How Stronglifts changed my life

Stronglifts changed my life because it made me believe that I can write decent copy. This might be an unexpected outcome from a beginner lifting program. Learn more in this article write to me via pascal@marathon-Crossfit.com if you are interested.

From a runner to a lifter

The first change Stronglifts brought into my life was to move from running into lifting. I wasted my twenties by drinking and working too much. That being said I also made good friends and met my wife. In terms of fitness, that decade was a disaster.

In 2013 my wife gently reminded me that I was getting fat and unattractive. It was more of a verbal kick in the head when I think about it now. The good news is that it had the desired effect. I signed up for my first marathon in Dublin.

During the Dublin race series, I shed of 15 kilograms ending up at 80kg. Beforehand I was dangerously close to the 100kg mark. My time for the Dublin Marathon was 3:58. The fastest of my three. After running for half a year I get comments that I looked so thin that it was unhealthy. I never really enjoyed running that much. I would still recommend it to anyone who wants to lose weight and is not too big to do it.

This got me into a 2014 New Years Resolution to put on some pounds. Stronglifts seemed like a well-balanced choice for beginners. The program is easy and I followed it for ten months. During that period I ran two more Marathons. One in Frankfurt and one in Vienna. Unfortunately, my times get worse. As I enjoyed lifting more I focused on it more and more.

In the end, Stronglifts made me bigger and stronger while distracting me from running. The results were good but not impressive. After ten months I had a decent body and decent strength levels. If you are younger you might make better gains due to higher testosterone levels. I recommend Stronglifts to anyone to start with lifting. Just don’t expect miracles to happen as with any diet or fitness regime. It takes patience or extreme measures to change your body significantly.

From lifter to Blogger

In 2014 I started marathon-Crossfit.com as A project for my new employer. The idea back then was to combine running and Crossfit.

I saw that Crossfitters were not doing particularly well at long distance running or long-time endurance work. I tested that by doing a half marathon row and comparing my results with the Crossfit games. These guys were a lot more trained than me and I would have placed in the top ten with my row even though I had only trained it for two weeks. That pointed to a systematic weakness in this area.

At the other end of the spectrum were the Kenyan runners. These guys can run at 20 km/h for two hours straight. Yeti doubt they deadlift more than 120 kg. I want to create a body which is good at both, endurance and picking up heavy stuff.

I started blogging and none of my running topics took off. Posts about marathons and the Dublin race series did not really get a lot of views. This changed when I started to blog about Stronglifts 5x5. These were the first articles with more than a hundred views a month. My Stronglifts 5x5 review is still my best article with 3.000+ views a month.

From Blogger to Trainer

Since Stronglifts has changed my life I am getting more interested in strength and conditioning. I have done and analyzed more lifting programs like

The next big goal is to take it to the next level by becoming a certified trainer. I’ve learned from Jonathan Goodman’s book Ignite the fire that the CSCS certification is very respected. That will be the next step up. So far I have written 500 articles on fitness and diet. Without Stronglifts that would never have happened.

Conclusion

Stronglifts 5x5 did change my life in unexpected ways. It was great to improve my strength. It failed to live up to expectations in terms of looks. The most interesting part for me is that Stronglifts made me believe that I am actually capable of writing something which people are interested in.