Fit For Strength

I was stuck at 245 pounds on doing squats for the past two weeks. Very frustrating, not to mention painful!

I have been following the Stronglifts 5x5 routine for about 10 weeks now, making good progress. If you haven't heard of it, Stronglifts is a strength training program (as opposed to bodybuilding). The lifts are the five best, basic, total muscle group lifts - exercises that use most of the muscles of your body. Squats, Overhead press, Bench Press, Upright Rows, and Deadlifts.

Very extreme.  I love it.

You add five pounds to the weight being lifted every session.

But, as warned, I hit a stall. It's ok - you obviously can't add five pounds to your lift indefinitely. So, I dropped about 10% of the weight, and started again from there, adding five pounds a session (three times a week). Again a stall.

I could tell I wasn't letting my muscles heal properly, wasn't giving them enough time. I was always sore, and I was doing cardio on my days between lifting. Mainly running on the elliptical, with a steep incline, which really worked my legs.

So I took a week off (I hate taking days off of lifting!), and again started back at 225 pounds. I had dropped most of my lifting weights on all my exercises to let my shoulder heal as well.

Today I made it to 250 pounds! And honestly, it wasn't that tough. I've also dropped from doing 5 sets of 5 reps to 3 sets of 5 reps. If I am going to continue to run on my days off, I know it'll take extra time for my muscles to heal. I might drop squats to twice a week, but I doubt it. The program is pretty strict on the routine.

If you haven't heard of it, be sure to pick up the free pdf guide from Stronglifts. It's really a great routine, and works for anyone at any level.