Questions from a very tall lifter

Training Q&A [Moderated]
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38, Male, 6’8" 230 lbs, ~21% BF, 39 in waist, married w/ 3 kids, engineer.
Goal: ~240 w/ ~15% BF.
I’ve read SS & PP, and consumed tons of SS, BBM, and Baker YouTube vids, podcasts, etc.

Lifts:
Squat: 290 x 5 (I moved to HLM on squat at 280 as the 3 day heavy squatting wasn’t working)
Press: 122 x 5 x3
Bench: 165 x 5 x 3
Deadlift: 350 x 5 x 1
Rows: 165 x 8 x 4
Chins: AMRAP 7, 6, 5 (keep in mind I gained 50 lbs)

Last March I began SSLP at 180 lbs. Due to a truly screwed up 18 months, some degree of laziness, and a difficult schedule, my training was typically 2 days a week. I recently set up a home gym to remove as many excuses as possible. Rack, platform, bar, plates, bench, etc. So far I’m really able to hit the gym most any day but usually late in the evening. Cuts into sleep, but what’re gonna do, not train?

Questions:
1 - I realize my press and bench are behind. Would ‘Novice Bench and Press Plug-in’ be appropriate? I’m mostly concerned about recovery at my old-man age.
2 - I need to add some conditioning. I’m gassed between sets on legs. I just got a rower. Anything specific for that medium?
3 - My workouts are really long all 3 days. What should my rest times look like? If I can’t get the time down, I may have to opt for a split.
4 - I’m over the magical 20% BF and my waist is at 39 inches. Should I continue to drive my weight upward?
5 - Lastly, any generalized lifting advice or commentary for other freakishly tall people like me? I can pass it on the the good people on /r/tall.

BTW, I downloaded ‘The Bridge’ but feel like as a solo lifter, RPE is going to be a total crap-shoot and will just unnecessarily delay me because I won’t have the intensity dialed in correctly. I don’t see a good way to avoid guesswork. What I really need is a coach, but I can’t really afford a long term financial commitment.

Do you have any lifting info I can share with my GP or other friends that are MDs? Trust me my 50 lbs of weight gain raised a brow from my GP. I know I had his attention (at least for 7 min).

Thanks for all your content and help.

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That is one way to do it.

Also, you are 38. Get the idea that you are an “old man” out of your head, as it is patent bullshit. You get better at recovering by training more, and this has been repeatedly shown in practice and in the literature, particularly when fatigue is managed intelligently.

If you have no conditioning base whatsoever, and no medical problems, you could start with something like 20-25 minutes of low-intensity steady-state work.

In general, we tend to rest anywhere from 3-5 minutes between sets, maybe 6 on the longer end.

Not if your health is of greater concern to you than your short-term strength performance.

We don’t have any special considerations for tall people :slight_smile:

Being a “solo lifter” is irrelevant here, as it does not involve someone else telling you what your RPE is. There is indeed a learning curve, though the complexity / difficulty are frequently blown out of proportion. If you’re not going to get a coach, you don’t want to learn RPE-based auto regulation, then I suppose you’ll have to find a percentage-based program that you like.

Yeah, and it would raise my brow too if your waist is almost over 40 inches.

We wrote an article on strength training for the physician resource called UpToDate. It’s subscription-only, but if your doctor friends have access they’ll be able to check it out:
Strength training for health in adults: Terminology … - UpToDatehttps://www.uptodate.com/…/strength-training-for-health-in-adults-terminology-princi…

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Might I say that, as a 62 year old who trains at a reasonably high volume despite being quite un-athletic, I find the idea that a 38 year old has recovery issues due to age to be totally ridiculous. Slowly increase volume and do some conditioning work.

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It’s certainly possible to have recovery issues at any age due to various factors (lifestyle issues, medical problems, etc.), but the idea that he might have recovery issues simply because he’s 38 is the problem here.

Unfortunately that’s what he’s been told, and thus where his expectations have been set. Hopefully we can fix that.

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Thanks for taking time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it.

1 - Sorry, the ‘old-man’ was a bit tongue in cheek, but I was somewhat concerned about the recovery. I’ll give the ‘Novice Bench and Press Plug-in’ a couple weeks and see how things feel. Nothing to lose.

2 - One day of conditioning or more? When would I know to increase or add the HIIT?

3 - Ok.

4 - Does this mean I should be in a caloric deficit to lose weight or (what I would prefer) should I eat at maintenance weight and use the added conditioning and volume to ‘shift’ the weight? As a lifelong skinny guy, the idea of not eating isn’t all that scary. I did it for decades, but with a goal weight above my current, it seems that keeping protein high and calories level + added training would lead me in the proper direction. If this is a question I should post elsewhere, let me know.

5 - A ‘tall’ related question occurred to me. Take 2 individuals at the extreme of the population: Me at 6’8 and another dude (equally as short as I am tall) at 4’11. What it takes him to get to a 40" waist is a completely different story than for me. Does this mean the literature points to higher incidence of health risk for taller people, due to naturally larger frames?

6 - I’ll continue with a % based plan, but also estimate the RPE in my journal for a while. Gives me practice.

7 - I’ve heard you guys mention UpToDate before. I wasn’t sure if it was released in any form, as I don’t have a sub. I’ll pass it along to whomever will listen!

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-You should start with one day of conditioning and then you’ll need to see how you progress with your training, recovery, and body comp. If additional interventions are needed to bring your waist down, you’d add a 2nd day of steady state.

-with your waist, you want to see it decreasing and adding training volume and conditioning MIGHT be enough to do that for you, but we’re not sure since we don’t know a lot about your actual intake or history. So you can start by keeping your intake here and see if the program/activity changes are enough. We have an article on the website called To Be a Beast and that might be helpful for you.

-the waist measurement is a quick, reasonable measure of your health risk, as this is where you’d find the visceral fat. So it doesn’t matter from that perspective how tall you are. :slight_smile: