Wait a minute…
Have you ever competed in any strength sports ?
If not what was or is your sport?
How often should a strength athlete compete in your opinion?
Not sure how say a elite level powerlifter might train months to add some weight to their total and to peak for a national meet. Lacks the compete/win/lose mind set.
Click that link and look under “AGES”. People compete all the way in their 80s+ in strength sports.
Guy in first place in the 80+ division put up a 970 at 87 years old. He also didn’t do his first competition until he was 86. So yeah, they compete way beyond what you would think would be “masters” divisions.
People are taking this way too literally. Strength sports can’t compare to real sports in terms of accessibility or competition frequency.
If I want to compete in basketball, tennis, handball, or soccer, I can go to a park today and find a pickup game or join a local league and compete daily/weekly. There is a mix of skill, athleticism, and strategy.
Strength sports aren’t like that. You train mostly alone, sign up for an event that’s months away, and may have to travel out of state for.
No one is just picking up Olympic weightlifting or entering a bodybuilding competition.
That’s exactly the point. Training for months to maybe add 5–10 lbs. to your total, then peaking for one meet with no regular head-to-head competition, isn’t the same as the compete/win/lose you get in real sports even during practice/training.
Alright… i see where hes getting at even if i don’t agree with the possible connotation of whats being stated.
Breaking it down allot of sports fall into that category.
Without a doubt it changes you and how you tackle challenges. After you’ve trained for a number of years you become use to setting goal, establishing a way to achieve those goals and working towards them. You also learn very little comes easy and it instills confidence in you.
Exactly as @hel320 says.
IMO other sports that are designed to be publicly competetive and are more accessible provide greater opportunities to learn these lessons.
I have never competed in strength sports, not good enough, appreciate that is is practised at all levels - that was not my point.
Hi Guys,
given to acutal circumstances, i’d like to know your opinion on how to deal with days were the schedule does not work as expected because of life:
An extra shift at work, familie issues, you name it. Your plan tells you its deadlift day, but youre on you feet since 6am and its getting close to 10pm because life needed you elsewhere. What do you do with your training on that day?
Thanks for your opinions!
Ignore the day of the week thing, it’s arbitrary. For instance If I’m supposed to be hitting 3 session in a week, and my primary movements for each day are squat, bench, deadlift, ideally yea Monday/Wednesday/Friday works well, but let’s say I hit Monday and then get to Wednesday and life happens I’ll just do bench Thursday, and will hit Friday if I can, if not push that to Saturday.
If it spills over to the week after, just carry on, hit your sessions whenever you can, doesn’t really matter, I’d generally avoid things like squats and deads as standalone sessions back to back, but it’s really not the end of the world, just be aware of recovery and other life demands.
Similar with @alex_uk. I will add that I wouldn’t get in the habit of missing sessions if I’m tired or don’t feel good, though. Stringing a whole bunch of ok days together is much better than having a couple “perfect scenario” days.
If deadlifts or squats are on the menu, and you’ve been awake for 48 hours and your back and knees hurt, really take your time warming up and consider going after volume instead of weight. I’m happy to just swap to lower stress movements if the goal is hypertrophy, but I think you maybe want to be a powerlifter so you do need some practice on the actual lifts.
If it were me, and it’s near 10pm, having to wake ~5 am next, I’d skip (as my post session stimulation wouldn’t allow me to relax and fall into sleep) and do that session the next day.
Sounds reasonable and fits into what i’ve experienced over the last couple of weeks. At the weights increase over time, rest periods are more important that holding the training schedule. Stacking up fatigue does not seem to pay off, and being tired at work is also not good.
Thanks for your advices !
Ok, heres an update after the first two three-weeks cycles of 5/3/1 with 5’s progression.
stats: Training 4xweek, eating 1g fat, 2g protein 2…3g protein per kg of bodyweight.
After six weeks now, i feel significantly less fu*cked up after training. before switching to 5/3/1, for the rest of the day after training more or less nothing was possible. Now i still need a break after training, but can perform afterwards.
My Bodyweight is the same as six weeks before, even tough i have the feeling that i am slightly less chubby.I have no bodyfat measuring device, but i use all belts and the weightlifting belt on the same punching.
What irritates me is a loss of overall 1RM performance. I feel a bit stronger at the lower end of the weight ranges and can move faster with the lower weights, but the peak strength performance for all main lifts has dropped approx 10-15%. Does anyone have experience on that? is that an effect of the 5/3/1 method, or a structural issue? Thanks for reading !
So you tested your 1 rm?
Yes, after the deload of the second cycle. In the last week of the second cycle, the last reps of the last set were already confusingly hard.
You aren’t training for 1rm performance improvement: it makes sense your 1rm wouldn’t improve as a result. Right now, you’re training to get stronger and healthier, and that’s what is happening. Should your goal switch to improving 1rms, just do a few cycles where THAT is the training goal and you’ll be able to realize the strength you’re building from these sub-max cycles.
It would be akin to a triathlete taking time to focus on their cycling and then hopping in the pool after 6 weeks of cycle training and getting pissed off that their swim times got worse. We can’t improve all things all the time, otherwise we’d all be benching 700lbs with sub 4 minute miles.
Thanks for the reply. there seems indeed to be a misunderstanding on my side, which is fine for me as i am on a learning journey. Until now, my understandig of “you’re training to get stronger” did imply that getting stronger also means to get a higher 1RM, because doing so requires to get stronger. Taking your triathlete comparison helped me. Even though i think it would be better to compare a cyclist who trains for long distance that thus fails to be a good sprinter.
Anyway, i feel that i will not make it to add weigth in the next cycle, at least not with maintaining a proper technique. So, do a have to reset already, or would if be wise to repeat the cycle with the current weights until they become easy in the top set (at which i struggle currently)
See this is not necessarily true. Getting stronger CAN get you a higher 1rm, but getting a higher 1rm doesn’t necessarily mean you are stronger. If I go to set a 1rm during my normal training time of 0430, I will lift significantly less than if I were to do the same at 1500. In the case of the later, my muscles are warmer, my joints are limber, I’m better fed and hydrated and more primed to perform. I am EXACTLY as strong in both scenarios: my ability to EXPRESS that strength has simply improved. Similarly, improvements in technique can drive up 1rms, changes in body composition can do it, changes in equipment used, etc etc. When we use the 1rm as are sole measure of strength, masking variables can upset things. Meanwhile, if we took a trainee that had a 800lb deadlift for a double and then managed to get that 800lb deadlift to 25 reps, we would absolutely say that trainee got stronger even though we haven’t observed their 1rm yet.
Have you employed a deload yet?
Yes, deload was performed at the end of each cycle.
If I was struggling with weights, I’d lower the TM. Jim is big on clean, fast, strong controlled reps for the barbell work. The assistance work is where struggles can happen.
Unless you’re feeling particularly beat up, you can go 2 cycles before deloading. But I’d also avoid max testing.
