End of the Road

Sooooo, that didn't take long.

After singing the praises of Stronglifts 5x5 in my last post, today I've decided to put Stronglifts to bed (for now). I have nothing bad to say about the program. It's easy to follow. You feel like you're accomplishing something every training session (as opposed to wandering mindlessly between exercises). And it produced results i.e. strength gains.

You can theoretically do Stronglifts forever (although if it were actually possible to add 5 pounds to every exercise for every workout, we'd all be squatting 700 lb. and benching 5-hunksi), but the initial program is 3 workouts a week for 12 weeks. By my math, that's 36 workouts. Well, I got to 34, and unfortunately it's time to call it quits for me.

Why? Well, 1 of the very few downsides to Stronglifts is that the user is only privy to the basic program with the free version of the app. The app advertises different set and rep ranges to break through plateaus as well as different assistant exercises to go with the 5 mainstays, but that's only when you upgrade to the paid yearly subscription. It's not expensive by any means, and I'm sure you could find a bootleg Excel calculation online somewhere that gives you the paid program, but that was the 1st time I ever did a meh when contemplating the Stronglifts program.

The 2nd reason is that I accomplished what I set out to do. I had previously completed a program that helped me set new personal bests on the bench. I wanted to do the same thing with squatting. Stronglifts did that. My previous 1 rep max squat was 270 lb. On the 34th Stronglifts workout, I repped 285 lb. 5 times (for 1 set at least). So, mission accomplished. When I was looking at squat strength programs, I wasn't originally considering a program that focused on other areas as well. But when I found Stronglifts, I said, What the heck? Why not?

Finally, it just got to the point where I had to consider competing interests. My left groin/hip have been killing me the last 2 weeks or so. I'm not sure if squatting heavy is what caused the soreness, but I don't think it's helped me recover any faster either. I've kind of tried to baby it and scale back the frequency of my squatting, but the injury still seems to be lingering. With that being said, it's probably best to shut it down for a couple of weeks, and let everything heal for real. Squatting heavy is fun, but so is playing basketball without worrying that you're going to pull your groin every layup attempt or being able to chase the kids around the yard without an ice pack afterwards.

I do think I will pick the Stronglifts program back up at some point (or maybe start the program off from scratch), but I think it's time to try something else for a bit. Stronglifts definitely got me through an entire summer where some days I would rather be anywhere else but in my sweatbox of a garage gym. I would have liked to do 2 more workouts just to get to that nice clean 36 number, but what am I trying to prove at this point? I think I'm nearing (or already at) my squat plateau as is. I'm going to continue a modified 5x5 program for deadlifts and bench for a couple of more weeks just because I haven't really approached my limits there yet, but otherwise that will be a wrap. Good program though, and I would recommend it to anyone who's training routine has gotten a little stale and is trying to gain strength.