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…
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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.