afraid to downgrade my weightlifting from 6 to 4

wombleval · August 2015

I'm in my 40s and have been lifting progressively since March using dumbbells only at home. I do 3 upper body sesions alternated with 3 lower body sessions every week so lifting 6 days every week. Adding on 1lb to each dumbbell every week and doing 3 sets of 12 all compound exercises. I've been eating at a small deficit and to be honest I havent seen a hell of alot of change in my physique. Ive actually gained 5-6lbs( 5ft and currently 108lbs). I've been reaching 1g protein per lb body weight the past 2 months. My thighs have gained a half inch but I can see some definition in my upper body and while I have lost any inches my core looks tighter and my shoulders are bigger. I had alot of body fat for my weight due to years eating 1000 calories mostly and apparently while my bmr is high for my weight etc ( i had it tested) I've been clinging onto fat. That's all the background info, here's the actual question!!
My poor body is having sore joints (elbows, knees etc ) and I wondered if I might actually see more progress if I went back to 4 days of lifting a week? I'm afraid to do this though as will be lifting less volume. on the other hand id hate if i was actually hindering progression by working out 6 days and not having enough rest . Only have 45 minutes each day to lift so can't fit in full body workouts.

peterjens · August 2015

Try working out M-W-F only and see how your body responds.

jimmmer · August 2015

Try upper/lower/off/upper/lower/off/off for a few weeks and see how you respond.

You may also need a light week to recover and adapt. But going to 4 sessions as outlined above may also do the trick, so start there.

As to less volume. Do the above and then once you acclimatise either add volume (more reps/sets) to the 4 week set up or try adding more intensity (larger weight jumps). See how you adapt. Obviously the volume you are currently doing is too high for your joints, going back to 4 days and then slowly working the volume back up should give them more time to recover and your soft tissues to adapt.

A final thing to note is progression: not every lift should be progressed at the same rate. A single joint, single muscle move like a tricep kickback will require smaller weight jumps than a dumbbell squat for instance. So lower body compounds like squats and RDL etc should be progressed faster and will give you more bang for your buck in less sessions while you still get adequate recovery from the extra off days. There are other tricks that can be employed like rep progression once the weight jumps between bells become too big for you to continue to progress in the fashion you have been.

wombleval · August 2015

Thanks for replies! ! I'm doing all compound stuff anyway. Ill try adding more weight on bigger lifts and doing 4 days a week and see how that goes. Or could I stick with the 6 days and have lower weight/higher reps on two of the days ie 4 progressing sessions and 2 light sessions each week? I really enjoy the buzz I get and the thought of only having that 4 days a week is weird!!

jimmmer · August 2015

At the end of the day, progress towards a goal is what's important if you're training.

Or else you're just working out and it doesn't matter what you do session to session if you enjoy a single session.

So if you are not progressing (joint pain, injuries, stalling, etc) then you need to change the schedule. Because you can enjoy those 6 sessions as much as you want, but if you end up with soft tissue damage you will soon stop training (or it will be extremely limited) and your progression will halt abruptly!

wombleval · August 2015

Im progressing all the time especially in oast few weeks when I've been on holidays and getting loads of sleep. You're right though. No point getting injured and losing weeks. I'll go back to 4 sessions a week and see how it goes. Thanks.i needed to hear that. Deep inside I knew I was overdoing it for my age!

jimmmer · August 2015

Well it's more about building work capacity, soft tissue adaptation and recovery. You sound like you might have out raced building these qualities. That's not to say you couldn't build up to the amount of work you're currently attempting and recover just fine - you just need to get there piece by piece over an extended period.

It's possible to build up to squatting everyday, for instance. But you would do it over time and modulate intensity as you went. You wouldn't just jump in on day one and back squat everyday - you'd likely injure yourself.

BigGuy47 · August 2015

jimmmer wrote: »

soft tissue adaptation and recovery

This can't be emphasized enough. It's easy to get stoked about getting stronger and push yourself too hard. Taking a deload week or adding in an extra rest day during the week is a far better alternative to having a tendon injury with months of recovery time. Patience.

wombleval · August 2015

Stupid joints! !! Do ye reckon in a year I mught be able to get back to 5 or 6 days or is 4 days enough when youre over 40? Or is that kind of regime only for the advanced lifter who's working different body parts each session?
As an aside im doing floor chest press with dumbbells - 4 sets of 12 reps at 52% body weight after 4 months. Does this seem like adequate progression ? Ditto dumbbell deadlifts are at 52% ... wondering if I should be increasing weights or if this is ok.

jimmmer · August 2015

I currently lift 4x week. Upper lower. It's enough, you could milk such routines phul, 531, etc for years getting stronger, building muscle, losing fat (whatever your current focus is).

Could I migrate to 6x a week? Yes, I'm sure I could. But I'd have to mitigate intensity in order to recover. Would I really be any better off in terms of total tonnage vs recovery time and necessary deloads over the months? Probably not.

And meaningful change and results happen over months, not weeks (or single sessions). Stop looking up close at your training at the level of the single session or week and zoom out to the month or 3 month level. Build years from blocks at these levels and see where you get to.

Remember, just because some is good does not necessarily mean more is better.

piperdown44 · August 2015

531 has me on 4 days a week, M,T, Th, F. Every fourth week is a deload week, meaning very light reps and not a lot of sets.
My joints appreciate that 4th week

wombleval · August 2015

Thanks so much gor the advice . hopefully ill progress more now im taking more rest days.

loulamb7 · August 2015

wombleval wrote: »

Only have 45 minutes each day to lift so can't fit in full body workouts.

All Pro routine is a full body, 3x week program, takes about 45 minutes per workout.

wombleval · August 2015

Loulamb7. Thats the first ive heard of that program. Im curious. How come you're decreasing the weights by 10% and 20% on days 2 and 3 each week? It seems illogical to go down weight. I thought you were meant to lift as heavy as possible each session and progress week by week whether by adding more reps or weight. All pro follows this pattern from what ive read :
progress(mon), regress(weds), regress (fri)
progress (mon), regress (weds), etc etc
Makes me think im missing knowledge of some basic rule about lifting.

jimmmer · August 2015

It's soviet dual factor programming.

The routine's designed to make you "overreach" by week 5. The medium and light days help you with fatigue management as the volume builds.

It's an excellent routine. And very cleverly programmed.

You can go a long time adding weight and reps to the bar.

You are clearly still under the impression that the single session is what matters. What matters with all pros is you do 2 sets of 12 with your prior 10RM in week 5 of the cycle. Run it for 8 cycles and see if you don't get markedly stronger and add some muscle.

wombleval · August 2015

It just seems very slow progression for a beginner. Ive been adding 10% pretty much each week to most lifts whereas this has you adding every 5 weeks. Then again my joints are suffering so that was too much.I guess I need to get in the mindset that less is ok rather than pushing myself to the limit but I honestly thought you wouldn't gain muscle unless you were doing as much volume as possible.
The fact that mediim and light days are built in for fatigue avoidance makes sense. Thanks again. There's so much info out there its boggling and I can get boggled at even simple things!!

jimmmer · August 2015

Yeah, you're adding 10% to your 10 rep sets then doing 2 sets of 12 with it. It trigs the reps slowly upwards over the cycle to build volume whilst keeping the intensity the same. It's not as straight forward as adding X kg's per session. Then you up the intensity 10% for the next cycle again and repeat.

You would probably find that you are increasing weights in a similar fashion adjusted by overall volume as on other starter programmes.

There are more ways than just adding weight to the bar session to session to build strength. Increasing volume, intensity, frequency, density, bar speed, etc have all been used successfully by various people to drive adaptation at some point.

All Pro's SBR is excellent. Don't knock it till you've tried it...

wombleval · August 2015

Oh god im not knocking it. im the first to admit im clueless and want to learn what will work best for me. Took the past 2 days off- longest break since I started over 4 months ago amd raring to go again tomorrow but not feeling guilty about skipping days thanks to ye ! Ill stay with 4 days for now and try the all pro in a month or so.

afraid to downgrade my weightlifting from 6 to 4

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