On the press you're using a lot of knee involvement on the first rep, and then you're just kinda loose in your core on the rest. Gotta keep the core tight, squeeze your glutes, and get your head through faster.

I'm not a fan of power cleans unless you're competing in some sort of athletic event. I'd rather rows be substituted, or begin working on chin ups. If you're gonna keep doing them, you still have way too early arm bend. I don't even know what to work on for this though, it seems to be everyone's natural tendency when learning the power clean.

On the squats, you want your eyes looking down, but in doing so it looks like your chest is caving in. You want eyes down but chest up.

Yeah press felt weak today, I'll focus more on core next time.

I really hate power cleans and would gladly substitute rows or chin ups, but I can't do chin ups to save my life, cause my upper body strength is lol bad.

Yeah looking down with my head felt weird.

Thanks for the help.

Pendlay rows are fine. There's a link to a good thread on how to progress on chins from scratch in the FAQ.

How about alternating chins and pendlay rows, where I would normally do power cleans. I've done barbell rows up to 140, so I could deload to a weight to work on form and not be too far behind everything else?

Sure, that's a good plan.

I'll try to do some chins at the gym tomorrow. Not really sure my fatass can even do one though. We'll see.

Just keep progressing.

I'm not fat, and my weak ass can only do four chin ups at a time. My gunz are def not brotastic. I'm going to do them more frequently on my days off.

I just tried to do a chin up on the old iron gym. I barely moved. BARBELL ROWS IT IS!

Today I kicked my own ass. I had literally the hardest workout I've ever had. I really wim today and gave everything max effort, except for bench where I had a little left in the tank. I gave squats and deads everything I had. I know my form deteriorates at the end of my deadlifts, but how bad is this. This weight felt huge and I almost failed the last rep, but I really didn't want to give up.

squats 3x5x215 (pr)
bench 3x5x135 (pr)
dead 1x5x285 (pr)

Nice but where's the video of you puking?

Considering how bad I pushed myself, I didn't even feel queasy. Might've needed a sit down break after squats though.

Working out tomorrow which is my workout b so I would normally be doing power cleans. I sort of don't want to give up trying the power cleans, so I'm going to squat ohp then try cleans again and see how they go. If they suck bad like last week I'll try to do chins and probably won't move. If that happens I'll do pendlay rows. That is all.

Ugh frustrating workout, but I knew it would catch up to me with the ten pound jumps on squats. I failed on the first rep of my second set. This made me so discouraged that I failed Ohp and barbell rows. So annoyed, going to go back to 215 for squats on Wednesday.

1x5x225 squats
1x4x115 Ohp
1x4x135 rows

Still really annoyed with myself today.

**** happens, don't let it bother you too much. It's not a sprint etc.

I'm not going to give up, just frustrated, and it seems like when squats go bad the wheels just fall off. Oh well tomorrow is another day. I'm going to go down to 215 on the squats and use 5lb jumps from here on out. I knew ten pound jumps would catch up with me sooner than later. Really excited to get in the gym tomorrow and give it my best.

The more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to try 225 again depending on how warmups feel. I think it'll be good to blast through this weight for me mentally. My diet has been pretty meh lately. I love sweets too much. I have a hard time getting enough protein, and when I do carbs seem way too high.

Sounds familiar...although if you haven't already, I'd look into intermittent fasting as an approach. Easily allows you to have some sweets even on a diet.

If you've been eating enough, trying 225 sounds like a good idea. If you successfully completed one set of 225, there is no reason other than mental or technique stuff for you to fail the first rep of the second set.

its weird you say that about the mental stuff. When i did 215 last friday i wanted the **** out of that weight. It was tough but I put it up. When I got to the gym on monday I was almost scared of the weight. Totally psyched myself out.

The IF stuff seems so confusing to me. I'm so dumb it's scary.

Basic guide found here: http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html

You can be a nit and follow it to the letter, or just do what I (and I suspect a lot of guys do): eat during an 8-10 hour window and fast the rest of the time. -20% of deficit on rest days and +20% of deficit on workout days.

In practice this means you don't eat very late at night and you skip breakfast. This allows for bigger dinners and a feeling of fullness plus higher discretionary calories on workout days. For example I've eaten triple burgers on workout days, I eat some candy from time to time etc. You still need to be in control of course, gorging on sweets multiple days a week obviously won't work.

You know what I am going to try it. I've been kicking around the idea for a while, and nothing else is really working right now. Thanks for being so patient with me.

Try this calculator, it's pretty nice: http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/

I have to subtract around 200 cals to get to my actual caloric expenditure, which may not be true for you. Anyways it's a pretty sweet tool.

Well I've got good news and I've got some bad news.....


I got the first two sets of 225 done solidly. But I failed on the third rep of the last set. I need to learn how to dump the bar better, my neck is jacked up a bit. Anyway, usually this would totally discourage me from the rest of my workout, but I was determined not to let this happen again. Off to bench I go.

140 for me is huge weight on the bench. I struggled a bit but really focused on keeping my shoulders tight and my grip strong. It was a grind to get all three sets but I'm glad I didn't give up.

Next up wad dl, I was apprehensive because 295 is huge as was 285. But right before my workout I reread some of the form stuff from SS and it helped a lot. My shins are tore up but I got that ****ing weight up there. Really wanted it tonight, kinda bummed about squats but I'll try 215 on friday. I'll drop down because even though I got two sets the bar speed was lol slow, as you'll see in the videos. All in all I'm proud of myself for sticking it out and not giving up tonight.


Here's a GGO from work the other day: I'm dealing 1-2nl at like 3 in the morning and this reg is getting a massage. This guy is a younger kid who is really respectful and nice, but also kinda goofy looking and goofy in his demeanor. He's talking to the massage girl and telling her to rub his arms and lats because "You know the shake weight? Well I've been doing that three times a week, and my arms are burning!" I almost dropped the deck, but I bit my tongue and kept dealing. some people.