The recommended numbers seemed so low.  I about doubled what the app suggested. I  Completed the workout with no problem, but am wondering if i dun fucked up.  Are these #'s too high for me to follow the program?  .

I started @
Workout A;
Squat 95 5x5
Bench 115 5x5
Bar Row 85 5x5

The suggested starting numbers for wk1 thru the app were like 50-70ish lol.

No.
As long as your form is good, why waste time doing lifts which require no effort. Flame on

I prefer the SS method of determining starting weights. If you’ve got good form, you will be fine.

How old are you?  How detrained are you?

I started with just the bar at a skinny fat 38 or 39 years old.

If you are middle aged and way out of "shape" I would start really light.

Mid 30s  5'10 175...

i havent been in the gym much at all in the last couple years, but with the haybales and #farmstrong, im not that weak for a manlet. Probably.

At one point my bench max was 300+, its probably like 187 now lol.  The 5x5 bench  @ 115 was easy. The squats at 95 were very easy, i was doing some sets like full slav squats, stopping at the bottom and chillin for a bit with some wodka and tracksuit and then pushing back up. Thats probably not a good idea, i need to watch more videos on squats lol.

I dont see myself doing  5x5 squatting and benching sets at 300 pounds  in 12 wks, tho??   Or maybe its saying those would be my max #'s?  Either way lol

It feels kinda goofy just lifting the bar, but you'll be grunting out heavy weight PDQ

If you had a 300+ bench, then there is no reason to piddle around with empty bars like a newb

Gonna take probably a year and a half to bet back into the 300 club I'm guessing.

Yeah its been 10+ years lol.

If i go up the 5 pounds, every time, its wanting to have me benching like twice my body weight 25 times by the end of the 12 weeks....  should i go up 2 pounds for the first few weeks, to slow the roll? I dont wanna plateau halfway thru from starting at like twice the weight it recommendes.  I wasnt gonna go bench the bar with a couple 5's on it, thats just not happening. Lol.

The program says it's all about consistent addition to train your muscles to grow...  steady progression.

ETA - Not sure what to do haha. Like you said it will take a while to get back to 300 club no matter what. But the ststem track has me on pace for that very quickly....

....but i was able to do all tje reps on all the sets at those starting weights without issue.  Ive never done a program like this.  I just used to be in shape and id go do 3 sets of 10 at whatever was appropriate.  Im planning on only doijg the stronglifts exercises during the 12wk period.  Plus manual job work and stuff.

Get the app. Start with an empty bar and run it up. If you don’t, you aren’t running the program. It’s easy. Give it a little while, and it won’t be.

I didn't use the app, but I did start out with the bare bar. I wasn't in a hurry and I wanted to concentrate the most on form.

So, next time, do i halve the weights i did last time, or add less than 5 lbs

What are you doing? That’s not how any of this works. Are you just guessing what the program is from the title it was given, or did you just not understand it at all when you studied it? Either way, read everything at the link. Get the app. Start with the bar. Stronglifts is awesome, but you have to run it correctly or it’s not StrongLifts.

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/

Well it suggested i start around 70s, i started a lil higher because that seemed easy af

Eta- it= the app.

From the Link you provided:

"Start light so your body can get used to Squatting, pressing and pulling three times a week. If you’ve done these exercises before, with proper form, start with 50% of your five rep max. You can enter your best lifts in the spreadsheets or the apps, and they’ll calculate your starting weights for you.

If you’ve never done these exercises before, haven’t done them in years, or you’re intimidated by free weights then start with the lowest weights possible. This way you can build up your confidence and practice proper form. Here are the recommended starting weights if you’re new to lifting…"

There is no reason to waste months lifting completely unchallenging weights for the sake following an illusionary "Linear Progression" which only exists because you're starting with an empty bar.

I'd start at 135 for squats and increase by 20 lbs per workout until it gets real.

The first month is basically just training the movement so you can get the form down.

You'll probably just stall faster is all.

Adding 15 lbs a week though you would have been at 95 lbs inside of two weeks anyway.

How's you legs today?  Tomorrow will be even better.

Starting slow is advised so completely untrained or detrained persons don't go all hard as a mofo on their first day and smoke themselves with DOMs, then limp around for a week only to quit.

It doesn't matter were you start, just that you don't quit.

Shit gets heavy plenty fast with the progressions - and before it does, having those weeks in to focus on form, stretching and support muscles is time well spent.

10 yrs since i was at max's.  Been a couple years since consistsnt gym workouts, but i do a lot of outdoor stuff and physical job stuff a couple days a week.

I did the 'A' workout on saturday, was pretty sore yesterday, not that sore today.  I can do all these lifts with good form at these weights, im just wondering if im going to ruin the "program science" by starting higher.  Seems like there isnt really a consensus.

He also said "i havent been in the gym much at all in the last couple years, but with the haybales and #farmstrong, im not that weak for a manlet"

I think the 10 years referred to benching 300+, but could be wrong.

In any case, as long as his form is good there is no need to waste time on being "intimidated" or "confidence booster" time wasting exercises.

There is not much program science! The 5x5 program is almost 100 years old and completely ignores advances in sports science. Does it work, yes. Are there better approaches, yes.

The Linear Progression they promise only works because they start the program at such a low weight. These effortless weights do not promote neurological change or hypertrophy -- that comes later, when you start actually lifting challenging weights and then the program calls for deloading.

Do you think someone that runs a 5x5 it's full course can hop under the bar early in the program and hit the weights they are hitting when they finish?

Getting those motor patterns down (or back down) is helpful.

I'm doing some 5x5 stuff right now to get my poverty squat back up to a decent weight, I really slacked off since spring, especially after I hurt my shoulder at work. I lost 15 lbs and a bunch of strength.

Cool cool, because its been 2 days and i feel fine, will do 'B' workout today.

Im sure my squat form is not perfect, but i felt like i could have probably done about 20 sets at 95.  Ill watch more vids and try to continue keeping everything aligned. I am not that concerned with bench or row form.  I could have done the 5x5 with 45lb plates for those exercises, im quite certain.

"Do you think someone that runs a 5x5 it's full course can hop under the bar early in the program and hit the weights they are hitting when they finish?"

I'm not completely sure what you are asking?

If you're asking whether person A, who starts at a moderately challenging weight, will have better results than person B, who starts lifting just the bar, then the answer is yes (everything else being equal).

I was trying to ask if you thought the LP 5x5 only worked because it started so low (the illusion of lots of weight added to the bar) or if you think it does have merit as a way for a beginner or someone jumping back in to quickly max out and add much more weight than they were capable of at the start.

It's popular for a reason, most of the LP programs are, because they get people safely and consistently adding weight until it's time to alter the programming and slow things down a bit.

I do have some of that "havent been to the gym in forever" soreness going on, which is pretty nice

Fuck it, heres my current level of skinnyfat: -  a multi year stasis of pizza rolls, beer and 10hrs a day of arfcom ...
with a little hard work when i have to

Attached File


Maybe putting up a pic will shame me into gainz

I made my wife take pictures of me tonight.

I'm on 12 weeks of discipline and eating like a horse, gonna try to get some meat back on my bones after work wore me down this summer.

Starting with the empty bar is stupid if you can do more with proper form.

And nothing beats LP done correctly. Only a retard that doesn’t understand math believes otherwise.

The 5x5 variant I use is a 4x4x8 scheme that uses an AMRAP set at the end of each week to see if a bigger jump is warranted.

On the AMRAP, if you can do 8 reps clean, then you double the progression amount for the next week.

Worked well for me at the onset when I didn't have a good grasp of my 1RMs

This OP.

Most guys can start with more than the bar and keep good form. It's more about form vs bar speed. When bar speed starts to slow and form is still good that is your starting point.

This also has to do with center of mass. When the bar is loaded the COM of the lift changes, and the form changes with it. So going backwards to work on form at a lower weight won't mean you'll keep that same form with more weight. Starting below your ability is just wasted time.

Sounds idiotic to me to lift only the bar if you can do more.

But my "lp" was set after set of grinders until I felt like death.  For 18 months.  I got some great gains but I nearly fell asleep and wrecked my pickup dozens of times and had a lot of elbow issues.

I'm not exactly a programming guru.

I just did workout B #1

Fuck the bar, i did

100 squats
65 ohp
135 dl

Easy money

IMO, the program is designed the way it is for a reason. As someone who has been doing it since July, the weight will add up quickly, don't worry.

What did you start at, and where are you now?  You should be close to the 12 wks, yeah?

Did you keep adding 5lbs every time?

What is the plan for when the 12wks are up?

When I did it a few years ago I started too high, realized I was squatting high and reset to lower weight.  Then I realized I was still a bit high, reset again...  I'd have been much better off if I'd started with an empty bar and got my form correct as I went with really light weights.

I still made a 405lb squat in 11months after I started lifting.  Religious about 5x5 then when I stalled I did 5-3-1.

You probably used awful form and did it all wrong. Do better next time.

I started almost exactly a month ago. I'm mid 30s, 5'9, 175-180. Haven't done any weightlifting since high school, so I started with just the bar and felt like a complete idiot, but I stuck with it.

Today I deadlifted 125, squatted 115, and did 75 on the OHP. Today was the first workout that I actually struggled a little, and it was with the OHP. My shoulders/elbows look kind of fucked up in the mirror when I do the exercise, so I think I've got some mobility issues. I've been doing some accessory exercises with dumbbells and facepulls on the machine to try and straighten out my curved shoulders.

My bench is at 90 and row at 100. I try to be real particular with my form on everything because I have had lower back problems in the past (nothing diagnosed).

I did go up by 10 pounds instead of 5 a couple of times, but other than that I've stuck to the program. I've been going every other day instead of three times a week.

Really enjoying it so far.

I started with just the bar on squat, bench, OHP, and 95 pounds on deadlift I believe. I had some core/stability issues my entire life (saw an occupational therapist for it when I was in elementary school, so it's been a problem for 20 odd years) and never squatted free weights, plus I got shot in the elbow in 2009 so my bench has always been trashy. Most I've ever gotten was 165x3 on bench. Deadlift was the only thing I was somewhat decent at, pulling 305x1 prior to starting the program. I figured lighter weight would allow me to make sure my form was perfect so going backwards didn't bother me.

I added five pounds every time just like the program said, but I took two weeks off at the beginning of the month unintentionally (week long birthday camping trip and I was out of town for job testing and helping my girlfriend for another week total) and the program de-loaded me by a pretty big amount automatically because of it. I also had form issues when I hit 185 on squat (butt wink was terrible) so I dropped weight to compensate for that. I did not allow it to de-load me on bench and deads more than 10 pounds and I want to say it dropped everything else like 2-3x that.

Prior to de-load, my numbers:

Squat: 185
Bench: 125
OHP: 105
Row: 115
Dead: 225

Currently:

Squat: 170
Bench: 135
OHP: 90
Row: 100
Dead: 215

My plan is to continue doing 5x5 until I plateau on everything and change to 3x5; once that plateaus I'll see what I look like physically and how strong I am and go from there with selecting a different program or adding a bunch of accessory lifts on the regular. Right now I'm happy doing compound lifts and if I have extra energy when I'm finished, whatever accessory stuff I feel like (forearms, traps, shoulders is what I did last night). I saw and felt size and strength gains, my girlfriend saw the changes occurring and mentioned it multiple times and so did friends/family. I had lost a considerable amount of weight (over 60 pounds) before starting it though. I struggle the most with the overhead press and have for the last 10-15 pounds. There have been 2-3 workouts I think where I had to do the same amount of weight the next workout as well because I couldn't get the last rep on one or two sets. Overall, I'm happy with the progress I've made in basically 2 months (started July 23rd and yesterday was the first workout I did this month).

If I had to put a number on current short-term goals:

Squat: 225
Bench: 200
OHP: 115
Row: 135
Dead: legit 300 for 5

Nice dude, that's awesome, thanks for writing all that!

I am feeling really good after 1 week. It  Seems like i have more energy already.  Probably a placebo, but either way...

I'm stoked to be on a compound lift program, vs random workouts that i used to do.

Today will be the 3rd workout and i dont feel sore at all, si im gonna keeo going up

Nice bro! A few of us all similar age and height/weight in this thread.  We gonna gainz.

I hear you, I think im going down too low on squats at this weight, because its so easy.   There are mirrors to the front and side and the bar seems to be going straight up and down.  I might try to set up my phone to vid myself to see how bad the form is.

Here is another example - about 7 months of progressions, starting @ 110lbs



Body composition changes through the first 4 of those months.

Need side view for squats for sure.

And video all lifts so I can tell you how wrong you are doing them.

Im not in competition with kaikfit, thats just too much sexy.  

Feelij good after second go around of workout A.  No soreness to speak of.  My squat form prob sucks but the weight is light.

That's why you fix it now. So when it's heavy you don't break yourself.

If your form sucks, pull weight off the bar.

If you’re looking in mirrors, your form sucks.

Post vid.

You're right, i cant look in the mirror and have good form!

I think what i need to work on most is hand placement, my wrists are too bent, but the weight is still feeling plenty light to mess with that.

I've watched (and continuing to watch) tons of squat vids on youtube and have had a tiny bit of help at the gym.