Waistline and the Bridge

Hello, Jordan

I had a question regarding my nutrition that I hoped you could comment on. I am a 27 yr old 5’9"/200 lb late-ish novice lifter with a 43 inch waistline and moderate training sensitivity. My goals are (1) to get my waist below 38 inches immediately and (2) make long-term progress on the 4 main lifts.

The instructions for the Bridge advise against “rapid weight loss.” My question is: what constitutes “rapid weight loss” for a person in my situation? For example, is 1.5-2 lbs a week too ambitious? I would like to lose 5 inches on my waist over 4 months while running the Bridge twice, but I suspect that this will require the sort of caloric deficit incompatible with making progress on the program. Any input is appreciated.

Current Numbers:

Squat: 235x3x5 (Earlier this year I hit 265x3x5, but they were touch-and-go box squats at 9.5 RPE with 8 minute rest periods.)

Press: 125x3x5

Bench: 170x1 + 5x5@15%, as per the plug-in recommendations

Deadlift: 235x5 (A few lower back tweaks combined with insufficient training frequency has caused my deadlift to drop by 50lbs and lag behind everything else recently: AKA leaving the gym without pulling or going super light because “my back hurts too much.”)

Thanks,
John

FUF,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the forum. A quick question, how do you know you have moderate training sensitivity? Just curious.

I don’t think there’s a strict definition for “rapid weight loss”, but it’d be something where a person is eating <1000 calories a day and hemorrhaging weight as a result.

I would recommend aiming to lose 1" per month, but you’ll probably need to do the Bridge and then another program rather than repeating it 2-3x.

Hey Jordan,

Thank you for your response and helpful clarification. I don’t intent to below 1700 calories, so it sounds like I just need to train and not worry too much.

Regarding your question: I don’t know my level of training sensitivity with total certainty, since I’ve never truly failed on LP. I’m only basing the statement on the fact that my 265 lb touch-and-go box squats a few months ago were 9.5 RPE “grinders.” However, a few other factors should be mentioned as well.

  1. I have only been able to run LP 2x per week thus far.

  2. Before my last layoff I had switched to TnG box squats starting at 240. I did this because the mental anxiety of failing in the hole was sapping my focus.

  3. I am inexperienced at judging RPE.

  4. I began my LP at 165 lbs, but my true baseline may have been around 150 since I had played around with squats in the past without really training. It’s hard to say.

Blessings,
John