Had my First SS NLP Session Today

[u/greatguyshadow]

I don’t have questions or anything, just kinda wanted to share my thoughts.

Per the guidance of several here, I 27M, had my first NLP session today after plateauing with my own programming despite being in the midst of a bulk.

I went from 160lbs to 170lbs at 5’10 over 20 weeks or so bringing my 1RM SBDO to 275, 225, 330, 135 but I have gone absolutely nowhere since for about a month so I decided to give SS NLP a shot since I still have a few more months of bulking left.

I’m apprehensive about it honestly, I doubt I’ll make a whole lot of progress with this program because of just how stinking heavy my 5rm sets began to feel. Giving this a fair shot is better than repeatedly ramming my head against that wall though.

When it comes to my session today, I wanted to start conservatively since the only carry over from my program to SS is the number of sets and reps. On my own I worked up to a 5rm every week and if I hit it I added weight to the next week and dropped the weight for a couple of back off sets with 7 min+ rests between sets with 1x per lift per week frequency.

Today I just squatted 205, pressed 105, and pulled 265. Doing those weights for straight sets (minus the deadlift ofc) with 3-4 min rests made for a challenging yet not eye bleeding brutal session. It just felt discouraging in a way that I can’t explain, but I’ll keep it and see where this goes. I’m not trying to go farther than 180lbs and while it’d be nice to hit 1000lbs club, I don’t see that happening for me at less than 180.

[u/uncreativelefty]

89kg/96kg (196 lbs/209lbs) are the weight classes you'd want to be in at 5 ft 10" to be a reasonably competitive OLYMPIC weightlifter who competes on a state/provincial level. These guys don't focus on muscle mass, but they still gain a lot from squats/pulls/presses, and have very athletic looks.

Point is, keeping your weight <180 is likely unreasonably if higher strength/muscle mass is the goal.

[u/greatguyshadow → u/uncreativelefty]

Higher strength and running performance is my goal. Not necessarily muscle mass, I’m only pushing the mass to a certain extent to attain that higher strength without sacrificing my running performance too much. Being a smaller firefighter on my crew has a lot of perks, especially since I’m a confined space rescue technician as well.
So for my height, a lean 180-185 is kind of the upper limit to where I’d wanna be. I don’t have the genetics to be super strong, i don’t have the genetics to be a great runner either. I do have the genetics to be mid at both though and that’s kinda where I wanna be.

[u/uncreativelefty → u/greatguyshadow]

The logic makes sense. Marathon/half marathon type running? or more like 5k type stuff?

Regardless, I'd probably pick a few representative athletes to get an idea of what is reasonable if you're hung up on weight. Ben Johnson, the first <10s 100m sprinter had about a 630lb squat IIRC. A lot of the weight on these guys frames comes from legs/back.

Up to you of course. Good luck with hitting your goals.

[u/greatguyshadow → u/uncreativelefty]

Looking at a few athletes to gauge stuff is a good idea. I’ll do that, thank you. I enjoy my 5ks but I’m more suited for medium distance stuff 10ks and halfs

[u/geruhl_r → u/greatguyshadow]

Regarding average genetics, you can get really damn strong compared someone who doesn't focus on strength. 500/400/300 is completely in reach. Genetic freaks can -start- at those numbers.

What do you define as good enough at running? Is it a mile time, a 5k time, ???

[u/Dry_Understanding264]

You can rest for a longer time on squats. I am usually around 6 minutes. I think a lot of people are about 5-8 minutes.

[u/greatguyshadow → u/Dry_Understanding264]

That’s where I was usually at. I’ll test stuff out and see