Strong Lifts 5x5 Questions

Well, when lifting on a deficit you will not gain a lot of muscle, you will however decrease the muscle loss as part of weightloss, which will help you look more muscular than without lifting. To really build muscle you need to eat in a surplus, so either save that untill you reached your goal or look into doing recomposition instead.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat#latest

This is a good source of information for recomp.

colors_fade wrote: »

I've been doing StrongLifts, and variations off of it, for almost two years. I've been lifting my current program since March on a cut. It can be done. You have to listen to your body...

My feeling, having been cutting pretty consistency since March, is that when you're lifting really heavy and cutting calories, you tend to naturally oscillate between a true calorie cutting diet and some kind of recomp strategy. There are weeks when I can maintain a calorie deficit pretty good with just 3 days of lifting hard and a walk every morning and watching my calorie intake. And those weeks are great; fat comes off and I don't feel starved.

And then there are other weeks when it seems like my body is craving energy, so I find myself eating more on lifting days, to fuel the lifting. And I think on those weeks, what I'm doing is probably a lot more closer to a recomp strategy, because I'm in a deficit on my non-lift days, but my lift days tend to be more maintenance or sometimes even above that.

The one thing I don't want to do is stop lifting heavy. So I do whatever my body asks, as far as fuel, to keep that aspect going.

Some weeks I don't lose any weight. But I do notice, as the weeks roll by, small changes in shape, definition in certain areas, and a hardening of muscles (my thighs, for instance, just this week, started to feel a lot more firm to me, especially the quads).

Is that too much of a deficit considering my TDEE is 2121?

IMO, on a lifting day, yes. But that's just an opinion based off how I feel when I don't get enough fuel.

My preference has been, on a lifting day, either a very slight calorie deficit (like 200-300) or maintenance. Anything less and it just seems like my body is screaming for food, and I don't like that; tends to lead to bad fuel decisions.

Listen to your body. You'll know if you're trying to do too much, or not giving it enough fuel.

Great post good information. I also feel starved part of the time since starting crossfit. I usually fuel up on massive amounts of meat and the hit some extra cardio to put me under calories.

1 & 2: Get your form right. Do not advance past Go. Do not collect $200. Seriously, get your form correct first. Bad form is a recipe for injury - increasing weight when you can't (truly) handle the load is a very bad idea.

3: That may be hindering your recovery, which could be contributing to your form issues. Then again, it may not, depending on if you're getting enough rest otherwise and eating enough. I've only briefly (quite a while ago, too) looked at C25k, so I don't remember exactly what you'd be doing at this point. You may - depending upon your goal(s) - wish to try something a little lighter for cardio at this point. If running is your primary fitness goal, then maybe StrongLifts isn't quite the right strength program for you at this point. It really comes down to your individual goal(s).

4: I won't address that, as you've already gotten some good info/recommendations there.

limetree683 wrote: »

As you've been doing stronglifts, did you find your form improving even as the weights progressed or when you noticed even minor form failures on mulitple reps did you spend a few workouts at the same weight correcting form?

The heavier the load, the less perfect form you are going to have. This is just a fact of lifting heavy. The only people I've seen with great form on very heavy lifts are folks who have been doing it for years.

As you progress in StrongLifts, it's going to get harder, and your form is going fall apart a bit. At that point I think the best course of action is to back off the weight and do something you can complete with good form. If you're form falls apart on the last two or three reps of the last set, no big deal. But if the weight is so much that you can't do good form on even the first set, then you're probably doing too much.

When I started StrongLifts, I used form as a gauge for knowing I was at my limit and that I shouldn't up the weight the next session.

Example: When I'm squatting, if I am attempting more weight than I can do with good form, I roll forward onto my toes, so I can finish the lift and not fail completely. That's when I know my form has fallen apart, when I end up on my toes instead of driving through my heals.

When I was doing StrongLifts 5x5, and progressing through the weights, I'd get into those situations where I'd start a set with 5 more lbs. than the previous session, and I'd find that even on my first set, I'd be rolling forward onto my toes before the last rep. That's when I knew there was no way I was going to get through the 5x5 workout that day with good form, so I'd back off to the previous weight and do the workout with that weight, because doing that many lifts with bad form is just asking for injury (especially on deadlift, as I learned). And I'd do that for however many workouts in a row until I felt I could make another progression.

Now, when you plateau like that, and you're stuck on the same weight for several sessions in a row, that's when you'll have to pick a strategy for overcoming it. Mehdi suggests rolling back the weight several lbs. and starting the progression over. It's his de-loading, re-loading strategy.

I tried that, but I wasn't a fan of it, so I came up with something different and it's worked for me and still works for me. I still hit PR's almost every month. What you do when you plateau is up to you. There are all kinds of strategies that work.