DocStrange's Log

[DocStrange]

So I have been strength training for a little while now, and I'm hoping starting a log here will help keep me motivated by being accountable to random people on the internet, and the desire to not be perceived as a quitter. Plus, nobody I know will talk strength with me, and find me annoying when I talk about it. So that's why I need you people.

My history with weights is the same as a lot of peoples. Spent 3 years, primarily in the summer, looking to "get ripped" (awwww yeah). I did your typical back/bi, chest/tri, legs/shoulder routine they teach kids in highschool for some reason that escapes me. At one point I lost a lot of weight looking for my six pack, which I never found because I had no muscle mass on my core. Was down to 145ish, and was incredibly weak. Overall, I never gained any strength and very limited muscle over 3 years of sometimes spending 7 days a week toiling away in a YMCA. Incredibly frustrating.

Jump to today, I'm doing a Starting Strength variation, and I'm far stronger than I've ever been in my life. But I want to keep on improving, and see how far I can push my strength. I don't play any sports, so this is my outlet for activity for now. I'm still very weak, and haven't progressed particularly well, but even the gains I've made already seem like mountains when I think about how physically incapable I've been my entire life.

So here are my goals right now, marked for the end of 2013:

Squat: 315
Deadlift: 350
Bench: 200
Press: 150

I'm 170 lbs, 5'11" right now, and gaining weight. Training log... commence!

 

[LitteringAnd]

Plus, nobody I know will talk strength with me, and find me annoying when I talk about it. So that's why I need you people.

Oh you've come to the right place. Welcome to the logs. Where are you at now in relation to your goals?

 

[DocStrange]

Oh you've come to the right place. Welcome to the logs. Where are you at now in relation to your goals?

My best lifts are steadily improving, so I didn't include them, but here is my session from today, which is a good picture of where I'm at:

(weight x reps x set)
Squats
Barx5x2
135x5
175x3
195x2
200x5x2
200x3

Bench
Barx5x2
105x5
120x3
135x2
140x5x3

Deadlift
135x5x2
185x3
195x2
205x5

Failed the last two reps on my squats... this weight is feeling really heavy, and I stalled out on it before working my way back up already. Bench and deadlift felt great though.

My best over head press is 100x4. It's been a tough weight for me, but I think I'll handle it much better next session.

 

[guilineseguy]

Welcome to the logs sorcerer supreme. Lifting AND comics down for both here.

And I am in the same boat, only a few of my friends even go to the gym. The rest don't give a crap about what I do in the gym. Same with comics and cartoons..

 

[KnightTemplar]

Welcome to the Logs.

Love the user name!:icon_chee You should have picture of the Sorcerer Supreme as your Avatar.

 

[guilineseguy]

KT are you a comic nerd as well?

Duh your log is avengers assemble. Boy my memory sucks

 

[DocStrange]

And so it is done! Hopefully this imbues me with the mystic arts, which I shall use to move more weight around.

I actually haven't read any Doctor Strange in quite a while, he was always my favorite superhero though. I'll have to start again.

 

[KnightTemplar]

KT are you a comic nerd as well?

Duh your log is avengers assemble. Boy my memory sucks

To quote Leonard from Big Bang Theory, "No, I'm the King of Nerds!":icon_chee

My Xmas presents this year included three Marvel Graphic Novels, a Captain America action figure and a radio-controlled Batman figure...:redface:

I'm seriously considering switiching my training program to Juggernaut or the(Cosmic)Cube just because of the names!

 

[KnightTemplar]

And so it is done! Hopefully this imbues me with the mystic arts, which I shall use to move more weight around.

I actually haven't read any Doctor Strange in quite a while, he was always my favorite superhero though. I'll have to start again.

I haven't read any Dr Strange stories in a while either. The last time I saw him, he was repairing Mjolnir after Thor damaged the Hammer when he was forced to kill his grandfather, Bor.

 

[DocStrange]

So this is yesterdays session:
Squats
Barx5x2
135x5
175x3
195x2
200x3x3 (failed hard)

Press
Barx5x2
75x5
85x3
95x2
100x5x2
100x4

Chin-ups
13x11x10

So squats were really bad, and I felt really weak with them. I've been having a lot of soreness in my knees after squatting lately, and I'm positive its because I'm really bad for having my knees swim in on me. I tried to correct that yesterday and force my knees out, but I lost a lot of power doing it. I'm going to have to drop the weight and focus on form I think, because the soreness is definitely not where it should be.

My copy of Practical Programming is coming on Thursday, can't wait to start reading it. My progress on a linear program has been getting really slow, so I'm starting to think a weekly progression might be the right move... I'm not nearly as strong as I thought I'd be before moving on, but I have made good progress, and I started very weak. I think steady weekly progress would be better than constantly stalling and resetting.

 

[DocStrange]

Today's Session:

Squats
Barx5x2
135x5
160x3
175x2
180x5x3

Bench
Barx5x2
110x5
125x3
140x2
145x5x3

Deadlift
135x5x2
185x3
205x2
215x5

Dropped my squat weight by 10% to focus on form. Tried to really focus on keeping my knees out, and even with the decreased weight I struggled with it a bit on my later reps. I'm going to start working back up to 200 while focusing on my knees, at least until I figure out how I'm going to set up a program for weekly progression.

The other lifts went well, my deadlift should be a lot better but unfortunately limited weight meant I couldn't progress with it for a while. It felt hard, but I thought I maintained form pretty well.

I'm thinking I need to post a squat form check pretty soon.

 

[DocStrange]

Today's not-so-great session (which should have been yesterdays session):

Squats
Barx5x2
135x5
160x3
175x2
185x5x3

Press
Barx5x2
75x5
85x3
95x2
105x3
105x2x2

Pullups (BW)
6x6x6

So wasn't feeling great today. Stomach was a bit off, and I was kind of screwed up schedule-wise. Took some form videos though, so if anyone peaks in here, I'd appreciate any feedback. My squats felt better than last session, and I'm just working on the same stuff. My cues I'm giving myself are "chest up," "stay tight," and "knees out" right now. I notice I have some buttwink in the video as well, although my lower back has been feeling fine during/after the lift. Any suggestions here would be really helpful.

Press was awful, and by the time I got to it, I felt more tired than usual. Took a form video of my last warm up set, which l think doesn't look too bad, but a critique would be good. Working sets crushed me though, and I only got off 3 by 2 by 2. I think I need to warm up a bit lighter, because my press isn't very strong, and I feel the warmup is hurting my working sets still. Was very dissapointed, because 100 lbs. felt good, and I wasn't expecting such a dramatic drop off.

I did pullups from basically a dead hang today for the first time (I have been doing them from about 3/4 extension). Felt okay, other than the low amount of reps I got off in comparison to what I was doing before. But I was expecting as much.

Here's the vids:




And yes, I accidentally hit the ceiling and have to move on the second rep of the press. It's a low ceiling, so I have to move the tiles aside, and occasionally I miss, heh.

 

[DocStrange]

Gonna play some log catch-up, was super busy this week and didn't find much time, and only got 2 lifting sessions in unfortunately:

Mondays session

Squats
Barx5x2
135x5
165x3
185x2
190x5x3

Bench
Barx5x2
115x5
130x3
140x2
150x5x3

Chinups (BW)
9x7x5

Saturdays session (I did what I would usually do on a wednesday..)

Squats
45
135x5
170x3
185x2
195x5
195x3x2

Press
45x5x2
75x5
85x3
95x2
105x4
105x3x2

Deadlifts
135x5
185x3
205x2
220x5

Overall, I've been struggling a lot lately and I'm convinced that a program change is in order. My bench is the only thing really improving steadily still, and that's getting more and more difficult too.

I just started a carpentry apprenticeship (why this last week was so busy), which means I'm working full time doing hard physical labor, so I'm going to really have to see what I can handle lifting wise. I burn a ton of calories at work, so I'm going to need to eat like crazy to keep up.

I've been reading Practical Programming, so I'm going to pick an intermediate program outlined in there to try I think. I'm going to try and plan something today and start either this coming week or the next.

 

[DocStrange]

Haven't had much time to get on the computer lately, so I haven't logged in a while. Still learning how to organize my time around my new job. Starting a new program this week; I'm trying out The Texas Method basically as it's written in Practical Programming, with a few minor changes. I decided to do bent-over rows instead of power cleans, and put my percentages a little different on the light day (went 85% instead of 80%, because the weight I calculated was a pretty light, on account of me being very weak...).

So I'm taking it light for the next few weeks to get into the groove of the program and adjust to my new jobs physical demands, and I've set my weights so that I'm setting new records in around a months time. Today was the light day, so it looked like this:

Wednesday session

Squats
45x5x2
95x5
115x3
135x2
145x5x2

Press
45x5x2
55x5
65x3
70x5x3

Chinups
10x9x8

Well, it felt REALLY light, which was a little frustrating, but I'm sure I'll appreciate it a great deal when the weight increases. I took today as an opportunity to work on form, and I felt I made some great adjustments to both my squat and press. I was very happy with my chinups as well, as 10 reps with very strict form is something I haven't been able to do before.

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Yay another comic book fan!

Welcome!

 

[DocStrange]

Okay, so I'm absolutely terrible at keeping a log it seems. Going to try and post more consistently now, and cut back on the commentary. I get a bit carried away writing about shit, heheh.

Did Fridays session today, because of a busy schedule the last few days:

Squats
45x5x2
135x5
175x3
195x2
205x1
210x5

Bench
45x5x2
115x5
135x3
145x2
155x5

Barbell Rows
135x5x3

Top sets were tough, but I felt pretty good about them. Definitely going to need to make sure I eat this coming week.

So progress has been going well with the Texas Method, and I feel like I can definitely sustain progress this way. I made a thread a few weeks ago about lifting with my new job (carpentry, so pretty physical work) and it hasn't been a problem. Prioritizing eating and sleeping has really paid off. My lifting days are a little screwed up right now, but hopefully I can get back on Mon/Wed/Fri soon.

 

[DocStrange]

Mondays Session (On tuesday...)

Squats
45x5x2
135x5
175x3
185x2
195x5x5

Press
45x5x2
65x5
75x3
85x2
95x5x5

Deadlift
135x5
175x5
195x2
215x1
225x5

Felt pretty awesome today, besides deadlifts. I felt like my form was breaking down a little by the end of my top set. My deadlift is absolutely terrible, and I feel like it will need a lot of attention down the line, but it IS progressing, so I'm leaving it for now. Squats are going well, and that's the main focus at the moment.

 

[KnightTemplar]

Yay another comic book fan!

Welcome!

Always cool to welcome a Brother to Sherdog.:icon_chee

 

[KnightTemplar]

Mondays Session (On tuesday...)

Squats
45x5x2
135x5
175x3
185x2
195x5x5

Press
45x5x2
65x5
75x3
85x2
95x5x5

Deadlift
135x5
175x5
195x2
215x1
225x5

Felt pretty awesome today, besides deadlifts. I felt like my form was breaking down a little by the end of my top set. My deadlift is absolutely terrible, and I feel like it will need a lot of attention down the line, but it IS progressing, so I'm leaving it for now. Squats are going well, and that's the main focus at the moment.

A good call, IMHO. Remember that strength training is a marathon, not a sprint.

 

[DocStrange]

Friday Session (On saturday...)

Squat
45x5x2
135x5
185x3
205x2
215x4 (Missed my 5th rep...)

Press
45x5x2
65x5
85x3
100x2
105x5

Rows
140x5x3

So had my first really disappointing session in a while. Didn't get anywhere near enough sleep and was drinking last night, which isn't an excuse, but I totally psyched myself out on the squat because of it. Gonna try the same weight next week, and I'm positive I can hit the 5 easily. Rows felt shakey form wise, and press was harder than it should have been.