After a great experience at CrossFit Haven and seeing how they programmed as well as the community, there were a few things I wanted to do when I got back to school. I wanted to try and work out as much with the club at school as possible to emulate that community feel, and I wanted to get stronger. My desire for strength was a different desire than before. Before, I just wanted to get stronger for the sake of being stronger as well as some aesthetic desire. Now, it is completely different. I wanted to get stronger because that was the main limiting factor in my MetCons, I wasn't strong enough to do workouts as prescribed, and when I could, I didn't have the muscular strength and endurance to maintain a high intensity throughout; rarely was it that I was gassed in workouts, it was more that my muscles were gassed.
Now I began a journey of focusing even more on strength, although I didn't really know how to. When you want to get strong, who do you turn to? The Powerlifters! I searched the internet tirelessly for different powerlifting programs or strength programs trying to find one that was both simple and effective. I eventually found Jim Wendler's 5-3-1 program which has you work off of percentages of your 1 rep max. Unfortunately, I found this at a terrible timing. One cycle is a month, but I found it 2 weeks before spring break where I would be going to Panama City and wouldn't be able to lift at all for the week, so I wouldn't be able to start the cycle then. When I got back, there was a little less than 2 months left of school, and that isn't enough to see enough gains; based on everything I read, you want to do at least 3 cycles to start seeing real gains. So now I couldn't do Wendler's 5-3-1, so I didn't know what to do.
Another issue I came upon was the issue of weight and body composition. Like the majority of people, I'm not completely satisfied with my body composition, even though I'm fine with my weight. However, also from everything I read, in order to gain strength, it helps a lot to add on weight. The problem I was facing with that was that I had been trying to eat cleaner and with that, my weight was slowly dropping, but I now theoretically needed to gain weight. Do I sacrifice my diet to gain weight and gain strength or do I maintain my cleaner eating and hope that my programming that I was using would be enough to maintain strength gains? I'm not sure if I made the correct decision long term, but I decided to dirty up my eating a little bit, in hopes to maybe gain some weight and increase my strength. I haven't weighed myself since I have been at school, so I don't know if my weight has gone up, but I have been getting stronger.
For my programming, I decided to change it up a little bit. I am now squatting Mondays, strict press Tuesdays, deadlifts Wednesdays, close grip bench press (due to it translating better to the overhead press) Thursday, pull ups for strength followed by a heavy MetCon Friday, Saturday has either another heavy MetCon or a benchmark/hero wod, and then recovery swimming Sundays (Monday-Thursday also include MetCons after the strength). I have also adopted a little bit of Wendler in that I am now generally going at slightly lower weights and higher reps while also maxing out for reps on the last set of each workout. For the most part, it has been working.
Here I am now, with a slightly dirtier diet and caring a little less about what I eat (I like to think I'm still not eating crap, I'm just not being as strict), and trying my own modification based on the time restraints I have to do all I can to get strong without completely ignoring my conditioning. But hey, at least I know basically what it is I want to do now, so at least I have a plan.
And when I get back to school in the fall, I'm going to do Wendler 5-3-1 the entire school year. I'm pretty sure I'll still need to get stronger, and hopefully that will help.
Gotta love having a desired plan, realizing all of the logistical issues, and then creating a whole new plan that may or may not work out.
No comments:
Post a Comment