Today's workout

Squat: 275 x 5 x 3
Bench: 165 x 5 x 3
DL: 305 x 5 x 1

Weight: 220.4, thought I was going to weigh more due to eating a lot last night.

Today's workout wasn't too bad. Thought it would be worse since I didn't get to sleep until about 2330 last night (4.5 hrs of sleep). I hate weekday recovery days. I seem to have way to much energy and want to stay up all night. I also am in the office 1.5 hrs or so more since I'm not in the gym. I will stick with the program though because I'm not a quitter.

Observations: There is a guy, couple years older than me, that is in great shape and is usually on the rower while I warm up. Today he was on the eliptical, nothing really strange there. As I was getting off the bike I noticed him doing some pushups nearby. Thing was he was quickly pumping them out and I was impressed until I actually looked over at his form. Back, arms and legs were fine, but his head was bent down. He was only going down a couple inches until his forehead almost hit the deck. I wanted to wait around and see if he knocked himself out, but didn't due to my want for lifting out pushed my want for watching for a possible fail. I will have to keep my eye out to see if this happens again.

Had another older than me guy come in for his workout. I had just finished a warmup set for DL and noticed him come through the door, tank top and all. He looked all excited for his workout and had a nice bounce to his step. That ended about halfway over to me when he noticed where I was located: In his favorite look-in-the-mirror-while-I-workout location. Our gym has 1 "rack". I'm not sure what to call it, but one end has a moveable bench hooked up for seated press, middle is for squats with a pullup station, and other end has pullup station and a deadlift platform. This runs parallel to the wall with the mirrors. If you setup for squat or deadlift the mirror would be on your left. This is convenient for me since I don't have to stare in the mirror for my workout. The platform part gives the least blockage of mirror, giving this guy his optimal space for checking himself out. He gave me a look and I know he was thinking things out in his head. "Is he done with his workout? ****, I guess not since he is starting to add weight to the bar. Man, I really want to get that spot. Think he will move to a different area? Damn, doing DLs so he won't move." At this point he is stopped and kind of doing stutter steps trying to figure out what to do. "I think I will wait until he is done. Crap, he's adding a lot of weight and looks like he may take a while. Guess I will move over there to workout." He grabs a bar, think it was an ez bar but not positive just that it wasn't a barbell. I could see throughout my workout that he was eyeing me, willing me to get done faster since his location wasn't optimal to see himself in the mirror. After I finish my workout, put all bumpers and barbell back I notice him rush over and claim the floor space by the platform so he can check himself out for the rest of his workout. Can't wait to see him next time I'm in his prime location.

Today's workout

Squat: 285 x 5 x 3
Press: 125 x 5 x 3
Row: 145 x 5 x 3

Weight: 220.2

Today's workout kind of sucked. My left elbow started bothering me this weekend while swimming with the kids. Kind of bothered me a little while doing squats and some while doing the press. Didn't really bother me on rows. I think I also strained a muscle in my upper back, left side. Not sure how I did that one, but it started to bother me the last set of presses. I now have pain when I move my left arm across my body or when I look left/right. Will be using a lacrosse ball on it tonight and will try to get my wife to give me a massage.

I'm kind of happy with my weight. I am not looking at losing weight, rather losing fat. My clothes seem to fit better each week, so I'm hoping that I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. Looking forward to my weekly taping on Wednesday. I feel taping is a good check to see what areas of my body are going up and which are going down. I check neck, chest, upper arm, forearm, waist, hips, thigh, and calf keeping track of it through FitDay. I figure if my weight is staying the same yet my waist is going down, then I am losing fat in that region which is key for my weigh ins in October (neck and waist comparison for BF). I'm not using the measurements as a BF measurement outside of my regulated weigh-in, more of a check on progress. I will check my BF again sometime mid August using a caliper since the lady at the gym does them for free.

Wife just called, my wrist wraps came in today. Looking forward to using them.

Today's workout

Squat: 295 x 5 x 3
Bench: 175 x 5 x 3
DL: 315 x 5 x 1

Weight: 219.6

Weights seemed pretty good today. Switched back to high bar squats due to my elbow hurting while warming up in low bar. I plan on doing 5 lb increases on squat from now on, seems like the right thing to do. The wrist wraps definitely helped out in the bench. No more issues with my wrist hurting/being sore afterwards. My elbow did hurt during bench. Seemed to only kick in during my work sets and only for the first rep of each set. Elbow felt weak/started to hurt as I lowered the bar during the first rep. Once I raised the bar the pain went away and stayed away for the other 4 reps. Not sure what is going on with it yet. Figured I would keep on going until it hurts too much to continue. Right now it is more of a nagging pain rather than something that would make me stop.

I think I have the answer to this next question, but figured I would ask it anyways. Friday (my next scheduled workout day) I will not be coming in to work due to my wife having a pre-op appointment scheduled. This means no workout for me on Friday. Should I a) skip my Friday workout and move it to Monday, giving me 4 recovery days or b) workout tomorrow (Thursday), giving me 0 then 3 recovery days. I'm guessing you will recommend I go with a) but figured I would ask anyways.

Seeing as the appointment mentioned above is pre-op, that does mean op is coming up next week. As of now it is scheduled for next Friday. Since it is about 3 hrs away, we will be staying in a hotel from Thursday to Wednesday. Planning on finding a hotel with a gym and try to do what I can while I'm away from work. We'll see how it goes.

No answer to my question yet, so I am going without a workout today. I'm thinking that is what would be recommended.

If you are doing ABA it doesn't really matter if you miss a certain day of the week. Just go the next day like nothing happened. if you did A last time, do B next time.

Also, I wouldn't give up on low-bar just because it was uncomfortable. I had to work quite a while to find the sweet spot where it was comfortable, but I am very glad I did.

Thanks for the info.

I switched back high-bar for a little longer due to pain, not just discomfort. I'm not giving up on low-bar altogether though. It didn't feel like I was just stretching it, but actually causing pain. Elbow still feels off today. It hurts 100% of the time in low-bar with any significant weight on the bar (over 200 lbs). It only causes discomfort, bordering on weakness for the bench (not sure about press yet). Today it doesn't hurt, but is kind of nagging.

I will try again on Monday, but if it bothers me I will go back to high-bar until I get back from staying in a hotel. I'm guessing they won't have proper gear, so I will most likely be doing bodyweight/DB exercises from 5-13 August, returning to a proper gym on 16 August. Hopefully that will give my elbow enough time to fix itself.

If your arm is hurting on squats, it might mean your bar position is incorrect. There should be almost zero weight on your arms.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1giQN1GoesY

There isn't weight on my arms during the squat. I use my arms to "pinch" the bar against my back, but not to lift up on the bar at all.

It may have to do with flexibility trying to get my hand around the bar on the low-bar squat. It just didn't feel like I was over stretching any muscles, maybe ligaments? I may need to drop down in weight for low-bar in order to get my flexibility in my left arm up. Does that make sense? Maybe my low-bar placement is a little too low? Looking at that video makes me think it is.

When I place me hands on the bar, I just rest the bottom my palms on it, I don't wrap my fingers around. Also, I put my hands a lot wider on the bar than I would for a HBBS.

That might be part of the problem. I was trying to place them the same distance. I don't wrap my hand around the bar either. It was almost at my wrists doing low-bar. Will have to experiement with that on Monday. Thanks for the advice.

You don't need to be lifting up on the bar to have your elbows loaded. Make sure you get those elbows more unloaded. You probably need to get your hand more over the bar and possibly widen the grip a little. Also, make sure the wrist isn't cocked back at all.

Thanks for the info, I will keep an eye on that tomorrow when I get back to the gym.

The bolded is pretty much impossible for anyone who's not a rank novice.

Guess I may be one then, especially with my upper body work? Weight is staying fairly steady around 220, but my waist size has been decreasing the past 2 weeks (.25" per week, total of .5" so far). I have been measuring on Wednesdays after I get home from work, with measurement around the belly button. Not going to be able to check that the next 2 wednesdays due to wife (who takes measurements) is having surgery.

Maybe I'm not gaining muscle, just losing fat and retaining water due to creatine? Not sure, but my lifting is still increasing and I'm feeling better. Not too worried about it either way right now. I will check my BF% using calipers sometime in September to see what is going on. Not sure where I will be on the lifts though since this wednesday is my last workout in a real gym until the 16th. Not sure what the hotel will have for a gym, but guessing not too much in the way of weights.