After years of stepping away from lifting seriously, joining the military, and injuries from a recent deployment I’ve decided it’s time to get bigger and stronger than I ever was. Not that I was big or strong by any means in my early 20s, but I’m certainly less so now.
Training History:
I was an incredibly skinny kid growing up, and spent time doing a lot of hiking and backpacking, which I still do regularly. My senior year of high school I weighed about 105 pounds. I started doing some very rudimentary lifting and gained just under ten pounds by the time I left for college. After a few years of lifting fairly regularly in college I weighed in the low 150s, I wasn’t particularly lean but had some abdominal definition. I didn’t focus on strength much and my lifts weren’t anything impressive by any means.
I finished school and started working full time doing a job that required a lot of walking, about 70 miles per week. I stopped lifting for the most part other than when I felt like doing some rows or getting an arm pump.
I joined the military in my mid 20s and although I’ve been working out, I haven’t been focused on bodybuilding or strength training the last few years. I ended up deploying recently, got injured and lost a tremendous amount of the little strength and size that I had. Since I’ve been back in the states I’ve been eating pretty freely and am definitely softer than I’d like to be.
I’m weighing in at 145 pounds at 5’6, lifts are abysmal right now but soon to change.
S: 185
B: 140
DL: 240
OHP: 90
Goals:
I’m hopefully keeping my goals realistic as I’m starting from a pretty low point.
I’d like to gain strength on barbell lifts, I have a feeling that it won’t come as quickly as it did a decade ago, but I’ll take what I can get. If I can get my squat over 225, my deadlift to 300 and my bench to 185 I’d be thrilled. I haven’t ever done a legitimate linear progression program so I’m not sure what to expect for strength gains.
I’m not intending to gain a lot of weight during this program since I’m not very lean, but if I struggle with energy levels or am starving on a 300 calorie surplus I’m going to up the calories. I’m very open to suggestions on this front.
Current Plan:
Given that I have military PT to do five days a week I figured a four day program would be a good fit. I primarily did PPL in college but I think I’d burn myself out on that with my current schedule. I decided on GZCLP as a four day split to build some strength and hopefully some size. The program looks pretty customizable, so I’ll be adding ab work to two days and arm work to the other two days. I will likely throw in extra conditioning work, I currently run around 20 miles per week.
NOTE: I’ve already completed a few sessions of this program prior to starting the log.
Diet:
I’m going to be eating a surplus of 300 calories. I’m not exactly lean but I’m willing to put that off for a while until I get some meat back on my bones. I eat pretty simply, most would probably think what I like is boring. Likely will not delve into this too much unless there’s interest.
Supplements are just creatine, protein powder and a multivitamin.