Yah, it'll be interesting to see how far I can progress. Due to my vagabond lifestyle, my liftstyle has never been consistent for more than 2-3 years at a time, with 5-to-10-year intervals of no lifting in between. I think this is the fourth time I've done semi-serious, consistent lifting, and I'm in the third year of it now, so I'll soon be entering unknown territory. On the one hand, I'm at an age where one is supposed to lose 1-2 percent of muscle mass per year, but on the other hand, I think I have a really good lifting routine going right now, and am making relatively rapid progress, so who knows how far I can progress if I stay consistent for another few years at least? But I'm pretty sure those intermediate levels represent plateaus for me, after which progress, if any, would come a lot slower. It's already happened on the bench press, I think. I'm using 220 as my weight, but I'm closer to 240 now after putting on 20 pounds over the winter . . .That's a good list I think I would like to fall in the middle of the int/adv level for the lower body stuff and maybe advanced for the upper body. At least that comes easier for me.
In any case, it seems that distributing the lifting more evenly throughout the week, but with shorter sessions, is going to be key for me. It can be mentally taxing though. Sometimes at the top of a session I look at the bar and think to myself, "again?" It's a bit of a daily grind, but I'm always glad I did it afterwards. And with the way my six weekly ST sessions are set up now--Bottom, Front, Back, Bottom, Back, Top, rest--I think I'm giving each body area enough time to recovery.
You have more of a numbers approach than I do, so I can't really respond to that. I tend to do 2-5 sets of an exercise, 2-5 reps, except for the real heavy lifts, which I always try to pyramid, so there's more sets involved for those, and the reps are more variable. Still, besides having an idea of what my max weight for each exercise is going to be, I don't have any specific numbers in mind as to sets and reps.Well the squat rack has a pull up bar and I bought some rings to do other things. I might shoot for hitting 20 some day? I would love to get that lat blaster it's only €45 so maybe I will eventually.
Yah, most everything I do now is low rep/high weight. It was either Jason Ferruggia or Ben Bruno who got me to take this monophasic approach. I don't think about supersets or any of that stuff. Every exercise is close to my max. If you want to get stronger you gotta keep pushing the maxes. One of those guys also said that there's no point in lifting more than 30-40 minutes, because you risk going into a catabolic state. That's why I've opted for lifting less but more often, and so far, I think it's working.What are you thinking for pull ups? I kind of like doing heavy back work instead of high reps it feels better from my experience. But without a good lat pull down or row machine it's hard.
Here's my pull up bar:
www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Body-Press-Joist-Mounted/dp/B003TYCVKG?tag=ebp-pull-up-bar-20
I like it cuz you mount it to a joist. Unfortunately, I don't use it as much as I should, because my pullup/chinup is crap. I need to lose more useless weight, and gain more strength, before I'll be able to use it more than my cables for the various pulldowns. I don't really care though. I'm getting a good pump on the cables, so I'm getting a good workout and making some progress.
Here's my lat blaster bar:
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Solid-LBB28-Lat-Blaster/dp/B000A6V3UA/ref=sr_1_1?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1395572985&sr=1-1&keywords=lat blaster
Here's my platform:
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Solid-Fu...r-Platform/dp/B002EEOOC0/ref=pd_bxgy_sg_img_y
And here's the bar I use for neutral grip pulldowns and seated rows:
http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Style-Lat-Bar-24/dp/B001U3973C/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1395573698&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=24" lat pulldown bar
Yah, I know. In the middle of my workday, I'm supposed to take 10-20 minutes off for plyo, sit-ups, and stretching/yoga. Just gotta get more serious about it.And you should start yoga sooner than later. Those muscles get tight when lifting.
Hey, how do you do your shoulder presses? Do you take the bar all the way down to near your neck, or do you keep the elbows at a ninety degree angle? I've always done the former, but someone said you should do the latter, so yesterday I did it that way, with the barbell, but with the dumbbell presses I let the dumbbell come close to resting on my shoulders, in neutral grip, and then as I press, the bar goes parallel, with palms facing out.