Weight Training Questions, your insight, experiences appreciated

[03RN]

I have been doing 5/3/1 for about 4 years now, adapting it to what my goals are, which is not to be big and strong, but to be as strong as I can while meeting my other fitness goals, and it has worked well for that. I don't want to get huge, because it would be detrimental to my primary pursuit, which is continuing to compete in USPSA and stay in the top 3-5 nationally in production. I have generally seen a very slow increase in strength over time, which I am happy with considering I only lift 2 days per week.

I generally do:

Monday: 5/3/1 Deadlift or Squats
Tuesday: Agility/quickness work
Wednesday: BJJ
Thursday: BJJ
Friday: 5/3/1 Bench Press or Press
Saturday/Sunday: Active rest days, which usually involve some mountain biking, kayaking, pickup soccer games, etc.

How big is huge to you? How big are you right now?

Fwiw I've had my fastest mile, 40, and 100 yard sprint while at my biggest and strongest.

Fast twitch muscle helps with all those and squats/deadlifts

[Gio]

How big is huge to you? How big are you right now?

Fwiw I've had my fastest mile, 40, and 100 yard sprint while at my biggest and strongest.

Fast twitch muscle helps with all those and squats/deadlifts

I'm 5'7" 195#. Huge on my frame would be 215-220+. I do a ton of plyometrics to go along with the lifting days to build fast twitch muscles. I've always been more of a sprinter and short distance runner (1-3 miles). However, I find in USPSA, the ability to shift my weight and get out of position quickly and then stop/stabilize my momentum can be a huge advantage. And it's not usually motion in the forward direction in USPSA, which is really trained by sprinting/deadlifts/squats, it's more a sideways shuffling motion. Some of the agility work I do includes an agility ladder workout and some multi-directional short distance cone sprinting drills like a box drill, illinois agility drill, and a side to side shuffle run drill, often with a weighted vest.

[Dov]

How heavy is your weighted vest?

One thing that helped movement for me a lot before my health issues was doing body weight lateral lunges after doing deadlifts and squats or weighted normal lunges.

I eventually morphed that into what I called lunge star I would do body weight lunges laterally, as well as obliquely forward and rearward. For a total of 6 different directions/angles, avoided going straight forward because figured normal exercises hit that fine.

Thought about getting weighted vest because DB's didn't work for the lateral lunges for me.

[03RN]

I'm 5'7" 195#. Huge on my frame would be 215-220+. I do a ton of plyometrics to go along with the lifting days to build fast twitch muscles. I've always been more of a sprinter and short distance runner (1-3 miles). However, I find in USPSA, the ability to shift my weight and get out of position quickly and then stop/stabilize my momentum can be a huge advantage. And it's not usually motion in the forward direction in USPSA, which is really trained by sprinting/deadlifts/squats, it's more a sideways shuffling motion. Some of the agility work I do includes an agility ladder workout and some multi-directional short distance cone sprinting drills like a box drill, illinois agility drill, and a side to side shuffle run drill, often with a weighted vest.

Yeah, gotcha. Depending on your body fat 195 @ 5'7 is definitely a good size