Ryaan's Novice Training Log

[Ryaan]

2016-12-16

Elliptical: 5m warmup @ 30 rpm; 4 cycles of 3m @ 60+ rpm, 2m active rest @ ~30 rpm; 5m @ 60+ rpm
Chins: 8 bw singles

Oh god, I did cardio. I've been feeling like my conditioning hasn't caught up with my strength, so I'm hoping a little cardio might help jumpstart that. Also might keep the fat at bay as I continue to eat my way through the sticking points. I'm following the elliptical program that Andy Baker outlines here and here.

Chins bc I was already at the gym and felt like it.

[Ryaan]

2016-12-17

Squat: 20 x 10, 5; 50 x 5; 80 x 3; 100 x 2; 115 x 5 x 3 (5, 7 min rest)
Press: 20 x 5 x 2; 30 x 5; 40 x 3; 50 x 4, 50 x 3 x 4 (4, 3, 3, 5 min rest)
Deadlift: 40 x 5; 50 x 5; 60 x 3; 70 x 3; 80 x 3; 90 x 5
Chins: +5 kg negatives counting to 5 on the way down, 8 singles (40-60s rest)

Squat: indulged in some hubris and went up despite failed third set last workout. Went fine—I think, as I suspected, that set went awry mostly due to nerves after the messed up form on the first rep. I'm finding that the quality of my setup out of the rack has a huge effect on the quality of the set (go figure), and that I'm not consistently finding the right position on my back. I'll need to focus on this more in my warmups. Last reps of 2nd and 3rd sets were messy.

Press: planned on starting to load in 1 kg increments starting at 48 kg today... but then I left my fractional plates at home. Ugh. Took 50 kg out, failed 5th rep of my first set—no surprise there—and did triples the rest of the workout. I think I made the best of my mistake here, and I'll start microloading from 49 kg 3x5 next press workout.

DL: bleh. Slight rounding still. I'm not setting my arch hard enough at the bottom. I think a combo of fatigue and an entrenched bad movement pattern are to blame here. At Carl's suggestion, I'm going to try deadlifting while fresh for a few workouts, to see if that helps me learn the correct movement. Hopefully my deadlifts are light enough relative to my overall strength that doing them first won't mess with my squats too much.

[Ryaan]

2016-12-20

Deadlift: 50 x 5; 70 x 3; 80 x 3; 90 x 5
Bench: 20 x 5 x 2; 30 x 5; 40 x 5; 50 x 5; 65 x 5 x 3 (4 min rest)
(Light) Squat: 20 x 10, 5; 50 x 5; 80 x 3; 90 x 5 x 3
Chins: 6 bw singles
Lat pulldown: 130 lb x 8 x 3; 115 x 8 x 2

Deadlift: As planned, I deadlifted first this session in order to really focus on setting up a good arch in my low back, and it looks from the video like I finally managed it. Notes:
- make sure that the chest up cue sends a wave of extension going ALL THE WAY DOWN to the lower back
- don't worry too much about hips dropping: as I put my low back into extension, I feel my hips drop a tiny bit, and from the video, it's clear that they are but not so much that I should worry about it. In the past I dropped my hips by rotating about my ankles, moving my knees back and turning the setup almost into a SLDL, but that's not happening anymore. I can iron out this minor hips thing once I get the low back thing sorted out, which is more important.

Bench: I'm now benching more than I was before the layoff, so I'm now back into novice "every workout is a new 3x5 PR" territory. These sets felt mostly smooth and controlled, so I'm hoping I have quite a few 2.5 kg increments left in the tank before I have to start microloading.

Squats: I'm switching to advanced novice with a light day at this point, as I'm reaching the point where I've stalled out my LP the last two times I made a run at it. Next light squat day I'm going to put the workout back in its normal order, as I didn't feel properly warmed up for the deadlift, and the light squats aren't fatiguing enough to interfere with good focus on the deadlift.

[Ryaan]

2016-12-22

Squat: 20 x 10, 5; 50 x 5; 80 x 3; 100 x 2; 117.5 x 5 x 3 (7 min rest)
Press: 20 x 5; 30 x 3; 40 x 2; 49 x 5 x 3 (5 min rest)
Deadlift: 40 x 5; 60 x 3; 80 x 2; 95 x 5
Chins: 1 deadhang bw single

Squat: did a better job at finding the right bar position on my back. I think I've actually been sliding the bar from below the correct position, which doesn't create a good shelf. I need to remember to actually start the bar a little higher, and then drop it down onto the shelf created by the posterior delts. Video of third set shows decent reps, although knee slide on 5th rep of last set.

Press: felt good. Video shows that I'm not quite resetting my right elbow position under the bar.

Deadlift: SLOWLY getting better. Set my arch better, but 5th rep I lost balance after setting my arch, dropped my hips, and rounded during the pull.

Chins: I log this today only to mark my shame. Ran out of time, but I legitimately couldn't hit a second chin because I was so gassed from the rest of the workout. Might be because I trained fasted today (dumb).

[Ryaan]

2016-12-24

Squat: 20 x 5 x 2; 50 x 5; 80 x 3; 100 x 2; 120 x 5 x 3 (7/9 min rest)
Bench: 20 x 10, 5; 30 x 5; 50 x 2; 67.5 x 5, 62.5 x 5, 65 x 5 (5 min rest)
Deadlift: 50 x 5; 70 x 3; 100 x 5
Chins: +7.5 kg negatives counting to 5, 7 singles (30-60 seconds rest)

I trained fasted again, which is becoming a bad habit. Christmastime family travel means I'm off my usual routines, so I woke up late and then just FORGOT to eat before it was time to train. D'oh. Don't do this, you moron.

Squat: finally worked back to my previous 3x5 PR, and it felt a million times better than the last time I hit it (August!). My girlfriend coached me through the sets and videod the second, which looked mechanically sound. Fourth rep of the third set was a mess—I somehow botched the timing of hips back and bending over and ended up with the bar starting to roll up my shoulders. Managed to grab the thing and muscle it back into place, but I think I got a bit of an elbow tweak for my efforts.

Bench: totally a mess. Didn't get tight enough in my setup and felt like I was grinding through the whole first set, so I decided to do backoff sets for the following two, which also felt pretty dreadful. Will repeat this weight and hit 3x5 next time. This is where I feel like not eating particularly messed up my performance today. Totally drained after the squats.

Deadlift: a couple of solid reps, and then three sort of crap reps. Notes from Carl:
- lower the weight more slowly while keeping back in ext (i.e., don't just relax on the way down—get more benefit from each rep by fighting the eccentric with the low back)
- slow and steady and stay tight
- keep focusing on the arch, even in the later reps

I've been deadlifting every workout for a couple of weeks in order to practice the movement, but I'm now going to put back extensions back in my program in order to get some direct low back work and build some muscle mass back there.

[Ryaan]

2016-12-27

(Light) Squat: 20 x 10, 5; 60 x 5; 80 x 3; 100 x 5 x 3 (5 min rest)
Press: 20 x 5 x 2; 30 x 5; 40 x 2; 50 x 5, 5, 4 (5 min rest)
Deadlift: 40 x 5; 60 x 3; 80 x 2; 105 x 5
Lat pulldown: 145 lb x 8, 5, 8; 130 x 4; 115 x 4

Taught my girlfriend's 60-something year old dad to squat and press today!

Press: 4th rep of last set was a real grinder, after which I let go of my tightness and couldn't get it back together to get the fifth rep out of the hole. It moved about 2 inches and then stopped.

Deadlift: I might need to start mixed grip next workout. Last couple of reps my double overhand started to feel tenuous.

Lat pulldown: didn't rest enough before second set. First set

Taking a look at my end-of-Jan goals vs. the training sessions I know I have left and where I am now, I clearly need to rejig my goals. I have to take a break from training Jan 3-14 for a family trip and accounting for a small reset after that trip, I won't be able to hit the numbers I had planned before.

[Ryaan]

2016-12-30

Squat: 20 x 10, 5; 60 x 5; 80 x 3; 100 x 2; 122.5 x 3, 3, 3, 1; 100 x 5 (5 min rest)
Bench: 20 x 5; 30 x 5; 40 x 5; 50 x 3; 60 x 2; 67.5 x 5 x 3 (5 min rest)
Deadlift: 60 x 5; 75 x 3; 85 x 3; 95 x 2; 110 x 5 (mixed grip)
Chins: 2, 2, 1, 1
LTE: 10 x 8; 20 x 8; 25 x 8; 30 x 5 x 3

Squat: felt my form starting to fall apart after third rep of first set and racked it. Decided to switch to 5x3 to avoid too much form drift during this workout. Failed the second rep of my 4th set and then did a backoff set. Not really sure what to make of this. I think it was mostly nerves: I should've gone for the last two reps of that first set, but I chickened out. Just a little setback. I'll hit this for 3x5 next workout. As an aside, I felt my low back working really hard during these sets, and I think that the relative weakness of my deadlift and my low back is going to be a sticking point in my squat until my deadlift training starts to keep pace with where my squat is.

Bench: what was a mess last time felt super smooth this time. Focused on keeping my elbows under the bar. I might be taking too narrow a grip in general.

Deadlift: switched to mixed grip on my work sets; forgot to do last warmup with this grip. First rep was a bit janky with some upper back rounding as a consequence, but the next 4 were pretty good. Following Carl's advice of focusing on keeping extension during the eccentric helped a lot in warmup. Also focusing on eye gaze.

Chins: my first doubles! Done from a strict dead hang with no bounce between reps.

[Ryaan]

2016 Review, 2017 Goals

Just got back from a couple of weeks traveling with my family. Haven't been able to train since Dec 30. I start again tomorrow, and I thought I'd also post my 2017 health/fitness goals here.

My primary health-related goal in 2016 was to get strong using the SS method, and I feel like I'm well on my way. Here's what happened with the main lifts:



And my bodyweight (in lbs):



I made decent linear gains during my uninterrupted times at home, especially in the first half of the year, and when I was away on tour, I had to reset my progress. Second half of the year I just managed to keep from getting too detrained, and I started making progress again in December. Deadlift was a mess until I got it coached, but it's now on track. I regret not tracking my waist size during this time, as I think I put on more fat than necessary by being too loose with my diet.

Thinking ahead to this year, here are some goals:

- Run out my novice progression. I have 18 straight weeks at home before I hit the road again, and I plan to milk as much out of my novice phase during these weeks as possible, and then switch to some kind of intermediate programming.

- 4/3/2/1 plate dl/sq/bp/ohp. I don't think this is too far off. No date on this, as I've learned my lesson on trying to plan this stuff too precisely. (That is: I don't have enough experience to do so.)

- Get lean(er). My waist circumference, measured at the navel, is 104 cm. I'm going to take it down to 90 cm (?) by Aug 1, 2017. Pulled 90 cm out of thin air, so I might have to adjust that later—anyway, I don't need razor abs, just want to get rid of my belly. I will continue eating enough to fuel my novice progression, but I'll start cutting once I get a bit into the intermediate stage. I'm thinking about using the RFL diet, since I've done keto before, but I am concerned that this approach will bring my training progress to a grinding halt. Perhaps a more moderate approach where I slowly reduce fats and carbs week after week is a better idea. I'll work out the details once I get there.

- Teach 5 people to squat/press/deadlift correctly. This year I got two people started on the program. I've enjoyed coaching them, and I'd like to learn more. I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to this, but 5 seems like a reasonable goal for the year. "Correctly" here means following the SS model—which also implies some serious study of the book.

[carson]

Is your long term goal to become certified?

[Ryaan]

Is your long term goal to become certified?

I'm not sure yet. I'm at the very beginning of my journey in this field, and while I've certainly been bitten hard by a bug to learn as much about this method as possible and to teach it to others, I've also got a very demanding and time consuming career in music, and I'm not sure how the two would fit together. I am particularly interested in learning to coach older adults, as that seems to be an area in which a coach can dramatically improve his or her trainees' quality of life.

So let's just say I'm exploring the possibility, but I haven't set a firm goal. And, anyway, in the short term I need to get a lot further in my own training!