Ooo, I didn't notice this earlier.

Thanks man! I think there are a lot of much more inspiring logs around the forum but there aren't too many others having anything to do with bball imo. Of course, I'm progressing at what I consider a sustainable pace so I hope things get more interesting and at some point have some cooler results from this log.

Also, to the legions of people reading this log, I am indeed, alive, so it seems I avoided a stroke from potentially massaging my carotid artery. So that result is pretty solid and hopefully sustainable imo.

lol that artery is where you can feel your pulse near the front of your neck.

5/25 log - sesh 16

Squats
45x5x2
60x5x1
95x3x1
130x2x1
165x5x3

Decided not to go up in weight as last time I had trouble with 165 and knee cave. This time I felt I had some trouble with keeping the bar over the middle of my foot and probably a bit of knee cave too.

We'll see if I ramp up to 170 at Cha's on Saturday or if I keep it at 165. May be a gametime decision.


Press
45x5x3
55x3x1
70x2x1
85x5x1

Decided not to go up as my neck was messed up the last couple of days and I didn't want to add even more weight into the mix. I had the most trouble with my 1st set at 85lbs b/c I think I didn't go straight up and down with the bar. I was able to get all 3 sets though so next week if my neck seems fine I'll move up.

DLs
135x5x1
155x4x1
185x3x1
225x4x1

I stopped on the fourth as my g/f said it was the first time my form got compromised and seh saw significant back arching. I'm not sure she knows what an ideal lower back looks like, so perhaps I could get it even straighter, but for all my other reps she watched me and said the back position I started with stayed the same.

So I think I'll do the same thing next time and see if I can keep my back completely straight with v good form at 225 before starting to go back up towards 250 where I got to with what was likely bad form.

I also watched Nick Collison and studied up. This weekend is a bye week (memorial day ldo) but that doesn't mean I can't get smarter and improve my approach for the week after for our last game of the season!

If she can tell your back isnt the same as the previous reps, its probably a good thing you stopped imo. Your DL seems like its ahead of your other lifts anyways. You will eventually get it right and improve.

5/27

Did a lot of rolling and then played pickup bball. 3x3 then 2x2 then 1x1. Won all the games and only one was close. This one HS kid at the gym insist playing me 1x1 and I basically beat him 15-2 (1s and 2s ldo) every time unless he goes completely all out while I'm being lazy and then sometimes he scores a bit more.

It's kind of fun and nice to play with people I'm better than, but I'm just so bad overall that when I go into my actual games I feel like I should be better

5/28 log - sesh 17

Was over at Cha's. Took apart a bit of his reverse hyper but decided to not try and take the legs off due to potentially not being able to put back together a ball bearings part. You can see his log for more details.

Did rolling and mobility/activation.

Squats
45x5x2
65x5x1
100x3x1
135x2x1
170x?x1 (I forget how many I actually did. Could have been 5 but I had way too much break of form and knee cave)
165x5x2 (not perfect form on this either. I think I'll stay at 165 and study some videos Cha gave me for the next week)

Bench
45x5x2
70x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
140x4x2
140x5x1

Cha told me a lot about "setup" for bench and while he insists he's not an expert on it, my second work set I was able to get up 4 (the first set I baaarely got it up) and then on the 3rd I did 5 relatively easily. I felt super excited about actually getting "stronger" during the work sets, not sure that's ever happened to me before. I have a feeling I have untapped strength somewhere and just need to get better and form & mentally.

Alternativing chins/pullups & pullthroughs - managed not to F up my neck doing chins/pullups this time, which is good, .

5/29
Went to the gym and did a ton of rolling. My left leg (the one I injured a couple of years ago) now is basically completely different and I can "feel" what I think is the part that's really messed up. Perhaps the real bad muscles were beneath surface muscles I had to get right. But anyway, when I stretch it I get the "tingly" sensation much more easily now and I can actively hit the spot that is getting tingly. For years I'd only "feel" that area loosening up after running a couple of miles and then not being able to run on that leg anymore. I really don't think I'm hurting anything, but I guess there is some small chance there is some nerve damage involved that may never go away so I'm not going to push myself too hard in rolling that specific spot on my quad.

6/1 - session 18

Warmup routine - 30+ mins

Squats
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
130x2x1
165x5x3

I felt my form was a bit better on my work sets this time. I can't really say how much my knees may have buckled b/c I only concentrated on that during my warmup sets and then on my work sets simply focused on going down and up while keeping everything tight. Hopefully staying at this weight for work sets will help me overcome my knee buckling and make it so when I start moving up again, I'm doing it right.

Press
45x5x3
60x3x1
70x2x1
90x3x3

I got 3.5 on my first work set, then barely squeezed out 3 on the next two sets. Man, I'm just having trouble moving up in Press from the beginning of this program. Since I only got 3 reps, should I move down back to 85 lbs or stick with 90 a couple more times and see if I make progress?

DL
135x5x1
135x4x1
135x3x1
185x2x1
220x4x1

I got 4 good reps at 220 with what I think was no back rounding. Or very little. I'm going to continue at this weight until I feel I can do 5 full reps while keeping everything tight and working the way it's supposed to.

On another note, I bought some protein powder and had a scoop with ~7ounces of soy milk today. V convenient and decently tasty. As I posted earlier in this thread, the following is a pretty good representation of what I eat every day (probably eat out 3 meals a week + 1 pretty significant dessert, like ice cream):

1) breakfast: grapenuts cereal + lowfat vanilla soy milk
2) morning: chocolate chip cliff bar
3) lunch: egg salad sandwich (~2 eggs) + apple + two big handfuls of baby carrots + 2 stalks of celery
4) afternoon: curried chickpeas (~4.5 oz.) + brown rice (~3oz.?) + orange. The only reason I know the weight is I was dividing them up for my g/f and myself last night.
5) dinner: salad + grapes + boca burger (will add cheddar cheese imo)
6) evening: greek yogurt + mixed nuts lightly salted

How many protein+soy milk "shakes" should I eat? Or should I just substitute them for one or two of my snacks?

6/3 log

Did rolling and mobility/activation.

Squats
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
165x5x3 - I felt my knee cave was at least not as exaggerated. I dno, how long is this supposed to take before I learn how to do this @#$, lol. I feel guilty I'm "stalling" or having trouble this early. I mean, I guess it could be diet, but it seems more like something else. Maybe I just have a couple really really weak parts of my body.

Bench
45x5x2
70x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
140x5x1
140x4x2

Hmm, the opposite of last time kind of. I blame it on staying up late watching NBA all week, only getting in 2 lifting days this week, and not getting as good of a setup as at Cha's b/c he wasn't there coaching me. Gonna for sure do 140x5x3 next time. WIM.

5xpullups
5xchins
5xneutral grip
4xneutral grip

Pull throughs in between. Definitely doing them much better after coaching from Cha. Really feel it in my glutes. Nothing like doing this in a small weight room full of guys, who are walking by 1 feet from my pelvic thrust too btw. Pretty tremendous. Hopefully next time my g/f makes good on her threat of standing right in front of me while I'm doing this. Maybe they'd kick us out though, I dno, .

6/5 log

I did rolling/warmup stuff yesterday in preparation for today's bball game(s). Then I shot for 40 minutes, felt really good about my 16ft. and in shot. And my free throws were ok (made 6/10, 7/10, then 10/10, which I can never remember ever doing in my sets of 10).

Today we had our 2nd playoff game, which if we won, would have set us up for a game right afterwards for the 'ship.

Alas it was not to be. We played a team we barely beat during the season but we started 5 guys (a 6th came quite late) and even though we were only down 5 at half, they just went on a tear through us at the beginning of the 2nd half and we fouled into the penalty in just a few minutes.

Our best low post threat/player (who I also work with) was probably the difference this season vs. the last 2 in how good we were. But he was ineffective (I don't know why, they weren't that tall) and got two Ts right when the game started pulling away.

I shot 3 times, made 1 but it was called off b/c I had come from out of bounds. I'm 100% sure I had 1 foot in before I caught the ball and my other foot wasn't out. But tbh I don't know the rules. I just know that in similar situations in the NBA that's 2 points. I feel I get jobbed on like 1-2 things a game that I guess aren't allowed in college rules? I dno, it's a disadvantage that the refs never tell me what I did clearly and I only watch NBA.

Anyway, I played smart, and I went after it even though there wasn't much resting since we were down guys. Since it was a blow out, I really was frustrated that I don't know how to score or control the game more. I told everyone I was gonna get much stronger in the offseason though and just try to wreck the boards next season in the Spring. Lol. We'll see.

So. You guys gotta help me get strong in a bit more of a hurry than the pace I've been goin' at. I plan to log a day or 2 of my diet, and go over options to tweak it to allow myself to gain strength faster. Also, I won't care as much for a couple months about doing cardio to help me run the court, so if that's potentially getting in the way, I can cut it out for a while.

Awesome thread.

I'm also doing SS and have been playing a decent amount of pickup ball lately, but just for fun/fitness as opposed to actually trying to get better. Though this thread might be changing my mind. I was a solid high school player and my dad played pro, so I grew up with the game and love this stuff.

I can comment a lot on basketball skills training if you like, but to start here are a couple rebounding tricks to consider.

protip for rebounding a free throw:
The defender boxing you out is feeling you with his back/butt to know where you are. You can mislead him by leaning a hand into one side of his back and quickly stepping around the other side of him. This will only work well once, but you can still play this little mind game with him, keep him guessing and occasionally get him slightly out of position.

this applies more to live play, but can work on a free throw too if the guy is weak or just doesnt box out hard:
If your opponent is really close to the basket and you can't get inside position, push him under the hoop. I usually put both forearms on his back and lean into him hard, taking little baby steps and digging in a bit to get some leverage. Ideally you get him completely under the basket where he is useless to rebound. I've never gotten called for this, but a guy threatened to punch me in this face once (in a high school game).

Yugo,

you need to microload the press.

My gym's smallest weights are 2.5 lbs. To microload (if I understand correctly) I would go out and purchase some smaller weights and bring them with me to the gym?

If this is the best way to microload, what amounts in those plates should I get? a few .5 lbs weights to load on? A bunch of .25lbs weights? Or just some 1 lbs weights?

Thanks!

So basically, you're like Stephen Curry, right?

Seems you'd be very very good at basketball. My dad basically watches everything but basketball and so I got into it pretty late.

Yes, I would like this very much, . I got into basketball pretty late and try to be a "smart" player but it's through thinking a bunch, not b/c I learned fundamentals or have a feel from playing 2342343 games.

Your tips on FT rebounding is really helpful, too bad it'll be 2 months until I get to try them. One thing I don't do *at all* is the little pushing/hooking/etc. stuff that is likely a foul but refs can't see. I'm at a big disadvantage vs. guys who do that to me imo. I rarely get called for fouls and they are almost all on help defense when I can't get in front of someone, or swipe at the ball, or something.

Questions:
- I'm a shade under 6' (so let's say 6' even, lol).
- Can't jump
- Can dribble right okay
- No confidence dribbling left and don't unless I play pickup as it's pretty sllllow
- Can shoot out to 15-18' but don't take that in games much or as a catch & shoot. Mainly shooting around or off of my dribble in 1on1 or 3on3 in pickup.

The one thing I seem to have a knack for is rebounding. Most people I play with comment on it. E.g. I played 2on2 pickup the other day and may not have scored the most but was clearly the best player imo. I controlled the game by getting likely way over half of all rebounds. But this isn't as consistent as I'd like in real 5on5 games where I seem to get my hands on things, but don't get the actual rebound a lot (I still get more than "my fair share" of o-boards though).

Should I work on dribbling?
Extending my range to 3?
Or what I think may be best: working on post moves/footwork for 1-2 dribble moves. Even though I have a height & weight disadvantage, planning on being down low.

Any feedback + training I can do on my own will be very helpful for these areas.

There's a link to washers in the FAQ, or you can buy fractional plates, which are way more expensive. From experience, 1.5 and 1 lb (allowing for 2 and 3 lbs increases) work fine. Think I actually increased by 1 lb too. When I could still press heavy-ish that is

It's interesting that you're a good rebounder without being tall, able to jump, or willing to play dirty. If you keep hitting those squats hard and dabble with a little foul play, you'll be a monster.

I agree that you should focus on your down low skills. Not just one-on-one post moves, but overall ease and versatility with scoring close to the basket, e.g. putbacks, layups with both hands, etc. To master making easy shots.

Like Snipe said, there's not much glory in it, but there are a lot of good reasons to do it if your goal is simply to help your team win. It's great for your confidence to have something to fall back on if your shot is off. Not blowing layups is good for team morale. Also, until you're a stud on offense, most of your opportunities are going to be garbage: offensive rebounds, fast breaks, defensive breakdown where you somehow end up open with the ball 5 feet from the basket. Until you can consistently convert in these situations, it's better not to worry about fancier stuff.

You could try the Mikan drill and variations, to get a good feel for the glass from different angles. Full speed layups with both hands, again from multiple angles. To work on post moves by yourself, try putting a chair to take the space of a defender. The drop step can be deadly, definitely work on that. Also really short jump hooks with both hands.

Finally, you might want to actively seek out junk points as much as possible. If a teammate gets a steal and has what looks like an easy layup, bust your ass downcourt anyway. Sometimes they miss, or a defender makes a miracle play. Crash the boards after every shot, even if you're far away. I get way more than my fair share of garbage buckets just by hustling in places where it's a little unexpected.

6/6 log

Rolling/mobility/activation stuff.

Squat
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
130x2x1
165x5x3

Guh. While I think I'm somewhat better at this weight, my knees (mainly my right) definitely move on my work sets (the most on the last one). They don't move on any other sets. I'd like to think they're moving less, but my g/f said "I don't think so" to my very hopeful and convincing "but they move less, right?" lol, so that sucks.

I was thinking about just adding several more sets @ 45lbs when doing squats to help program form more. And read about SS form each day before I do them. Maybe that will help? I dno, I'm itching to move up in weight and dominate the low post area, getting more ppl to punch me in the throat due to my undersized amazingness....at least that's the goal lol.

Press
45x5x3
55x3x1
70x2x1
85x5x2
85x3x1

Hmm, so I didn't get the last set. I'm not really "good" at these yet still. Sometimes my form is a bit better and the technique makes it easier for me. Sometimes it doesn't go as well. Rather than micro-loading I think I'm going to add sets with just the bar, and really try to program form for these.

DL
135x5x1
135x4x1
135x3x1
185x2x1
220x4x1

Again, on my 5th rep @ 220lbs I felt my lower back not holding (on my 4th I felt my lower back was tight, but I definitely was cheating something with my back, not perfect). Which is basically what's happened the last 2 times I did DL.

I think maybe my diet is screwing my gains up? Or my glutes are really that weak? I don't know, but it's frustrating to not be able to keep progressing this early on in a linear program. I mean, I'm not even lifting anything close to where I assumed I'd be able to get to if I stuck to the plan and worked hard.

My next post I'll make tomorrow morning and will be on diet. But any advice anyone has about my programming and weights and whatever, please let me know!

That's what I'm hoping. I'm not sure that I'm unwilling to play dirty, it's more like, I'm unwilling to just start shoving without knowing the subtleties, as I'd just be a foul box. I may schedule a "playing dirty" session with my coworker and his friend who taught him everything he knows apparently. Then we can practice on each other (is my hope).

It's funny, but I talked with a guy I play pickup with sometimes at my gym. And he thought I was at least 6'1" or 6'2", and literally said "well you may be 6' but you can jump really high" lol, ugh, I am barely (if) 6' tall and I certainly can't jump. The good news is that those aren't (imo) the most important things for rebounding.

I'm going to work on this at some point soon and also do those Mikan drills. I feel I have good hands around the rim, but not at full speed, and miss too much in our games. Many of my "shots" are junky (Vlade Divac style perhaps...).

This is what I've been doing. Tbh though I often get caught up in setting possibly useless screens on offense instead of looking for when my teammates are shooting so I can crash. Also, I do get discouraged when I finally do get a pass for any reason and forget to shoot, or wait for a cutter. As a team we have almost no assists every game and I'd guess given my usage rate I have a very high % of them for the fact I'm the "garbage" man.

Anyway, all great advice. I really enjoy any and all of the bball input. It's definitely helping me figure out how to continue my identity on the court and find a way to help dominate a game without scoring 20ppg.

Nutritional/diet review

Goals of diet:
1) Be sustainable for me (obv subjective) given that I make vegetarian meals at home (I eat meat when I go out).
2) Be healthy to me (obv subjective). Eating 5 lbs of meat a day isn't healthy to me. My mind can of course change, but giving "advice" just trying to get me to completely change my values likely isn't super helpful.
3) Gain strength. I want the SS work I'm doing to result in strength gains so I can be better at basketball.
4) Stay at a relatively "slim" body weight/composition. I'm fine with gaining weight but not just for the sake of gaining weight. I'm not sure how much is actually helpful in regards to bball and know I can get much, much stronger without gaining much weight.

I weigh ~170lbs right now. 2-4lbs up from when I started SS (I don't track my weight that carefully). No clue what my body composition is.

Here is exactly what I ate yesterday. It's a pretty representative sample of how I eat, however, until the last couple of days, Before a couple of days ago I was getting ~90g of protein a day, but since have substituted the protein shake for one of my meals.

Meal 1 (breakfast) - grape nuts, soy milk, & raisins
8:00 am
326 calories
7.5g protein

Meal 2 - greek yogurt + mixed nuts
10:30am
340 calories
19g protein

Meal 3 (lunch) - PB&J, apple, carrots/celery
1:00pm
581 calories
13g protein

Meal 4 - lentils & rice, raspberries/grapes
4:00pm
594 calories
13g protein

Meal 5 - protein powder & soy milk
7:50pm
440 calories
60g protein

Meal 6 (dinner) - veggie burger/pick/onions/ketchup/mustard, orange, spinach salad/dressing
8:30pm
340 calories
27g protein

Total calories: 2621
Total protein: 139

I also eat out ~3 times a week and just eat whatever. This generally replaces 2 meals. An example of this type of meal would be an order of White Tiger sushi, or a hamburger & fries.

Questions (keep in mind I'm most interested in "big rock" type issues, not "little rock" stuff at this point):
1) Is this "enough" protein? The FAQ states to go for 1-1.5g/lean body mass. I dno what my lean body mass is anyway.

I am not excited to try to go back to eating 250-300g/day. But I could substitute an additional protein shake for a different snack, or mix it with water and hammer down even more protein.

2) Is there important timing involved with the protein I consume? I think I'll likely be getting the bulk of it via a protein shake, should I break this up into smaller ones, or is it not important?

3) I take a multivitamin and 4 capsuls of generic Costco fish oil. How important is adding supplements to this and should I even add anything at all?

I'm not a diet expert, so I'll let others elaborate after this comment. When I was losing weight (went from 255 to 220), I was eating ~2250 calories and ~225 grams of protein per day on average. I basically kept all my muscle and just lost fat during that time.

I think you need to try to get more protein without drastically increasing the calories.

cha,

My plan is to have 2 protein shakes but maybe just make them with water instead of soy milk (although they're waaay delicious with vanilla soymilk, hmm) but perhaps replace snacks with them instead of eating it in addition to.

My goals aren't really to lose weight though so I guess I'd rather gain a few lbs of extra fat and make sure I'm feeding my body enough rather than not feed it enough. But I also don't really have any use for more fat, .

yeah, I know you dont want to lose weight, and I know you dont want to get super huge again. I think you need to get more protein in order to get much stronger.

You'll figure out a way that works for you if you try.

One thing I do with my shakes is I use liquid egg whites instead of milk, water or whatever else. It tastes pretty good, and the egg whites are pure protein.

6/8 log

I was off last week fighting something off (maybe still am a bit, I dno). I was just really dead every day after work and had a swollen lymph node underneath my jaw that made it a bit difficult to swallow (that's what she said).

Annnnnnnnyway, pretty obv I'm setting up why I continued to have trouble this week .

Rolling/mobility/activation routine

Squats
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
165x5x3 - Still with knee cave. It actually felt harder than the time before.

Bench
45x5x2
70x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
140x5x1
140x4x1
140x3x1

Even worse than the last time. Weird since at Cha's a while ago I was able to handle the last set of 140lbs at 5 reps. Just didn't have it this week.

- Bunch of pullthroughs
- 3x5 pullups/chins/neutral grip

Meh. The good news is that following the only advice I got on my diet post from Soulman in the beginner thread, it was this day that I started trying to have 2 shakes instead of 1 or 0 shakes as I had been consuming.

So protein of ~170-180g instead of either 90g or 140g or w/e.

6/11 log

rolling/mobility/activation - I started bringing in my black foam roller as the white ones they have at my gym are annoying to get (they keep the ~2 they have behind lock & key, lol) and are too squishy imo at this point for me.

Squat
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
130x2x1
165x5x3

Yup. No progress. I did feel my form was a lot better but it felt heavy. Heavier than it should have imo.

Press
45x5x3
55x3x1
70x2x1
85x5x1
85x3x1
85x3x1

This was just a huge struggle. My form seemed to suck, I barely got much of the 85lbs up at all really. That first 5 was with awful form imo. Meh. Felt really difficult.

DL
135x5x1
135x4x1
135x3x1
185x2x1
225x3x1

Not sure why I went a bit higher on DLs considering *everything* was heavier lol. Probably b/c I was pissed off at not "succeeding" at anything. As one might expect, my form broke down even earlier so I stopped. Very rigged.

The good news is that I continued to eat 2 shakes with protein imo.

6/12 log

Did rolling and some mobility.

Shot around at the gym and then got a 4x4 halfcourt game going (everyone else was in HS at most lolz). My g/f was watching from upstairs on a cardio machine and I think said something to sum up the game like "it seemed you got a lot of rebounds, ran around more than anyone, and basically never got a pass even though you were running around a bunch, why is that?"

Anyway, I think it was like 6-1 (1s and 2s ldo) and then they caught up to even it. But, as I realized it was time to go, I forced the action a bit by not passing and gambling even more on defense (my team seemed content to not box out or stay in front of their man) and we quickly rattled off some more points to win.

I mean, it feels good to play with players I'm better than, but it's not like I just get the ball, take 2 strong moves, and score every time. Plus I don't just go around blocking shots and grabbing my junk. I basically still have to work my ass off, get rebounds, set picks, etc. etc. and b/c the players aren't that good, I just can do more of that.

But until I either become a force physically, or develop more go-to stuff, I'll still feel like the "sneaky" best player on the floor. As I guarantee some of the guys I played with likely would assume I wasn't the biggest difference in the game.

6/14 log - sesh 23

Rolling/mobility/activation routine

Squats
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
165x5x3 - So, I have no video, and my g/f didn't watch me, but I feel I figured out a better mental cue for these to keep my knees from caving. Up until now I always think of keeping my knees out. This time I thought about just "pushing" with my inner thigh/groin area (adductor?). So rather than trying to move my knees out (where I think they end up wobbly) I'm really just doing another quasi-sexual mental cue, which I already have good results with from trying to "hump" when I need to activate my glutes doing pullthroughs or DLs.

Anyway, I also think I stuck my butt out a bit more and this was better too, keeping my lower back straight. Although, I did feel my trap hurting a bit after many sets. I think my grip may have been too aggressive.

I'm going to go for 170 next time. F yeah!

Bench
45x5x2
70x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
140x5x3
Rolling/mobility/activation routine

Squats
45x5x2
65x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
165x5x3 - Still with knee cave. It actually felt harder than the time before.

Bench
45x5x2
70x5x1
95x3x1
125x2x1
140x5x3

Got it! Finally. Even felt I could do 1 more unassisted (maybe, *shrug*). Perhaps I was kinda sick last week and also not eating enough protein.

- Bunch of pullthroughs (brag: got some looks, , beat: from dudes, , variance: my butt was sore afterwards
- 3x5 pullups/chins/neutral grip (still haven't pushed these hard to "go up" in them yet. If I ever do I may try some sort of GTG type thing (although I can't do them at home or at work, meh).

keep that up and you will see much better progress over time.

That's probably a good thing. Keep working on that and your squat & DL will both improve a lot, which will really help you use your strength at basketball. Those muscles also help keep your knees out when you squat.