Continue what I’m doing or something else?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

I began SS after losing about 20lbs of bodyfat (of about 40lbs to lose) and realizing I now just had a smaller version of the same flabby body.

In my effort to learn how to lift properly I found starting strength. Here’s my progress so far (x5 reps):
SQ: 110-175
BP: 115-145
OHP: 60-95
DL: 155-210

Last night I stalled out on my 175lb squats (reps 5,4,2). I’m clear on why this is…I’m not eating enough. (About 1900 calories and 170g of protein…I’m tracking this daily).

However my main goal is fat loss, (I’ve lost about 3lbs so far while on LP and more importantly I’ve noticed quite a bit of recomping in my body). I understand that SS is a strength program and I’m looking to lose weight, so where do I go from here?

I see no point in adding more fat for the sake of strength when my main goal is still to drop another 17-20lbs of bodyfat. Should I switch over to a different routine (possible BBM one?), keep running LP as all my other lifts are still progressing and reset on my squats with the realization that my nutrition will limit my strength progress? Any advice would be appreciated.

2

We’d recommend starting our Beginner Template ( https://www.barbellmedicine.com/shop…nner-template/) or the free Beginner Prescription (https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog…-prescription/ ) and see how you do.

We do not recommend LP in general, as it has a number of shortcomings:

  1. Low exercise variation, which tends to increase injury risk and reduces motor learning speed
  2. Low rep range variation, which tends to reduce fitness adaptations selected for by higher and lower rep ranges
  3. Lack of autoregulation, which reduces self efficacy and tends to increases injury risk
  4. Lack of conditioning component with general advice to not do conditioning by the community, which reduces cardiorespiratory fitness- a metric that has a dose-dependent relationship with health outcomes
  5. No evidence suggesting superiority for outcomes like strength, hypertrophy, or adherence

If someone wants to get started on LP, that’s cool…we just wouldn’t recommend it over another program.

I do not think your nutrition is the limiting factor in any way, shape, or form.

3

Thank you. I’ll purchase the beginner template.

It looks like it’s 3 phases. Would you recommend beginning at the very beginning or would you recommend starting a little further in (maybe week 3 or phase2 or something?), since I’ve been on LP for nearly 5 weeks already

4

I’d probably start at the beginning, as 5 weeks just really isn’t that long :slight_smile:

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