I ended my first full 9 weeks (11 if you counted the duplicated weeks at the end) of Madcow and am working on a new program to improve muscle endurance.

It’s a bastardized 5-3-1 program in which I’m performing 5/3/1 sets of 5 reps while incrementing poundage on the weights.

For example, my program on day 1 looked like this:

• 5-10 min Stretches and 2 warmup sets of squats 
• SQ: 5×5@115#, 3×5@120#, 1×5@125#
• BP: 5×5@ 55#, 3×5@60#, 1×5@65#
• BR: 5×5@50#, 3×5@55#, 1×5@60# 
• Accessory such as assisted pullups

I started last week and found that the exertion is such that I can only complete two sessions a week. I was ridiculously sore coming out of my first week. My best hope is to increase muscle endurance so that I can ramp up to a standard 3 sessions a week. I am going very slow on the weight increments due to the larger quantity of sets.

I hope to do this for 4-6 weeks to improve overall conditioning, then reassess my progress, before taking up another round of Madcow (or whatever I decide on next).

Due to some off-plan decisions this weekend, I haven’t made any great strides in weight loss for my HealthyWager. I’m a little behind schedule if I intend to hit a GW of ~140# in May…which is made a little more challenging due to celebrations, movies, summer activities that involve a lot of eating, etc, during that month.