I started lifting at the age of 56 about 2 and 1/2 years ago using the starting strength method which is how I came about you and dr. Baraki and your program through your postings on their forum. I’ll make a long story short and just say that I mis- followed rips advice and fat fucked myself from around 160 to 230 at 6’, in a little over a year. I made decent progress for my age I think with a 285 squat for 3x5, a 325 deadlift for a set of 5, 215 bench 3x5 and 150 press 3x5. I liked everything about how I looked at 230 lb except for my fat gut, which was almost 41".
I kept getting injured so I switched over to the bridge and have been fine injury-wise more or less ever since using your programs and I have dieted down until my stomach is finally at 36 inches @ 211lbs. I would like to gain some weight back obviously more slowly this time but given my age do you think this is a waste of time and I should just maintain what I have or do you think I could still gain some weight back slowly without my gut getting out of control again with proper nutrition? Thank you and I’ll hang up and listen to your answer over the air
I feel like we need to get people to start making up funny aliases for these “call-ins”! Haha.
Nice job on your progress so far. I’m very impressed.
As far as what to do now, I think I would keep dieting until your waist is 35" or less and then maintain there for ~1 month or so prior to adding some calories back. I would shoot for 0.5-1kg per month weight gain and use the scale and tape to guide what you do calorie wise.
-Jordan
Thanks for the response and the encouragement. I figured you were going to say to keep reducing the gut a bit more but luckily reducing is easy for me being a life long skinny guy. Just as a wrap up and point of information I did two runs of the Bridge with the peaking template after each run with a tested 1RM after the second run @ 315 S @ probably a 9 RPE, 225 B @ also a 9 RPE and 360 DL @ 9ish. Then I did the 3 day hyp which I just finished yesterday. I probably lost some 1rm strength as I had to work around some injury tweaks, but gained a lot of work capacity and I am going to start the Bridge 3.0 on Monday. I think I gained some upper body size although I did no measuring before I started the Hyp. template, and I actually have TWO abs instead of one big one. Thanks for the advice.
Very cool, man. Crush it!
I resurrected this thread because it has my scoop on it so I don’t have to rewrite it. I have done Bridge 1.0 twice, the legacy Hyp. program and now I am half way through Bridge 3.0. Any advice on what next? I was thinking of staying with the strength development for a cycle through Strength II or would another Hypertrophy run like the new HYP I or II be a better call? Thanks for the free advice!
I don’t know maybe this post got lost in the shuffle thought I would try again with the same question from above. I just finished week 6 of bridge 3.0. I was thinking of keeping with the strikes development for another run either Bridge 3.0 again or strength II ? Or should I go to a hypertrophy template?
Damn auto-text I meant strength not strike development