Vacation

Neb154 · Post by **Neb154** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 4:42 pm

I am currently in the midst of Madcow's 5x5 intermediate program.

In the past 4 weeks, after a 4 week deload period, I have been progressing regularly up 2.5% each week on my major lifts.

Next week I am going on a 10 day vacation where I will not have access to weightlifting facilities, and I had a few questions:

1) Should I keep eating the same? I am currently on a bulking diet, having put on about 16 pounds since late May. I am wondering whether or not to keep eating big when I am not lifting weights.

2) When I come back from my vacation, where should I start? Should I take off right from where I left off? Or should I drop back a workout, or even a week?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Post by **ironmaiden708** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:41 pm

2) When I come back from my vacation, where should I start? Should I take off right from where I left off? Or should I drop back a workout, or even a week?

After a week you should be able to start where you left off. Maybe you will lose 5-10lb off 1 rm but it shouldn't be anything extreme. If you want you can make that next weeks sessions a bunch of light days to get back into the swing of things but that really shouldn't be neccisary after only a week.

Post by **stuward** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 7:07 am

On Madcow, just repeat the last full week you completed.

Eat for maintenance while on vacation. I assume there will be BBQ and beer anyway so don't go hog wild. Do lots of active play while on vacation, hiking, swimming, whatever. Do a few minutes of bodyweight exercises every day or 2.

Neb154 · Post by **Neb154** » Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:42 pm

ironmaiden708 wrote:
2) When I come back from my vacation, where should I start? Should I take off right from where I left off? Or should I drop back a workout, or even a week?
After a week you should be able to start where you left off. Maybe you will lose 5-10lb off 1 rm but it shouldn't be anything extreme. If you want you can make that next weeks sessions a bunch of light days to get back into the swing of things but that really shouldn't be neccisary after only a week.

It looks like I'll be doing some cardio tomorrow, and then getting back into my lifting on Tuesday, making it 13 days (and 2 lbs of fat) since I've lifted. Should it still be okay to just repeat the last Madcow week?

amivan · Post by **amivan** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:08 am

yeah, generally speaking, gains made from resistance training last 2x as long as it took you to reach them so you should be at the level of your last completed week (so re-doing it would be your best option here)

Neb154 · Post by **Neb154** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:01 pm

Whew. I paid for those two weeks off today.. My hamstrings were very tight after my squats this morning.