Sanity check

Just wanted to outline my future plans, first to get them out of my head, and second to get your feedback. Also have a couple questions along the way.

I’ll try not to be too windy, so without further ado:

Finishing up knee rehab template here in a few weeks with what I perceive as great success. Symptoms are way down and my weekly activity level is way up. I think the biggest win for me here is building work capacity while staying healthy and relatively pain-free. Big thanks to the rehab team!

Moving forward, my primary short term goals are to maintain weekly activity and reduce waist down to 37” (currently hovering around 39-40”). I plan on moving to the Beginner template next which brings me to a couple questions:

1 ) Since I’m already doing 2-3 days of cardio (treadmill or outdoor walking, BJJ practice and sparring, hockey season starts shortly) and 1-2 days of GPP (bis, tris, upper back and core) would you recommend maintaining this level rather than ramping up as indicated in the beginner template? I think the answer here is to maintain current level.

2 ) Would you still recommend doing the intro / ramp / pivot weeks moving into each phase? I think the answer here is to do the ramp weeks to dissipate any accumulated fatigue.

Long term my goals are to maintain a healthy activity level (cardio and resistance training) and body composition. I’ve chased numbers on the bar unsuccessfully for too long so I’m not doing that anymore (just add five pounds, right?). I’ll take what comes when it comes. I plan on doing this for the next 20-30+ years (I’ll be 46 in Oct). If I can maintain current strength levels I should be able to be competitive in a powerlifting meet when I’m 80 through sheer attrition

Wilgelec,

Happy to hear you’re feeling better. As far as your questions go, I am not sure you’re meeting the physical activity guidelines for conditioning with the 2 to 3 days of cardio. I would aim for 2.5 to 3 hours per week total of conditioning. I would do this over any lifting-related GPP if I had to pick one due to time constraints. I would also recommend doing the intro weeks for each phase, yes. It’s not so much to dissipate fatigue in isolation, but rather to improve your tolerance for the amount of training stress you’re going to be dosed with.

-Jordan

Thanks I’ll make sure I’m getting the 2.5 to 3 hours a week of cardio in.

Also my original post seems to have been truncated, so I’ll append that here if that’s ok:

Template wise over the mid-term, after completing beginner, I would like to do some block type periodization with Hypertrophy I followed by Powerbuilding I followed by Strength I, repeat as long as I am enjoying it and making decent progress. Does this sound reasonable?

Yep, that sounds great to me.

How does this look for a schedule:

Mon - 30 min walk
Tues - GPP
Wed - 30 min walk
Thurs - lift
Fri - 3-4 hrs bjj
Sat - 2-3 hrs bjj (morning), gpp (afternoon)
Sun - lift (morning), 30 min walk or 1 hr ice hockey (in season)(afternoon)