Self-Coaching for Powerlifting

Over the years I had done some self-coaching to train for my cycling racing. But when I started track cycling I didn't feel confident that I had the experience or understanding to self-coach, so I hired a coach to provide me with both my cycling and gym workouts. From those many years of being coached, I felt like I understood the training better, and even started to feel somewhat confident I might be able to self-coach my gym workouts. 

But I hesitated. 

After I "retired" from competition, I continued to work out at Santa Cruz Strength, and the gym owner, Stacey Otlin (an amazing powerlifter with National and World records in her group), provided the gym members with a general powerlifting program to follow. It worked quite well for me, but none of this was personalized like my coached training had been. Due to the problems I started to experience as I grew older, I started to think I needed to follow a highly personalized gym workout program to address my limitations. Finding a powerlifting coach who is affordable and understands age-related challenges has to be close to impossible. And nobody can totally understand you better than yourself, after all. 

I was also having a more difficult time fitting my workouts into my workdays, so I reluctantly switched my membership to Toadal Fitness, right near my house. It turned out they had a decent enough selection of free weights and squat racks for me to be satisfied with it, and the membership cost was less then half too. And they have since expanded the weight room, and added a lot of new equipment, so it has been a great change. Stacey agreed to send me the same powerlifting workouts for a modest monthly fee, and so I continued as before. 

But over time it didn't make sense to keep doing this, and so I asked Stacey for advice. She suggested I consider self-coaching a "5x5" workout program. I looked it up online, and this great article about the 5x5 program on barbend.com showed me that I could pretty easily set up a good program myself with little effort. I'm so glad I did the homework, because I have now been following my self-coached workout program for eight months with great results. 

Here's the general outline I follow: 

Day 1: 

  • Squat Variation: 5x5 @70%–80%
  • Vertical Pull: 5x5 @70%–80%
  • Vertical Push: 3x(2x12–15)

Day 2: 

  • Horizontal Push: 5x5 @70%–80% 
  • Horizontal Pull: 5x5 @70%–80%
  • Hip Hinge: 3–4x12–15

Day 3: 

  • Hip Hinge: 5x5 @70%–@80%
  • Vertical Push: 5x5 @70%–@80%
  • Horizontal Pull: 3–4x(2x12–15)

The exercise types translate to these examples: 

  • Squat Variation: Front Squat, Back Squat, Zercher Squat, Safety Bar Squat, Goblet Squat, Overhead Squat, Lateral lunges, Bulgarian split squats, Single leg RDL, Walking lunges, Box Jumps, Box Step-Ups, Leg Press
  • Horizontal Push: Flat Barbell Bench Press, Incline Barbell Bench Press, Decline Barbell, Bench Press, Dumbbell Bench Press (flat, incline, decline), Hammer Strength Press
  • Hip Hinge: Deadlift, Trap Bar Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift, Rack Pull, Hip Thrust, Split-Stance Deadlifts, Single-Leg Landmine Deadlifts, EXPLOSIVE DEADLIFTS 3x3@60%–70%
  • Vertical Pull: Pull-Up, Weighted Pull-Up, Chin-Up, Weighted Chin-Up, Lat Pulldown
  • Vertical Push: Barbell Overhead Press, Dumbbell Overhead Press, Arnold Press, Machine Shoulder Press, Half-Kneeling Single-Arm Dumbbell Press, Z Press, Log Press
  • Horizontal Pull: Bent-Over Barbell Row, Pendlay Row, Single-Arm Dumbbell Row, Two-Arm Dumbbell Row, Seal Row, Seated Cable Row, Face Pull

I switch up the exercises every few weeks, depending on how I feel, or to switch the emphasis. The 5x5 program makes this so easy to do for somebody like me who wants to self-coach without it becoming too time-consuming. 

Another change I have made, perhaps even more important, is to change from scheduling my workouts around a standard 7-day week. Yeah, so before my workout schedule was like this: 

  1. Mondays: Gym (squats based)
  2. Tuesdays: Cycling (1 hour) 
  3. Wednesdays: Gym (bench based) 
  4. Thursdays: Cycling (1 hour) 
  5. Fridays: Gym (deadlift based) 
  6. Saturdays: Cycling (2-4 hours) 
  7. Sundays: Rest 

Even with the personalized 5x5 program I was still having significant issues at times, to the point where I would sometimes stop my workouts short due to fatigue or back spasms. I felt better when I rested more, and I started to realize that my recovery from workouts was taking longer so I needed more rest days to continue at that level of training. 

How could I increase my rest? A concept I had considered years ago for my cycling training schedule, but never tried, was to abandon the arbitrary schedule structured around a seven-day week. Instead, my workout program is now based on a nine-day "week." Eh? Like this: 

  1. Day 1: Gym (squats based)
  2. Day 2: Cycling 
  3. Day 3: Rest 
  4. Day 4: Gym (bench based) 
  5. Day 5: Cycling 
  6. Day 6: Rest 
  7. Day 7: Gym (deadlift based) 
  8. Day 8: Cycling 
  9. Day 9: Rest 

I have been following the nine-day week schedule for two months so far, and I can definitely feel the difference the extra rest has provided. It's been most welcome! Sometimes I swap Day 2 and Day 3 so I get more recovery after Day 1's squats before I hit the bike, and Day 4 is mostly an upper-body workout where I don't need my legs to be well-rested. 

It turns out that I may have gotten inspiration for the nine-day week from reading Mark Rippetoe's book, Practical Programming for Strength Training, about ten years ago (and found too complicated to help me self-coach at the time). In it he also talks about how advanced lifters might need more time between workouts. I guess I'm "advanced" for where I'm at; maybe advanced age counts too. 

It's harder to keep track of what I need to do on any given day (like, what day in the program is today?), so I put a few recurring events on my calendar, with notifications that make it clear what the schedule calls for on any given day. I guess confusion about what day it is, an issue for us old people, is made worse by this but it sure has helped me. 

So, has all of this helped me with my physical issues and my strength? I'm not sure yet, as I haven't tried a 1RM test (one rep max; a single maximal lift) since last August, but just to put that in writing, here's where I stood then: 

  • Squats: 305# (139 kg)
  • Bench Press: 230# (105 kg)
  • Deadlifts: 390# (177 kg)

Except for my squats, these numbers are lower than my PRs in 2019, before all of the COVID-19 shutdowns. Hopefully I'll be able to get in a new 1RM test soon for comparison. Crossing my fingers that it will go smoothly. But I feel better, and am regaining confidence in my strength. That is more valuable than PRs to me now. 

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