Silentpadna Not So Silent

Migrating over from SS, which I am very happy to have been a part of.

Current Stats: Male/55/5’11"/205

5 Rep Maxes (as of original post - Currents are at the bottom of this post):
Squat - 275
Dead Lift - 345
Bench - 210
Overhead Press: 140

A little history

In February of 2017, just before my 54th birthday, I was a 240 pound tub of goo, well on my way toward an early death. So I started by doing some cardio. A couple of weeks after that I started using MFP to log meals and for the first time in my life I understood how weight loss works. A few months in, after about 40 pounds down, and being the research geek I was, I decided to lift. I had never done a defined training program in my life. I had done a few aimless circuits on machines and stuff, but never had a program. So I started with Strong Lifts, and a couple of months later switched to Starting Strength. After exhausting my linear progression, I spend most of last year dabbling with 531 and some other stuff. Went through a hip injury in late summer and a sore knee late 2018 along with travel.

Now back at it. I restarted a linear progression to bring my numbers back up. They are where there were before injury for squat and dead lift and slightly ahead for both presses. I’m not a beast like a lot of folks here, but at my age and given my weak past, I am very proud to be where I am. Based on the Navy method and photo comparisons, I am at about 20% body fat. My goal at the moment is to bring that down to about 14-15%. From there I plan on improving strength, keep a decent physique and hold on to that strength as long as God lets me.

What Now?

With Jordan’s advice, I’m stopping my recent LP and working on cutting fat. So for now I’m doing the 7-Week GPP Endurance, with a slightly modified schedule due to gym availability (where I work) and my overall work schedule. I’m able to lift 5 times every 2 weeks instead of 6. So on those weeks where I only have 2 lift days, I’m combining the mains from day 3 and day 5 (dead lift and bench) and ditching the supplementals, while on the regular 3 lifting day weeks, they’ll be separate with supplementals included. Probably helps at my age to have an extra recovery day to compensate for the added volume. After this I’ll do either strength or hypertrophy blocks.

First Day was Monday, 1/21

Squat (belt) - 235x5 @ 7; 245x5 @ 8 x 2
Overhead Press - 125x5 @ 7; 135x5 @ 8 x 2
Chin Ups - 16 in 8 minutes (I’m still weak with these, but hey, 18 months ago I could not even do 1 - there was a time last fall when I was able to 4 sets of 7. I should get back to that in a couple months when I lose the 10-15 pounds that I gained back over the past year - partially on purpose).

The RPE will take some getting used to…

==================

Adding a section for tracking PRs:

Movement / Actual PR / Date / e1RM

Squat / 325 / 5/6/2019 and 2/14/2022 / 352

Overhead Press / 175 / 5/15/2019 and 2/14/2022/ 183

Bench / 270 / 2/11/2022 / 283

Deadlift / 405 / 5/17/2019 and 2/2/2022 / 424

Most of my PRs occurred just before a bad auto accident in June of 2019. After several months of non-activity, I started to work my way back up and then covid hit. Without viable options to train, I was inactive again for about 16 months, As of this update, I’ve been training for just over 7 months with my PRs back where they were (give or take). I’m within 10 pounds on Squat and 5 pounds on overhead press.

Tuesday 1/22/19

Not quite the schedule I had planned for the week.

C2 Rower 500m test 1:39

Followed that with 25 minutes steady state, ended with about 5500 meters total.

Thursday 1/24/19

Dead Lift: 315x5 @ 7; 325x5 @ 8 x 2
Bench: 195x5 @ 8; 205x5 @ 9 (should have stopped here after reading the template closer), added a backoff at 185x5 @6.5
Rows: 135 x 42 in 8 minutes.

Doing dead lift before bench added a fair amount of fatigue. I’m also in a deficit with less than 5 hours sleep. Less than optimal, but I always still train if I’m able.

Monday 1/28/19
GPP Endurance W2/D1

Squat (belt) - 285x1 @ 8; 245x5 @ 8 x 3
Overhead Press - 155x1 @ 8; 135x5 @ 8 x 3 (last rep of the last set was a grind - probably closer to RPE 9 or 9.5)
Chin Ups - 23 in 8 minutes

Tuesday 1/29/19
GPP Endurance W2/D2

C2 Rower 5 minutes warm-up, Sprints 30 sec sprints every 2 minutes for 20 minutes (i.e. 10 intervals), 5 minutes cool-down
Average sprint pace 1:35.2/500m

Stagger back to the locker room…like I do every time I do HIIT.

BTW, people over on MFP and other forums will say they do HIIT 6x per week…I don’t believe them. (Of course some are the same ones who say they 'eat 1000 calories per day, work out 15 hours per week - weights and HIIT everyday without eating exercise calories and still gain weight). Every HIIT day I do crushes me - at least for the next few hours. I don’t think most people are capable of doing real HIIT more than a couple of times per week - or they just don’t really do HIIT.

Hi Si,

Nice to see that your log is up and running. I enjoyed reading your summary–quite an amazing two-year transformation!

Thanks codger. I have to tell you that even though I don’t see results day to day in the mirror, folks that haven’t seen me for a time really notice the difference. 18 months ago, it was loss of fat, nowadays it’s the “you must be working out hard” kind of comment. Like I said, I’m don’t have huge muscles, but they are certainly growing and my ‘shape’ has changed dramatically. Now if I’m successful at cutting out the few extra pounds of fat I’ve added over the past year, my 195 this time will look better than it did when I first lost the weight. (This stuff works). It’s especially gratifying to be able to share that you can do this even if you start out late - like I did.

Wednesday 1/30/19
GPP Endurance W2/D3

Dead Lift: 375x1 @ 8.5; 335x5 @ 8; 335x5 @9; 305x5 @8 (needed to back off on that last set)
2 Ct Paused Bench Press - 135x5 @ 7 x 3 (I left these a little bit light because I’d never done them before, wanted to get used to the movement and there was some fatigue in set that I wasn’t sure about. I’ll increase these next week).
Pendlay Rows - 145x5x8 (40) in 8 minutes

The 375 single is a PR for weight on the dead lift. 8.5 seemed about right.

Dead Lift volume is taxing. Big increase from SS - though I had some decent volume in 531, it was not as intense for as long.

Congrats on the PR. The deadlift volume is high on the template I’m following too (12-week strength). Actually, the volume on all the lifts is pretty high! But I think it has really been helping me.

Thursday 1/31/19
GPP Endurance W2/D4

35 minutes C2 Rower LISS Cardio. About 7100 meters.

Friday 2/1/19
GPP Endurance W2/D5

Bench - 225x1 @ 8; 195x5 @ 8 x 3 (Might have had a little more room on the single, but I’d never pushed that before - 195 was probably at 8.5 to 9 late in the last set).
Squat (no belt) - 185x8 @ 7 x 4 (probably should have gone higher, but I haven’t done belt-less for anything near that weight before - playing is safe for the first time)
Pull Ups - 20 in 8 minutes

Saturday 2/2/19
GPP Endurance W2/D6

4 min run, 2 min rest x 3

Haven’t run a bunch lately. Feeling it, but I’d like to get back into some decent runs again.

Monday 2/4/19
GPP Endurance W3/D1

Squat (belt) - 295x1 @ 8; 245x5 @ 8 x 3
Overhead Press - 160x1 fail; 145x1 @ 8; 125x5 @ 8 x 3 (felt good, thought 160 would be fine, but failed hard - 12 )
Chin Ups - 25 in 8 minutes

Nice pressing, Si.

Tuesday 2/5/19
GPP Endurance W3/D2

C2 Rower: 5 minutes warm-up, Sprints 30 sec sprints every 2 minutes for 20 minutes (i.e. 10 intervals), 5 minutes cool-down
Average sprint pace 1:34.8/500m

Wednesday 2/6/19
GPP Endurance W3/D3

Dead Lift: 380x1 @ 8.5; 325x5 @ 8; 325x5 @9; 325x5 @9 (again…dead lift volume is something I need to get used to again)
Squat (no belt): 185 @ 8 x 3
Pendlay Rows - 145x5x8 (40) in 8 minutes

Because this week is “odd”, meaning no gym access on Friday, I’ve switched up the main lifts like a “bro split”. On an even (normal) week supplemental bench goes with dead lift. On the odd week, since I’ll lift on back to back days, I switch the supplementals in order to not focus on the same group on consecutive days.

Thursday 2/7/19
GPP Endurance W3/D4 and D5

Bench Press: 230 x 1 Fail; 215 x 1 @ 9; 175 x 5 @ 8 x 3; Tough day. Did not have it at all.
2 Ct Bench Press: 135 x 8 @ 8 x 3
Pull Ups: 20 in 8 minutes

LISS cardio: C2 Rower 35 minutes, ~6600 meters.

All of this was hard. Lots of fatigue. Gonna watch the trends to see if either sleep or fatigue is an issue. Also could be that the “bro split” may not be the best way. 1 instance though does not a trend make.

Monday 2/11/19
GPP Endurance W4/D1

Missed W3/D6 running this weekend.

Squat (belt) - 300x1 @ 8; 265x4 @ 8 x 4 (Although my e1RM has been a touch over 300 for some time, this is the first actual time in my 55 years of life I’ve ever put that much weight on my back…and it went up nicely.)
Overhead Press - 155x1 @ 8; 130x4 @ 8 x 4
Chin Ups - 27 in 7 minutes

Wednesday 2/13/19
GPP Endurance W4/D3

Dead Lift: 400x1 @ 9; 325x4 @ 8 x 4
2 Ct Paused Bench Press - 135x6 @ 6 x 1, 145x6 @ 7 x 1, 155x6 @ 8 x 3
Pendlay Rows - 145x5x8 (40) in 7 minutes

The 400 single is a PR for weight on the dead lift. 9 seemed about right, but RPE is tougher for me to gauge on this lift. I’m not sure if I had more left or not…maybe 1, but possibly not. I had planned on putting 390 on the bar, but I let my ego take over and I thought “I’ve never pulled 400 before and it’s right there”…so I tried it.

As I mentioned before dead lift volume is taxing. I get gassed pretty quick in the later sets. That’s why I picked 325, when my brain told me I should be able to do 335 for the reps. 325 was the right choice.

Thursday 2/14/19
GPP Endurance W4/D4

C2 Rower: 5 minutes warm-up, Sprints 25 sec sprints every 2 minutes for 20 minutes (i.e. 10 intervals), 5 minutes cool-down
Average sprint pace 1:33.0/500m

Switching these to Day 4 instead of Day 2 because of intermittent access on Tuesdays. I consider the HIIT GPP to be the most important, so if I miss any of them it won’t be this one.