Programming numbers for me has been a difficult task for some time. It would stand to reason considering I have dropped over 110 lbs for what seems like forever. My strength has taken a hit and my leverages are completely different.
With losing so much weight it's not practical to think I can maintain the same level of strength. Couple that with being 48 and it becomes even less likely. So my numbers have been on a sliding scale. Another factor is that Wendler gave me a circuit program I had been using for a while in which I had to keep the squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead numbers pretty low.
Now that I have settled into a bodyweight I plan on sticking around for a while I figured it was time to plug in some real numbers. I calculated some maxes by using my amrap numbers. Mind you, most of my heavy singles weeks ended up being over ten reps. In other words, the percentage I was working with was LOW.
Holy balls, with working off of a more true percentage, this sh!t has gotten HEAVY! I guess I was breezing along too easily because now I feel beat all to hell. I actually might have to start deloading again.
Usually I try and blog about something you all can actually learn from, but I don't know if that's the case here. Perhaps one could take away that some lower percentage sub max training is conducive to fat loss and recompositioning. I also did compete in the beginning of summer with decent success. I don't know that I optimized my strength, but I stayed healthy, had fun, and put up a pretty good number.
I guess the real results will be known after training with these new heavier percentages for a while. It's like I have always said though, training never goes wasted. I think consistency can be more important than numbers in a lot of cases anyway.
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