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Fitness for geeks: an annual review of the Stronglifts 5×5 program

If you are the prototypical geek, you’ve probably only seen the inside of a gym once in the 2nd week after Christmas. That was when the shame of the extra pounds gained over the holidays momentarily overpowered your will to spend time doing more useful things, such as producing Ruby code.

I have been there myself. Once you hit 30, however, your monitor-focused lifestyle can start exacting its toll on your health and well being, which is what happened to me in the summer of 2009.

Having developed a severe back pain, I was unable to complete my daily commute using the Prague public transport without gnashing my teeth in pain as I stood in the metro wagon. During our family vacation in Italy, we had to stop every 200 meters on our walk through Bologna as I had to sit down and shake off the pain. The pain had become intense and had not subsided even when I laid down to sleep.

One day I could no longer stand the sense of humiliation such ailment brings and started shopping for solutions. Physical therapy was one. And the therapist suggested I develop some back muscle to fight the root causes of my pain, which was obviously a by-product of my sedentary lifestyle.

I had been an on-and-off visitor to the gym since my teens but if I were to count the “on” days, they were outnumbered by the “off” days by a huge margin. You see, I don’t really enjoy exercising, though I do like the hormonal rush you receive after a good workout.

Looking for ways to make the exercise fun and effective so that I wouldn’t give it up after bringing the pain to bearable levels, I looked around the web for inspiration. It was then when I discovered the Stronglifts 5×5 program.

Long story short, it has cured my back pain completely after one month, I haven’t been ill once, and when I do occasionally catch a common cold, it’s gone in two three days tops.

I think that the appeal of Stronglifts for me was its simplicity and focus. It’s a weight-lifting program that’s designed to make you stronger. You alternate two workouts, which means no more wasting time deciding what exercise to do next. You plan your progress weeks ahead as you are only adding 2.5kg of iron each time. And, since you only do free weights, you no longer compete with other amateurs for the use of machines. Oh yes, free weights are one of key ingredients to success in this program.

Now, let me say that I have re-visited the SL website after a long time and I do not particularly enjoy its direct-marketing copy. Nor do I enjoy the fact that you can no longer download the ebook freely. You now have to sign up and wait until Mehdi releases a new batch of PDFs sometime this year (as if distributing a PDF carried any distribution costs!) This is bullshit; I’d much rather pay, say, $15 without having to get on the mailing list.

Perhaps I am missing something but this is a serious flaw of the program, one that does nevertheless nothing to stop you from jumping on board and progressing from a weak geek to a strong and fit one.

It has done wonders for me in the 12+ months that I’ve been doing it. I’ve gained about 10kg of muscle, which is actually a lot less than you can do; I am a smoker, and I’ve had trouble keeping my diet straight (I’ve only added breakfast to my menu this month).

It just works and you don’t have to necessarily become a body-builder in the process; just the increased fitness and strengthened immunity is a fantastic outcome. So yes, you can keep spending most of your day in your IDE and only invest 3 hours of your time every week to insure the well-being of your inner code monkey.

I am not associated with the proprietors of Stronglifts 5×5 website in any way and have not received any compensation of any kind (just that so we are clear). I am just that happy with what it has done for me and thought I should share.

January 27, 2011 | Filed Under General 

comments

12 Responses to “Fitness for geeks: an annual review of the Stronglifts 5×5 program”

  1. jiblar on January 27th, 2011

    You really should check out the Starting Strength program which I honestly believe the Strong Lifts program is based on. They are functionally the same but I believe the book provides a lot more information.

    Glad you got your back sorted!

  2. Tomas Kohl on January 27th, 2011

    Thanks, I will look into it!

  3. Bryan on January 27th, 2011

    Diet is 80% of the equation.
    I’ve had great results from the Paleo Diet.

    I have created a site to help answer questions about the diet:

    http://www.PaleoDietReview.com

    I’ve been training for 20 years and I’d be happy to help.

  4. Eric Wu on January 27th, 2011

    +1 on Starting Strength.

    Similar program with similar goals, very effective, and EXCELLENT coaching on the lifts. As you’ve probably learned in your 12 months, the correct form for the lifts you perform makes a world of difference and there’s nobody better at thinking about and coaching the major lifts than Mark Rippetoe.

  5. Fitness for geeks: my annual review of the Stronglifts 5×5 program « Interesting Tech on January 27th, 2011

    [...] Read more here Posted in Uncategorized , interesting, science, tech | No Comments » [...]

  6. Zachary Cohn on January 27th, 2011

    Another +1 for Starting Strength. It seems similar to the Stronglifts, but without the direct marketing copy. :)

    Congrats on your success! It’s great to see other geeks developing strength too.

  7. DMV on January 27th, 2011

    Congrats on the success in your training program but come on and give us what we all want – the before and after pics!!

  8. Finn on January 27th, 2011

    ..and yet another +1 for Starting Strength…MUCH more complete program and amazing coaching.

    For another good website from one of the SS coaches, check out: http://www.70sbig.com/

    Always a decent fallback: http://www.crossfit.com – more met-con these days than real strength training though.

    Get big!

  9. wordexpert on January 27th, 2011

    “typical” not “prototypical”.

    prototypical – representing or constituting an original type after which other similar things are patterned; “archetypal patterns”; “she was the prototypal student activist”

  10. Ivan on January 27th, 2011

    I had a chronic back problem which didn’t respond to physical therapy. Your need to take a break after standing up for a little while struck a chord because I was in the same predicament. I resolved it by doing deep stretches on my hamstrings every other day and then following it up with hamstring exercises. I believe that the stretching and strengthening allowed my hamstrings to handle most of my weight when I’m walking upright, which in turn gave my lower back the rest it needed to properly heal.

  11. Tomas Kohl on January 27th, 2011

    Thanks to all the commenters – your input is much appreciated!

    With regards to paleo diet, that’s been something I’ve been hearing a lot about and will now look into as well.

    @DMV: no I don’t think I want to go that far and I don’t have the “before” pics anyway :)

    @wordexpert: thanks, I think “prototypical” was what I had in mind although “typical” would fit as well

    @Ivan: that makes sense although in my case I needed to strengthen not only my hamstring but many other muscles as well esp. on my back

  12. Adam on January 28th, 2011

    Hey Tomas,

    This is a great post. It’s good to hear you had success.

    I was always pretty active during my teens, then when I hit full-time employment my health hit the backburner for a few years. I ended up pretty fed up with the whole thing.

    I managed to turn things around starting last summer, mainly through bodyweight exercises – chins, pull ups, push ups, squats, planks etc – and sprinting, I forgot how much I loved sprinting.

    Anyway, to cut things short I lost weight and I’m now looking to build strength. Your post is a good intro to this.

    Thanks!

    Adam

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