Workout assessment?

cajuntank

My weight loss is still happening (slowly but surely), but I am reaching the end of my stretch with the StrongLifts program. I am at the end of the 3x5 phase for both bench press and row, in my first de-load of OHP at 1x5, and still squeaking by on deadlifts at 1x5. I have already moved to Madcow for squats and am in my first deload cycle of it as well after a few weeks.

Now that my sets are getting shorter and am about to shift all the way to Madcow for the other lifts or something like 5/3/1, I am wondering about the fine line between continued exertion with lighter weight I am doing for additional sets and reps to exhaust glycogen (which I understand is very good to do) compared to "leaving it in the tank" to help and aid in recovery of strength for the next workout.

My workouts are MWF and I have been doing some light cardio (treadmill for 30-45 minutes) Tuesdays and Thursdays until I noticed my squats were getting increasingly difficult at weights I had done more easily the week prior, so this week I took a break from the treadmill to aid in that recovery. I use Sat and Sun as recovery days and I seem to be at my strongest on Monday due to that recovery time... so just wondering about the added "intensity" style of training on top of the regular strength training regimen as it relates to best scenario for weight loss as I believe I need that added "intensity" workout to help burn calories.

Thoughts?

Sarauk2sf

Tagging

cajuntank

Bumping. I know y'all are busy.

SideSteel

Speaking in general terms:

If I were in your shoes and my higher volume/depletion type of work was interfering with my ability to train my heavy sets due to how it was effecting my recovery I would consider reducing the volume of that work in an attempt to increase recovery.

I'd be willing to be told otherwise on the following point -- but I also don't know that intentionally depleting glycogen is going to make a substantial difference in people who are not already quite lean, outside of the energy expense of training.

cajuntank

Yep, been doing some more research also and the common thread I see about calorie deficits and high intensity exercise is cortisol and actually causing weight stall and even a more depressed motabolism. So I will just keep to the normally scheduled program as written. I probably want to lose another 5-10lbs at my current calorie level, then start stepping up my calories a bit to get to a 1lb/week loss for a while, so I know that will start to help with recovery also with the added calories.

Thanks.