2024 Goals - Seeking Advice

@jely That’s precisely the idea - I don’t mind if I eventually fall short, but want to keep them as stretch goals.

I now follow the upper-lower split with a cardio+core day in between as well as a rest day (day-wise: upper, lower, cardio, upper, lower, cardio, rest). Of course, life does come in the way from time to time, but I try to stay active and not let gaps accumulate beyond 2 continuous weeks. Nutrition-wise, I try to follow a generally healthy diet and on an average stay in a deficit (I don’t track it very religiously though).
 
@fionar Ok--so you're not extremely overweight. As others have noted, as you get leaner, its going to be harder and harder to progress your strength while in a cut. That being said, no harm in going hard to see what happens. If you run into plateaus or regressions in strength--you'll know why and you can adjust.

Good luck!
 
@fionar I would suggest you tweak your performance / outcome goals to something more process-oriented.

Running two half marathons is probably a fine goal, there is a pretty clear process to get into half-marathon shape, and if you follow it, you can just go and do those races. But I would structure the goal here as

"engaging in the process to get you ready for two half marathons." Shit could happen that makes actually completing the marathons unfeasible, but the process of getting ready for the marathons is truly where the benefits lie.

It's difficult to predict if these outcomes are possible or likely in the given time frame. If you had previously trained up to these levels it would be a different story. But trying to predict when you'll get to 450x4 in the deadlift, 220x4 bench press, etc. is rather error-prone. There are people who achieve this level of development in a year, but even with ideal training for you as an individual, it may not be in the cards. You'll have to see what kind of rate of progress you achieve in say the next 3 months. I wouldn't expect it to be linear from this point on.

You are also setting somewhat competing interests here. It's not that you shouldn't train all of this at the same time -- you really should! But your total training resources are limited.

So in your situation, I would write a high-level training plan for the next year. The biggest rocks will be the half-marathon races. It would help to know at least roughly when you plan to run these. And then look at your resistance training plan, and think about how you will periodize training around the races. You want to at least maintain your strength through peaks in running volume, and then take your "off season" from running to really ramp up resistance training volumes to try to maximize your strength outcomes. You'll always have running and strength training in the weekly plan, you'll want to vary the amount of training volume in each as you approach races and testing for strength.

So in general, I think I would convert those concrete strength goals to a goal of engaging in the strength training process and mastering your technique. Learning how to maximize your individual strength outcomes, through appropriate frequency, weekly volume, and intensity, is an important process for long-term development. You can take video periodically (or even every workout) and objectively see technique improvement. If you're not sure if your technique is good, or getting better, perhaps you can show other people.
 
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