Oct 31 - Day 8

Squats:
3x5x245lbs (+10)

Press:
3x5x125lbs (+10)

Deadlifts:
1x5x315lbs (+30)

Buddy I'm working out with was doing 315lbs for his max deadlift set, so I just said yolo and did that for my work set cause I'm too lazy to de-load 2 45's for the 10 pound difference.

Actually felt surprisingly not that heavy. Think I could have easily done another 2 or 3 reps of it. So that was pretty sweet. Knee pain was still there a bit, but duller.

Cleaning up the diet hasn't gone too well so far since it was raining on halloween so I got nowhere near the amount of trick-or-treaters I thought I would so, I mean, I can't just throw out the left-over candy!!

Nov 3 Day [9]

Squats:
3x5x255lbs (+10)

Bench:
3x5x175lbs (+10)

Rows:
3x5x145lbs (+10)

Knee was bothering me a little bit again. I also felt a bit stiff all around so going to make sure to get some more stretching in and warm up some more on the bike before starting and see if that helps, if not, I'll probably reset back to 205-225ish and work on form.

Bench felt good, as did rows.

Edit: Wow, just realized I'm 5 pounds off of my PR for press, and 15 off of my PR for bench after 9 days back. Feels goodman.

Way to get back into it. I just read through all the 2010 stuff. I'm pretty new to SS and a few days in and was feeling pretty inadequate reading your early gains, then I saw a bunch of people say they weren't typical results.

Anyway good luck and I like your blog.

Nov 5 - Day 10

Squats:
3x5x265lbs (+10)

Press:
3x5x135lbs (+10) (PR)

Deadlifts:
1x5x325lbs (+10)

Nov 7 - Day 11

Squats:
3x5x275lbs (+10)

Bench:
3x5x185lbs (+10)

Rows:
3x5x155lbs (+10)

Squats were pretty heavy, but I made a point to stay much more controlled on my descent (was a problem when I started out last time too) and that seemed to help the knee control a ton, and in turn, no knee pain was had.

Bench is getting heavy, but not too bad, had a buddy there to spot, but called him off after the first set since it didn't feel like there was much risk of failure.

Rows were fine, pretty easy.

Nov 10 - Day 12

Squats:
3x5x285lbs (+10)

Press:
2x5x145lbs (+10
1x4x145lbs

Deadlifts:
1x5x335lbs (+10)

Disappointed I couldn't get 3x5 for my press. But not at all surprised that I didn't. Since going up 10lbs after just setting my PR was pretty greedy. However aside from the last rep of the last set, it felt pretty good. Bang it out again on Thursday and slow it back to 5lb increments.

Squats have been feeling better and better the past few times. Don't really feel close to failure, I mean they're heavy as hell, but definitely don't feel at risk of missing some reps.

Deadlifts felt like I probably could have gone up by more than 10 this week. Got 2 reps in double overhand then had to switch up to 1 under/1 over.

Overall really solid day, looking forward to trying for a bench PR on Tuesday.

Thanks

And yea, definitely don't let my log discourage you. I seem to be a good mixture of genetics/athletic background, and not sure what your size is right now, but don't forget that I was around 190-195ish when I first started out, which no doubt helped somewhat.

Nov 12 - Day 13

Squats:
3x5x295lbs (+10)

Bench:
3x5x195lbs (+10) PR

Rows:
3x5x165 (+10)

Really solid work out, Squats felt great, feel like I can definitely get at least a few more 10lb jumps on them, Bench felt really solid, heavy, but doable. Probably will need to scale back to 5lb jumps though. Rows were pretty easy.

Nov 14 - Day 14

Squats:
3x5x305lbs (+10)

Press:
3x5x145lbs (+10)

Deadlifts:
1x5x355lbs (+20)

Squats felt solid again, really heavy, but solid. Stoked to get 3x5 on the press. Was still heavy as hell, but was able to bang it out. Will try for 150 on Tuesday.

Deadlifts were heavy as hell, they were pretty manageable at 335 so I got a bit greedy and went for 355. But they weren't too bad all things considered.

Doing work ITT

ETA: How in the hell is 3x5x195 on bench a PR when 3x5x145 on press isn't? In any case, it seems like you've got major room to grow on your bench.

145 was a definitely a PR for Press. Hell 135 was also a PR. But I do agree that bench probably has a decent amount of room to grow. Last time I was getting heavy on the two lifts I hurt my shoulder so I was never able to get them up to a solid level.

Nov 17 - Day 15

Squats:
3x5x315lbs (+10, pretty sure this was a PR )

Bench:
3x5x205lbs (PR )

Rows:
3x5x175lbs (+10)

Overall really solid day. Everything felt great, the overall workouts are getting pretty damn hard lifting heavy on three lifts every day, but in general each lift felt pretty manageable. May need to go down to 5lbs increments on bench but I'll see how I feel on Thursday.

Nov 19 - Day 16

Squats:
3x5x325lbs (+10 PR etc etc.)

Press:
2x5x150lbs
1x4x150lbs

Deadlifts:
1x5x365lbs (+10)

Ok so serious question time, these workouts, at these weights....are ****ing brutal. I want to keep going till I'm not getting linear gains anymore before going to anything more advanced, but on Deadlifts today I was struggling with just warm up sets cause I had very little left in the tank after squatting and pressing balls to the walls. I basically sat down and chilled for about a sold 7-10 minutes before my final set of Deads, which seemed to help (though they were still heavy as hell).

So what's the best option here, just man up and keep going on SS till the linear gains stop, or is there merit to changing the program up to allow for the fact that I'm lifting some decently heavy weight.

I don't mind the hard ass workouts, don't get me wrong, only thing that worries me would be some kind of injury from over working myself or some such thing.

Opinions?

Nov 24 - Day 17

Squats:
3x5x335lbs (+10 PR)

Bench:
2x5x215lbs (+10)
1x4x215lbs

Rows:
3x5x185lbs (+10)

Workout felt great. I took Thursday off cause of an ear infection so wasn't feeling too hot, also was my birthday, so I ended up going out instead.

Squats felt really good, was a little light-headed after a couple of the sets, but the weight didn't really feel close to failing.

Bench wasn't as good, but not really shocked that I didn't get all 3 sets. Was pretty happy with almost getting all 5 though.

All in all, pretty good night.

seems legit

Nov 27 - Day 18

Squats:
2x5x345lbs (+10)

Press:
3x5x150lbs (+10)

Workout was pretty soundly in the meh category. I pressed first as my shoulder has been bothering me a little again, and banged out 3 sets of 150 which was great. But then I felt extremely worn out for squats. Part of that could be caused by the fact that I went only about a 1/2 hour after I woke up, but I think it may have more to do with not enough time between heavy squats days, squatting 300+ pounds every other day is pretty strenuous.

Also was getting a pretty nagging pain in my upper right arm/elbow during/after my squats, so I decided to call it a day early.

Dec 1st - First day of 5/3/1

Decided to switch it up to 5/3/1. For a few different reasons, first was as mentioned before, starting strength while Squatting 345/Deadlifiting 365/Pressing 150 etc is really soul draining. Workouts were becoming less of an enjoyment and more of a mental/physical drain. If I'm being honest with myself, it's most likely the reason why I stopped lifting the past few times I've done starting strength. So instead of letting myself get burnt out again, I'm gonna switch it up. Also, SS is the only program I've done so far while weight lifting, and it's getting boring. Don't get me wrong I still love squatting/deadlifting/etc but the same workout day after day is tiresome after a time.

Anyway, TL;DR: I've decided to switch to 5/3/1.

In true bro fashion, I opened 5/3/1 with chest day.

Bench:
5x135lbs
5x150lbs
11x175lbs

+ Random accessory stuff

Dec 3rd

Press:
5x95lbs
5x115lbs
11x125lbs

Deadlifts:
5x225lbs
5x260lbs
10x295lbs

Dec 5th

Squats:
5x210lbs
5x240lbs
8x275lbs

Dec 8th

Bench:
3x140lbs
3x160lbs
9x185lbs

this is a good log

ty sir.

Dec 11th

Press:
3x100lbs
3x115lbs
7x130lbs

Deadlifts:
3x230lbs
3x260lbs
9x300lbs

Feel like I probably started a little bit light, but whatever. Enjoying the shorter workouts of 45 minutes to an hour, instead of the 2 hour+ marathons I was having at the tail end of SS.

Need to start adding in some more accessory work, but I`ve been slacking a little and only going 3 days a week instead of 4 so I`ve kind of been skipping accessory stuff in order to fit two lifts into one day. But I should probably just man up and go 4 days a week.

Dec 17th

Bench:
5x145lbs
3x165lbs
7x190lbs


Dec 19th

Squats:
5x245lbs
3x285lbs
6x315lbs

Missed a couple days due to a snowstorm and then the flu. But went back at it again this week. Missed week 2s Squats but said Yolo and did 95% for week 3. Felt fine. Probably could have banged one or two more reps out in my last set.

Bench felt easy peasy.

Dec 30th

Squats:
5x215lbs
5x245lbs
7x280lbs

Bench:
5x135lbs
5x150lbs
10x175lbs

Bit of a hiatus over the holidays. But back at it today. Little lame that I've lost a bit of strength from the week and a half off. But I ate like **** and did little exercise, so not that surprising. Felt nice to get off my ass and back to the gym after all that turkey.

Jan 1st - Happy New Years!!

Press:
5x100lbs
5x115lbs
9x130lbs

Press felt good. Surprised I did better on press after the week off than before the week off, especially considering that I hadn't done them since Dec.11th. Shrug.

Probably going to start dieting soon, either this month or next. Just want to get it done and out of the way and back to making gainz. Don't like being a fatso even if I am a somewhat strong fatso (though I'd argue I'm pretty weak relative to my BW). But anyway, the logic train I'm on currently is that I know I want to get back down to 180-190lbs (currently 220) so I feel like dieting now and losing a bit of strength will be much less disheartening than dieting a few months from now when I'd probably be at like 365x5 squats etc and watching that slip away.

Jan 3rd

Deadlifts:
5x230lbs
5x265lbs
7x315lbs