re: Pen and Paper Strength App

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Side note: was out night fishing with my buddy and my weight lifting is paying off. Back never got sore and I’m far more nimble around the boat if that makes sense.

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It's these little moments. As an adult, who doesn't currently compete it anything, (but lifts and walks/runs and tries to be healthy and do mobility/stretching work to maintain this body I was provided with in life), I love to use it to do stuff and this is the kind of feedback I use to judge whether or not the training I do matters. For me, it's mostly yard work/landscaping projects, home repair/maintenance projects, etc.

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Side note: was out night fishing with my buddy and my weight lifting is paying off. Back never got sore and I’m far more nimble around the boat if that makes sense.

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One of my favorite benefits of losing weight and working out is these little things. Coaching my kid's little league teams and being able to run around with them multiple practices/games a week without a problem or pick them up on my shoulders to celebrate after a homerun, etc is an awesome feeling.

I’m sure 777 will chime in, but why so large of a deficit and how much weight are you trying to lose? You need to up your protein, 80 grams even on an off day for an adult male is really low, are you eating mainly fat on those days?

Are you tracking your macros? I just lost a bunch of weight for my wedding and I was targeting .8 - 1.2 grams of protein per lb of weight. I would say he means you need to eat enough for recovery whether you tilt towards needing more fat or carbs and an appropriate amount of protein.

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The program days all say something like "Eat big, sleep big" or "Eat to grow, sleep to recover". I'm trying to figure out what that means in relation to rest days vs workout days.

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Just do what I do and throw that part away along with the often senseless "warmup" portion and the "cardio".

I'm kidding. I don't want to be the guy to shite on something that others enjoy, and while I've tried to get into PPSA programs, I just can't. Again, not trying to push/pull anyone else in the direction I go, but I have too many criticisms of PPSA to seriously follow his programs. As a guy who loves to SQUAT! more than anything, I wanted so badly to love and enjoy Squatober, but it was not for me, at least not the way AA programs it.

One of my major bitches about his programs is the "throw-away" (IMO), comments at the bottom labeled as "RECOVERY".

I mean obviously you're gonna eat and sleep, do I need to be reminded of that at the bottom of every day's schedule? I don't, but maybe someone out there does. I think he's intending for us to take those comments a bit tongue in cheek and not follow it literally, but in general it is true and it is solid advice, its the repetition that bothers me. Similar to how he labels additional work as "Cardio" but it's not cardio at all. Sure...you can get cardiovascular benefit from farmer's walks, but to me it's just weightlifters joking with weightlifters about "cardio" because anything that's not squats/deads/press is cardio, right? Har Har har! How are dumbbell shrugs cardio? It makes no sense, and if it is intended as a joke, while I get it, it's just lame to me, and I thought I was the King of loving lame jokes.

But as far as how I approach recovery: Sleep is number 1 no matter what a person is doing, Training? Not training? You gotta sleep, quality and quantity matters, I guess I would agree with saying that sleep is "more" important for a person who is doing something like heavy weight training, but everybody needs sufficient sleep of sufficient quality, right? So why even put forth the effort to put that on there, on every damn page.

As for eating, you sound like you have a good plan in place already for what you are trying to do, so I wouldn't overthink it and let the program influence you on your goals. If you can look back at the last week or so and say "I got enough protein in me to recover and rebuild muscle, but I maintained my caloric deficit by limiting fats and carbs intelligently around my training schedule" then you will be fine.

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I'm kidding. I don't want to be the guy to shite on something that others enjoy, and while I've tried to get into PPSA programs, I just can't. Again, not trying to push/pull anyone else in the direction I go, but I have too many criticisms of PPSA to seriously follow his programs. As a guy who loves to SQUAT! more than anything, I wanted so badly to love and enjoy Squatober, but it was not for me, at least not the way AA programs it.

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so squatober is meant to just be a month challenge and just to get people having fun and everyone feeling the sense of community. use sub max weights, moved fast and set PRs. if you are use to pushing every set LP style, takes a while to adjust

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One of my major bitches about his programs is the "throw-away" (IMO), comments at the bottom labeled as "RECOVERY".

I mean obviously you're gonna eat and sleep, do I need to be reminded of that at the bottom of every day's schedule? I don't, but maybe someone out there does. I think he's intending for us to take those comments a bit tongue in cheek and not follow it literally, but in general it is true and it is solid advice, its the repetition that bothers me. Similar to how he labels additional work as "Cardio" but it's not cardio at all. Sure...you can get cardiovascular benefit from farmer's walks, but to me it's just weightlifters joking with weightlifters about "cardio" because anything that's not squats/deads/press is cardio, right? Har Har har! How are dumbbell shrugs cardio? It makes no sense, and if it is intended as a joke, while I get it, it's just lame to me, and I thought I was the King of loving lame jokes.

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originally it was a joke and it kind of stuck. its just extra work, just ignore the actual words



so everyone knows i love ppsa....here is why...uses the 5/3/1 progression scheme so very intelligently uses sub max weights moved with great bar speed to increase overall force production

they are only a month long and usually have lots of compound lifting and then some pump work to finish it off

so overall you can mix and match to not get bored and slowly add weight to the bar

i actually like a lot of the warm ups and look at them similar to wenning warmups. of course i do a whole dynamic warmup before that but the empty bar benches can give you a little pump, if its too light, add weight each round of the warm up circuit. same with squats

one thing is, ppsa isnt for the serious strength athlete or athletes in general usually(some are). they are mainly designed for people like AA, to give guys in their mid 20s to 50s that are busy a plan to follow. and they are better than 99% of the stuff out there.

of course stuff like wendler, westside, juggernaught etc are better but only because they are so customizable as they are systems per say, not just a montly plan.

most people have zero plan, have no clue how to program etc...this gives them that.

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Similar to how he labels additional work as "Cardio" but it's not cardio at all. Sure...you can get cardiovascular benefit from farmer's walks, but to me it's just weightlifters joking with weightlifters about "cardio" because anything that's not squats/deads/press is cardio, right? Har Har har! How are dumbbell shrugs cardio? It makes no sense, and if it is intended as a joke, while I get it, it's just lame to me, and I thought I was the King of loving lame jokes

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I agree with this. I have skipped these parts on occasion and added actual cardio before. But regardless, when I do the "cardio" portion, I always use lighter weights and take short breaks if any, to actually feel like it is something close to cardio.

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they are only a month long and usually have lots of compound lifting and then some pump work to finish it off

so overall you can mix and match to not get bored and slowly add weight to the bar

ppsa isnt for the serious strength athlete or athletes in general usually(some are). they are mainly designed for people like AA, to give guys in their mid 20s to 50s that are busy a plan to follow. and they are better than 99% of the stuff out there.

most people have zero plan, have no clue how to program etc...this gives them that.

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Pretty much how i viewed it. I'm enjoying it so far.

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.... he said in the thread dedicated to the program.

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You got me, I'm being kind of a shite, I can't deny it.

When I finally transitioned from being a TD.com lurker to active participant, it was because of the H&F board, and I wanted to join in on the fun, so I decided to try out the PPSA stuff due to it's popularity and the opportunity to do something along with other people. I have a garage gym now so I definitely work out alone, but even when I worked out in commercial gyms I'd usually be in there after hours in the middle of the night, all by myself. I've tried to move away from being a lone wolf 100% of the time because it's limiting in how you can't physically push yourself as much as you could in a group environment and you won't learn as much in total isolation.

I will say that with slight modifications I enjoy the 2 PPSA programs I've bought (Grasshopper and DB Strength), they are excellent things to "mix it up" from what I regularly do, and I'm sure I'll do one or the other at least one time a year to give me a break from my LP's. I do my own warmups, not what he writes, and I often modify the "cardio" section so it actually has a cardio impact. So no DB shrugs or curls or things like that, I'll sub in something more demanding like KB swings, burpees, DB thrusters, etc. I ignore the parts I consider superfluous and I intelligently modify/sub out other things to fit my tastes. One thing I never do is un-couple supersets, if he writes something as a superset I figure he's doing it for a reason and although I may sub an exercise I still run it as a SS.

Now that you mention that, I realize I have had to do the same thing in the past (until I got a door frame pullup bar), but I don't remember if I was doing PPSA or not. There's definitely unavoidable "I have to change this" scenarios that can come up. I try to plan things out ahead of time and have things figured out so I don't have to change mid-session.