Fluffy novice seeks help

Back on LP training after moving countries and a 3-month break from lifting. Working my way back to the 290 lbs squat, 165 bench and 125 lbs press 3x5 I reached in the summer and planning to start monitoring calories and protein intake again in the near future.

My goal for now should be losing weight since my waist is 42 inches and I weight 233 lbs being 6 feet tall and not that muscular. Mehdis 5x5 LP has lured me into the world of lifting and am continuing with it since my gyms don’t allow dropping the bar doing cleans.

Hence the questions. How much of a deficit should I aim for? Do I continue doing 5x5 (slowly cutting it to 3x5 as the reps are getting tougher) with rows instead of cleans? If I switch, than what to? Since it’s Black Friday sale what templates I should think about grabbing if my goals are finishing LP, getting to low-teens fat and continuing training for general health and moderate hypertrophy?

Yury,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the forum.

A few things I’d like to point out here:

  1. With your waist and present body composition you know you want to lose fat. Why not start monitoring calories and protein right now? That would be my recommendation.

  2. I am unclear what program you’re on, mehdi’s 5x5 LP or novice LP from another company. I wouldn’t recommend either explicitly however, as neither have any autoregulation and are very specific (for no reason). I would recommend the bridge and start with 2 days of GPP per week.

  3. I would not program cleans or power cleans for you, period.

  4. I think the GPP hypertrophy, HLM, and bridge 3.0 would be right up your alley, though I’m not sure low teens BF is something that’s sustainable for you (or me).

2 Likes

Thank you Jodan. Been following you and the Barrbell medicine team for quite some time until I decided to hop on.

  1. You’re right. I will. Based on To be a Beast, I suppose I should shoot for 250+ grams of protein, however 3000+ kCal seems a tad too much to me.
  2. I’m on Mehdi’s 5x5 LP. 3 days a week. If I understand you correctly you recommend a straight shift to the Bridge (with 2 days of GPP for conditioning) instead of switching to another LP program including the SS LP?
  3. Good. :slight_smile:
  4. Right.