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When does Stronglifts 5x5 get hard ?

Posted by Pascal Landshoeft

Mar 28, 2016 10:00:00 AM

When does Stronglfts 5x5 get hard

When does Stronglifts 5x5 get hard?

There are several factors going into this, but I personally think your fitness level, age, diet, lifting, sleep and bodyweight will be part of the equation of when Stronglifts 5x5 gets hard.

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The younger, fitter, heavier, healthier, better nourished and rested you are the more likely it will be that you can do Stronglifts 5x5 for a longer period of time without it getting hard for you due to the nature of the program.

In my case it got hard at 29 years of age, 80 – 85kg of bodyweight, a fitness level of a marathon runner and with an average of six hours of sleep after nine months into it starting from an empty bar.

What is hard?

You might that is irrelevant to mention, but hard can be a very subjective topic. Some people find it hard to only think about physical activity while others swing from trees like tarzan, do a 10k run and then chase their little ones around the house. All a matter of perspective.

In the context of lifting I define a hard set for myself as a set where I can barely make it to the planned finishing line. In Stronglifts this would mean that you have to push to almost not making the last repetition of the last set. For me that occurred roughly nine months into the program when I started with an empty bar. I had run a marathon before and I am generally of a bulkier built. I loved lifting as a teenager so maybe for some this point come sooner or later depending on their physique and habits.

Fitness level

Stronglifts 5x5 is a program which lets you start with an empty bar and does not use your current strength levels as a reference point if you follow it by the book. There is an option for people who feel like this is not challenging enough to start with 50% of your one repetition maximum. I personally think however, if you are able to run a one repetition maximum testwith proper form without killing yourself you might have missed the point of the program to its entirety. Ultimately up to you to decide.

The fitter you are from other sports or based on your habits the longer it will take for you personally, when you start from an empty bar,that the program will get challenging to you. If you are only beginning to learn how to lift this is a good thing, as you will learn proper technique and progress for a longer time without hitting a plateau.

This might seem counterintuitive, but believe me proper form and staying away from injury are the two best ways to get strong. By this I mean real beast mode “I can pull a truck and squat your daddy’s cow strong”. If you are a yuppie swap the truck for an SUV and the cow for your safe in which you keep your jewellery and important papers.

Ina nutshell the fitter you are entering the program, the longer it will take to get “hard” as defined earlier.

Technique

Proper technique will do two things for you. The first is staying away from injury and the second is making optimal use of the strength you already possess by making use of your natural leverages and and keeping the bar on a straight path.

The first part of this is related to not getting injured. The worse your technique is the more likely it will be that you will pull a muscle, tear a tendon or hit yourself in the head on the bench press. If any of these things occurs things will get hard by default, because you managed to keep yourself from doing the exercises by wrecking yourself. Paradigm is “Protect yourself before you wreck yourself”.

Second part of this is plain physics. If you paid attention in school you will know that leverages, load and distance travelled are important to how much force you have to apply to get shit done. The lesser the distance and the better the leverage the less force has to be applied to move a bigger load. Reads simply: The better your technique, the more you can lift for longer until it gets hard (or your body reaches it limits as it can’t produce more force = you are too weak… a million different ways of saying the same thing).

So, to conclude on technique, the better it is the longer it will take for Stronglifts for you to get hard.

Diet

This related to what and how much you eat. The intake of food will also determine on how well you will progress. Even if you have the best engine in the world (fitness level) and you are a well-tested race driver (technique), it is still no use if there is no fuel (food). Eat much, unprocessed food. When you are hungry, satisfy the hunger by eating, to make good progress on Stronglifts. You can fuel yourself with bad food, however keep in mind that this will come at the cost of health.

Sleep

The more you sleep, the better rested you will be when hitting the gym and progress for longer. Recommend are seven to eight hours of sleep. Anything less might mean that %x5 will get hard for you sooner than others who put in enough sleep

Age

Age play an important role in fitness as the older you become the slower your cell regeneration usually gets. The slower the cell regeneration becomes the quicker Stronglifts will become hard as hard lifting will attack your muscle tissue and break some of it to be rebuild stronger. So the younger you are (within reason of course after puberty) the longer it will take for Stronglifts to get hard for you.

Bodyweight

Last but not least its bodyweight which goas back to physics and mass. The lighter you are the quicker 5x5 will get hard due to the nature of the beast. The bar weighs 25kg unless you will use a woman’s bar or a technique bar. If you are 50kg in weight that is already 50% of your bodyweight. For a man weighing a 100kg this is 25% of his bodyweight. By default you are therefore doomed to hit the ceiling quicker with 5x5 if you are lighter in bidyweight.

Conclusion

I have described the factors which influence when and how Stronglifts get hard. As a rule of thumb you will start to struggle first when you scale to bodyweight squat. Considering all of these factors somewhere between 6 – 12 months it will get hard and between 9 – 12 months you might will have to change program.

 

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Topics: Stronglifts 5x5