Scheduling Question: Lifting, Karate and Rock Climbing

Hi everybody,

I have a fairly noob question about scheduling my training sessions. I started SSLP a few weeks ago and am really enjoying the lifting itself but also the benefits I’m already reaping in my daily life and my other sport activities.

I am female, 42 years old.

Regarding recovery I am not sure what a good schedule for my training sessions would be and am hoping for some advice. I have two karate training sessions a week: mondays and thursdays evenings, and I do rock climbing on wednesdays all morning before noon.

I can lift ever day first thing in the morning.

How would you suggest should I schedule those lifting sessions? Especially when rock climbing is rather taxing on my strength and recovery.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mica

I would not run SS if you are doing that much extra work. I would just start off with The Bridge. You’ll basically use your extra activities in lieu of GPP and conditioning. I would probably lift Tues Thurs Sat, preferably with 6 hour or greater difference between karate and lifting if possible (if not possible, do what you gotta do to get the work in).

Thanks for your suggestions. I usually lift at about 6 or 7 a.m. and karate is at 7 p.m. which gives me about 10 hours in between.

Just to understand this whole programming thing better I have some questions:

Why do you suggest the Bridge instead of SSLP? I thought that as long as I can inrease the weight on my sets from workout to workout I am getting stronger which is the goal of my lifting training and then after hitting the end of NLP I should switch to some kind of intermediate programming, like The Bridge.

Is it better to have both my lifting session and my karate training on the same day in order to gain more full days without sports activities? Or is it better to distribute my sessions evenly throughout the week?

For example:
Mo Lifting, Karate
Tu Rest
We Climbing
Th Lifing, Karate
Fr Rest
Sa Lifting
Su Rest
→ three full days of rest

versus
Mo Karate
Tu Lifting
We Climbing
Th Lifing, Karate
Fr Rest
Sa Lifting
Su Rest
→ two full days of rest

Many thanks.

Well it’s a bit more nuanced than that unfortunately. If you add weight to the bar did you get stronger? It depends. Is the set just as difficult as it was the day prior, or is it more difficult? If you’re adding weight, but the sets get more difficult, then you may not be getting stronger. I highly suggest you listen to the Barbell Medicine programming podcasts. There are 3 or 4 episodes about 6 months ago or so that really dig deep into this. Suffice to say the answer to that question at least is “it depends”. Things are not as cut and dry as SS make it out to be. Then again, it’s in their own financial interests to market it that way.

The next thing I will propose is a question, if you can add weight to the bar session to session in SS, why can you not do the same thing in The Bridge? For a true novice you will see weight go up linearly at first on The Bridge just like on SS, only since it is regulated by RPE you will avoid that last month or so of the LP where you get absolutely beaten to a bloody pulp. This is the main reason I am recommending that you run the bridge as well. There is no point in my life or training career that I felt as completely pummeled into the ground as I felt during my last few weeks of my LP (and I’m both a military veteran and I used to train for endurance sport, so that’s really saying something). I also was not rock climbing and doing karate on top of it. SS will take away from your other activities in the later weeks. The Bridge will not, because since you’ll be using RPE you’ll be lifting at the same relative intensity (weight will go up on the bar, but the fatigue it generates will stay static). I don’t want to see you have to sacrifice your other activities. Not only do you enjoy them, but they are great conditioning and that will help your work capacity in lifting long term. Also, seeing as how most people waste many months spinning their wheels at the end of LP deloading and trying to drag it out longer than it should be. as well as struggling to transition into the nuanced land of post novice training, we would be skipping all those many wasted months and instead have you start training now how you’ll train the rest of your career. If a person started with the LP or started with The Bridge I do not think there would be any difference at all in their strength levels a year from now. Only the person who ran the Bridge would have better tools in their tool belt that will take them further down the road in the future. In your case, I think starting with The Bridge would be the best first step. Feel free to do as it wish of course, but I have a feeling that you will regret going with SS in the very near future if you do choose that route. There is nothing magic about an LP. It’s just marketed that way so SS can generate revenue.

As for which days to lift, either would work. Whatever fits your schedule best. I mainly said T/Th/Sa because that only had you doing karate and lifting both on one day. The number of rest days doesn’t matter, outside of compliance reasons (some people do better psychologically with more or less rest days). At the end of the day you’re going to be doing the same total work each week, so you’ll be generating the same amount of total fatigue. So choose whatever works best for you. The main reason I said to try to separate karate and lifting by 6 hours if possible is there is some evidence that doing aerobic and anaerobic workouts back to back can kind of conflict and attenuate some of the adaptation. However, if at least 6 hours separate them there is no real difference. It’s only a minor difference though, so if someone has to go back to back it’s not optimal, but also not a big deal.

HTH.

Many thanks for your explanations. I really like your reasoning. I will read up on the Bridge and as soon as I gain an understanding how to use the whole RPE-programming I’ll switch to the Bridge. I’ll also check out the Programming Podcast. I like to understand the reasons for an approach.

Yeah those podcasts are super valuable. Jordan and Austin basically lay out the reasoning behind their entire programming methodology, and specifically have one episode entirely based around the novice lifter. I think after listening to that through you’ll be able to put the pieces together a bit better.

I"ll throw my hat in the ring here as I was in a similar situation a few years ago.
39, two days per week training Gōjū-ryū with 4th kyy grading imminent and running LP. Plus handling a small business for nine hours five days per week. In hindsight, LP was a bad fit made worse by the fact I figured a session where I didn’t ad weight was a session wasted, so grind them out I did. In the end, the weights stalled and the thought of pulling on my GI for two hours of punching and kicking drills wasn’t exactly inspiring. I was constantly tired and miserable but figured I’d eventually adapt. I didn’t.

In the end, nature intervened and I copped a dose of Shingles that had me bed ridden for nearly a fortnight, due I suspect to a battered immune system. On the bright side, I had plenty of time to re assess my training. Shortly there after, oh dear, I began 5/3/1…

In short, if you’re engaged in multiple stressors, some form of auto-regulation is a must. Sounds cliche, but you really do need to listen to your body.

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@Dave_E Thanks for your input. I have to admit that on the days I lift in the morning I tend to run out of gas in my evening karate sessions. I thought I’d adapt. So thanks for the warning.

As an update:
I tried out the whole RPE thing in my latest lifting session and I have to say I really like it. I needed to adjust my squat weight in order to correct a form error. So I decided to work up with sets of five to a weight where my form would hold but which would not exceed @RPE8. Although I have no idea whether I rated the weight correctly, it felt fare more ‘natural’ than working with some numbers set before I even started the day.

It even got better with adjusting my press weight. As I have been rock climbing the day before and did a fair amount of routes with overangs my upper body was fairly fatigued. During my warm-up sets I noticed I had set my target weight for my working sets way to high. It would have been alright on a normal lifting day without the upper body fatigue. But on this particular day it would have set me up for failure. So I decided to work my sets up to RPE8 and work with that weight. I was able to finish my sets maintaining my volume.

This whole approach is far more satisfactory to me than just adding a set amount of weight ever session.

Many thanks for steering me in this direction. Next week I’ll plunge into The Bridge.

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