hamburgerfan's log: the strongening

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 295 lbs, 3x5
Felt pretty heavy, I needed a few breaths between the last few reps of set 3. Form was pretty solid though, I'll be moving on up to 300 on monday.

Press: 95 lbs, 2x5, 1x8
Went for max reps in the last set, I got the idea from the press PR thread.

Power Clean:
Doing power cleans today did little else but prove that I really suck at power cleans. I loaded the bar with 95 lbs, and did various sets of power cleans and hang cleans, but didn't get the technique right. I'll be reading up on them in SS today.

Chinups: Starting today, I'll be greasing the groove. I never saw much improvement in my chinning ability doing 3 sets to failure every other workout. I'll start by doing 1 chinup every time I pass my bar (which is a lot), and I think I'll achieve much greater volume this way.

[hamburgerfan]

A little background information:
I started strength training with the stronglifts program in march of this year. I started with the empty bar, and after 5 months, I squatted 260 lbs for 5x5. After 8 weeks on SS, these are my lifts:

Squat: 295 lbs 3x5
Deadlift: 265 lbs x5
Bench Press: 160 lbs 3x5
Press: 110 lbs 3x5

Age: 18
Height: 5'9"
Weight: about 186 lbs

[The Brute]

Nice work on the squats! I'll keep an eye on your log. What's up with your dead being so much lower than the squat??

[hamburgerfan]

I just suck at deadlifting. I was held back for a long time by poor technique. Even now that I'm getting the hang of it, it's still just a very hard lift for me compared to the squat.

[gamedog]

I'm a former StrongLifts trainee myself, though I didn't stick it out as long as you have. Anyway, nice work thus far with your training. I think you'll feel at home here and hopefully you'll be able to make even more progress thus far.

As to your dead lift, I've had a hard time with it in times past as well. As a matter of fact, when I came here to SS I was on a deload, the result of tweaking my back. So my dead lift and squat started out the same, at 135 or so, and the dead lift lagged. I didn't want to deload the deadlift so far, but I did. It was silly of me, but what the Hell, I'd have been a whole lot better off going from there and not monkeying with it, which I did. See below.

My advice is, learn that movement and learn it well. Let the progress climb, but don't rush it. You can add more to it in the beginning, but not as you move on and you've been in it for a while. I rushed my dead lift once, putting 20 pounds on it per session for three consecutive sessions as I recall. That. Was. STUPID. Don't ever do that. No matter where your dead lift is at, always make consistant weight increases with it, 5 is good, 10 pounds TOPS. Don't fucking rush it. That's the advice I have for you.

Keep training, keep posting. Keep hitting new PRs. Good luck buddy!

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 3x5 @ 300 lbs
Fuck yeah, new PR. Felt very heavy today, but I'm only 25 lbs away from my end of year goal.

Bench Press: 5/5/4 @ 160 lbs
I felt like should have been able to make that last rep, but my wrist was killing me and that made things more difficult.

Deadlift: 1x5 @ 225 lbs
Working up from a reset. Wasn't too heavy, and form was good.

[alex_tait]

well done dude.

[hamburgerfan]

Thanks.

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 3x5 @ 305 lbs
Didn't go as deep as I would have liked, I uploaded a form video here. (http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/showthread.php?t=19524)

Overhead Press: 3x5 @ 100 lbs
I intended to do more reps in the last set, but I failed after 5 reps, probably due to losing my balance early on and wasting energy correcting it.

Hang Clean: 5x3 @ 95 lbs
I thought these went pretty well.

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 3x5 @ 310 lbs
15 slow and difficult reps, but each one buried well below parallel. I did some grunting and yelling during the last set. It seemed to help.

Bench Press: 3x5 @ 160 lbs
Just 5 lbs away from where I stalled last time.

Deadlift: 1x5 @ 235 lbs
I need to keep working on my technique. Maybe I'll post a form video next time.

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 3x5 @ 315 lbs
Heavy, yet satisfying. Form stayed pretty good overall. I wish I had an extra set of 45s just so I could squat big plates on each side.

Press: 3x5 @ 105 lbs
I need to get under the bar sooner.

Hang Cleans: 5x3 @ 100 lbs
These went pretty well. I need to practice racking the bar, though.

Chinups: 8/2/2

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 5/5/3 @ 320 lbs
Bench Press: 5/5/3 @ 165 lbs
Deadlift: 1x5 @ 245 lbs
Chinups: 8/3/1

I'm thinking it may be time to end my linear progression. I have a pretty good squat, but the rest of my lifts suck and aren't really going anywhere right now. I know the ideal solution would be to eat more, sleep more, and continue progressing linearly for as long as humanly possible, but I don't know if that's the best idea in my case. I'm just under 200 lbs right now, and fatter than I should be. I don't really have much room to do GOMAD and gain 25 lbs from that.

I don't know. If anyone reading this has any advice, feel free to chime in.

[hamburgerfan]

Squat: 3x5 @ 320 lbs (PR!)
Form stayed pretty good.

Press: 5/4/2 @ 107.5 lbs
Dammit, either my press is actually regressing, or my squat is getting heavy enough that I'm too fatigued to press anything heavy.

Hang Clean: 5x3 @ 105 lbs
These were easy. I'm getting better at racking the bar. I think it's time to graduate to full power cleans.

Chinups: 9/2/1

So I decided to stick with linear progression for a while longer. I will, however, add a light squat day on wednesday and begin microloading my pressing movements.