That might be part of the problem. I was trying to place them the same distance. I don't wrap my hand around the bar either. It was almost at my wrists doing low-bar. Will have to experiement with that on Monday. Thanks for the advice.

You don't need to be lifting up on the bar to have your elbows loaded. Make sure you get those elbows more unloaded. You probably need to get your hand more over the bar and possibly widen the grip a little. Also, make sure the wrist isn't cocked back at all.

Thanks for the info, I will keep an eye on that tomorrow when I get back to the gym.

The bolded is pretty much impossible for anyone who's not a rank novice.

Guess I may be one then, especially with my upper body work? Weight is staying fairly steady around 220, but my waist size has been decreasing the past 2 weeks (.25" per week, total of .5" so far). I have been measuring on Wednesdays after I get home from work, with measurement around the belly button. Not going to be able to check that the next 2 wednesdays due to wife (who takes measurements) is having surgery.

Maybe I'm not gaining muscle, just losing fat and retaining water due to creatine? Not sure, but my lifting is still increasing and I'm feeling better. Not too worried about it either way right now. I will check my BF% using calipers sometime in September to see what is going on. Not sure where I will be on the lifts though since this wednesday is my last workout in a real gym until the 16th. Not sure what the hotel will have for a gym, but guessing not too much in the way of weights.

Well, you mentioned in your initial post that you dropped back in weights to get back in the groove. In the long run though, achieving both simultaneously really is pretty hopeless. And trying will just be ineffective.

Today's workout

Squat: 300 x 5 x 3
Press: 130 x 5 x 3
Row: 155 x 5 x 3

Weight: 220.4

Weight went up, but not as much as I thought it would after eating like I did this weekend. I think 5lb increases on squats are a good thing from here on out. Row felt good, think I still have a couple 10lb jumps left. Press felt uncharacteristically good. This was the first time with wrist wraps and I didn't have any issues with my wrists for the first time. I wonder if there is some type of psychological boost performing lifts when you aren't worried about a joint giving out or hurting? This felt better than the 125 I did earlier.

Low Bar is still causing issues with my elbow. It doesn't seem like it is a load issue, more of a flexibility issue. I am having a hard time getting my wrist behind the bar without my elbow hurting. I did my first 2 warmup sets low bar, but the second set starting causing pain. I switched to high bar and had zero issues after that. My eblow doesn't hurt now like it did last week, most likely because I stopped low bar earlier. Hopefully I can work on low bar while in the hotel the next week and see if it is just a flexibility issue.

Soulman: I see where you are coming from, and that is most likely the reason. I have no clue and probably never will when it comes to that stuff. I may need to induce a stall* in September to help cut some fat/weight for weigh-ins in October. I will see where I stand sometime in early/mid September. It will all depend on my neck/waist ratio, since that is how they determine BF% here. I hate the weight standards, but gotta adhere to them so I don't get into trouble.

*By stall I mean stop linear progression and just maintain lifting at a weight while eating at a defecit.

How wide is your grip? try making it even wider.

I had elbow/biceps issues doing low bar as well at first. Diligent stretching and a vicious massage helped, my grip is now probably 3 inches closer on each side. As a temporary fix you can simply widen your grip a lot - or do high bar of course. I assume you know that there are differences between the two other than just the bar position.

Yeah the US military's weight standard is lol, but you gotta do etc. Might as well do it properly once you decide to cut, i.e. set a nice deficit, lower volume etc.

I'm not sure if I can get my grip any wider. If I do I will get pinched when racking. This is only for the low bar. High bar my grip is a lot closer, but I don't have the elbow issues. Looks like I will try to stretch it better and see if I can get more flexible. That is one thing I have always had an issue with: flexibility.

Yes, I know there are differences between high bar and low bar. I was taught high bar squats and have been doing them for a little over a year now. I was just trying to switch to low bar, but it doesn't seem to like me.

Since I'm weak and unhypertrophic, I have to do a chicken-dance thing and lift my elbows up to get my back muscles to form a little pocket for the bar to rest on (otherwise it'd slide off). Maybe try doing that so your arms don't have to hold the bar up.

Today's workout

Squat: 305 x 5 x 3
Bench: 185 x 5 x 3
DL: 325 x 5 x 1

Weight: 220.4

Did high bar again since my elbow still bothered me. Today's squats sucked. I think the inadequate food intake and sleep have caught up to me. I will have to re-evaluate where by BF is when I get back so I can make a plan to either eat more + increase weights or just maintain food + weights to drop the fat. Bench was ok and DL went great. I'm thinking that is due to not doing either of them for a week.

Observations: Guy made another appearance in his flip flops. Saw my first 100% forearm workout with barbells and dumbbells. On barbell, had about 40# (so 85# total) behind his back doing wrist curls. He would then put bar back on end of power rack, kneel down to us bar as arm support, then did reverse curls with dumbell (switched between 10# and 20# for these). The whole time he was looking to his side to check himself out in the mirror. He was there most of the time I was doing warmup squats then bolted. Not sure if that was all he did his whole time there, but was all that he did while I was present. Lastly, as I was moving into my worksets on squats, lady takes previous guys place at end of power rack. She puts bar on back and does a few bar squats then goes into some bar DLs. She goes back and forth between the 2 for about 4 sets (some stretching too). I thought this was a warmup for the only other person I have seen do either squats or DLs in the gym (other than some crossfitters). Looking forward to seeing what weight she puts up, but was disappointed to see her move onto the machines after this warmup. Leg presses and who knows what other ones since I didn't pay attention.

Another observation: Almost forgot about the guy doing shrugs. I think the weight was a little to much since it was more like a push shrug than a regular shrug. Kind of funny to watch. Move was a slight knee bend (like a push press), raise to a calf raise, ending with a shrug (started shrugging mid-way through the calf raise). Weights used were dumbells and didn't catch the #, but they didn't look over 30. Guess it is a new move, a push calf raise shrug?

Article on losing fat and adding muscle: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...ng-fat-qa.html

I had skimmed that article a while ago, and now had the time to actually read through it. I think I understand where I am in fat loss/muscle gain and am trying to figure out where I need to put my emphasis. This will be based on where my BF% is at. I need this to go down to be safely under the max amounts for the CG. I don't care where my weight is at, just my BF%.

Therefore, as I see it, I have 2 options when I get back to the gym: continue working out as I have been, which will be primarily for muscle gain, which will reduce the pace of fat loss. The second is switch up my workout plan to try and maintain my strength (lower volume, keep intensity) and focus on fat loss during that time (mostly diet dependent with the change in plan). I'm guessing that doing the fat loss route will lead to weight loss as well. My thinking is that my muscle gain will go to 0 (hopefully not negative), while my fat weight will go down.

Is there something I am missing or is my thinking flawed? I will be back in the gym on Monday, so I will probably try and figure out my plan on Sunday. The BF% will have to be determined by tape measurements, which isn't ideal but will give me a starting point and show me where I stand with the CG tape measurements.

I may not respond quickly due to being tied up out of town taking care of my wife (surgery), but I am definitely looking forward to suggestions on my fat loss thoughts.

TIA

Today's workout

Squat: 290 x 5 x 3
Press: 130 x 5 x 3
Row: 165 x 5 x 3

Weight: 221.4

Workout was good today. Dropped weight down on squats (-15) due to time off. I always worry about hernia/back issues when coming back from a break (I've had both in the past). I think it is all in my mind and not a real possibility, but this is how I deal with it. Press (+0) and row (+10) felt really good considering the time off. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to do the press at that weight, but in reality I probably could have increased it. Lifts felt really good. It seems my workouts post vacation time tend to go better than the normally scheduled workouts. Probably due to extra recovery time and sufficient calorie intake.

My food consumption was horrible during the last week and a half. Started correcting that today. I also did 0 work outs while away. The hotel gym was terrible (highest weight DBs were 12 lbs) so I talked myself out of doing anything while there.

Plan as of now: Continue workouts as I can until after Labor Day. Then I will drop calories, shift weight training to 2 days a week for maintenance, and start doing cardio/metcon stuff (CrossFit Wichita Falls Program?) the rest of September until weigh-ins in October. I will then re-evaluate where I am and most likely revert back to a starting strength routine. This will all depend on where my career is going. I may stick with CrossFit Wichita Falls Program if I am moving more towards law enforcement to make sure I am ready to go for the testing (pushups, situps, running). If not, then I think I will continue with strength training. If anyone thinks that this plan is flawed, I am open to suggestions. My thinking in coming up with this one is that I just don't see myself making any gains through September's cutting phase and figured this might be a good way to cut the fat.

Next workout is Friday due to an all day out of town conference I get the pleasure of attending on Wednesday. Plan is to start Bench where I left off (185), increase DLs to 335 (+10), and increase squats to 295 (+5) since today's workout went well.

Thoughts: I really enjoy the strength training, which is odd to me. After playing soccer all these years, I now realize that my reasoning behind not weight training (worried I would get too big/slow) was flawed. I have a feeling that if I started this 14 or so years ago I would not have gotten injured as often as I did. This program is the first time since ending my college soccer career where I have truly looked forward to working out and not trying to find reasons to stop working out. I feel that I am in the best physical condition I have been in over the last 10 years. I was worried that taking time off in July, and unexpectedly in August, was going to drive my motivation away like it usually does. This did not happen and I am looking forward to continuing my gains.

Forgot to mention that yesterday's squats were low bar. I did the chicken wing move mentioned by DWarrior and it seems to work for me. Thanks DWarrior. Not sure if it is the same move as you, but I moved my elbow back/up and I don't have any pain today.

I hate reading. Makes me change my plan too often when better information comes out. Was checking out the John Sheaffer Q&A forum on the SS site and realize that my plan for September is probably not necessary. One of his posts states:

Your last paragraph is most important. You are right in saying that total calories increase burned increase with intensity, however, total calories burned is not what we are after in this situation. We are after the most efficient and proven method for fat loss that will not negatively effect strength training, the recovery from strength training, and the amount of lean body mass that one is carrying.

Remember, in any diet situation, the type of work mentioned above is a supplement to the diet which is what drives the fat loss primarily. The fact that low intensity work layered in during the week helps one strip fat while not stripping muscle (assuming it is added in correctly) has been observed by physique competitors for quite a while.

And another states:

Tabata stuff can work great as can HIIT (high intensity interval training) and other higher intensity methods.

The trick is in the application of said methods without interfering with the strength training component (King).

I use higher intensity methods with some, particularly those who have a more significant amount of bodyfat to lose. However, they will not do more than 3 sessions per week tops, and that is only in severe cases mainly with females.

The average board member lifting weights three days per week who is looking to shed some bodyfat would probably be well suited to add one such session per week (assuming that diet was in place) and then layering in lower intensity work as appropriate for their situation.

He goes on to recommend the following HIIT training:

This would depend on the individual's conditioning. This could begin as a 30/30 second sprint/jog for two to three minutes, and could progress to the same for 10 minutes max.

An even less complex, though tried and true, method is sprinting a short distance, like a 100m, walking it back quickly and repeating. This can start for a de-conditioned person as one or two sprints and progress to 8-10 in time. You should never feel demolished or roll around on the ground like a CrossFitter when you are done. You have more important things like sword fights and strength training to spend that energy on.

As for plugging these in. Saturday (assuming a MWF training split) works nice. Don't put them on the same day as your lifting.

I think I am going to start doing some of the low intensity training days next week and tighten down on my eating habits. I will maintain the MWF routine, with linear progression. I will add in walking on T/Th on a treadmill, shoot for an hour and guessing 4 mph. I may do some walking on other days during the evening since my wife wants to start that as part of getting back from surgery. I will see how that goes for a while and see if any HIIT is needed. I'm just glad to see that he doesn't recommend changing the lifting routine as I am liking the gains I am getting from lifting.

If anyone wants to see the post I am referring to, here is a link.

As no one has been responding to my requests for suggestions, I am guessing you are all going to let me do the trial and error method to see what works. If you do have any suggestions, please post them so I can get this done the right way.

I wish things went smoother around here. Wife is having complications with her surgery (yeah, 13 days later). Surgeon needs to see her in the morning, which means another cancelled workout. Possibly re-opening some parts to remove something or other. Probably going to be taking care of her all weekend (not complaining, just stating fact). Hopefully everything goes well, will update tomorrow/this weekend sometime. Guessing my weekend workouts will be cleaning house, cutting grass, and walking the dogs. If all goes well, back to the weights on Monday.

I'd say to generally stay away from HIIT if you're doing SS with heavy-ish weights. Recovery is likely shaky already. Low-impact stuff like you outlined is fine though.

Thank you for the input. That is the conclusion I came to after continually reading. It would seem one person would say do a and another would say do b. I think the low impaact walking stuff shouldn't hurt in the short/long run and will stay with that. We'll see how it goes.

You can include HIIT once you move away from lifting heavy 3/week. If you lift less frequently HIIT is prolly fine. Tail end of SS is pretty heavy on the recovery though..

My neck also has not increased even though I'm up 30lbs and everything else is up significantly. I'm sure it happens sometimes, especially if you are tiny to begin with. I am 220 now, was 190 when I restarted SS.

My workouts are on indefinite hold, but not by choice. My wife's recovery is not going all that great, so I am still home. Depending on some test results tomorrow, she may need to go under the knife again this week. As such, my ability to lift has gone out the window until I get back to work. So all I have been doing is cardio, yard work, house work, etc.

I hate having this stress since I tend to let my diet go to crap. I tend to not eat as well as when I am not worrying about her health. Not sure why, but that is the way it goes with me. I'm not worried about it until the beginning of the month. No matter what is going on with my wife, I will get on the straight and narrow diet path.

Another thing that has come up in my life: I am now the assistant coach for my step-daughter's U14 soccer team. Looking forward to this experience. I have a lot of experience playing, but 0 coaching. Should be fun.