A headache is weakness leaving the brain

[pliftkl]

Current Stats
Age: 40
Height: 6 feet
Weight: 235

Returned to lifting in June after a 1 year hiatus due to injury. Working a linear progression since I restarted. Linear progression has been continuous, with one setback for my pressing exercises due to some sort of strain.

Top lifts right as of date:
Deadlift: 5x465 (12/12/2010)
Squat: 5x405 (11/1/2010)
Bench: 5x280 (11/5/2010)
Press: 5x190 (11/17/2010)

I've not yet tried a single on deads or squats, but the current 5RM are greater than my old 1 RM, which makes every workout pretty exciting. I did do some singles on the press so that I could cross off my "Race to 185 challenge", but I'd already done have of my 5 rep workout, so I was pretty tired and only went to 1x190 (update: Which i'm now doing 5 reps with!).

I do 4 workouts which consist of one of the above lifts and no assistance work on a rotating basis. To go through all 4 workouts and back to the first may take anywhere between 7 and 10 days.

I'm eating 4 normal meals and drinking 4-5 gallons of milk per week. By "normal", I'm referring to 600-800 calories per meal. Milk adds about 1500 additional calories and 100 grams of protein.

Supplements:
1. Mulitvitamins (Adam NOW Men's)
2. Fish Oil (6-12 capsules per day depending on how often I remember to take them)
3. Optimum Nutrition Protein whey shake after lifting
4. Endurox R4 (carb-protein drink) after any exhaustive cardio (primarily post BJJ).
5. Occasionally take GABA to help sleep.


Overall program includes 2-3 nights of BJJ per week, as well as 1-2 cardio sessions (in the form of long fast walks) per week.

Current short term lifting goals:
1. 225 Press
2. 500 Deadlift - probably in reach within a few weeks
3. 500 Squat - hopefully at the end of the year
4. 315 Bench - primarily an ego lift at this point. I've done this before, and want to be able to do it again. however, I've down prioritized bench over every other lift, so I'll probably hit the others first.

Long term lifting goals:
1. 600 Squat
2. 600 Dead
3. Bodyweight press
4. Bench - don't really care as long as I don't get hurt, but if I can push closer to 400, it would certainly help my total if I decide to compete power lifting.

I have kept written logs of my lifting for more than 15 years. Not far from my desk is a stack of spiral bound notebooks that track back to my time in grad school. This is my first attempt at an electronic log (which will be secondary to the spiral bound book that follows me to the gym).

 

[pliftkl]

Saving for videos as needed

 

[pliftkl]

Reserving one more post in case the top runs over

 

[squatsquatsquat]

Very nice. You're a pretty strong dude. I'm look forward to following this log!

 

[CRZA]

Your pretty pretty pretty strong. Ill be following your log, good luck!

 

[Gierrod]

Nice log name :icon_twis
and welcome to the logs your pretty dam strong i will def be following this log!

 

[pliftkl]

Cool, what's your BJJ background?

Minimal. I'm a white belt with about a year of no-gi training and at most a few months combined of gi training. I've done a lot of stand up work at various times in my life, but didn't really start grappling until a couple years ago (and that was interrupted by an injury). What I find fascinating about BJJ is that I literally learn something new every class. This is a nice contrast to the various TMA's that I've done, where classes became about incremental improvement of existing techniques.

 

[pliftkl]

This may end up being a pretty boring log, since I mostly just do a single exercise per session.

Bench Press
Warmups:
5x135, 3x185, 2x225, 1x245

Working sets:
5x275
5x275

Chest felt a bit weird on the right side in the second set, and this is in a place where I've had previous injuries. May have to back off from benching (again) and focus on the press.

 

[pliftkl]

Today was a private lesson with my instructor in BJJ. The Wednesday night class is always small, and it's worked out to two privates in the last two weeks.

Covered a variety of half guard passes, as well as some of the defense to those passes. Also spent a fair amount of time on open guardwork, with a focus on strategy. Did not have time to roll at the end of class as the next class was coming in. No loss, as I learned a lot.

For reasons unclear to me, a black stripe of tape was tied to my belt this evening, I didn't think I'd be deserving one for a few months more.

 

[toonie]

BOOOORRRRIINNNNG!

I kid. Nice numbers and sweet goals. Good luck with your training. I'll be following you're progress.

And sweet log title!

 

[MIDMOBOX]

welcome to the logs

I know nothing about lifting or grappling

 

[pliftkl]

To deadlift or do BJJ? BJJ won out, since I'd normally go to the Sunday class, but I'll miss that for Halloween (the joy of having a 5 year old). This probably works out well, as it will put my deadlift on an 8 day cycle, and my body can use an extra day.

Today was open and X-guard work. Small class, lots of instruction, and a great roll at the end.

 

[pliftkl]

Deadlift day.

Warmups:
5x135
3x225
2x315
1x365

Work Set:
5x435

The work set felt really strong, and I thought I might have had another rep or two. That's surprising, because the work set from last week was 5x425, and felt much rougher.

Edit: It occurs to me that the reason that it felt stronger may have been that I used chalk today for the first time in years, and I was definitely starting to feel grip issues last week. I'm using a rock climbing chalk ball that I purchased many years ago when I was lighter and climbed. It's been sitting up in my old gym bag from Malaysia in the attic since I moved back to the US four years ago.

 

[pliftkl]

Press day.

Warm ups:
5x45
5x65
5x95
1x115
1x135
1x155

Work Sets:
5x180
5x185

The second set definitely didn't feel great, and the last rep was pure ugly, with a very unbalanced lift. My right shoulder seems to be stronger, even though that is nominally my "injured" shoulder (it hurts to lie on my right side). For the second set, there was little to no pause at the bottom. I definitely needed the stretch reflex.

I doubt that I have much left in the way of linear progress for this lift, so I will probably have to switch it over to 531 or some other intermediate program before the end of the year. I'm pretty happy with my progress on this particular lift, since it's always been my weakest. When I started doing it again in July, my heavy set was 4x115. I've been stronger than that before, but I've never consistently trained the press during a period of caloric surplus the way I have for the last 4 months.

According to most 1RM equivalent tables, I'm probably 20 pounds short of my next goal, which is the 225 press.

 

[pliftkl]

Happy Halloween. Due to it being a holiday (and my parental duties that involve ensuring that my daughter is not kidnapped while trick or treating), I missed BJJ tonight. Got no other exercise in, but did drink 4 Stone IPA's, which made me miss working out just a little bit less. Hope you all had a nice, safe holiday.

I did try to get my 5 year old daughter to dress up as Hit Girl, but she decided to wear her witch costume for one more year. She's ok with talking about the Hit Girl costume, until she has to talk about the movie it is from, which she refers to as "the bad word movie".

 

[pliftkl]

Squat day. I am happy.

Warm ups:
5x135
3x225
1x275
1x315
1x365

Working Set:
5x405

This is the heaviest squat I've ever done. I had never even singled over 405 before, so I'm pretty stoked. Next week I'm going to drop back in weight (probably to about 365), and work back up with more working sets each week. In the last couple months I've only been doing 2 working sets each week. I feel (for reasons that I can't quite articulate) that I need to work a bit more on getting additional sets at submaximal effort before trying to make my next major strength push. The 405 felt pretty heavy today, though that may in part have been due to some poor diet and alcohol choices over the weekend.

The next major milestone is a 500 pound 1RM squat. According to most rep calculators, I'm probably right at a 450 1RM. Assuming I back down for 4 weeks to work back up to multiple sets at 405, I would hope to hit the 500 about 6 weeks after that. Counting some down time over the holidays, that probably maps to end of January. Of course, this is predicated on my ability to continue consuming a lot of excess calories, and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep drinking 5 gallons of milk a week.

 

[pliftkl]

BJJ. Another small (2 person) class. Worked mostly with various cross chokes in different positions. Rolling went well - I felt a lot less gassed than I have the past few times. I suspect that this is coming from me relaxing more rather than true conditioning improvement. I was out for nearly a year before resuming last month, and I could tell that my first few weeks of rolling weren't very relaxed, and that I was paying a high price for keeping the strength "on" at all times.

 

[Pro Killer]

I think maybe you got the tape in BJJ because the instructor was Afraid your pants were falling down!!

 

[pliftkl]

I took yesterday off and drank several beers.

Today was BJJ. Ended up being another private lesson, as the two other people who normally come on Thursdays didn't show.

Went through 4 attacks on the Turtle, and then walked through some of the techniques for getting out of the turtle. This was actually a really helpful class for me, as I frequently find myself turtled against higher belts with really no plan other than survival. Now I've got a basic gameplan, based on where they are trying to attack from.

Knees ached today, which I don't really like, but I'm old and probably have to suck it up.

 

[pliftkl]

Bench Day.

Warmups:
5x135
3x185
2x225
1x245

Working sets:
5x280
5x280

Had a couple issues today. One is recurring - I lower the first rep of any heavy set of bench too slowly, and I think I waste a lot of energy doing this. I'm not sure why I have this problem - the rests of the reps in the set are fine. Other issue is some bicep pain. When I do BJJ I tend to be susceptible to bicep strains - I was icing after one of the sessions this week, and clearly that wasn't sufficient, since my bicep has been hurting since the bench sets.