Keep it up.

Day 6

Bench Press
3x5x145 (+10)

Felt great. 10th rep was a bit of a grind and 14&15 a bit of a grind but no spot required. I realize my bench number is way out of proportion with my other lifts but this doesn't surprise me as in my past life bench/decline was the only barbell exercise I did.

Sqwats
3x5x165 (+10)

A good test but still no real troubles or threat of failure. My quads stung real good after this one!

DL
1x5x175 (+20)
Tough. But I think I got through it all pretty strong and with pretty quality form. After this, my lower back was burning like crazy so I think that's a good sign of quality form??

No back extensions today. Lower back burn after DL was enough for me. A few bull**** lat pulldowns on the way out.

Weight: 220.3 (WTF!? ANother new high. Could be because I just drank like 100 oz. of water and barely pissed once.)

I can't believe the results I've seen in just 6 trips. Unreal. I picked these numbers to try today and thought it would be a monumental test (and expected some failure). Really happy to see that I tested myself hard and succeeded.

Question: If I do have to fail in the squat rack, do I want to stand at the back end of the fail bar then squat all the way down, drop to my knees, then drop my head forward until the barbell hits the fail bar then just crawl out from under it? It occured to me that I wasn't positive how to fail today so I need to figure it out because failure may be around the corner.

Concern: Deadlifts. I've got the T-rex arms and long legs and big feet for my height. When I cut my feet in half with the barbell, then reach down for the bar, my balance feels awful and like I'm leaning way forward and about to fall over. And the bar is touching my shins. I'm in a position where I don't even feel like I can lift the bar. My "fix" has been rolling the bar forward maybe like an inch or so and getting into what feels like a better start position. Thoughts?

Lower back burn is not really a sign of good form, more likely a sign of bad form. Videos would help judge.

Yeah I need to get some videos up. I don't want to lift too much heavier without getting an "OK" from y'all.

Man after my last workout posted itt, I mentioned some back pain. My back ****ing hurt for like 3 weeks. I am/was worried I may have ****ed it up on the deadlift. I have had 2 people irl check my form so I'm not sure but you never know. Even if I have general good form I may have ****ed up that lift. I also have minor scoliosis and get back pain once in a while. And a large dog that sleeps in my bed and applies pressure on my lumbar sometimes that causes back pain.

Anyway I stopped doing any lifts until my pain went away then just never went back because my trial was up.

Currently I'm a fat POS at 220. The 220 posted in my last post was false based on water weight. I was generally around 215 with all-time high of like 217-218. But tonight after I ate a pizza I weighed myself and it's a legit 220.

I am wondering if it's worthwhile to buy a squat rack with 300 pounds of good increment weights? I can store it in my garage and get a bench and work out all the damn time for free. There is a dude near my house selling a self-made squat rack with bar and 300 pounds of weight for $199. Good deal? I'm thinking his wife wants him to get rid of it so I can probably offer him even less. Though I don't have a truck so I may have to pay full price and talk him into driving it to my house. Thoughts? Is this too unsafe to do these lifts alone in a garage?

My wife also wants to get back into better shape. She played HS sports and used to squat all the time so she would do them with me (dat ass), but mostly it would be me out there alone.

A home gym is a good idea if you're going to use it. It would be good to take videos of your lifts for assessment here too, if you're worried about form.

I wouldn't call it a home gym. I saw a picture of it and it's made of pipes and **** that the guy apparently built himself. It's got some rust on it and looks ugly. But I figure I won't be doing any bro lifts any time soon and just need to do barbell stuff and having it right here in my garage would be great so my neighbors can see what a badass I am and what it means to get parallel.

I'll have to look at the picture again to see if he even has a fail bar. His weights were all steel so I guess I'll have to put some kind of mats down for when I do Deadlift.

He claims he was able to do bench press on it but I couldn't tell by looking at the pic, and I'd need to get a bench separately.

Can you post a picture of the rack? Seems like a good price to me if it is built sturdy. The only thing is 300lbs of weight wont be enough after a little bit of time.

Here's the CL link

Thats a tough call. It sucks there is not a closer vew of the hooks to hold the bar and how the safeties move. I would probably do it if you could get it for 150 since getting weights for $.50 a lb is a pretty good deal by itself

Yeah it looks kinda shoddy. Though I don't care as long as it's structurally sound. I might have to go take a look at it in person. I also have no idea how he does bench press from looking at the photos.

Buy the weights, leave the rack imo

Buy a real rack.

1" galvanized pipe is ******ed.

OK so a sporting goods store a couple miles from my house has "several" sets of CAP 300 pound barbell (7' 45lb) sets for $209.99 That's 2 45s, 2 35s, 2 25s, 2 10s, 4 5s, 2 2.5s and 2 grips.

Seems like a great deal, no? My birthday is this month so I think I might go buy this tomorrow.

A friend hurt his knee and I found out he had a squat rack (welded) with a moveable bench that he'd sell me for $50 and drive it to my house with his truck. Right now it's sitting in his dad's garage.

So it looks like for $259 I can get a legit squat rack, with bench capability and new barbell and plenty of weights (for now). This should be enough to get back onto some SS program right? The only other thing I might need is a pussy pad (hey man I use this) and some kind of pads for my garage floor since these plates are steel. No idea maybe 2 yoga mats laid out (and I stand on garage floor while doing DL? Not entirely sure.

Thanks for any advice.

The weights should be fine not sure about the barbell though. And I dont think Yoga mats would work. For my garage, I have like rubber horse stall mats that work pretty well. I haven't damage the floor or barbell/plates using just the mats. Mine were like $50 a piece and 2 cover my squat rack and outside the rack for deadlifts

What would be your concern about the barbell?

Here is a link to the equipment.

The barbell weighs 45lb because I added up all the plates and it was 255. I am not sure why in one thumbnail the barbell is black and in the other it looks like the typical silver steel color I'm used to.

It will just be more likely to bend. I was looking at some reviews on bb.com and it seemed to get ok reviews actually

The CAP barbell set likely comes with a 40 lb bar even though it says 45.

I second the horse stall mats idea. They sell them at tractor supply if you have one nearby. They're heavy as **** though so don't plan on moving them much if you go that route.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if I should care if the bar bends a little. I mean it's not going to break, right? My max rep lift weight right now is like 165 lb. As long as the bar doesn't break do I need to worry about some deflection?

Horse mats I'll definitely look into.

Sorry, I meant that it will be more likely to bend permanently where it won't really be usable

I think I can burn that bridge down the road, though, right? I'm not too worried about having to buy a better bar eventually. Sooner or later my DL will be >300 and I'll need to buy more plates anyway. I definitely want to get started with something, now, though and it looks like this set is marked down.

Thanks for all your help and comments.

Ya, that set should be good enough for you now.

3/13/2014 Log:

Bought 7' 45 pound barbell and 255 pounds of plates with 2 grips. Total cost with tax: $227.

Pretty stoked. The barbell is the standard one you see in gyms so I'm not worried about it bending at all.

Saturday I should be able to get my friend's squat rack and bench for like $50. I've seen a grainy pic of it on my phone but I'm pretty sure it will be fine. If it looks like crap then I will probably just buy a legit new one.

I forgot to buy a pussy pad today. Don't know how y'all do heavy squats with the bar just digging into your back.

Already did a couple sets of OHP inside my living room lol. Need to call Goodwill to come get a bunch of old **** in my garage. Half my garage is full of **** I can't otherwise give away.

I did see they sold some gym mats that interlink. I think a 4 pack was about $25, and each one looked about 2'x2' so a total of 16 square feet of area, which is pretty small. I'm guessing these "gym mats" kinda suck? Should I just skip these and buy the horse stall mats or would these be OK?

Give yourself two weeks squatting w/o the pad, if it still bothers you, go ahead and get one. I guarantee by then you'll forget all about why you wanted one.

Were the gym mats like the mats they have at ice rinks? If so, that should be fine. Make sure they are pretty firm

No I don't think they were that strong. I'm pretty sure an ice skate would slice through them. They felt more foamy. I figure they are probably crap.