i started at a bit less than 49. i'm 51 now, so i get you.

on accessories . . . most people tend to aim their accessories at whatever might be the weak point in their lifts. and/or they do accessory stuff that's designed to counterbalance whatever the lift itself does.

but sl does a fairly good job with that just in itself. rows counterbalance the bench press by working the muscles on the other side of your chest. pull in the deadlift gets counterbalanced by push for the press. for myself, my own standard 'extras' are band pull-aparts for the rear rotator cuff and rhomboids, and some kind of extra lat-related pulling in the up-and-down plane. so basically cable pulldowns or my eccentric chinups.

i do do a 'lot' (relatively) of planks and deadbugs and core-ish type stuff, but more as part of my warmup just to try and make sure those muscles are firing better before i get them involved in the lifts. the other stuff that i do is mostly related to stabilizer muscles in my rear shoulders and upper back. so i like waiter carries and turkish getups, but i sort of more do those things as re-check and re-settle moves during the lifts. they're not really 'lifts' that i'm doing in their own right.

avygyaru wrote: »

I just started 5x5 but have been training for a 5k for the past month. For a lot of people, this 5x5 program is enough. I have a lot lot LOT of weight to loss so I'm not going to stop the 5k program since it's an interval walk/jog/run like hell from zombies thing.

i use the zombies, run! app too. i love it! i don't have the training program but i do the story mission runs on my non SL days. when i first started SL i toned down cardio for a few weeks and when i came back to running i found that it is a lot easier after lifting. i was doing 3/2 intervals for about a mile before (not great, i know, but running, ugh). and now i'm surprising myself by running a mile before slowing down for a walking interval and for my dog to do his dog stuff and getting about 2.5 miles per mission.

avygyaru wrote: »

not going to stop the 5k program since it's an interval walk/jog/run like hell from zombies thing.

lol! that zombies thing always makes me laugh when people talk about it.

you can do both. i do find that lifting takes a bit of an edge off my biking, in some respects. i'm not as quick with my reflexes, is what it feels like. but on the other hand, once i got settled and started really progressing with the lifting, i gained a lot of leg strength that did translate onto the bike. i've been riding around in the 'big' ring of my cassette for months now, and i don't think it's coincidence that that came at the same time my deadlifts were steadily climbing.

the main issue is just energy depletion. not so much in the sense of feeling tired, but having the right chemical stuff available for your muscles to use when you call on them. there's a finite amount of glycogen that your muscles can store, and lifting basically competes with your other activities for use of it. it could be that i started to see this good effect once i got heavy with deadlifts because getting heavy with deadlifts has forced my body to make my hamstrings and quads into bigger storage units.

btw . . . for you newer people, you're always welcome to post in the 'daily workout' thread of the month if you feel like it. not that you have to, but just in case you feel too shy or like there's some kind of rule around it.

it's for everyone