Hey all, I did a lot of stuff when BF hit, and quitting my gym was one of them, I'm 25, 6ft, 200lbs. It's a bit over a year later, but now I'm finally back. Originally, I spent 1 1/2 months in the gym Feb 2011, going from 160lbs, to 180lbs. Now I'm at 200, and did my first work out yesterday.

Then/Now

S-245--Now-205
B-165--Now-115
D-305--Now-205
P-105--TBD
PC-135--TBD

I had the misguided idea that "I weigh more, I must be stronger", but that was proven wrong yesterday. I also felt the soreness in my thighs and thought "I remember this, I like this." But today, I was forced to remember how hard it is to sit on a toilet after doing a bunch of squats when you haven't worked out in forever. Soreness is much less fun the second day.

I'm going to try and gain strength without gaining weight. Maybe later focus on dropping 10 or 20 pounds to get back to what I feel is optimal for me, 180ish. Once the gym stops making me super sore (Seems to take 2 weeks or so iirc), I'll probably start throwing in some running on my off days. I understand that "Gain strength/lose weight" is generally an either or proposition, but if my body proves that theory true then I'll just give up the losing weight part of it. Not a big deal.

Anyway, I'll try to keep it updated with every work out, but I imagine if I start stalling I'll probably shut up for a bit, or change the workout. We'll see when it happens.

So true about soreness being less fun the 2nd day. GL with your training.

Woke up today, still sore. Odd, I guess 1 year sedentary is pretty bad. Anyway, because of that I decided to keep my numbers low. (Squat - Press - Power Clean)

S-3x5x210 then 1x5x220 (to prep for 225 next time)
P-3x5x85
PC-5x5x95

IIRC, PCs are supposed to be 5x3, not 5x5. Either way, I definitely could have done another 10 or 20 on it, but I really wanted to get out of the gym and by the time I figured out that 5 sets wouldn't tire me out I'd already done a workset. So I expect +20 or so next time I go out on the PC. Press was basically maxxed, that ****'s hard and I wasn't doing much better a year ago on that anyway. Here's to +40 on the deadlift Saturday or Sunday.

LOL I wouldn't dream of starting with those numbers after a long layoff, for fear of having debilitating soreness for many days. Post vids!

That goes to show you probably know more than me about working out. Don't get me wrong, I've read SS and watched the videos, but I get some pretty misguided ideas about working out quite often. Like I said in the OP, I thought that since I'd gained 20 pounds that it meant I was stronger now than I was a year ago. I'm way too optimistic about what I can do, which leads to me setting unrealistic goals on the regular.

Well soreness is a function of what activity level you muscles are accustomed to, you would have been better off squatting like 90 pounds and adding 30 pounds a day for a few days just to ease into it. It's no big deal though, just gonna be inconvenient for you for a few days.

Why are you trying to progress to 225 next workout. Why not take it 10 or 5lbs at a time?

There's definitely a lot to be said for starting lower than you think you need to and making slow consistent progress for as long as possible. There is a reason the method for selecting starting weights in SS lowballs your strength.

The main reason is because while I haven't went to the gym much in my life, last time I went in my first month I nearly doubled my squat and 2.5x'ed my dead lift to a little under the numbers I posted in the OP. I wasn't stalling, though I was at the level where I could only progress by 10-20lbs a week instead of the usual 30-40lbs. There's a lot of headway between where I can be and where I am right now, and I don't want to spend months getting back to numbers I know I can be at probably in another 6 workouts or so.

Might be a bad approach, I don't know, I only worked out for a month and a half (due to black friday I had to drop my gym membership), so I don't have much gym experience under my belt. This is just how I left the gym off, still in rather high progression. That said, I'm not sore today, which is a very good sign for tomorrow.

I'm just saying weightlifting is definitely a mararthon and not a
sprint.

You're definitely right. I just did the same thing last time I started working out and it worked out fine. That said, I'll obviously plateau earlier, so maybe once I start getting back to reasonable numbers on the DL + S I'll slow down a bit. Maybe +10 a week on the squat after I do the 225 tomorrow, and +20 a week on the DL when I get 245 up tomorrow. Then slow it down even more as I reach my old peaks.

As said though, even when I was at my old numbers, I wasn't stalling. I think the last DL I did was +20 over my previous, though my squat was slowing a bit, maybe down to +5 a week. Either way, in summation I'll still be sprinting at the start, but I'll be slowing it down rather soon (probably in 2-4 more workouts).

That's fine, just wouldn't want you to stall sooner then get discouraged then quit again.

I only quit because of Black Friday, I lost a ton of money, had to move back home, and was 1200 miles from the gym I had a membership at. I actually had to pay 2 extra months because of their cancellation policy. I really do love working out, and I've always had a personal goal that's way far away from where I've ever been (in terms of strength and endurance). The reason for the gap between my last workout and this is that the weekend gym hours are weak, and don't really work for me. So I'm going to focus on Monday/W/F for now.

Anyway, I accidentally messed up today. When doing my squats, after finishing I noticed that my 45's were 35's, which I blame on using two locations, one of which the bottom weight is 100lbs, and the other where the bottom is 45lbs. So that sucked, I decided against throwing all the weights back up there, because of some strange sense of shame in taking all the weights off, then putting them back on.

Numbers
S- 3x5x185 + 1x5x195 (I thought it was 3x5x225, and 1x5x235)
B- 3x5x115 (this has always been one of my weaknesses, I blame long arms = longer lever arm)
D- 1x5x235

I also came to a conclusion. I feel hungry after every workout, so **** trying to lose any weight. I'm just going to eat a ton, gain some weight, then perhaps do some cutting at some point. It seems to make a lot more sense than trying to strength train on empty. Lame little session, but at least the deadlift gained +30, remembering the mixed grip helped.

S- 3x5x225 (I half squatted my last one on 2 of my sets, , going to shoot for +5 a workout with squats from this point forward)
P- 3x5x90 (I missed 1, definitely sticking with this weight for another workout, presses increase slooooow)
PC - 5x3x115 (Decent form, might stick with this weight for another workout to see if I can't feel a bit better about my form before adding more)

I'm pretty close to calling it linear progression on everything but my deadlift for now, until the deadlift starts going up by 10's instead of 20-30. Damn gym was closed yesterday, so I'll have to find some time on Saturday for my next workout.

If you have a way to do so, I'd recommend going up to 92# on the press instead of staying at 90#; you only missed one rep and you are a big fella, also you have done 105 in the past so you will progress faster than a rank novice.