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Wellness Wednesday for October 12, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Lifting about five years - started with the popular Reddit PPL, tried NSuns, messed around with PPL-style programming, didn't really train over lockdown, did Jeff Nippard's Upper-Lower split when I came back, started 5/3/1 in spring of this year. Started with original 5/3/1 with BBB sets, then did a 5/3/1 Forever mesocycle with BBB sets.

Currently my highest lifts are four reps with 100kg on bench press (which I did a few months ago), 155kg on back squat (again, done a few months ago before I started getting back pain) and 190kg on deadlift (done about three years ago). I currently weigh about 84kg, up from about 77kg this time last year.

Yes, I eat lots of protein. Not hard when you eat over 4500 calories. I don't track it but when I do it is normally about 250 grams or more which should be more than enough since most recommendations go up to 2.2g/kg. Admittedly I do eat a fair amount of processed foods, I'm not much of a cook and I don't really know how to make or grow things from scratch and I often have to eat out when I'm working. Honestly I don't understand what people are getting at when they criticize processed foods. Lots of people have gained weight and muscle drinking milk, eating pizza, and using processed supplements like whey protein and creatine (which you yourself recommend). I don't believe it's somehow necessary to cut all those things out of a diet. You're also wrong about whey protein - it has a complete amino acid profile.

Because powerlifting routines rely on constantly increasing the weight and lifting as close to max as possible as much as possible, you need to give your body the necessary time between sessions.

5/3/1 isn't a powerlifting program and I'm not really interested in powerlifting.

What I read about 5/3/1 is that it does the main powerlifts (DL,SQ,BP) with added mili press. You might want to consider adding a row in to your movements, like a barbell row or something to hit your upper back a little bit.

5/3/1 has assistance work, and I do some sort of row or pulldown variation every day, including barbell rows on press day.

Also, in regards to volume, if you really feel the need to be moving throughout the week then just do calisthenics during rest days.

Sometimes in the evenings I go for a run and do some pullups/burpees/dips in an outdoor gym. I'm not that consistent about it, I need to fit it around my schedule, but I usually aim for going twice or three times a week.

I think this is a bad idea. On top of hitting all your macro and micro nutrients, your body needs plenty of good rest to repair, rebuild, and replenish the proteins expended during your workout.

Well, in the past when I've trained with rest days, I didn't get any stronger. I've read the best thing to do in that case is to train harder or with more volume or great frequency, so I chose greater frequency.