lately reading this forum has really inspired me to take my eat game to the next level

anytime I go more than 90 min without consuming something I'll eat a candy bar/chug milk/take spoonfuls of peanut butter to the dome piece/etc

2009-10-17

Thought I'd post my warm-up regimen once.

Only dynamic exercises, all of them from Magnificent Mobility. Mobility and soreness has mainly been in the muscles around the hip, so those are the primary focus.

• Bent Knee Twist
• Fire Hydrants
• Anterior-Posterior Leg Swing
• Side-to-Side Leg Swings
• Supine Scorpion
• Windmills
• Overhead Broomstick Dislocators
• Toy Soldiers
• Alternating Lateral Lunge
• Squat to Stand
• Running Butt Kicks
• Deep Wideout Drops
• Static stretches (anterior and posterior hip flexors, neck)

Takes about 10 mins. In addition I foam roll pwo at home after downing 2 big glasses of chocolate milk, nom nom. For now I'm foam rolling daily, will prolly cut down to pwo only after a couple of weeks.

Recovery and mobility has been better after starting this regimen, so absolutely recommended.

Squat	Press	Deadlift
2x5x20	2x5x20	2x5x50
1x5x30	1x3x25	1x3x60
1x3x50	1x2x35	1x2x90
1x2x65	-	-
3x5x80 (176 lbs)	3x5x42.5 (94 lbs)	1x5x107.5 (237 lbs)

Had to take some time off (1 week+) to let my elbow heal from that weird injury. Felt fine now, only felt a very slight pain on the squat and nothing on the other exercises so I think I'm good. Didn't increase weights due to time off.

With the feedback on the squat me and my bro really took the time to work on the form, specifically depth and knees not trailing forward. Lifted slightly lower to really concentrate on form.

Will post vids next time.

Our numbers are so close I almost feel like we should make a friendly competition about progress.

I'm down with that

2009-10-20

Squat	Bench Press
2x5x20	2x5x20
1x5x30	1x5x35
1x3x45	1x3x45
1x2x65	1x2x55
3x5x80 (176 lbs)	3x5x60 (132 lbs)

Back Extensions: 3x10 with a 20 lbs plate
Chins: 5, 4, 3 (unassisted)

Ok so filmed first set of squat, but some douche decided he needed to walk right in front of me while squatting and pick out weights from the squat rack. Thanks guy, completely blew my concentration.

I think my form is better now, but today was sort of hard. Learning to break at the hips instead of at the knees after doing it wrong for some months was kinda hard and requires me actively thinking about form for each rep. I also find myself keep looking straight forward at the bottom (changed gyms recently, which apparently was too much too handle), starting looking down and then concentration is shot. lol squats, I hate them. Lame elbow injury thingy acted up slightly again, will ignore it if it doesn't get worse.

Had to go down on the bench after not doing it for two weeks, should go up quickly.

Gonna start power cleans on Saturday, whee.

2009-10-22

Inspired by Kyle I'm dropping the table as well cause obv no one cares about warm-up weights.


Squat
3x5x80kg (176 lbs)

Alright! Loaded up on ibuprofen, focused on keeping elbows really high. Pain didn't increase at all after lifting. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!

It's remarkably hard to unlearn bad habits - I still need to actively focus on both breaking at hips, shoving knees out and lifting elbows. Which sometimes leads to form breakdown since I do something wrong.

But still, I'm happy I located the problem with the elbows (thanks kyle and strengthmill!) and that my form is better.


Press
2x5x45kg (99 lbs)
1x5x42,5kg (93 lbs)

It's pretty remarkable how much harder the last set of the press is than the first. First set felt pretty easy, 2nd set I barely squeezed up the last rep (prolly with horrid form) and there was no way I could do another set with 45 kg. I've ordered fractional plates so I can microload the press.


Deadlift
1x5x110kg (242 lbs)

Videoed the deadlift for the first time. Looked decentish...apart from horrible back round. I have sort of short arms, so the DL is not ideal for me. But still, looking at myself in the mirror I am barely able to extend the back properly, so it's just carelessness that I don't do it while actually deadlifting. Won't bother uploading it, will fix and video later.

Where did you order the fractional plates? I tried to find some 0.5kg plates some time ago, but they had too small a hole for a barbell.

Posting warmup sets is good imo. You don't need to create s table though. Warmup sets can give inside into why you stall as soon as it happens.

yeah if you get that down - breaking at the hips/shoving knees out - it makes everything so much easier. once i got that down, my lifts increased quickly (until i hurt myself cuz i'm a tard with stretching). if only you could find someone to show you in real life - so much easier to learn with a person who knows how to squat.

Rip says it best here (though he is talking about form creep and coaching, but you get the idea):

but, hey, if there is no one around to show you, then you gotta do what you gotta do

Found a british supplier, which is obviously better for me. http://www.pullum-sports.co.uk/index...d&productId=59. Cheaper too.

I found some at Amazon too, although they're sort of expensive.


Hrm I guess you're right about that...

I actually found a gym recently that looks way better than my current one - better equipment by far and way less people. Do they have any good coaches? Who knows. Probably not.

Only problem is my brother and his gf (who will be joining us this saturday, doing SS) just renewed their contract at our current gym through May 2010. Urgh. Nice timing bro.

Everytime I read a SS log I realize how messed up my numbers are cause it's so difficult to squat at home. Struggling with 3x5x165 on Squats but benching 3x5x195. At least I can expect huge squat gains.

is 1x5x42.5 better than, say, 1x3x45 then failing when you know you aren't getting 5 up? why?

Dunno. Anyone?

i don't see a reason to drop the weight. it's not like doing the last set of 5 with less weight makes it right to then up the weight for the next workout. as far as stimulus, i doubt it makes a difference. i would just keep the weight on for convenience and the tiny chance you actually do finish. the real thing this points to is the need for smaller plates, which you're taking care of.

What miles said plus some extra: when you do 2 reps less, you're missing 90kg tonnage over the ROM. When you do 5 lighter reps, you miss 12.5kg over the ROM. So you're doing more work that way. Best would be to do 3 reps and then reduce for 3 lighter reps. That way, you add 40kg to the workload. Or do three, pause for 15 secs and then do one more and repeat.

Good input guys.

If you're finding the presses ramp up in difficulty that much from set to set you could try resting for longer between sets. Personally, I have to rest longest between tough press sets (pullups too, I guess), like 5+ minutes. This might just be because I'm very close to stalling on the press and far from it on everything else, but take it for what it's worth. I find that when I rest long enough there's a very small strength drop off.

Hmm yeah that's true. I generally don't rest longer than how long it takes to switch weights, my brother to finish his set, put on my weights then do the next set. Only recently have I seen the need for longer rest. Strength drop-off is waaaay bigger on presses than other exercises where I don't really have this prob, so that obviously argues for more rest as well.

Guess it'll take care of itself with another trainee added to our group - rest should be sufficient with two people lifting between my sets. You're right though, rest length should be considered more than I do, thanks.

I need huge breaks in the squat but not the press. I think you just need more rest as you approach the wall that stops linear progress.

I wear a pulse watch because I use the timer function. Otherwise my breaks would be too short.

My press has crazy variation. I wouldn't be surprised if you upped the weight next time and finished 3x5 no problem. Just eat enough, get enough rest, and really want it.

And push yourself more on DL imo. You might surprise yourself on the gains you can make on this one.

And I wouldn't include the warm sets, I think they're pointless to record, as long as you've established you're doing them correctly. I guess you could include them if you think you are having issues and they are effecting your work sets negatively.

Other than that, keep up the good work.

2009-10-24

Squat	Bench Press
2x5x20	2x5x20
1x5x30	1x5x35
1x3x45	1x3x45
1x2x65	1x2x55
3x5x82.5 (182 lbs)	1x4x62.5, 2x5x60 (132 lbs)

Back Extensions: 3x10 with a 20 lbs plate
Pull-ups: 10, 7, 6 (assisted)


Goddamit. Elbow is better and doesn't hinder my squats anymore, but it does affect the bench. I can feel my left arm lagging behind and hindering increases. Irritating. Guess I'll just push through it, will prolly disappear eventually.

Tried power cleans for the first time - setting up the rack position, jumping only from jump position etc. Tried the hang clean, but got sharp pain in elbow doing it. Argh. Probably need to wait until elbow is properly healed.

At least the squat went well.


"Coached" my brother's gf as well, that was...interesting. She couldn't squat with a std olympic bar, a smaller, 10 kg bar was more than enough. Same for press. She's just very weak atm and mobility is crap, so that's probably the reason the squat is so weak. She could do a bro-like 1/4 squat before she got wobbly.

You're probably right about this, I won't increase more on next try since my form was kinda lol bad, but after fixing that I'll try for 5kg increases.

2009-10-27

Squat	Press	Deadlift
2x5x20	2x5x20	2x5x50
1x5x30	1x3x30	1x3x65
1x3x50	1x2x35	1x2x90
1x2x65	-	-
3x5x85 (187 lbs)	3x5x45 (99 lbs)	1x4x110 (242 lbs)

Squat was awesome. I discovered the joys of actually bouncing off the hamstrings, which I hadn't really done before - going down too slow is UnWise[tm]. Did the first set without proper bounce, next two with and difference was pretty hudge.

I gotta say foam rolling and dynamic mobility work has made me have a totally new outlook on squats. They're still ****ing hard work, but at least now they're not painful due to soreness. Can't recommend this enough. I contrast shower after every workout as well, but dunno how much effect it actually has...but they feel good, so there.

Press was rougher, last set form was pretty shaky. Looking forward to getting fractional plates.

Deadlift went straight to hell. I was really focused on avoiding back rounding, which I discovered last time was way worse than I thought (my brother is essentially useless for form checking). So I really, really tried to get it right...but just couldn't. Wtf. In addition my arm position was totally lol since I was so fixated on my back. Noobish. Tried two more sets with lower weights, 3 reps and then 1 rep but they weren't much good either.

My bro videoed every warm-up set, so after looking through them I discovered my hips are too high up. Setting up with hips lowered should fix the problem - when I'm doing this at home I can manage to extend my back with a decent effort.

On another note my rake-thin bro has put on 10 lbs in the last month and a half, haha.

Videoed the press as well, will upload when I get home.

Also my brother is clearly out to get me - last time he loaded "his" side of the barbell for my press wrong (5 kg plate instead of 10 kg) and repeated the performance this time. Got pretty pissed this time, he's lololol sloppy with everything. Considering sending him to the French Foreign Legion so he can Become A Man and Get Some Discipline.