A headache is weakness leaving the brain

[pliftkl]

That's encouraging. I figured it was much longer since my last log entry. I think about a week after my last log entry I injured a rib while defending an armbar (I'm not sure how, but I have good grip strength, and it seems one of my ribs popped before my grip strength failed). I took a few weeks off from the gym, and have still not resumed BJJ. However, I've managed to get back to some basic lifting.

Today was supposed to just be squat day, but I arrived in our 1-sqat-rack-gym to find that a fairly large guy was well into his warmup for a squat workout. His range and form were perfect (very unusual for my gym). I figured I'd go ahead and do a lower weight bench workout while waiting for the rack

Bench
5x135
5x185
5x225
5x225
5x225

I'm working on a much narrower grip than I used last year in an effort to protect my shoulders. This has dropped the weight I can use, but I hope to see good gains if I stick with it.

Bench is done, and the guy in the squat rack is still going. He's done 3-4 sets of nice deep squats. I think to myself "no point in saying anything, surely he must be almost done". I thought wrong. The guy cranked out another 10 sets of 5 rep squats at 315, and made it look easy until the last few sets. I wanted to ask him what his routine was based on (I've seen him doing a lot of heavy compound exercises), but the last thing I'd want after a 315 pound death march would be to answer questions, so that will have to wait for another day.

Squat day
5x135
5x225
5x275
5x315
5x315
5x315

It's moving in the right direction, although it's frustratingly lower than where I was at the end of last year.

 

[pliftkl]

5/25 workout. First time back deadlifting in a while. I had strained something in my forearm the last time I deadlifted (in February?). Seemed fine for this workout, though I went light.

5x135
5x225
5x315
5x365
5x365

 

[pliftkl]

Squat day - still sucking, but at least moving in the right direction
5x135
5x225
5x275
5x315
5x335
5x335

 

[pliftkl]

Deadlifts
5x135
5x225
2x315
1x365
3x405 Forgot my chalk, and had some grip issues here.

Bench
5x135
5x185
5x225
5x225
5x225

 

[MIDMOBOX]

Squat day - still sucking, but at least moving in the right direction
5x135
5x225
5x275
5x315
5x335
5x335

I'm not sure most people would consider 5x335x2 sucking. Looks like a decent work out to me

 

[pliftkl]

I'm not sure most people would consider 5x335x2 sucking. Looks like a decent work out to me

It sucks compared to 5x405 from last fall.

Squatted again today. Went back to the tapered warmup that I used last year.

5x135
3x225
1x275
1x315
1x335
Work sets
5x355
5x355
And a random single for good measure
1x375

The work sets felt pretty hard, so there's no way we're going to see as big a leap next week.

Also benched, but only brought it up to a couple sets of 5x225. I could definitely have gone higher, but I have a poor injury track record with bench, and I'm going to take this very slowly.

 

[pliftkl]

Deadlifts
5x135
5x225
3x315
1x365
5x405

Had my chalk this time, and the work set felt pretty easy. I'm sure I could have cranked out a few more reps. Will take my time and just try to add weight to the bar each week.

 

[pliftkl]

Overhead Press
5x45
5x65
5x95
5x115
5x135

Work sets:
3x5x155

A bit of a disappointing drop from last year, but far better than where I was last year at this time.

The same guy who did a death march of 10+ sets of full range squats at 315 last week was there deadlifting today. He cranked out a half dozen sets of 5 at 435, though with wraps. Nice to see other people lifting heavy. There's no way I could do his volume, but at least I'm chasing him on the weight.

 

[pliftkl]

I'd originally planned on squatting and benching today, but I had a lot of upper body soreness from the previous press/deadlift days, and decided to put that off by a day. Today was just squats

Squat
5x45
5x135
3x225
2x275
2x315
1x335

Work Set
5x365

Felt pretty good, and I think I could have gotten another 5x365, but the gym was closing.

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Your lifts are looking pretty good man. I don't know if you are but have you thought about coming over to Hyde Park Gym?

 

[pliftkl]

Your lifts are looking pretty good man. I don't know if you are but have you thought about coming over to Hyde Park Gym?

Hyde Park Gym would be my gym of choice (I've lifted there before many years ago). Unfortunately, I'm up in Cedar Park, and trying to lift at Hyde Park would probably cost me an hour in driving.

 

[pliftkl]

Yesterday was bench day. I'm still working well under maximum effort, since I'm trying to avoid a repeat of various shoulder problems that I've historically had when my bench got heavy. I'm trying to balance with more overhead presses.

Bench
5x135
5x185
5x225
5x235
5x245
5x245

 

[pliftkl]

Deadlift day

Warmups:
5x135
3x225
2x315
1x365

Work Sets:
5x415
4x415 (was shooting for 5, didn't fail on the fifth, just bailed on it)

Numbers coming back slowly...

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Hyde Park Gym would be my gym of choice (I've lifted there before many years ago). Unfortunately, I'm up in Cedar Park, and trying to lift at Hyde Park would probably cost me an hour in driving.

That sucks man. I hope wherever you're at right now is fully equiped with what you need. If you ever decide to stop by Hyde Park let me know. Maybe once in a while you can come down here get a day pass for $10. It would be great to get to know a fellow Sherdog lifter.

 

[pliftkl]

Overhead Press
Warmups
5x45
5x65
5x95
5x115
5x135

Work sets
5x160
3x160

Strained something in my neck that made me abort on the second step. This morning (about 15 hours after), it hurts a lot to turn my head. Ice and ibuprofin...

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Overhead Press
Warmups
5x45
5x65
5x95
5x115
5x135

Work sets
5x160
3x160

Strained something in my neck that made me abort on the second step. This morning (about 15 hours after), it hurts a lot to turn my head. Ice and ibuprofin...

When you do your heavy sets on OHP do you flex or extend your neck at all?

 

[pliftkl]

It's obviously been a while since I posted in here. I'd like to report that this was because I was off doing noble things liking saving the world from zombie alien invasions. However, a more honest assessment of the last year would be that I started smoking, started drinking lots of beer, and stopped training.

I quit smoking about a month ago, and coupled this with a return to training (which has helped tremendously in keeping me off of cigarettes). I'm not entirely nicotine free yet. I'm still doing 2-3 pieces of gum per day, and will continue to do this for another month or so. At the time I quit smoking, I was down to 210 pounds.

My strategy coming back is to do a variant of SS until I'm back to about 75% of my previous max lifts, then take a slower approach moving forward. Since I'm coming off a year of smoking, I'm doing some cardio (walking for 60-90 minutes 5 times per week) to try to get my resting heart rate down below 60. It's currently at about 70, and was in the upper 70's a month ago when I quit smoking. Since I'm 42, working at 60% of MHR is only a heart rate of 108, and I can easily maintain this walking.

The "variant" of starting strength that we're doing is that we're doing more pressing than bench. My lifting partner has some shoulder issues, so we decided that we'd both start the press at a ridiculously low weight and work our way up. Having done this for a month, he feels his shoulder is getting better, and we may switch to benching every 3 workouts and see how that goes.

Diet involves heavy use of whole milk and as much food as I can cram in. Biggest weakness right now is breakfast, as I'm typically stuck on the computer dealing with problems for work as soon as I wake up. I generally don't eat until I've been awake for a couple of hours. I'm trying to fix this.


Workouts so far (copied from my notebook to catch up the log):

4/23/12
Squat 5x45 5x45 5x95 5x145 5x145 5x145
Press 5x45 5x45 5x45 5x45 5x45 (I told you we were starting light)
Deadlift 5x135 5x135

4/25/12
Squat 5x45 5x45 5x95 5x135 5x155 5x155 5x155
Press 5x45 5x55 5x55 5x55
Power Cleans 5x95 5x95 5x95

Lost a week and a half due to illness. This actually worked out well in the sense that it really helped the efforts to quit smoking because I felt like crap, and had no desire to smoke at all. I suspect that I had strep, and hit antibiotics for a week.

5/10/12
Squat 5x45 5x95 5x135 5x185 5x185 5x185
Press 5x45 5x60 5x60 5x60
Deadlift 5x135 5x185

5/13/12
Squat 5x45 5x135 5x185 5x205 5x205 5x205
Press 5x45 5x65 5x65 5x65
Power Cleans 5x115 5x115 5x115

It's worth noting that none of these workouts has been challenging so far, though my hamstrings have been very sore. It's been a long time since I've done a routine that involved squatting 3x per week.

5/15/12
Squat 5x45 5x135 5x185 5x225 5x225 5x225
Press 5x45 5x70 5x70 5x70
Deadlist 5x135 5x225

5/19/12
Squat 5x135 5x185 5x225 5x245 5x245 5x245
Bench 5x45 5x135 5x155 5x155 5x155
Power Cleans 5x135 5x135 5x135

5/21/12
Squat 5x45 5x135 5x185 5x225 5x265 5x265 5x265
Press 5x45 5x75 5x75 5x75
Deadlift 5x135 5x275

This was the first workout that felt hard, where I gave myself some additional time to rest between sets of the squat.

That's where I am now. My goals are to be back to my strength levels from the end of 2010, but I'd like to be able to do this at a body weight that is about 15 pounds lower. I was up to about 240 at the time I was at my strength peak last time, and I'll be happy if I can hit the same numbers at 225 or lower.

I am not currently training BJJ, but will be resuming next week.

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Welcome back fellow Austinite! Are you still training up north?

 

[pliftkl]

Welcome back fellow Austinite! Are you still training up north?

Yep. Still have a Fitness 19 membership, but I'm training with a friend in his garage squat rack for now. I suspect that the summer temperatures will chase me back into the gym within a month or so. I hate the Fitness 19 squat rack though, so I may just suck it up and get a membership at a bigger gym.

 

[pliftkl]

I have encouraged a neighbor and a coworker to start training with us. This is slowing down the training, but I feel like we'd be taking much longer breaks even if they weren't with us. Working with new people reminds me that I still have a lot of work to do if I want to be able to train people properly. One of the new lifters has serious flexibility issues that prevent him from hitting the bottom of the squat without lifting his heels. The other is having issues with the power clean where his second pull is simply not accelerating the bar quickly enough. I need to reread the SS chapters carefully and pay attention to the coaching queues.

5/24/12 workout
Squat: 5x45 5x135 5x185 5x225 5x275 5x275 5x275
Press: 5x45 5x80 5x80 5x80 (still feels ridiculously easy - resisting the urge to crank it up faster)
Power Cleans: 5x45 5x135 5x135
Next time we're on power cleans, we're going to switch to 5 sets of 3, as Rippetoe recommends. We abbreviated here primarily because two of us were getting whiny calls from our wives.

Edited to add: This workout felt really good. I'd been doing 20 pound jumps on the squats so far, but that's clearly not sustainable for much longer. If it were, I'd be back at my old maxes in less than 2 weeks. I made a conscious decision here to switch to 10 pound jumps, see how that feels, and stick with it until I think I need to do 5 pound jumps. Once I'm at the point where I don't think I can add 5 pounds per workout, I'll be looking at switching to a different routine (probably starting by switching to only squatting twice a week).