Brief Background
Long time lurker who recently registered. I'm 31 years old, 6'4", and 220 pounds. When I graduated college 10 years ago, I was the same height, but weighed 165 pounds. After college, I found the gym and packed on a lot of muscle over the subsequent 2 year period of working out, but did the typical broish bench/curl-centric exercise routine while rarely squatting or deadlifting (i.e. I maxed out at 330 benching and 235 squatting). Since then, I've periodically gotten back in the gym for six months or a year at a time, but never consistently.

Recent Workouts
Recently I've been doing 3 sets of 40 pushups and a total of ~25 pullups 4-5 times a week, and also playing squash a few times a week. Since beginning squash (which is very high impact), I've been having periodic weakness/pain in my right knee, but other than that no issues except chronically tight hamstrings.

My Plan
This is yet another starting SS log; I'll be doing the version with pullups/chinups and without PCs (at least to start), but I will be deadlifting for the first two weeks or so until my gains start to level off. I've read the book and the wiki, and I'll be starting on Monday. I've purchased the appropriate lifting shoes and chalk, and I'll be doing foam rolling on my problem areas post-workout. I also plan to purchase Assess and Correct or something similar shortly in order to work on my flexibility issues.

My diet is pretty decent, with a lot of skim milk/oatmeal/protein bars/lean meats/veggies on my good days (at work), with the occasional pizza and beer meal thrown in (usually weekend). I haven't been doing daily tracking, but I plugged in an average day and I'm around 2800-3000 calories with around 150 grams of protein a day.

My Goals
This log is mostly for motivation. I'm not entirely sure but I would guess my body fat percentage is somewhere between 20 and 25%, so I guess I'm shooting for recomposition. I don't have many specific goals in mind. My main goal is to get stronger, especially in my lower body (maybe get my combined deadlift+squat+bench to 1000 lbs). I'd also like to tighten up my midsection and lose the 15 or so pounds of extra weight I'd guess I'm carrying around my gut.

Questions
-I'm assuming I should up my protein intake? I'm not really sure what my LBM is exactly, but if I use the 1.5 g/lb LBM I should up the protein to between 225 and 250 g/day, correct? I can throw a scoop or two of protein powder into my morning and evening skim milk if necessary.

-I'll be lifting at lunch with a coworker; this is the first time I haven't worked out in late afternoon. I am used to having a post workout recovery shake (e.g. Endurox) and then eating my largest meal of the day 1-1.5 hours post-workout. Should that still be the case if I'm working out at lunch -- that is, should my lunch be dinner sized, and should my dinner portion be smaller?

-Any tips or suggestions from other tall guys, or people who've trained with tall guys, about pitfalls or things to avoid involving squatting would be welcome. I suspect the answer is "shut up and lift weight" but just thought I'd ask.

Thanks in advance!

4/08 - 1st workout

Decided to go today instead of Monday in order to take advatange of the extra weekend recovery day for my intial workout.

My squat and deadlift numbers were predictably pathetic; the gym doesn't have any bumper plates, so the range of motion required to deadlift 95 pounds made it difficult to have good form. I felt like 95 would be a good starting point for the deadlift, but didn't feel comfortable with the form, so I just did two more sets. I'll be using step risers to lift the bar up to the proper level, until I get to the point where I'm doing all my sets with 135+.

Above all my goal is to take it slow, and make sure I get my form down before the heavy (for me) weight comes.

Squat
2x5x45
1x5x55
1x5x65
3x5x75

Bench
1x5x45
1x5x65
1x5x85
1x5x95
1x5x115
3x5x135

Deadlift
3x5x95

1) That sounds like a good protein target

2) I wouldn't worry too much about meal timings initially (but I know nothing about nutrition)

3) 6'4 isnt super tall, so i dont think you'll have a problem provided your proportions arent stupid.

4) If you have previously maxed out your bench at 300+, dont be afraid to start that higher. Is 135 really easy for you (there's no question mark on this keyboard... but that was a question ()

5) Your deadlift will probablly get up to 135 quickly enough, but in the meantime, you could consider putting some plates down to increase the height of the bar or setting the safety pins on the lowest setting in your squatrack/cage and deadlifting off that.

No need for lunch to be dinner sized. Just get some food within an hour or so and you'll be fine.

Around 2800-3000 is your maintenance level, so depending on goals you might want to up that a bit, but not much. 200+ protein sounds good.

00Snitch --

Thanks for the response/advice; it is much appreciated.

2) I don't think my proportions are out of whack; my right knee felt fine when I was squatting/deadlifting so I think I'll be ok. The hardest part of squatting was stretching out my pecs/back to get the bar low enough, but that will continue to improve with repetition, I expect.

4) Yeah, 135 was pretty easy; I'll probably just use increments of 20 or so for the first few workouts to get the number up higher.

5) I'll definitely be using plates next time; I knew I should have done that this time, but I just had to learn the hard way I guess.

I am really looking forward to foam rolling tonight.

Thanks, sounds good; I appreciate the advice.

just start at 135lbs on the deadlift. there isnt a guy on earth who cant deadlift that weight safely.

Not sure if he can DL that much:

That hurts, but is quite warranted. I'm pretty ashamed of my deadlift number, but hopefully I can look back on this and laugh in a few months.

Even if 135 is your work set, you need to warm up with lower weights.

Given your previous bench press, you'll prob get a very solid DL in no time at all, don't worry about it.

4/10

Played flag football today for an hour; the DOMS made me a little slower than usual, but foam rolling and stretching has helped. Looking forward to my second SS workout tomorrow.

Popped my groin a little yesterday playing football, but really wanted to soldier through as missing a Monday workout really messes up my week and makes me more likely to skip later on.

Squat
2x5x45
1x5x55
1x2x65
3x5x85

OHP
1x5x45
1x5x55
1x5x65
3x5x75

DL
2x3x95
1x5x115

The squat felt harder than it should have, but I still had some major DOMS in my quads and hamstrings, and playing football on Sunday didn't help that much. I do feel much better and looser now; will be foam rolling again tonight.

I felt like if I really wanted to I could have acheived a OHP > Squat, but decided to do 3 smooth sets with 75 and tackle 85 on Friday.

DL felt great, I used a few plates to raise up the bar and used 35s on each side for my work set. Form felt a lot better than last week; I still have to work on holding my breath through the entire rep because I am pretty sure I unconciously exhaled a few times. 115 felt pretty light and I feel good about moving to 135 on Wednesday. I disregarded the warmup calculator for deadlift because doing 3 warm-up deadlift sets with the bar seemed pretty ridiculous.

Maybe I'm crazy but the few times I've re-started on SS I never warmed up on the DL when my warm-ups would be lower than 135.

GL man, if you stick with it you'll definitely see some good results.

Understood man -- this was literally the second time I had ever deadlifted (I got about a week into SS two years ago), and I wanted to make sure I got the form down before I started lifting heavy.

I appreciate the encouragement, hopefully I can keep it up.

4/13

Squat
2x5x45
1x3x55
1x2x75
3x5x95

Bench
2x5x45
1x5x75
1x3x105
1x2x135
3x5x155

Deadlift
1x3x95
1x3x115
1x5x135

Deadlift and bench felt smooth and easy, so I'll probably increase next workout to 155 lbs for the deadlift and 165-175 lbs for the bench, depending on how I feel. I'm looking forward to getting to the point where I'm deadlifting enough weight that my first warmup set can be with 135 - hopefully in a week or two.

Squatting is still difficult for me, as I still have all the form requirements bouncing around in my head. Hopefully I'll internalize everything shortly and it'll be easier to just do it without thinking about form cues. I feel like 95 pounds should be easy, but I have to push decently to get through the last few reps in each set, which is semi-frustrating. I'm going to keep up with it though, because benching more than I squat is something that needs to change.

4/15
Squat
WU + 3x5x105
Felt good, really concentrated on leading with my butt, shoving my knees out, and staying back on my heels. Should be progressing to 115 on Monday.

OHP
WU + 3x5x85
Felt good, but it gave me a little bit of a burn. Not sure if I'm going to move up to 90 or 95 next time, will probably just play it safe and do 90

DL
WU + 1x5x155
Felt pretty easy, although I have a form question. Today I deadlifted with the bar perpendicular to the mirror so I could check out my form -- everything looked good for my first rep, but I noticed a little rounding in my upper back on subsequent reps. Should I be concentrating on pinning my shoulders back during the entirety of the lift in order to assist in keeping my chest up? I'll try and have my workout parther record me next time, since I know that would be easier.

4/18
Squat
wu + 3x5x115
Tightening up my lower back helped a lot, will be moving up to 125 on Wednesday.

Bench
wu + 3x5x175
Getting harder, but got 3 sets of 5 smooth reps so I'll increase to 185 next time.

DL
wu + 1x5x175
Felt pretty good, although the area of my body that gets the most fatigued is my lower back (which hopefully just denotes a weak point and not a major form problem). I need to get some videos up to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong. Will be trying 195 on Wednesday.

Looking in the mirror while deadlifting is a pretty useless (your form will almost certainly be different when your head is twisted 90 deg to the side) and probably dangerous (lifting heavy things with a twisted spine). Take a video instead.

That said, yes, you should be "pinning" your shoulders back throughout the lift.

What you are really doing is contracting your back (similar to what you should be doing in the squat).

Thanks for the advice. I didn't mean to say that my neck was twisted during the whole lift, just that I did a quick sideways glace to check my alignment/setup before each rep.

I tried to really contract my back muscles throughout the whole lift today, and I wasn't quite sure if I managed to do it (my lower back is mostly what feels fatigued now, although not tremendously so). I'll have to start making videos.

Pretty standard for the lower back to deteriorate on subsequent reps for novices. Just concentrate on tightening your lower back and keeping chest high as much as possible. Takes some practice. Vids are pretty clutch.

4/20
Squat: wu + 3x5x125
Was a little harder than last time, but I'm going to try 135 on Friday

OHP: wu + 3x5x90
This is definitely the toughest exercise for me, but I feel pretty comfortable going to 95.

DL
wu+ 1x5x195
The weight went up fine, but I am still having trouble with lowering the weight. The first thing I end up doing is rounding my upper back to get the weight down past my knees; I need to work on maintaining my lower back arch and shoving my butt out to trigger the bar going down. I'll get videos up next week when my workout partner comes back.

This is standard for everyone. Don't be surprised when it stalls long before your squat progress. Also don't be afraid to begin microloading early.

HS --

I figured that would be the case -- in my previous bro lifting days I actually did this quite a bit; I don't recall exactly how high I managed to get, but I think it was in the 115 range. I'd like to eventually make it to doing 135 for reps but I recognize that is, at best, a long way off.

Eh, you might not be as far off as you think. I started off back in January at the same 3x5x75 on the press, and I've made it up to 3x4x127.5 since then (although admittedly, that next 7.5 pounds seems fairly daunting atm, and it's been two failed workouts at that weight without hitting 3x5). It's probably going to be harder for you since I'm both fatter and shorter, so I probably have a leverage advantage, but it's not like you're years away.

fwiw, after the point when my press first stalled on SS, i only put on ~17% more weight to my set of 5 (175 to 205) even after "finishing" SS gains and moving to TM for a while.
/humblebrag

maybe others could share their experiences and we'd get some kind of general number, but i think something like 50% is ridiculously high. so, for instance, someone who stalls at around 100 pretty much has no chance of 150. obv this is barring probably common circumstances like
a) you are 6' tall and still weigh 165
b) you just don't get it