Which goal is more important?

My lululemon license to train jogger sweats are amazing and last me 4-5 years

As you get stronger, you will be able to do more reps or weight at the same RPE. After a certain point, the rate at which you are able to increase will slow down, so you may only increase reps/weight every other workout, or every two weeks.

If you want to be strong and agile in the real world have you thought about doing full body 3x per week instead of a upper/lower split? You can prioritize certain lifts to get strong on first at the beginning of each session such as bench, squat, and dead lift. Then you can add in other exercises for the whole body to build out the entire training session. This split gives you 4 days to recover and makes it easier to build your running schedule around.

The plan you have here is going to be hard to recover from, especially with your rest days having running included. Your nutrition, sleep, and supplementation would have to be perfect and even then after a month fatigue would probably hit you like a brick.

You should also do some sort of hip-hinge movement, like a dumbell RDL in addition to the lunges, because you are missing hamstring work.

9 sets/week should be more than adequate for maintaining, so long as you are not going too light (if you can do more than about 20-25 reps).

Don't forget about your upper body as well, especially on a cut, since you don't want to end up losing muscle there.

It's decent to get an idea of your level, but keep in mind that there's a certain amount of bias involved. People with poor numbers are less likely to add to the site, so it's going to skew towards the more advanced lifters.

The standards on strengthlevel are in the ballpark of “reasonable enough”. I’m sure most of the data is accurate from users though you can imagine there are probably some people uploading a half rep bench press as their 1RM. There will also be differences in limb length, leverages, athletic background, etc. in short it is not gospel but a ballpark estimate. 

if its creatine monohydrate its fine.

tbh i cant even notice the difference with creatine i just take it because the research vaguely indicates i might be able to get another half a rep here and there and nebulous brain health benefits and its cheap

That "jelly legs" feeling from heavy compound movements versus the burning sensation from Bulgarians is about different fatigue mechanisms, but both can drive growth effectively. The key is understanding that mechanical tension (the primary driver of hypertrophy) doesn't require maximal loads if you're taking the muscle to or near failure.

Bulgarians also create massive stability demands, which means your quads are working overtime even with lighter loads. You're getting significant mechanical tension per muscle fiber.

And as for joint health, compounds like hack squats or leg press put enormous compressive forces on knees and spine which add up over a lifting career. Bulgarians done with lighter weight would alleviate some of those joint stresses.

One other thing I would like to throw in there though is if you want to continuously grow quads or glutes you would have to progressively overload bulgarians like any other exercise which would eventually lead to somewhat higher weights over time.

whatever you digest well, wont get sick of and has a reasonable g protein/$ (which in canada a good sale on protein powder might be 2x cheaper when i do the math)

I've eaten a ton of cottage cheese. It's my usual post-workout meal when I'm cutting. (When I'm bulking, it's frozen meatballs and pasta or rice.) It's high in protein and you can eat it a lot of different ways, both sweet and savory.

The only objections I can think of, as long as you like it and you can digest it well, are that it's somewhat low in carbs and some brands are high in sodium. You need post-workout carbs to replenish glycogen and fuel muscle growth. So you might want to eat it alongside something with complex carbs, or add fruit (like bananas) or jam.

Protein is protein. Doesn't matter how you get it.

find something measurable: how fast can you go in 30 minutes at steady state or how much do you output or how long can you keep up a pace?

Going all-out every session will not cause the meaningful adaptations you're seeking.

You need to work within your current capabilities and essentially wait for adaptations to happen, which just takes time. Pushing past the limits of your recovery capacity will only negatively affect your progress and will make the process slower and harder than it needs to be.

Instead of aiming for 100% intensity, aim for ~80% instead. It's really that simple.

When does your season start? I am a wildland firefighter too. You need to train smarter.

While it's true that a lot of the job is hiking with a pack up hills, you need a decent aerobic base to build on first, and that's gonna require a minimum of 8-12 weeks of easy runs and rucks before you start specializing in job-specific work.

You also need a base level of general strength. Which means getting generally stronger on the main lifts. Doing circuit style shit if you are weak as hell isn't very useful in my experience given your ceiling is gonna be heavily limited.

My advice is to get green protocol. Run the capacity phase with operator(3x a week) as the lifting program unless you are very new in which case do the basic beginner program in the wiki.

https://www.amazon.com/Tactical-Barbell-Protocol-K-Black/dp/B0B1C3G2G5

Then, depending on how far out you are from your start date, do the first 8 weeks of outcome.

And fucking make sure your boots are broken in before you get there.

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if you want. one workout isn't going to matter.

Squats/deadlifts/overheads/farmers walks

Just squats.

I can lift the same numbers beltless, but I can do more volume per set with a belt since it makes bracing easier.

I don't. I'm a dude over 40 who is never competing. Belts don't protect, they just let you lift more.

I'm fine lifting less.

squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, some carries/walks when it doesn't interfere with breathing. very occasionally on bench.

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have you been capable of adding reps or load to your single arm overhead extensions in the last few months?

have you been capable of adding reps or load to your presses?

Progressive overload is the result, not the method. Keep training hard, and over time, the strength and hyperthropy adaptations will take place.

progressive overload is the foundation of all training adaptions. you can't avoid it unless your plan is to not improve. It doesn't matter how strong you are now, that just sets the current conditions under which you operate at and progress from.

What does it mean to be stagnating? How long and under what training approach?

Progressive overload is kinda the gold standard of gaining strength and muscle size. Couple questions: what rep range do you train in and are you only trying to get stronger on 1rm?

And normally you are going to be weaker in overhead tricep press work, especially single arm.

Close-grip bench, dips, push downs, overhead EZ bar extensions...

All pressing movements recruit your triceps to some degree, and targeting your long head with overhead movements is more for aesthetics than function. They will get stronger doing anything that recruits them.

What does the rest of your training look like and how long have they been disproportionately weak 

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Your HR could have dropped for other reasons, like getting better sleep or better hydration. Check Dr. Peter Attia's podast, who's posted the research on the best cardio regimens for health & longevity, which tends to be zone 2 dominant. He also discusses how heart health is more influenced by keeping ApoB low than by doing cardio.

Sounds like one of those classic "There's only one right way to do X" nonsense claims.

Yes, HIIT can be effective for improving longevity and stamina. But so can steady-state cardio.

There’s a popular trend right now among that type of influencer demographic to promote VO2 max type training over everything else because some studies showed it heavily correlates with longevity.

However, the conclusions from that data are often misinterpreted and it leads to poor recommendations like this. Going from a poor VO2 max to average has a large impact on longevity, but going from average to great has a much smaller return.

Steady state / zone 2 / “easy” cardio like jogging is amazing for your health and you can do pretty much as much as you want without it impacting your recovery compared to something like sprinting. It’s best to do both!

Why would adding reps be more difficult to track? Say your typically range is 8-12. For those exercises, increase the top end to 15 or 18 or 20 instead of 12.

double progression … But for machines like dips, neutral grip pull up, cable tricep extensions, and standing calf raise it's weird to progress.

Either

• add weight

Or

• add reps across

Reps across remains viable for lateral raises. But for machines? Definitely microload with 5 or 2.5 lb plates.

If you can hit 3x5 for dips or pullups, adding weight will be significantly easier to progress session to session That is, adding 2.5 lbs is easier than adding one rep across.