UPDATE on question about recovery

fedya

New member
Hi again fellow old-timers.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a question about recovery.

Briefly, I'm doing a slightly modified PHUL program MTTF, with additional work on the Wednesday, as well as an hour of cycling per weekday. I thought my progress was slow, and wondered about recovery.

I received a lot of helpful replies. The advice fell along two lines:

I was under-recovered, and my focus was split (especially useful comments from @a3yan, @paperboat, and @timhieuvetrello).

The reason was that I was still measuring progress by 5RM lifts, but had recently deliberately shifted my training routine to a much more hypertrophy biased program.

Well, I took the collective advice, and have made Wednesday largely a rest day, restricting myself to light shoulder prehab for a previous rotator cuff injury (3x20 cable rotations).

I also upped my calories by about 1000 per week.

Great results so far!

Hypertrophy is hard to gauge in the short time frame, but I have had a couple of gym buddies make positive comments. I had taken some measurements at the beginning of my new routine, and there are modest increases, but I failed to take measurements two weeks ago before introducing the additional rest day.

But even more encouraging, for strength measurements, I've had PRs in all lifts all week, both at my 5RM and 8-12RMs.

In some cases, I've progressed by not just my usual increment of 2.5lbs or 5lbs, but maybe two or three increments.

My plan now is to continue running my version of PHUL for the next few weeks, and then reassess. I'm interested in exploring 5/3/1 in the future, but am going to keep at this routine for now with the adjustment.

Thanks again to all who offered thoughtful advice.
 
@fedya
Well, I took the collective advice, and have made Wednesday largely a rest day, restricting myself to light shoulder prehab for a previous rotator cuff injury (3x20 cable rotations).
I also upped my calories by about 1000 per week.

Very good to hear this! And, it's another good reminder that we don't get bigger and stronger because we lift; we get bigger and stronger as an adaptation from the recovery as a consequence of lifting. Without the recovery, the lifting will just continue to tear you down until you get sick or break.
 
@fedya Very interesting post. I am going to be transitioning into a 5/3/1 version of PHUL in about or a month or so (currently doing a linear strength program 3x per week with an extra upper hypertrophy day thrown in because it's fun and I'm vain).

Keep us updated!
 
Back
Top