You don't have 2.5 lbs plates?

I do and I guess I could do that. Better than staying at 325, I suppose. Good plan! ty

You should practice failures in warmups if you're not already. I'm sure you won't be able to feel comfortable failing until you've done several real ones, but less petrified of them is good.

Yeah that's a great idea. I'll do that next time I squat.

In other news, I've had this left knee pain for a while but it used to only bother me when I'd walk up stairs. cha and yugo had suggested foam rolling which I have done some of (probably not enough tbh) but I was never seeing results from that anyways. pain always lingered. Anyways, I got the idea to start walking on a stairclimber at the gym after my sessions and the pain would hurt a lot for the first minute and then lessen over the next few minutes. Now I do it for 5-10 mins after just about every time I go to the gym until the pain subsides and I can climb the stairs w/o any pain. Is this a realistic rehab of my knee or I am just doing something that is somehow hiding the pain and not actually dealing with the issue?

Along the same lines, my knee has never hurt me during squats until the last few times I've squatted. Once my knees get to about 90 degrees my left knee will hurt in the exact same spot where it hurts during stairs. Maybe I should start stairclimbing at the beginning of my sessions and treat that as a warmup?

I was curious how the macros came out since I don't routinely track stuff

Yesterday it worked out to 2585cals, 86f/206c/254p.

If I could do that everyday I'd be set for life I think.

Today isn't working out as well. 1c oats, 1 banana, 2 eggs, 2 beef patties, pwo shake, 1 Potbelly Wreck ( ), 2 handfuls of almonds (1.6oz)

2943cals, 123f/267c/214p

I ran for the first time in about 6 months today. What a debacle. 3.15 miles in 30 mins at a 1% incline. 550 cals burned at least. Basically a free protein shake!

Quads were sore from the running yesterday so I decided to give myself another day of rest before squatting again. So, I benched and did some pullups and ab stuff and made it a short session.

Benched 3x5x235 at least! Next time I'll try 240.

May 1:

So my quads were still sore from running the other day but I wanted to squat.

Squats:
However, I have been having this knee pain during squats when my legs get to about 90 degrees and I think it is related to my form. My understanding from reading SS is that if you are just standing upright and you squat down like a baby then where your feet are is how your feet should be positioned while squatting. Well, that's not how my feet are situated. Mine were always less V shaped and further apart. Then, I happened to watch the kidcolin squat vid and saw how his knees and feet were when he went ass to grass so I decided to try it as well.

I started with low weight to work on form and moved up to 275 and had no issues with the weight so I tried 315 and was able to get a great atg rep in so I decided that maybe I'd try 330. I put the weight on pounded out 3 but it was quite hard. I didn't want to try another rep. I then lowered it back to 315 in hopes of getting 5 reps but only did 4. then 3, then 3 again. Not bad, though, considering I was still sore and also going as far down as possible in the squat. After those reps I went down to 275 and did 5 reps no problem and then 5 more a few minutes later.

The best news of all was that my knee wasn't hurting! However, shortly after the squats the muscle right above my knee was on fire. Maybe I never was really engaging my muscles correctly due to my form being off and now that I am using this underused muscle it's burning? That's my working theory for now and won't be squatting until Saturday at the earliest so we'll see. Regardless, next time I squat I think I'll start at 295 and go atg for 3 sets of 5. I'll treat this like a reset since I'm working on form.

Deadlift:
1x4x385. Easier than last time and I think I had better form but I didn't attempt a 5th rep. Next time I will.

I think you're doing lbbs, so I don't think you actually want to strive for atg. Go as low as you can without losing any tension in your back.

I am? I'm not saying your wrong, bc maybe I'm bad at telling the diff, but these look high up on my traps:

They look like lbbs to me? You are trying to do hbbs? SS is lbbs.

I was just confused I think.

By lose tension you mean that when I get to the bottom of my squat my back would lose the straightness and start to bend? If so, I can see that. Well, I need to figure something out quickly bc when I squat the way I was my left knee kept having a sharp pain during reps. Nothing like a sudden sharp pain in your load-bearing knee! Maybe my legs were too far apart and I need to get them closer.

Haha, make sure you know what type of squats you're doing. It really looks like lbbs. You might just have the bar too high on your back? Most everyone around here is doing lbbs. KC does both I think.

Hbbs are more upright. I think you'd usually use a thumbed grip with your hands closer together and elbows pointing more down. I'm not an expert, though.

SiQ gave me some good advice about moving my feet in closer at the end of pg 1 of my log. I've had issue with my bad knee before.

These are both about as far down as you'd want to go I think:

That pic is great, ty.

Hmm, I want to use the correct form but it felt great going completely atg. I'll have to take a vid next time I do them and then get some more input.

Looking at that butt-view squat vid I posted really looks like my feet are either too wide, not V-like enough, or both. Okay, gotta seriously correct these problems soon.

May 6:

Weight: 206

Squats:
1x5x295
3x5x315

Got a pair of proper weightlifting shoes finally so I was testing them out today. I am in love. I had zero knee pain today which could be from better form but I think was mainly from the shoes. I took a vid of a set of mine that I need to put up.

Bench Press:
235lbs + clips: 4,3,3 were my reps. It wasn't great. Last time I did 235 I had no clips but I wanted to step it up slowly and they're close to 1lb each but I had no idea that it would be that much harder or that I had regressed so much. Also it was a weird bar and the notches were in a weird place. Anyways, I hope this was an anomaly.

DL:
1x3x385

Good form I think, but I was losing my grip on the 3rd rep. Again, I managed to choose a bar for DLs that had almost no grip on it. I really need to stop doing that.

Impressive lifts, brother.

As you progress further on your upper body lifts (especially press, but bench too), I've found that microloading with 1.25 lb plates can be an effective way to keep progressing. At the end of last year I did some mini-RPT training with pretty small gradients and got somewhere close to 3x5x275 on bench with no real hiccups. Obviously I'm nowhere near that now, but if you're starting to stall a little bit, doing something like 5x240, 5x237.5, and 5x235 and then progressing to 240 across before rinsing and repeating might allow you to keep moving up (albeit at a slower rate).

Also, imo clips for benching are unnecessary (and potentially dangerous if you're lifting alone), but that's just me.

Thanks! I'm happy with my squat for now, but really want to be benching more and to be deadlifting 2x bw. Microloading is going to have to happen as there is no other way I'll make steady weekly progress w/o bulking. Yeah, maybe trying something like what you suggested would help out on bench. I think that next time I bench I'll do what you suggested. And yeah, clips are dumb for bench...I was just using them for the added weight since ours are fairly hefty at about 1lb each. Maybe I'll end up double clipping at some point. I always use a spotter so I'm not worried about getting trapped.

Something like this would be helpful I think (and pretty cheap); I have a pair of 1.25s that are probably going to get some use again now that I'm back on a bit of a strength training template. I'm anal enough that I prefer something like that as opposed to using clips to add weight, but that's just personal preference.

Squat vid:

As mentioned, I'm reworking my footing. I think the first and second rep are okay. After the 2nd I felt a little too narrow so I shifted my feet out just a tad but you can see that my 3rd rep is my worst. My right knee slides from side to side as I go down and back up. My last rep I bend my back down as I go up :/ Please point out anything else you see and suggestions on how to fix it!

Depth sucks. Form sucks. U suck. Should probably feel bad.

I don't often suggest this, but go back to to SS where it shows you how to find the bottom position. Stand shoulder width apart or so, toes slightly out, squat down. Keep a neutral spine, put your hands together and shove your knees out with your elbows. That's the bottom.

Your knees must be forced out hard during the entire lift else humanity is doomed.

Do you agree with the bottom position for LBBS in the pic that NU star posted? My depth in this recent video is pretty close to that far down. It's impossible to tell exactly without a side view but when I saw myself in the mirror from the side when I was warming up the guardrails where I have them were slightly below parallel for me.

In this video I have other problems like that knee issue and the back bending on that one rep.

FWIW, the previous time that I squatted I wrote about it itt.

What I was confused with was that I was basically doing what you were suggesting with my feet/knees except I had the bar too low on my back.

I loved your atg form and it felt great when I did it and I think I want to continue along that path for now. Next time I squat (probably Thursday) I'll hopefully be able to take a vid and go atg w/ better form

Well my form cues are for low bar. Those look low bar to me but I'm on my phone.

The basics are the same. You need knees out, chest up, big air, tight everything.

Can we stop with KC and his ATG form. No such video exists. Downtown is ATG.

BM -

I think your squats are to parallel. Which is fine for recreational lifters.

KC prefers a few inches below.

Busto/downtown graze the floor.

It is what it is.