Hot answers tagged stronglifts
9
Between this post and the prior one asking for 5x5 squat help, I strongly recommend seeing a qualified personal trainer and also your Dr. for a physical prior to any more exercising. Based on your posts, you're overweight, out of shape and do not have a background in weightlifting, this is a combination that could get you SERIOUSLY injured. Stop, get a ...
6
I will say that I have had more stress on my knees from martial arts training than I ever had from heavy squats. The book Starting Strength has some good information on why this is. The important and critical factor is getting the hips below the knees before changing directions.
The depth causes certain things to happen that protect the knees:
Posterior ...
6
It's not a problem:
In fact rowing is a good warmup exercise before you lift.
You can do your rowing after you lift on the same day
Do lighter rowing on your days off
Conditioning work is different than lifting work, and as long as the rowing is low intensity it will not interfere with your lifting. If you want some high intensity rowing sessions, it's ...
6
The exercise famous for being hard on the knees is the leg press - not squat. If the squat is done with the correct depth (hip lower than the knee) so that the change of direction is NOT done while the knees are at right angles, it shouldn't hurt the knees. If you get some soft knee wraps you might be able to convince her to squat with those.
If not - I ...
6
Officially, all accessory workouts have been removed from the StrongLifts program because people were getting too strung up over them. Accessory workouts are supplemental--they should only serve to assist with your individual goals. However, people were falling into the "more is better" trap and adding all of the accessory workouts into their routine (to ...
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Step 1:
Detail your goals, and prioritize them. You will find that building a good base of strength will help take you a long ways toward your goals.
Step 2:
Figure out how you should be eating to address your immediate goals. While you are a beginner, you can cut body fat and gain strength at the same time. However, you may start hitting plateaus ...
6
Don't Drop Your Deadlift!
Don't listen to StrongLifts' recommendation of dropping your deadlift weight by more than 50%. It's a 5x5 program with deadlifts at 1x5, so you should be dropping the weight a little bit, perhaps 20 or 25%, but definitely not from 425 to 190. You would lose strength or at least leave strength gains on the table.
With your numbers, ...
5
In case you have not seen them, there are three sites on the StrongLifts page itself dedicated to increasing mobility.
Shoulder dislocations
Shoulder pec stretches
Thoracic Extension on roller
Of those I have only been doing the shoulder dislocations. Contrary to what the author of stronglifts says I would not recommend using a flexible band. This only ...
5
Strength alone?
It's okay to want to do more than just strength training. The thing to realize, however, is that the initial period where you start lifting heavy can be very productive if you focus on it, and much less productive if you try to chase two rabbits at the same time.
StrongLifts, like Starting Strength and other 3x5 or 5x5 programs, is based ...
4
We will lose this argument
Let's assume you're not going to convince her that squats are good for her knees. They are, but you can only lead a horse to water. What, then, should you have her do instead?
First, get the idea of StrongLifts out of your head. If you're not squatting, you're not doing StrongLifts. It's essential to programs like this to squat ...
4
It sounds like you want whole-body exercises to lose fat mass, and you want upper-body exercises to improve aesthetics by improving the ratio of upper to lower body size.
One option in this scenario is to use a program that is more specific to your upper body, such as GreySkull LP (Linear Progression). It is still a novice's linear strength progression, ...
4
I do barbell rows overhand, like exrx recommends and like Arnold does and like this StrongLifts-doing guy does. I think underhand would turn them into curls when they're challenging.
StrongLifts specifically recommends against the underhand grip.
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Typically, no. What I've been doing is getting through the warmups as quickly as I can without rushing. When I'm done with the warmup work, I allow myself a proper amount of rest before the first work set.
How much rest you need really depends on you. If you have a head cold, or are running on too little sleep, you may need an extra few seconds after ...
4
I'll assume you are a novice lifter (since you're doing stronglifts), with a goal of strength.
You don't need additional tricep work. Triceps are worked every workout with either bench press or overhead press.
If you have the capacity for extra arm work at the end of a workout that included benching or pressing 5x5, you must be just beginning stronglifts. ...
3
First let's start off with the answer for this specific scenario:
Being only 1 month into the program, it is unlikely that you are at a significant enough weight that would warrant a deload. Additionally, with only 1 week of missed workouts, it is unlikely you have had a significant enough deterioration in strength to warrant a deload. Given this, unless ...
3
If it's your third workout, it doesn't matter. The weights shouldn't be heavy enough to make a difference if you started with the bar (or 95 pounds on the deadlift). These sessions are just for gradually ramping up the weight while working on technique.
Just get back on schedule as if the missed workout never happened. I prefer to lift again ASAP, but ...
3
If she is "terrified" that she will tear up her knees with the squat, she very likely will. She probably has (or had) a significant knee problem. Even if she doesn't have knee problems, trying to do an exercise while in a state of fear can affect one's tension, attention and form.
If she has knee problems:
My suggestion would be to strengthen the glutes ...
3
Is there another exercise, or group of exercises, that can replace a
squat?
The squat is the only strength training exercise that involves a pattern known as "hip drive." The hip drive is essentially recruitment of the muscles in the posterior chain--hamstrings, glutes, adductors. You could individually target each muscle, however that would be ...
3
I actually lost 5% body fat right after surgery by doing the 5x5 SL. I had cut a serious amount calories and maintained my diet with loads of protein and low fat. I would do my 5x5 in 30-40 minutes and do 20 in cardio, and on rest days I did 20 minutes of cardio. I ate around 2000 calories a day, which is about a 1000 less than I need to maintain my weight ...
3
If I find myself wanting more time between warm-up sets than it takes to change the plates, I know something is wrong. Most likely I'm not recovered enough, indicating my program or eating or sleeping or stress is messed up. It's not a big problem, but it's something to note. I should be getting warm and mentally ready for my work sets, not getting tired.
...
2
You could always do the program: The New Roles of LiFting For Women instead.
I started this but now am doing Stronglifts instead because i missed doing squats and was keen to do bench presses since i have all the gear at home, and there wasn't alot of that in the new rules program. Also New Rules can take a really long time to do, stronglifts looked quicker ...
2
I just do one set of 5 at between 1/3 to 1/2 my work set for warmup*. I used to do 3 warmup sets of gradually escalating weight, but I haven't found that's any better than just doing one. If you want to play it safe, do a couple more sets, and when you feel comfortable with it you can start scaling back.
*I also take a hot Epsom-salt bath before heading to ...
2
Sounds like you are the classic endomorph body type.
The answer seems pretty simple to me. I would just lose your fat down to about 15% (within healthy range) and then re-evaluate your weight training program. Its a bit hard for a beginner to work out what is muscle and fat sometimes at > 20% body fat - especially in legs. You may find that when you lose ...
2
You might be able to just adjust your form and keep your current weight, but in order to be sure that you don't accidentally jump much closer to your 1RM, I'd drop to 95 pounds and restart the progression on bent-over rows.
Taking twenty pounds off should be plenty to make sure you can do the exercise with corrected form. It's also not a huge drop in weight ...
2
Do understand that the 1g per pound total body weight is a rough guideline. It will give you more than your body's daily protein requirements. The excess is burned as energy. As a rough guideline:
a serving size of meat (beef, pork, chicken, fish) about the size of your closed fist contains roughly 20g of protein
a serving size of meet about the size of ...
1
I know how you feel. I just switched to Texas Method about 3 weeks ago. It's the original Madcow.
The theory behind these intermediate programs is that you've programmed the load on the bar such that this workout sufficiently disrupts homeostasis. Meaning that, if you've chosen the correct weight, you don't need to do more volume to trigger an adaptation.
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