A Runner Lifting Weights (true story)
This shift didn't come out of nowhere. In November 2019 a friend Jake introduced me to the weight room at the Y. At the time it was a way to do some preventative maintenance to get my body ready for the stress of trying to tackle The 444 and during that part time first foray into lifting I learned a lot from him and saw some nice gains, but with all of the interference from swim/bike/run at the time it was different than the most recent time around.
In the 12 weeks from mid September to mid December 2020 everything was oriented around being able to lift heavy sh!t well, recover and repeat. It was a blessing to not have to worry about swim/bike/run or racing. I could bring all of my focus to this one activity and that focus is what my soul needed at the time.
I made mistakes. There are the mistakes that I know (more later) and the mistakes that I don't so if anyone out there wants to engage on this I'm ready to learn. I know I'm a newbie but in any case, I'll try to outline here what "lift heavy sh!t well, recover and repeat" meant for me.
What I did...
Exercises
Each session consisted of squats, shrugs, deadlifts, assisted pull ups, bench press, dumbbell flys, tricep extensions, bicep curls, calf raises and pushups. This was my attempt at the full body workout Jake had taught me a year earlier adapted for what I had available from home. Each of the exercises was generally done for the same set and reps but the schemes changed over time.
Pounds
The amount of weight for each exercise changed over time but I was always trying to select the maximum amount of weight that I could handle for each exercise for the given set and rep goals for that day. Wait, what? Yep. The maximum amount of weight I could handle. What does that mean? It means that success meant that for the last rep of the last set I knew I didn't have one more in me. This meant that sometimes I had to stop a rep short and other times maybe I did have an extra rep left, but rarely. While I did not miss a lot of reps by attempting too much weight, I never saw it as failure when I did since it was just another chance to learn what I could handle. I attempted this wackadoodle approach with thought, reason and eyes wide open that I was taking risks and doing something that would be unsustainable in the long run.
Sets/Reps and Frequency
When I was reading about different set/rep schemes my eyes would occasionally glaze over. It feels like a lot of the approaches have been devised by weightlifters that after years of keeping it simple have gotten bored and are trying to mix it up under the guise of trying to eke out that last 0.01% gain. My goal was to come up with something simple that I could vary in minimal ways to see how it impacted my body. I'm a geek and I love trying to analyze the data to see what has worked for me and what has not. Too much change too often can make it hard to see what changes helped and what changes hurt.
To help decode the following progression, 4x10 on 1 min means I did a thing 10 times, rested 1 minute and then repeated it 4 times in a row. 3 days means that I did the same 4x10 on 1 min on 3 different days that week.
Week 1 - 3 days - 4x10 on 1 min
Week 2 - 3 days - 4x10 on 1 min
Week 3 - 3 days - 5x10 on 1:30 min
Week 4 - 3 days - 3x8 on 1:30 min
Week 5 - 3 days - 5x5 on 1:30 min
Week 6 - 3 days - 5x20 on 1:30 min
Week 7 - 3 days - 5x10 on 2 min
Week 8 - 3 days - 3x8 on 2 min
Week 9 - 3 days - 5x5 on 2 min
Week 10 - 3 days - 5x20 on 2 min
Week 11 - 1 day - 5x10 on 2 min and a 2nd day - 3x8 on 2 min
Week 12 - 1 day - 5x5 on 2 min and a 2nd day - 5x20 on 2 min
So, over 12 weeks I lifted heavy approximately 34 times. The first 2 weeks was an "introduction" where everything stayed constant. The next 8 weeks were a 4 week cycle that was repeated twice. Each week in the 4 week cycle was a different set/rep scheme. The last 2 weeks I reduced how often I lifted but tried to keep my body confused and changing by having every session be a different set/rep scheme. I also re-introduced running during these last 2 weeks.
Why mix up the set/rep combinations at all? Good question, I'm glad you asked :-) I wanted to increase my muscle mass (hypertrophy), strength and endurance. These concepts overlap with each other but they are all optimized in different ways. Sometimes you get stronger from having more muscle mass, but sometimes it is from your central nervous system getting smarter about how it coordinates muscle you already have to be more effective. The articles linked above, and Google in general, can explain the details better than I can but my goal was to do a little bit of everything without being too extreme and keep my body confused. Its natural state.
From a personal perspective, I really liked having the reps decrease as time went on. It gave me a chance to increase the weight in ways that were challenging but didn't completely freak me out. Without a lot of experience with heavy weights sometimes the sensation of it all on my back could shake my confidence. By the time I would get down to only doing a thing 5 times the numbers seemed crazy so when it looped back to the beginning and jumped from 5 all the way back up to 20 reps per set the corresponding decrease in weight made it feel like nothing...at least it did until I'd get to rep 17 or 18 and then I was back to scaring the dogs with my crying. lol.
Recovery
I slept in and I kept doing dumbbell workouts with Amanda. It isn't normal for me to sleep in, but for these 12 weeks I tried to as often as possible. On the "off" days, Amanda and I almost always did a dumbbell workout together. At the start of this phase, I was using the same dumbbell weights as I had in the months prior. As time went on, I started decreasing the amount of weight I was using on the "off" days. Going through similar motions with lower weights really seemed to help speed up my recovery but I was already taking risks trying to lift to (near) failure on the heavy days. If there wasn't some relative rest on the "off" days with pounds that felt easy I never would have made it to the end of the 12 week cycle. I tried to listen to my body. If I was 5 minutes into a barbell workout and it wasn't helping then I stopped. This is often the hardest thing to do for an endurance athlete but I was trying to grow in more ways than one.
Nutrition
I drank water constantly during the heavy lifting sessions. 2/3rds from the end I'd switch over to 24 ounces of Muscle Milk. Near the end of the workout I'd take in Gatorade mixed to about twice the normal strength. The water and the Muscle Milk are probably obvious, but why the strong Gatorade? With the theory that lifting heavy is an anaerobic activity and since the Aussie Carb Load that I use for marathons uses a different anaerobic activity to optimize the bodies ability to store glucose and water it seemed like it might help here.
Nutrition part 2 - The other pounds
The pounds around my waist were going up too but I ignored them. With no swim/bike/run on the plan my caloric output had gone way down even though I was spending hours every week lifting. If I wanted to get stronger then not having enough calories over this 12 weeks was going to be a bigger impediment than adding some extra fat along with muscle. With my spare time normally dominated by catabolic swim/bike/run activities I didn't want to miss out on a chance tap into the first time in years where I could be anabolic.
The results...
Some highlights
After 2 months, I could handle more weight for all 3 compound lifts (squat/deadlift/bench press) even though I was lifting it twice as many times (5x20=100 times vs 5x10=50 times). I went from 5x10 max of 160 pounds for squat/deadlift and 100 pound bench press to 185 pound squat/deadlift and 115 pound bench press for a 5x20 max.
A same set comparison for 3x8 sets across 2 months in the heart of training:
- Squat went from 185 to 275 pounds
- Deadlift went from 185 to 295 pounds
- Bench press went from 125 to 170 pounds
One way to try to smooth the comparison of a 5 rep set to 8, 10 or 20 reps is to use some math to turn the weight into a theoretical 1 rep max. After some time on Google, I found this chart and while it probably isn't legit to use this factor when you are doing more than 1 set it is better than nothing. With this in mind the theoretical 1 rep max progression over the last 10 weeks of training was:
- Squat went from 213 to 340 pounds
- Deadlift went from 213 to 364 pounds
- Bench press went from 133 to 210 pounds
Impact on running
The last 2 weeks that I was lifting heavy I started to reintroduce some running on the "off" days and got really excited. After the Bambi Incident of 2018 I pretty consistently ran lopsided according to Garmin Running Dynamics. Prior to the accident this was always a clear sign that I was injured or about to be injured but now it was just the new normal. When I returned to running the runs were almost always exactly 50/50 for my left/right balance. I don't know what part of strength training caused this improvement but I'm glad it happened.
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| Sample values before/after weight training |
Some lowlights
I hurt my elbow and found out that I can't run and lift heavy at the same time without mobility problems.
How did I hurt the elbow? Apparently it isn't a good idea to lift to (near) failure for isolation exercises like bicep curls, especially with low reps. I got to the point where I would curl 5x5 with 40 pounds. This was too much. Way too much. I knew I shouldn't do it at the time, but pride and stupidity took over under the guise of doing an experiment of N=1.
Mobility? When I reintroduced running the last 2 weeks of this cycle I was shocked that I still felt good when trying to lift heavy, but it didn't last. After 2 weeks of running and continued lifting I lost the bottom 4-6 inches of my squat. I just couldn't get down far enough and if I tried there was significant knee pain.
Now what?
Well, I cut back on anything that made the elbow hurt and stopped running again. The elbow started to get better but wasn't coming around as well or as quick as I'd like. After some sage, well timed advice from Jake I went ahead and stopped almost all activity for a couple of weeks. My mobility is improved and I can squat deeper than ever. The elbow is still sore, but is much improved.
With the end of the year behind us I'm not sure exactly what will come next. I know I want to get back to lifting heavy sh!t. I like the focus it requires. I know I want to get back to running. I won't be able to do both well at the same time without some attention to preserving and even improving my mobility. My days off expire tomorrow so time is running out on putting together a January training plan that brings everything I've learned together and while I've got some ideas they are still being baked. Is it just me or do ideas often smell like sourdough bread when being baked? Probably just me. More details to come another day when they finish cooking.
