New to 5x5, please help? :)

cjl2535

Hi, I've been reading up a lot on heavy lifting, specifically the Stronglifts 5x5 and I just had a few questions.

1) To lose fat, should I be eating at a calorie deficit or TDEE while doing Stronglifts?

2) How many calories did you eat/day?

3) Are the 4 reps before your fifth considered your warmup reps?

4) How long does each session take for you?

5) Should I / Is it okay to incorporate cardio into the days I don't lift?

5) Any positive results from doing Stronglifts

Llamapants86

1) you need to eat at a deficit to lose weight, you can eat at TDEE (maintenance) and do a recomp to lose fat, but that is a long and slow process.
2) my calorie intake varies. I eat between 250-500 kcals less than my TDEE that my fitbit gives me and I lose about 3 lbs a month so it seems pretty close.
3) no warm up reps are reps you do at lighter than working weights. It is to get your muscles ready for the working weight. For example 5 reps of the empty bar (45 lbs), then 5 reps at 65 lbs and then 5x5 at what ever working weight is for you. This will scale depending on where your working weight is.
4)I do running on my non-lifting days, but I also make sure to take one full rest day a week
5)I have enjoyed it, I love being strong, it makes so much of my life better.

cjl2535

1) you need to eat at a deficit to lose weight, you can eat at TDEE (maintenance) and do a recomp to lose fat, but that is a long and slow process.
2) my calorie intake varies. I eat between 250-500 kcals less than my TDEE that my fitbit gives me and I lose about 3 lbs a month so it seems pretty close.
3) no warm up reps are reps you do at lighter than working weights. It is to get your muscles ready for the working weight. For example 5 reps of the empty bar (45 lbs), then 5 reps at 65 lbs and then 5x5 at what ever working weight is for you. This will scale depending on where your working weight is.
4)I do running on my non-lifting days, but I also make sure to take one full rest day a week
5)I have enjoyed it, I love being strong, it makes so much of my life better.

Thank you so much for your reply
Should I replace my BodyPump exercises with Stronglifts 5x5 ?
Sorry about so many questions but what exactly is the working weight ? :P I've read a lot about the program but I'm still a bit confused on exactly how many reps to perform, etc.

So 5 sets of 5 reps for each move , that's NOT including the warm-up reps, am I correct?

skittlesnhoney

Hi cjl2535, I'm new to Stronglifts as of May and I was doing Body Pump 3 times a week. I've started doing the Stronglifts program on Sun, Tue and Thu and then choosing to cut back my Body Pump to either a Friday morning or a Saturday morning depending on how I'm feeling. I'm not sure how heavy you were going in BP, but for Squats I was doing 40 lbs. on my back. Body Pump is a strength endurance training, so you can definitely go heavier in Stronglifts because you aren't doing near as many reps.


They have an iphone app that talks you through the whole thing but I have to update mine before I can download that app so I haven't done it yet.

Somebody posted a great warm-up calculator but I'm not sure where the link is. It told me something like 2x5, 1x5, 2x3, and 1x2 for warm-ups at varying weights as I got heavier on my working weight.


I went ahead and started my first work-out with the 45 lb. bar. So my warm-ups were the same weight as my 5x5's but that changed as I upped my weights.

I hope this makes sense. I just got home from camping and my brain is kind of out of it.