The Greyskull rule of push-ups is prob better - 50-60% of your max 5 times a day to start, increase reps/volume as you go. Instead of a set # of reps and sets.


funky,
getting 3/1/- on the squat should basically never happen and if it does, it's from extremely lack of sleep/being sick/not eating at all/etc. Take a look at your diet (and if you post it, cals/protein is all anyone's gonna care about) and see what's wrong there, if anything. For example, are you gaining weight (assuming you're not very overweight)?


Yugo,
agree that GOMAD is overkill and unnecessary for anyone but very underweight guys. Rip is pretty ******ed on diet stuff imo. Still, a surplus is definitely necessary for progress to continue at some point, no discussing that. Excepting special populations like very overweight people, guys who've been stronger before etc.

I've lost about 2 pounds in the last 6 months and made basically 0 squat progress. Dunno why I'm too stubborn to admit that I need to gain weight in order to squat more.

i thought you were in swole mode

no i'm not still gaining weight, so in the last two days ive been eating a ton. hopefully it will pay off tomorrow...

I appreciate the fast response!

If I can't lift at work because our rack is garbage, it's somewhat harder for me to stick to a religious Friday schedule. I still prefer to lift on Fridays where possible, though; is it a problem if I do M/W/F some weeks and M/W/S on others? Or will I eventually reach a stage when I need my rest intervals to be the same length?

Unrelated: I've read that I can do deadlifts every workout for the first two to four weeks. Once I hit two weeks, how do I know when I need to switch over? I don't want to switch when it gets hard because I'm afraid that would be too easy, if that makes any sense.

Well, MWS has the same rest intervals as MWF, you're just having your 2-day rest on Th+F instead of Sa+Su. You can do any other non-consecutive 3-day combination and it'll be the same.

The only possible issue with switching is the Friday on SMWF, but I don't think it's a big deal at all. I think you'll know if it ever becomes an issue, which it won't be for a while imo. It's just that if MWS is more convenient for you anyway (or, say, TuThSa), you don't have to do MWF just because the program picked those days.

That doesn't apply to squats though, because you're still carrying the stress of the load, right?

If you're taking 15-20 sec breaks on the squat, I wouldn't count it as 1x5...but sure, stress is higher?

1.) Any idea how many calories a total beginner weighing ~140lbs doing one of his first SS-workouts burn during the workout (incl 5 mins of general warmup)?

2.) What about a dude weighing 160lbs 3 months into the program, how many cals does he burn during a workout (let's assume that the workout includes 15 mins of foam rolling/MM/whatever)?

Why do you need to know? Calculate total cals needed on average instead. 14-15 cals/lb will be correct for most guys, then adjust from there.

Mostly out of curiosity.

Yeah, I know 14-15 cals/lb is on avg a very good estimate for someone sedentary to maintain his weight.
A while back I actually went ahead and weighed and calculated everything I ate/drank for two weeks while my bodyweight stayed pretty much exactly same so I assume I know exactly how many cals I need to eat to maintain my weight if I'm doing nothing but sitting on my ass - that's what I did for those 2 weeks BTW.

Just would like to know a ballpark-estimate of how much I need to up my cals if doing SS. My own guess is something like 400 kcals per an hour of SS - just to maintain my weight that is, not that's something I wanna do.

Actually, 14-15 cals/lb is a pretty good estimate for most people doing SS. If you by some lucky chance need more when you lift, just go to e.g. 16 cals/lb for maintenance. Depending on your goals you won't need more than that to start, or you can add 10-20%. Squeezing out your linear gains to the max will require more as the lifts go up.

The calorie burn associated with doing something like SS is simply an inevitable background effect. Framing traditional strength training (like SS) in terms of calorie burn can lead to some sillyness, and it's best to disconnect that. For example, you don't want to reduce rest times or just throw in extra reps because you overshot your intake on a particular day.

Based my limited reading of SS material, focusing on calories is a YNDTP line of thought, am I wrong?

Not yet. The plan was to start getting swole at the start of November, which would give me enough time to be lean again by June. But then my radial nerve got impinged which basically prevents any useful upperbody work or high volume squatting. Hopefully I can start by December, but January is probably more realistic since I think it'll take that long to build back up to being able to do any moderately heavy pressing.

Calories burned during a session, sure. Overall, maybe from Rip's point of view - but he doesn't care about razor abz, so f him.

Really? What I remember is all literature suggesting 14-15cals/lb for non-active males just to maintain their weight.

2 weeks period I calculated everything I ate/drank my calories in averaged ~2100/day @ 140lbs bodyweight resulting bw staying the same.
However, back then I was completely sedentary but these days I bicycle about an hour every day Mon-Fri and that's prolly something like 400 kcals consumed per day so just to maintain my weight I need to eat ~2500 kcals/day now.
Factor in SS (400 kcals per workout?) and lifting days I should be eating ~2900 kcals just to maintain my weight, ~21 kcals/lb.

Ofc I can just forget about all of this nonsense and just start by eating ~3000 kcals/day (150-200 g of protein) and see what happens

Is there a consensus on TM vs 5/3/1 for intermediates? What factors influence the choice? Also, is it possible to remain on linear progression for press/bench but moving to weekly periodization for squat/dl?

I know this is discussed elsewhere, but it is hard tracking it all down.

Sure, I have absolutely no interest in such sillyness.
The only reason I'm interested in how much cals one burns during a SS-workout is cos I wanna estimate how much I need to at least eat.

Might be but focusing on getting in enuf calories surely isn't.

Anyone use the my fitness pal app for their phones? maintenance cals seem way out of whack with the 14-15 cals per lb for maintenance.

For example for me to maintain my current weight it says I should eat around 2500 cals a day but according to the 14-15 cals per day its more like 3100 which annoys me because I am doing SS on a deficit so I am eating less than I could and still loose fat and increase my macro intake.

So I should not take cals burned into account on days I lift? For example If I am shooting for 2000 cals for the day it isn't ok to eat say an extra 200cals worth of brotein and expect to stay within my caloric goal for that day?

Aidan,

Depends. I suspect TM would yield greater gains given ample recovery. You squat s lot more. 531 is fine too. Depends on your goals, lifestyle, etc.

You can keep the pressing on an SS style while moving the sq/DL to more intermediate programming. I think the GSLP is a good step for this, as it's a fairly small tweak to SS.

don't overthink it. 14-15cal/lb is AN ESTIMATE. there is simply no way to properly calculate your maintenance intake... so choose a value, track your food intake properly and watch the results after a few week, then evaluate.

Thanks - i think TM at the moment, but I like squatting. The GSLP style agressive reset and amrap sets is a good shout, I think I'll transition for my press (stalled at 125 again yesterday) and bench when I stall next (around 160 atm). But squats are up to 325 still on +5lbs a workout, so I'll keep progressing as I can and then switch over. I think I'll start a log then, once Im back from holiday.

My bench is stuck at 225 for the second time. I don't feel like going through my phone but I'm pretty sure it went like this


210(and all previous numbers) 5,5,5
215: 5,5,5
220: 5,4,4
225: 4,4,3
205-215: 5,5,5
220: 5,4,5
225 3, and then I just dropped the weight down cuz there was no way it was gonna be worth it to try.


What the hell do I do now?

I guess I should add, I've been on a defecit for a while but in the last 5-6 days it's been way better than before(40/40/20 vs ...2000 calories of McDonalds) so I don't think that has much to do with it.

Also, my press has reached an all time high of 170 and I've been setting PRs in deadlift and chinups, too.