Getting The Most Out Of A Beginner Routine eg. Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5

Its very easy as a beginner to cut your progress short on linear progression routines like Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5, and this could be for a variety of reasons.

1. Not sticking to the program
2. Bad technique on the lifts
3. Not ensuring optimal recovery through eating and sleeping

I'm sure there are other reasons but I can't be bothered thinking of more.

I will address these reasons, to show you how you can ensure you're getting the most out of these type of routines.

Not Sticking To The Routine

Countless times I've seen people not doing the routine consistently. I'll recommend a program for a beginner who's asked me for advice, and they'll make some good gains from it, then several weeks later I'll find out they're doing some stupid routine again, or that they're just mucking around in the gym. They didn't stick to the original plan. This could be for several reasons such as:

• Studies/work becoming more demanding
• Injury from playing a sport
• Loss of motivation

Think about it like this, there are 168 hours in a week. If you're training 3x/week and each session lasts about 1.5 hours, that's 4.5 hours per week. 4.5 divided by 168 is around 2.7%. You can't dedicate 2.7% of your week to improving yourself? If the answer is no, then seriously just quit, because you don't have what it takes to achieve. The people who get good results from training are the ones who are willing to put in the time.

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Here's a suggestion for how you could modify your routine if things like work/study become more time consuming:

Session A
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
DB Shoulder Press 3 x 10

Session B
Deadlift 1 x 5
Row 5 x 5
Curls 3 x 12

Session C
Squat 5 x 5
Overhead Press 5 x 5
DB Bench Press 3 x 10

It's not optimal for a beginner because the frequency with which you perform the main lifts is slightly reduced so progress will be slower, but now there are 2 main lifts per session instead of 3, so it cuts down on the duration of the workout. This is just temporary, and once your time frees up again you should go back to the original layout (whether its SL5x5 or SS).

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If you are injured from a sport, first step is pinpointing what the injury is. Common injuries are occur in the joints such as the shoulder, hip, elbow and and knee. You can also tear muscles but they should recover quicker than tendon/ligament injuries.

When you get injured, this doesn't necessarily mean you should stop training (unless the injury is really serious like a spinal injury). You just need to figure out what you can continue to train.

If you have a knee injury, you should avoid movements which involve knee flexion/extension such as the squat, but you can still try stiff-legged deadlifts. Again this depends on the injury, but the point is finding what DOESN'T hurt, and training that for the time being. You should still be able to train your upper body as normal (maybe not the bench press because you need to bend your knees when lying on the bench, again find out for yourself).

I'm not an expert in this area, but the idea is to do your research. Find out how you can help your injury, and how to prevent it from occurring again if possible. When your injured, don't just do nothing and suffer in silence, think about recovery, think about continuing to move forward.

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Loss of motivation can occur for a few reasons. Maybe you're getting bored of the routine, or you aren't seeing the results you wanted. If its the latter case, I'll address this in the final section of this post.

In terms of boredom, tough titties mate. The muscle confusion thing is bullshit, switching it up every week or whatever is stupid. Consistency is the key, this is how you will know you are improving. If you're squatting one day, then doing leg press the next, then lunges the next session, how do you know you're getting better?

High frequency of the main compound lifts will also give you more chance to drill in the correct technique. Correct technique on the main lifts is extremely important, especially once you start handling heavy weights.

Bad Technique on the Lifts

Read these posts, and practice, practice, practice:

http://derickthai.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-to-perform-main-compound-lifts.html
http://derickthai.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/how-to-perform-main-lifts-part-ii.html

Not Ensuring Optimal Recovery Through Eating and Sleeping

Have you heard the saying "you grow outside the gym"? Well it's true. This is how things work; training acts as a stimulus for your body, a form of stress. When you stress your body, you need to be able to recover from this stress in order to come back stronger than last time. And the way to actually recover from this stress is through eating and sleeping.

This is a reason why people may not be getting the results they wanted. They're not getting bigger and stronger. Guess what? You're not eating enough.

A car with a bigger engine needs to consume more fuel than a small car. Same thing applies to people. If you have more muscle, your body NEEDS more calorie intake. Your body also will not grow if it's not getting enough food to grow. You can't create something out of nothing. All the times I've made the best progress on my bench, I was gaining weight. This wasn't necessarily the case for my squat and deadlift but that's because I'm better at those lifts. This will be different for everyone.

So start paying attention to WHAT you eat, and HOW MUCH of it you're eating. That way if you're not gaining weight, you'll know that you need to increase your food portions. If you can't do this, then quit. You don't have what it takes.

Gaining weight as a beginner is also important, because you increase your strength ceiling. If you weigh 10kg heavier than how much you weigh now, you'll be able to lift more weights (provided you are training whilst you are gaining weight too).

Think about it like this, get stronger so you can get bigger, and get bigger so you can get stronger. Lifting heavy weights will increase your muscle size, and eating more will allow you to continue to grow, so you can continue to get stronger.

As a beginner, keep it simple! Focus on getting stronger, and make sure you're gaining weight! Don't go over the top with eating though, because you don't want to get too fat either. It might take some time to find where this fine line (of how much food is enough for you to continue to grow) lies, but once you do, you'll have a good understanding of your body.

A good way to stay motivated is to set a goal for yourself. How big and strong you want to be. Never lose sight of this goal, and you shouldn't have a problem staying motivated.

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When you do everything right, you will make very good gains on this type of routine. It won't last forever however. You will know when it's time to move on once you have deloaded, and worked your way back up but you don't see much improvement anymore and you stall again. When I say this, the stalling MUST be due to your body's inability to recover from the training, not because you have bad technique or because you're not eating enough.

I know this sounds a bit confusing, but there is actually a point you will reach, where you can no longer squat a heavy weight for 5 x 5, 3 times a week, because the stress will become too high. Similar case for the bench press, overhead press and deadlift. I will address this, and intermediate programming (the next step after linear progression) in another post.