Efforts of an Aging Ectomorph (lifting)

I would like to be leaner, too. I have been thinking about making January a conditioning and weight-loss month- just lifting twice a week and doing conditioning four times a week. But I don't know how I will feel when I get to December. If my squat continues to edge up and my bench actually goes up like it seems to be promising to, it is going to be hard to cut that off.
 
September 28, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 8, Day 1
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1500m

Squat: Warm-up, 215x5x3

BP: Warm-up, 175x5x3

Pull-ups: BWx4x3, x3x2

Total lift time: 61 minutes
Stretch: 19 minutes
Body weight: 232lbs
Missed lifting: 10 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Notes:
Back into the regularly scheduled 3 sets of 5. Today was OK, but still an unpleasant reminder that testing my physical limits is a lot more fun than the work it takes to expand them. Fiddled with the weights a bit, but will continue linear progression from here until total body failure.

Strangest looking guy in the gym today: football lineman’s body, just plain massive, with a little kid’s baby-face. The kid looked photoshopped.
 
Nice work Stonebreaker. I feel your pain on the strength gains and gut check. I've been after a 1,000lb total for a long time. Closest I got was 925lb.
 
stlrph said:
Nice work Stonebreaker. I feel your pain on the strength gains and gut check. I've been after a 1,000lb total for a long time. Closest I got was 925lb.
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The expanding gut and all that goes with it (buying new pants) is annoying, but I now have some measurable strength gains to go along with it. The current squat/OHP competition has me commited to 1RM gains and nothing else until the end of the year; at that point, I'll see just how close I am to which goals and decide then whether to continue down the "forget get the gut, get the lifts" road or start trimming back my diet.
 
October 1, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 8, Day 3
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1650m

Squat: Warm-up, 220x5x3

OHP: Warm-up, 115x5x3

DL: 315x5 (LO)

Total lift time: 61 minutes
Stretch: skipped
Body weight: 233lbs
Missed lifting: 11 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Notes:
Missed Thursday’s lifting after a miserable 10+ hour day at the office. Today went OK, though.
 
October 2, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 8, Day 4
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1680m

Squat: Warm-up, 225x5x3

BB BP: Warm-up, 180x5x3

Chin-ups: BWx7, x6, x5x2

Total lift time: 68 minutes
Stretch: 19 minutes
Body weight: 234lbs
Missed lifting: 11 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Later:
Grip work: forgotten again. I need to get a reminder tattooed on my forearm or something.

Notes:
Mostly OK, though I’m a little disappointed in the chin-ups. Probably would have benefited from a little extra time between sets there.
 
October 5, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 9, Day 1
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1630m

Squat: Warm-up, 230x5x3 (not easy)

BB BP: Warm-up, 185x5x3

Pull-ups: skipped

Total lift time: 41 minutes
Stretch: skipped
Body weight: 235lbs
Missed lifting: 11 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Notes:
Terribly rushed workout. Torn between being irked at having to skip my last lift and being glad that I was able to get any lifting in at all. No time that evening for any recovery other than sleep; tonight’s squatting is going to SUCK.
 
October 6, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 9, Day 2
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1680m

Squat: Warm-up, 235x5x3 (not easy)

OHP: Warm-up, 117x5x3

DL: 325x5 (RO)

Total lift time: 52 minutes
Stretch: 18 minutes
Body weight: 234lbs
Missed lifting: 11 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Later:
Grip work: Green egg/red bands x12x2, CoC Trainer: Right: x6x4, Left: x5x4

Notes:
Squats are getting to be a struggle. Otherwise a solid workout.
 
October 9, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 9, Day 4
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1620m

Squat: Warm-up, 240x5x3 (all sets slow, most reps ugly)

BB BP: Warm-up, 190x5x2 (ran out of time)

Total lift time: 32 minutes
Stretch: skipped
Body weight: 234lbs
Missed lifting: 12 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Later:
Pull-ups: BWx3x5

Grip work: Green egg/red bands x12x2, CoC Trainer: Right: x6x4, Left: x5x2, x3, x5

Notes:
Missed Saturday’s lifting because I am a lazy slob who does not deserve a 1000lb total. Missed a chunk of today’s lifting as well for the same reason.
 
Stonebreaker said:
I think that I'm a Ben Saunders fan now.
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The first time I saw him fight I became a fan, although I did feel a little uneasy when he almost committed homicide in the octagon. I caught the end of a Sherdog radio program the other day, and the announcers were really talking him up. What happened?
 
Old Man said:
The first time I saw him fight I became a fan, although I did feel a little uneasy when he almost committed homicide in the octagon. I caught the end of a Sherdog radio program the other day, and the announcers were really talking him up. What happened?
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He's been putting on a show in his Bellator fights, and the Santos fight turned out to be a grapple-fest. The ease with which Santos put Saunders on his back bodes ill for his eventual showdown with Askren (I think Saunders has Lima's number), but Saunders played a rubber guard variant that someone who knows a lot more about rubber guard than I do would have to explain. Saunders put his flexibility and height to work the second he hit the mat, and nearly all of the first two rounds saw Santos hopelessly trapped in what I'd call a rubber guard partial triangle that was twisting the heck out of Santos' trapped shoulder (Saunders tried to reach all the way across at one point for an honest to god omoplata finish), and left Saunders free to fire straight punches from his back pretty much unblocked to Santos' head.

The finish (basic keylock from halfguard) in the third was almost anticlimactic.

I think the buzz is a combination of seeing that Saunders does have an effective ground game, and the sheer unorthodoxy of it.

I'm also pretty sure that Saunders can't wait to get clear of the tournament portion of Bellator so that he can finally let his elbows loose again. :)
 
October 12, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 10, Day 1
Warm-up: TB X-Ramp: 8 minutes at resistance 8, ramp 6: .7mi

Squat: Warm-up, 245x5x3

OHP: Warm-up, 120x5x3

DL: 335x5

Total lift time: 60 minutes
Stretch: 19 minutes
Body weight: 236lbs
Missed lifting: 12 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Notes:
My squats went better than expected today. Not well, mind you, but I didn’t reach truly ugly rep territory until the third set. There was an unfortunate incident with my liquid chalk prior to the deadlift, but thankfully no cameras were present.

A kid at the gym asked me if the lower pull-up bar on the front of the power rack was OK to do pull-ups on. It’s painfully close to the wall, of course, and you’d have to take the barbell off the hooks, but her concern was apparently whether that part of the rack could take her weight.

She was so damned earnest that I didn’t have the heart to point out that if it couldn’t support her (possibly) 100lbs of body weight, it would have collapsed a long time ago.


MMA Notes:
The rumored “No hold barred” rematch between “Tank” Abbott and Scott Ferrozzo in some Ohio strip club is about as likely to happen as the rumored Ken Shamrock/James Toney fight, and interests me even less.

Mostly, I’m surprised that Ferrozzo is still alive and even loosely connected to the fight world.
 
October 13, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 10, Day 2
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1680m

Squat: Warm-up, 250x5, 250x4 (fail 5), 250x3 (no attempt 4)

BB BP: Warm-up, 195x5x3

Pull-ups: BWx4x3, x3

Total lift time: 75 minutes
Stretch: 17 minutes
Body weight: 236lbs
Missed lifting: 12 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Later:
Grip work: Green egg/red bands x12x2, CoC Trainer: Right: x6x4, Left: x5x4

Notes:
Strike one on the squat. Middling-pleased with how far I got before that happened. I only really keep track of 1 and 3 rep PRs, but looking back over my 5/3/1 spreadsheet, it looks like 240 was the heaviest I ever hit 5 reps with, and the last time I squatted 250, I only hit two reps.

Will be away from the gym for the next week, and will probably take a one-day “back into action” lifting day after I return, but after that, another swing for 250.
 
Anniversary vacation time. Week and a half away from lifting. Got some hiking in here and there, though. I can now say from some personal experience that walking or running on sand for any distance really is a different kind of difficult. Uphill on sand even moreso.

Good, quiet, relaxing vacation. Now, back to the gym with me.
 
October 26, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 12, Day 1
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1600m

Squat: Warm-up, 225x5x3 (not as easy as I would have liked, did something weird with my foot position on set 3 but got through OK)

BB BP: Warm-up, 195x5x3

Plate-loaded Row Machine: 170x6, 190x6, 210x6x2

Total lift time: 70 minutes
Stretch: 17 minutes
Body weight: 233lbs
Missed lifting: 15 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Notes:
Took it light on the squats after the failure at 250 and the 6 lifting days off, will add a little more tonight and take another swing at 250x5x3 on Saturday.

Gym was stupidly crowded today. By the time I got to my chin-ups, everything that one could do a chin-up on was occupied by someone doing something stupid enough that I didn’t want to talk to them. Did the rows instead.
 
October 27, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 12, Day 2
Warm-up: Rowing machine: 8 minutes at resistance 10: 1710m

Squat: Warm-up, 235x5x3 (all sets slow, all rep 5’s ugly)

OHP: Warm-up, 120x5x3

DL: 335x3 (RO, all poor, no attempt 4)

Total lift time: 52 minutes
Stretch: skipped
Body weight: 234lbs
Missed lifting: 15 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Later:
Grip work: Skipped for no adequate reason

Notes:
Legs were still tired and sore from yesterday’s squats, today’s squats didn’t go well. OHP was fine. Strike one on the deadlift, which is really annoying, seeing as I completed the exact same workout two weeks ago without missing a rep (and at a slightly higher squat weight). Hoping that this was just fatigue, the time off from vacation, and a long stupid day at work.
 
Old Man said:
Why are you squatting on back to back days?
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One last shot at glory: I'm going through Starting Strength and good ol' linear progression until I can't take it any more. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with a four days a week in two pairs of consecutive days schedule, and I took the harder road by just going through SS four days a week instead of three. I've tried to pull out all the stops on recovery to make it work (protein overload, plenty of sleep, foam rolling, hot baths), and so far, it seems to have done some good: when I took a week off to test 1RMs in September, I hit two new PRs, tied one old one, and missed the fourth by 2%.

It's gone about as far as it can though, I think. Behold:
 
October 29, 2011:
Re-Starting Strength: Week 12, Day 3
Warm-up: skipped

Squat: Warm-up, 250x5x3 (all rep 5’s ugly)

OHP: Warm-up, 122x5x3

DL: 335x5 (LO, set OK)

Total lift time: 51 minutes
Stretch: skipped
Body weight: 234lbs
Missed lifting: 15 day(s) in the last 12 weeks.

Notes:
Got the 250x5x3, and even made good on the deadlift at 335 that I blew earlier. For what was a very rushed workout, this went pretty well.
 
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