What after Stronglifts??

deco72

Hi guys

Been doing stronglifts now for the past 4/5 weeks and am finding it effective but challenging at times. Never really lifted proper heavy weights before so this is a good experience.

I was thinking of doing the 12 weeks of the SL 5x5 and once finished concentrate on bringing up my fitness levels. I was wondering should I just add the extra cardio workouts in on the days Im not doing the SL or should I just change routine and concentrate on cardio with some weights instead?

Any input greatly appreciated.

Cheers

thegreatiam

if its working dont change anything until it stops working

if its still working at 12 weeks then keep going until it stops working.

then do madcow. its all on his blog

jaytuom

If you're looking to get stronger then traditional low-intensity cardio might not be your man. I could be counter-productive and tire you out for your lifts the next day. You could try sprints or high intensity intervals on 2 of the days you're not lifting weights, takes less time and it's great for boosting muscle growth as well as increasing your cardiovascular fitness. Here are two quick workouts that I like a lot:

Jog slowly around a football pitch, and in each circuit sprint for one of the long sides of the pitch. If you do this 6-8 times you'll have done a good cardio workout. This will only work if you do it hard. Doesn't matter if you need to walk rather than jog in between, as long as you're giving it your all during the sprints. At first you might want to sprint for one of the shorter sides of the pitch if you're running out of gas on the long sides. Keep upping the distance of the sprints as they get easier, but allow plenty of recovery time in between.

If you have access to a rowing machine: most of them will allow you to set a distance to row. Set it to 250m, then make sure you're on a pretty challenging resistance setting (if the machine has them). Try to row the distance in under a minute. Then rest for a minute or two and try to beat your time. Again, 6-8 of these and you're done.

You could throw in one 40-50 minute 'easy run' a week as well, nice for muscle recovery and great for your head! But stay away from the treadmill...

Zombienosh

12 weeks isn't enough IMO, I'd do it for at least a year, but I don't know why you are doing stronglifts or what your goals are.
There's nothing stopping you doing cardio inbetween days or even after your main lifts.

No matter what the goal is there's no downside to doing a program that focuses on big compound lifts.

deco72

jaytuom wrote: »

If you're looking to get stronger then traditional low-intensity cardio might not be your man. I could be counter-productive and tire you out for your lifts the next day. You could try sprints or high intensity intervals on 2 of the days you're not lifting weights, takes less time and it's great for boosting muscle growth as well as increasing your cardiovascular fitness. Here are two quick workouts that I like a lot:

Jog slowly around a football pitch, and in each circuit sprint for one of the long sides of the pitch. If you do this 6-8 times you'll have done a good cardio workout. This will only work if you do it hard. Doesn't matter if you need to walk rather than jog in between, as long as you're giving it your all during the sprints. At first you might want to sprint for one of the shorter sides of the pitch if you're running out of gas on the long sides. Keep upping the distance of the sprints as they get easier, but allow plenty of recovery time in between.

If you have access to a rowing machine: most of them will allow you to set a distance to row. Set it to 250m, then make sure you're on a pretty challenging resistance setting (if the machine has them). Try to row the distance in under a minute. Then rest for a minute or two and try to beat your time. Again, 6-8 of these and you're done.

You could throw in one 40-50 minute 'easy run' a week as well, nice for muscle recovery and great for your head! But stay away from the treadmill...

Thanks for that i think I will give the interval running a go on my days off.

I currently do weights Monday, Tuesday and Thursday as I am not near the gym fri-sun currently but I will be changing this to Sunday Tuesday Thursday as I need the day recovery in between as weights get heavier. And I also play astro football on a wed evening so if I could fit in another couple days of interval sprints that would build up my fitness.

If I changed my Monday to the Sunday, do you think would be good to fit in the interval sprints on Mondays and Fridays and just rest on Saturday?? Would this be more beneficial??

My main goal now is to try and change my body shape as I have a little bit more weight than what I want especially on my sides ( love handles going on ) I have changed my diet and I am eating more often but better food and smaller portions.

Would you guys have any more recommendations??

deco72

Zombienosh wrote: »

12 weeks isn't enough IMO, I'd do it for at least a year, but I don't know why you are doing stronglifts or what your goals are.
There's nothing stopping you doing cardio inbetween days or even after your main lifts.

No matter what the goal is there's no downside to doing a program that focuses on big compound lifts.

I was going to do it for the 12 weeks as from what I read that's what the guy was saying to start with.

My main goal of doing the lifts is to help in changing my body shape. Have a bit of extra weight that I would like to shred and also want to build up strength as thinking of going back to playing football next season. That is one of the reason I was thinking of doing cardio to help with fitness.

Do u think it would be better to keep up the SL ( longer than the 12 weeks ) and add the interval sprints as mentioned above??

Cheers

thegreatiam

deco72 wrote: »

I was going to do it for the 12 weeks as from what I read that's what the guy was saying to start with.

My main goal of doing the lifts is to help in changing my body shape. Have a bit of extra weight that I would like to shred and also want to build up strength as thinking of going back to playing football next season. That is one of the reason I was thinking of doing cardio to help with fitness.

Do u think it would be better to keep up the SL ( longer than the 12 weeks ) and add the interval sprints as mentioned above??

Cheers

He has 12 weeks written on his blog purely as a marketing ploy to make people view it. No-one wants to read about a fitness program called "invest a significant amount of time and effort in an indefinite liner progression program"

He explains it in his blog but the gist is that everyone is different.
The fact that people who are new to strength training see the biggest % improvement in the shortest time. Able to pack on pounds and pounds of muscle and increase weight seemingly exponentially by adding weight to the bar each week.

This is because the weight may be heavy for you now but in reality they are small compared to your body's innate capabilities, so you are able to recover much quicker.

More experience lifters are lifting much closer to they maximum potential so they need longer to recover and cannot progress in a linear fashion.

Some people evolve out of this beginner stage called "Noob gains" within 3 months. Some people are lucky and can keep progressing for much longer.

Ideally you want to stay in that phase as long as possible, hence keep going until you cannot add weight to the bar each session.

"12 week program" is just a much less of a mouthful to put on the heading of an article.

Ignore the 12 week program part and read the rest of the blog, you'll see its a 12 week program repeated until you naturally progress.

One article on his blog deals with leaving strong lifts and moving on to the next stage.
www.stronglifts.com

basically,

• if you easily lift it, add weight next session.
• if you don't then lift the same next session.
• if you fail try 2 more sessions same weight
• then drop back 10% and continue.
• If you make it then add weight >repeat until you cant lift again
• this usually breaks through a stall, if you get stuck here then look at your diet/sleep patterns. if they re ok and you still arent adding weight then you have reached a plateau and are no longer in noob gains phase.
• move to madcow.

jaytuom

deco72 wrote: »

Thanks for that i think I will give the interval running a go on my days off.

I currently do weights Monday, Tuesday and Thursday as I am not near the gym fri-sun currently but I will be changing this to Sunday Tuesday Thursday as I need the day recovery in between as weights get heavier. And I also play astro football on a wed evening so if I could fit in another couple days of interval sprints that would build up my fitness.

If I changed my Monday to the Sunday, do you think would be good to fit in the interval sprints on Mondays and Fridays and just rest on Saturday?? Would this be more beneficial??

My main goal now is to try and change my body shape as I have a little bit more weight than what I want especially on my sides ( love handles going on ) I have changed my diet and I am eating more often but better food and smaller portions.

Would you guys have any more recommendations??

If you're playing astro football as well you might only need one sprint session per week. If you're doing stronglifts there will be weeks when you have 2 sessions finishing with deadlifts right? On these weeks especially you might need 2 rest days, but I'd say try out 2 days of sprints and see how you feel. If it's burning out your legs and your squats are suffering then cut it to 1 day a week.

If you're looking to change your body shape, sprinting should be just the thing for you. The emphasis on power means that you'll be building some muscle while you're burning fat, instead of doing longer runs where you'll lose fat but lose some muscle too. There's been some research done to show that doing this type of workout in the morning will increase your metabolic rate for the rest of the day, so you'll burn calories more quickly. Not sure how reliable that is but I do find I get a sort of a buzz for the rest of the day if I do intervals in the morning.

Agree with the posters above who say that the 12 weeks claim is just to hook you in, keep doing it for as long as it works. After that I think what stronglifts advises is that you go from 5x5 to 3x5 and start upping the weight only every week rather than every session. No need to change anything until you hit a plateau though.