Good choice. Smart man!
I haven't read that entire writeup but knowing the poster, I'm sure it's pretty decent. However, I would advice against going to powercleans right off the bat since they are so highly skill dependant. I would put them in to a later training progression after you've gotten more strength and basic movement patterns.
In my mind, when it comes to getting your strength up and gaining some muscle, it's a little silly to go to something as highly technical as powercleans and skip something as basic and fundamental as pullups! (I don't know kethnaabs target audience for this but I'm sure he goes into powercleans in depth.) They'll be a great exercise to include at some point if you can learn them properly but they will be very demanding and I think such energy will be better spent of more basic movements. Training exlosiveness or power is important but for the beginner specifically training for it is not as helpful as it will be later on unless you are traing for a sport or, of course, you're an olympic lifter.
They are much more specific for those things than they are for general strength and mass training, but they would not normally be included in a general beginner's program right off the bat. I know you've got some experience but I think that still applies here.
Take a look at the my writeup here:
http://www.bodybuilding.net/27240-9-post.html (it's not really mine it's pretty direct from Rippletoe except for incorporating rows right off the bat). I think it's a better place to start, quite frankly.
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Originally Posted by RapidRabbit
I'm starting conservatively on the weight (I figure it is better to "waste" a week or three at the beginning then hit the wall too early) and as a result the workouts for the first bit are going to be quite a bit lighter then I am used to.
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Perfect. And you won't be wasting anything at all. It doesn't matter how light you start. The name of the game here is to progress as long as possible in this simple linear way. In my experience the lighter you start, the longer you should be able to progress. This is intensity cycling. However, once you do start, if you were to hit a plateau on an exercise, it is important not to scale the weights back too much. Some people will tell you to scale back as much as 25% in order to start progressing again once you reach the weight you stagnated on. IMO, this is way too much. Not more than 10% and a cut in volume, if necessary.
In other words, in beginning a programming progression such as this, it's ok to start light as a feather if you want. But once your getting your strength up you need to maintain a certain intensity even while allowing some recovery, so as not to detrain neuralmuscular pathways too much.
I have a lot of experience at milking the hell out of stuff like this, which is exactly what you need to do, so let me know if you need some help as you go along. If you start a journal I'm sure a few of us will pitch in. That looks like a very thorough writeup also so I'm sure there is plenty to go on.
On the eating you need to try to establish your "maintenance calories" and then add to it. After that you add a little at a time up to a certain point. Said point being when the fat is growing faster than the muscle
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