I’m looking for guidance on how to most effectively modify programs to fit my situation. I’m 67 years old, started lifting 2 years ago as an alternate to cardio due to loss of strength and diminishing cardiovascular endurance. I had what I considered good success with my SSLP. When I went to The Bridge with its higher volume, workouts became very long (3 hours). I’m really slow, pause between reps and have to rest 6-7 minutes between sets. To keep peace at home I went to 1 lift per day plus pushups/pullups/chins (takes 1 - 1.5 hours), 7 days a week. Otherwise did The Bridge lifts as prescribed. It worked ok, in my opinion. Squat, Press and DL went up 10-15%. Bench was stuck (probably my lousy technique). Not great, admittedly, and, it took 5 months instead of 8 weeks (there were three ≈ 10 day travel breaks in that time). However, I do feel stronger, more healthy, and sleep better. And I am in geezer territory.
Now I’m looking at Hypertrophy 1. Assuming the volume will be more than The Bridge, I’m wondering if there’s a more effective way to reorganize a program to cut daily workout time compared to what I did with The Bridge. Also, am I trashing the whole stress/recovery concepts behind the programs with my crude modifications?
In this case, I think the biggest issue is figuring out why the workouts take so long. If it’s the rest periods, which I have a high suspicion of, I would set a timer and reduce your rest periods to 3-5 minutes. I would do this even if it makes you take weight off the bar in the short term, as I don’t think the long rest periods really do any good outside of maybe some short term performance, but not training, benefit.
Additionally, I’m not sure that I’d be adding push-ups, pull-ups, or chin-ups to the program outside of their designated slots, e.g. GPP in both cases.
That all being said, I have no problem with you doing one lift per day as you currently are. Alternatively, you could take the 9 exercises (3 exercises split up into 3 days) from any of our 3 day programs and do 2 of them on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday each. I’d get rid of the 9th movement, e.g. the 3rd exercise on day 3 in this scenario in favor of getting all the GPP in.
Doc, really appreciate the incredibly quick response. I’m wondering if you’ve programmed an AI bot with all your training/medical knowledge to answer the volume of posts (hmmm…not a bad idea if it could be done…).
Seriously, these are great suggestions and I’ll implement them immediately. I think I needed the long rests initially in the Bridge, but now that I’ve finished the program I think it’s more habit than need. And I’m sure I can consolidate the GPP. So I’ll do that and go with your alternate schedule, and let you know how it goes after a few weeks.
I would like to ask a question here about rest times and adapting to them, if I may.
I’m finding that for the lower body movements (squat, DL, assistance), I have adapted well to the 3-5 minute rest limit, but for the upper body movements the weight on the bar is likely substantially affected by not taking a fuller rest. For example if I’m supposed to work up to 7/8/9 I’ll usually repeat the @8 weight and get @9, and if I’m supposed to drop 5% from the @9, that may get me another @9, and if I drop another 5% (to avoid the risk of 10+), I may hit @9 or @10.
In other words it feels like metabolic fatigue, if that’s the term, is at work here more than muscle fatigue. Is your expectation that eventually I’ll get better at the interset recovery, or that it just doesn’t matter from a hypertrophy and strength point of view?
