my sleep pattern sucks. As a result I'm pushing essentially the same weight now (late October) as I was in September 4-6 weeks ago. Nice to see that you are still able to stick it out and discipline yourself to keep going, as it does get frustrating sometimes. Great job!

You and me both.

[wobbles]

Really nice progress on the squat and (in particular) deadlift. Do you have any previous lifting experience prior to starting stronglifts? I wonder if all that jumping you did in basketball and volleyball somehow made you better suited for squatting and deadlifting.

[NotNowChief]

Nice. My squat and deadlift will be back to almost square one by the time I get my back problem sorted (touch wood) so I will be back onto good old stronglifts beginner around the start of next year I guess and I'll be happy to go back to a program I know delivers results like this.

Do you think perhaps less frequent workouts allowed you to milk the program for longer. Many people (myself included) speak of starting to feel "ground down" by relentless 3x a week for week after week once the weights get heavy and the legs get sore.

I really doubt I could stick at it 9 months 3x a week, but 1.5 times a week on average would allow a little more recovery and keep you really keen and hungry for the next workout.

[kidsoftheblackhole]

nice discription.

i might do the same when i finish stronglifts5x5, many months from now.

[pangram]

Inspirational! Thanks for writing this.

[vrchristie]

H, great post!

It looks like you stopped playing volleyball at age 31. What did you do between the ages of 31 and 40? What kind (if any) of cardio have you been doing during SL?

[nburge]

Congrats H - looks like you've really progressed. Interesting to see your squat is so high compared to me - I've really struggled with that exercise whereas we have similar deadlifts. Reading results like this proves to people that it can be done - I'll on up and join you in that high squatting cloud! Well done on posting this and for the continued informaion and support you bring to the forum.

[holvoetn]

Quick responses (still a lot to do after returning home yesterday evening ):

@wobbles:

Do you have any previous lifting experience prior to starting stronglifts? I wonder if all that jumping you did in basketball and volleyball somehow made you better suited for squatting and deadlifting.

Zero prior experience but most likely the jumping prepared me to some extent, that might be true.
One thing my earlier sporting experience definitely learned me is pushing myself, don't give up too easily.
The first 3 years I played volley I was always in a class 2 years higher since the club I joined did not have a team of my age-class. That was a very hard experience but it learned me a lot.
The first 2 years I may have played like one hour total, as of year 4 I was in the basis-team still one year too young.

@NotNowChief:

Do you think perhaps less frequent workouts allowed you to milk the program for longer

Possibly, possibly not.
I might have made bigger gains in the beginning when recovery was less of an issue, the lower frequency definitely helped at the end (but that is hindsight since it was not intentionally planned).

@vrchristie:

What did you do between the ages of 31 and 40? What kind (if any) of cardio have you been doing during SL?

Zilch, nada, nothing. And I am not proud of it either ...

Early last year I was about 89kg, my pants were becoming a problem to get them on, my endurance was lousy (couldn't play a bit of soccer for 5 minutes with my son without panting), the classical symptoms. That's when I decided to start dieting (not too crazy, simply watching the intake). BW went down to 80.5kg and in April I went for a gym.
In the beginning I did typical machine-stuff like leg press, biceps curl, triceps extension, ab-crunch, ... and a lot of cardio (45 minutes total on bicycle and cross-trainer) until I found this site and program.
Never looked back.
Actually, there were some guys who started more or less the same time as me and last time I went (almost 2 months ago), they were still turning their kilometers on the bicycle and doing machine stuff.
Needless to say which persons appearance changed the most

When starting SL I did a combination of bicycle and cross-trainer for 15 to 20 minutes as cardio, afterwards I moved to rowing for 20 minutes and even Tabata rowing
As the weights moved up, I stopped doing cardio completely.
At least once a week though I try to go for a loooong walk with the dog, 6 or 9km depending on weather and mood. I try to keep that within 1hr or 1h15 respectively each time.

[griced]

Great review of your experience with program. Thanks for posting! Really helps for others just starting on the 5x5 program like myself.

Cheers, Dave