Hello T Nationers!
This training log has been a long term plan of mine, but I needed the push to get going. I committed myself to the ADD challenge starting 1st September as my training these past two years has not gone as well as I hoped.
Background: 33yo man. Did Stronglifts 5x5 for 6ish months back in 2016 (or thereabouts) before joining a weightlifitng gym for about two years and competed a couple of times. Began to lose interest in the sport and with the arrival of my first born left the club and started working out at home. Have flip-flopped between goals of strength, fat loss and muscle building since then; ran several variations of 531 for a year, also did GZCL, Greg Nuckol’s programming and a bit of Paul Carter’s stuff.
All in all, my strength has not increased significantly (or at all if I’m honest) and my body composition is not great. I’m 5’10 1/2" and 160lbs (I use all metric normally but will try and use imperial measurements so apologies if the weights seem a bit off), and very much DYEL.
So the goal for the remainder of the year is to stick with one program. That’s it. I’m hoping my lifts will go up, my work capacity/ conditioning will improve again and maybe I can build a bit of muscle.
I am going to run the Original 531 AB split from the Forever book, 50-100 reps of assistance from each category, easy conditioning every day and hard conditioning 3 days a week.
Training maxes tested w/c 17th August:
S 140
B 105 (low incline since flat benching gives me shoulder pain and I’m not keen on repeating this)
D 225
P 90 (seated without back support currently as my gym’s ceiling is too low for standing)
Lower body TMs are conservative and upper body TMs are because I am just plain weak 
But I did run 531 with PR sets and low training maxes for 2-3 cycles and really felt it was working (so why on earth did I change it??!). As I will complete a cycle in two weeks, the TMs will increase quickly, so regular deloads following 7th WP will be scheduled.
Assistant 50-100 reps per category, I will be taking inspiration from Beginner Prep School and doing this as a circuit at the end of the session. I may drop the reps lower as I am starting running 3 days a week, and this is what Jim Wendler advises.
Conditioning: easy conditioning - walking every day. I walk 3/4 mile to and from my car to work during the week and try and keep the pace up. Dog walking on my days off but pace is much slower (think toddler speed). I know this isn’t 100% to the book but I need it to fit in with my life a bit. Hard conditioning is running 3x a week, plan to do this in the evenings of my lifting days (lift early morning). Starting off at 1/2 mile run with rest as needed, slowly increase to a total of 1600m. Conditioning is a secondary goal to the lifting, mainly to support my work in the gym and to keep me in shape when chasing my kids around.
That is probably enough rambling. I will log Monday’s work next. Thanks for reading!
