HLM and trying not to be the elephant in the room.

[jimmy02]

Age: 33
Height: 5' 11"
Current Weight: 487

Starting Weight: 650ish
Goal Weight: 200


Problems:
My right knee doesn't like closing all the way; no problem standing, squatting or walking but god help me if I kneel down and put weight on it. Also I think I sprained my right ankle again, it bares weight and foot moves up and down fine so now worried. I also lift in the AM about one or two hours after I wake up because I live in Florida and wont own an AC.

Moving on.

I messed around with weight training when I first realized I had gotten too fat and didn't get anywhere just messing about. Last year I did Starting Strength for a few months which worked I but hit a wall pretty fast. I tried 531, Texas Method and a couple 4day split set ups. 531 was painfully slow, I think I almost killed myself with TM and 4 day splits just didn't seem to click with me.

Decided to give HLM a try after reading Andy Baker's blog post about how he thinks it's a good set up for someone losing weight. After 7 weeks it seems to be going well and I'm back to the weights I ended SS on. I was doing 5x5 across on heavy day squats but I'm dropping it to 3x5 and to light day 2x5@85% and medium day 2x5@95%. Pressing is Bench/Press/Close Grip, all 3x5 with 2x8 back off. Pulling has been a problem because of a number of reasons. First being I think I was overdoing it with the 5x5 squats, second being I was for some reason doing deficit deadlifts on medium day, and third I am horrendously fat so pulling from the floor is a pain in the ass. Pulling now is going to be Deadlifts/Power Snatch/SLDL. I was doing Pull Downs on light day but wanted to try something different so power snatches, I started pretty light at 105lbs last week and that seemed to go fine but I'm about as explosive as molasses covered lead so might be back to pull downs in a few weeks.



Monday 6/5/17

Squat
285x5x3

Bench
195x5x3
170x8x2

Deadlift
320x5
Failed on fourth rep I'm going to try again next week and see if dropping the squat volume and new pulling set up helps.

[Charlie Davies]

Welcome aboard! You are making good progress.

[Tim K]

Great progress so far! People get all jazzed up about "transformations" where some already decently-muscled dude cuts from 230 to 180 and gets shredded but what you're doing is way more impressive from both a mental and physical standpoint IMO. Keep up the good work.

As for your troubles with pulling from the floor, maybe you could do rack/block pulls from a low height like maybe 5" or so for the time being until you're better able to get into a solid starting position on each rep? I guess whether that's a good idea depends on how compromised your form is when pulling form the floor currently.

[jimmy02]

Thank you both.
As for low block pulls that might be good idea. I have a ton of lumber around the yard and I'm sure I have a pair of 6x6s around and a sheet of 3/4" plywood to stand on. Worth giving it a few weeks try then going back to regular deadlifts to see if they progressed with it.

[jimmy02]

Wednesday
Light Day
Weight: 485

No pain in my right ankle this morning so that's something.

Squat
245x5x2

Press
123.75x5x3
110x8x2

Power Snatch
110x2x8
These were better than last week but the last three sets was just getting them above my face and pressing them to lock out. But Bill Starr wrote that it was okay to do so not going to worry about it yet.

[jimmy02]

Medium Day
Weight: 483

Right ankle back it being jacked up but range of motion is still fine and bares weight so good enough I guess

Squat
270x5x2

CG Bench
185x5x3
165x8x2

SLDL
270x5x2
Never actually done these before so I picked a weight and went for it. Kind of odd not dropping my knees but went fine. Also I'm giving Tim's idea a go but using 1.5" instead of five. I didn't have to fight my gut as much and could use a closer foot position which seemed to help since I could being my hands in (before I had pinkies on the rings to get around my knees.) Monday I'm going to give 1.5" a try then 5" the next depending on how next week goes.

[jimmy02]

Heavy Day
Weight: 481

Today sucked and I knew today was going to suck. How? Well I spent about 7 hours yesterday changing the cylinders on a 50ton hitachi excavator. Lots of climbing, swinging a sledge (because the god of giant metal pins hates me personally) and changing hydraulic lines. Okay enough crying. There is good news, the swelling in my right ankle is completely gone.

Squat
290x5x3
Felt heavy as shit, barely made the last set.

CG Bench
197.5x5x3
Nope 4,4,4

170x8x2
These however were fine.

Deadlift 1.5" block
320
First go I got the second rep about knee height and stopped. So I figured maybe singles. Got one more and couldn't get the third to break the floor. Wonderful.

Today sucked but I got a few options depending on how light and medium days feel. I could chalk it up to Sunday's fun and advance the weight as normal and do fives or I could drop to triples and run them for a while. Last weeks heavy squat and bench went fine so if I get to Friday and 270 isn't a grind I'll go with 295 and fives Monday.

[Karl Schudt]

Hey jimmy02,

welcome. Keep at it.

How's your range of motion on the squat?

[jimmy02]

Hi there Karl.

It's hard for me to tell by hip crease from the videos I have. I don't own shorts, all my pants are baggy from when I was 650 and I'm not subjecting anyone to me squating in my underwear. But bar travel is about 25" unloaded and 23-24" on working sets.
So proabably not great but as long as that either stays consistent or lengthens I think it'll be fine.

[jimmy02]

Light Day
Weight: 483

Today was a lot better being that I didn't feel like hot garbage on waking up this morning. The couple slices of pizza Monday night probably helped. Actually kind of surprised the weight jump wasn't higher from all the extra carbs. Oh well, calories are where they need to be just got the ride the water retention roller coaster.

Squat
250x5x2

Press
125x5x3
112.5x8x2

Power Snatch
112.5x2x6
112.5x1x4
Set seven just refused to be a double.