What I want is to be able to do what you’re doing.
Eat more without visibly gaining fat, exceed bodyweight multipliers in lifts (not your goal but something you do) and have great conditioning
What I’m doing right now has proven itself before I got interrupted and my recovery ability/ work capacity seems to have improved on the lifts
I have somewhat resigned that I’m just not willing to push conditioning that much and don’t feel like I really need to
Counting calories seems to help me with portion control and keeps me from getting too obsessed
The problem is that I seem to be gaining fat without increasing food
This is the non-precise language I spoke of earlier. “ALL I want” (emphasis mine) means it’s the only thing. You want more than just that. You need to be honest with yourself, figure out what you actually want, and then go from there.
Wanting to be able to do what I do without doing what I did to get there is absolutely setting yourself up for failure, which is what I mean about fearing success.
EDIT: And to clarify (because it seems I need to), I did NOT train and eat the way I do NOW when I was at your stage of development.
The goals feed into each other so I treat them as the same.
Your strength levels fit my goal of the bodyweight multipliers
Gaining weight would increase numbers but it would screw up the multipliers goal if the weight is not mostly muscle
Having good conditioning is more of a personal thing, but having good conditioning helps handle the workload required to hit the above goals
DoggCrapp comes to mind since that focuses on pushing to new reps/weights each week and can be done in 45 minutes, but i fear @anna_5588 will modify it when DC has specifically stated not to change the prescribed scheme.
More of a bodybuilding style obviously, but more muscle mass = greater strength.
This article is excellent and lists exercise possibilities. Title is clickbait, but article is legit.
Lists exercises for each muscle group - doesn’t really require machines. But follow the muscle sequence and only do 3 days a week!
Direct quote from the article
"
Week One:
Monday: Workout A
Wednesday: Workout B
Friday: Workout A
Week Two:
Monday: Workout B
Wednesday: Workout A
Friday: Workout B
Every “A” workout targets these body parts, in this order:
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Back width
Back thickness
The “B” workout hits these muscles, in this order:
Biceps
Forearms
Calves
Hamstrings
Quads
That’s the “written in stone” part. “We really hate it when guys
start tweaking the program and start moving body parts around,” SM told me. “Dante’s been doing this for 17 years, and has tried all the variations. I don’t know why people think they need to make it better.”
Would you mind explaining why you place such an emphasis on having good conditioning? I’ve always been curious about why you place so much value there.
Having a lot of exercises in a workout is stressful for me. I prefer doing more sets of just 1-2 exercises, with a light accessory work that I can superset or do in a circuit
It’s 5-6 exercises with really 1 hard working set each. Honestly, it’s the easiest training schedule to adhere to if you are busy. When I was trying it out (might go back to it) I could finish a workout in 45 minutes. It’s high intensity, lower volume.
And, there is no need to add anything to it, especially since you will get low intensity cardio by just walking to classes every day.
I get that, but I believe you’re conflating cardio and conditioning in this sense.
A 5 mile jog and something like Cindy have next to nothing in common aside from being tired at the end.
This is just my opinion, but I think excessive conditioning for the sake of conditioning without any clear goals, or requirements to do so, is kind of silly.
If you were an athlete, or a strongman/crossfit competitor, or even into various “extreme” sports it would make sense. But for your stated goals, focused strength training, and some cardiovascular upkeep (light jogging, stairs, stationary bike, etc.) with the occasional conditioning session thrown in would be plenty.
I don’t think DC is a good fit for someone that cares about their main lifts given the exercise rotation nor does it go well with added conditioning. I’ve read enough of Cycles on Pennies to learn what else there is to DC programming outside of the weight room and there isn’t leeway for much other stuff. There are direct questions from people in that thread on combining DC training with doing sports to which Dante effectively says that DC is about getting big - there isn’t leeway to also support the stress of doing other training.
I do have a hypertrophy/crossfit oriented program in mind that not only works the main four lifts with clear specifications but also has WODs and bodyweight/skillwork scheduled.
I wish that by having it all written out Anna wouldn’t accidentally do more than the training plan but I don’t trust that to be the case and wouldn’t want to share with her a foundation that’s hard enough to be an adequate training stimulus on anyone and then see her pile things on that and ending up injured or worse.
I see where you are coming from and agree in general. As folks said above, once anna gets her true, achievable short term goals nailed down, then a program could be found/made to achieve those.
If truly going for powerlifting BW multipliers, conditioning should be at best a secondary consideration. If conditioning is desired while building up some strength, maybe strongman type exercises and/or kettlebell work would be excellent. It’s impossible to be efficient at achieving both goals simultaneously.