Originally Posted By Kraquine:
That's a lot and a lot of isolated movements, some of them similar.

I had lifted most of my life and around 50 had to start making some reductions in weight used and intensity ......... time was catching up. I went to compound movements using body weight and dumbells and a bar I hung in the garage. It's a lot easier on my joints and muscle memory still responds nicely.

If you can do it and enjoy it then go for it. Everyones physiology is different. Just don't get discouraged if your body starts to tell you that you shouldn't do a certain movement anymore. It's gonna happen and you can always make modifications to get similar results.

I've got some programming I've been playing around with that might interest some of you guys. I've been running it since December and feeling really good so far, I want to try to run it for a full year to see just what I get out of it.

I kind of catered this to my needs because of my work schedule (patent pending...or something)

I've had good luck with greyskull, and I had really good luck aesthetically with BBB. I wanted to take some from each and still be able to do a full body workout rather than a split, because some weeks I might only get time for two workouts.

The meat and potatoes of it is Push, Pull, Squat, Hinge. Broken into two days I have Squat/Pull, Hinge/Push. One barbell exercise for each, with an antagonist BW movement to paired them. The exercises I picked set it up like this.

Day 1

Squat/Elevated Hip Thrust
Pendlay Row/Decline Pushup (I was doing dips here but started to get some shoulder pain so I changed the plane of motion to match the row)

Day 2

Deadlift/Slant Board Squat
Overhead Press/Chinup

The progression is fully auto regulated. With the exception of one top set each day, you know exactly what your sets and reps are going to be each workout.

The exercises are going to alternate between top set and volume sets each day, using the following method.

Your top sets are first. Work up to a 3x5, but AMRAP the last set. Ideally you are getting 5-8 reps, and you need to push that one hard, it's the hardest set of the day.

Once that's completed move the second barbell exercise for the day and work up to 80% of your last used 3x5 weight. So if last workout you did 200 lbs. Warm up to 160 and that's your working weight.

Then it's 5 sets with the same amount of reps as your last AMRAP. Your last AMRAP was 200x7.....so you're doing 180x7 today. I've found that it's about the right weight to make the first 3 sets reasonable, but the last two can get tough, but not unmanageable. If you can't get them all in the last set or two, rack the bar, take a few seconds, then finish them with singles, just get the reps in.

You flip flop your starting exercise each time, so you'll alternate between 3x5 and volume every workout.

If you did heavy squats last workout, you're doing heavy rows next time and volume squats, and vice versa.

After every barbell set you're going to jump right into a bodyweight set. If you just did a set of OHP, go do a set of chinups. Tracking reps doesn't matter much, just get a pump going and then rest for a bit until your next set.

Each workout you're going to be hitting your Push, Pull, Squat and Hinge that way, and sneaking in some easy volume.

Progression is easy enough. If you get 5 reps minimum on each 3x5 set. Add 5 lbs next time. If you fail to get 5 reps on any set, or your form is really taking a shit and you are grinding too hard, take a deload. Next workout roll back to the last weight you got 8 reps with on your AMRAP and work back up. You should be able to sneak in more reps and that will also drive up your volume days.

This isn't for everyone, I'm referring to it as the busy middle aged guy's program. I can't afford to train like a retard anymore without it messing up something else. Work and life are more important than trying to recover from an hour of pushing to failure or hurting my shoulder and then being fucked at work for a week.

I've been feeling really really good running this, and the "easy" volume seems to be helping my physique, especially the shoulders and traps. I'm getting back to where I was when I ran BBB, but without having to dedicate each week to 4 workouts.

Workouts have left me sweaty and breathing kind of hard, and conditioning is improving because I'm doing relatively short rest periods on the volume sets. 35-45 minutes isn't unreasonable most days. Although a few days when I was feeling a little beat I went over 50 minutes from taking longer between sets.

Maybe if you're like me this will work for you too. Middle aged, medium strength, physical job and/or long hours, and you just want to look good naked and be sort of stronger than most people you meet.

One caveat. I started low, like really low with my weights. I hurt my back this fall, and then again last month at work. Muscle related, I need to put more effort into massage during hard weeks.

Originally Posted By rob78:

If there's "one weird trick" to this, it'd be the efficacy of heavy squats and deadlifts.  IME, heavy leg/core work makes the most progress.  Walking, weighted lunges are also an awesome asskicker.

Originally Posted By jmt1271:
My cardio is basically just walking daily. And hiking occasionally when we get time. Thinking about getting a rower.

Goal is to get stronger, stay flexible, and eventually work off the gut while trying to at least maintain muscle, if possible.

Diet is being worked on, but not where I need to be. We cut 90 percent processed food from diet 18 months ago. We focus on organic whole foods but my sweet tooth is a fucking issue.

I struggle to get more than about 6 hrs sleep per night also.

Not a perfect scenario and just trying to make the best of it.


My main concern was should I go to a split so each muscle group is worked once weekly, vs repeating upper body workouts M-W-F in order to get more recovery.

Originally Posted By SIG_gunner:


Look for alternatives to your cravings.

Sugar free chocolate pudding is 60 cal per cup and a little whip cream has about 15-20 cal.

Yasso chocolate frozen yogurt bars are 80 cal and 6 grams of protein.

They don't taste exactly the same, but after a while you get used to them and can't tell the difference.

Originally Posted By rob78:


The sweet tooth was the most difficult part of my diet.  I put sodas down more than a decade ago, but sweets are a struggle.

I'll toss out a few alternatives that worked for me:
1) Blueberries.  Frozen or fresh.  They're sweet and they contain fiber.  Also an excellent anti-inflammatory.  
2) Blue Diamond Oven Roasted Dark Chocolate Dusted Almonds.  Almonds are healthy in moderation.  About 4g of sugar/10total carbs per serving.  They're filling (high fiber) and just a little sweet.
3) Blue Diamond Honey Roasted Almonds.  Just sweet enough.  A little less sugar than the dark chocolate above.
4) Oikos Triple Zero Vanilla Yogurt.  Add blueberries, strawberries, PB Fit, and some spinach.  Blend it up and drink.  Good for you, takes care of the sweet tooth, high in protein and fiber.

Originally Posted By jmt1271:
Thanks guys.

And yes I add weight to exercises for progressive overload except squats and deadlift. Now that I'm around bodyweight I just don't want to push it. Really don't want a back injury. I'm trying to add reps or I may just add another set.

Or maybe I'll just start adding 5 lbs a week. I just notice toward the end of my last set or two, it feels like form is breaking down, hence the injury concerns. I'm likely being over cautious.

I think starting next week I'm going to try the Push/Pull/leg split for 6 weeks and see what happens.

And make an effort to dial in the diet.

Originally Posted By ICEAGE:
I'm not 50. But I'll probably be doing a simple upper/lower program 4 days a week when I get older. Do a warmup then just 3-4 working sets with the same weight for each exercise. 10-15 rep range.  I really think most people over-complicate workout routines. Too much volume or frequency when they aren't eating or recovering enough to actually get the full benefits. Unless you are going to really focus on eating/recovering and perhaps injecting testosterone. I wouldn't go too crazy with the volume, frequency or workout program.


Upper 1:
-Horizontal pushing movement (press)
-Horizontal pulling movement. (row)
-Bicep curl
-Tricep extension
-Facepulls or rear delt fly.

Lower 1:
-Quad based pushing movements. Squat, Leg press, etc.
-Calf work
-Ab work. Situps, leg raises.


Upper 2:
-Vertical pushing movement (incline benchpress)
-Vertical pulling movement (Pullup or a variant)
-Lateral raise
-Bicep Curl
-Tricep extension

Lower 2:
-Glute/Ham oriented lifts. Leg curl, stiff leg deadlift, Nordic curl, etc.
-Calf work
-Ab work. Planks and variants of static holds.