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Thread: A Clarification: Am I doing the program?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2018
    Posts
    1

    Default A Clarification: Am I doing the program?

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    Hello coach,

    Long story short: I'm 30 years old, I quit my job in late September and decided to finally do something about myself and get stronger. I've always been extremely scrawny guy - when I started my linear progression I weighed ~145 lbs at ~6'1, my legs were so skinny that my upper thighs were as thin as my calves. And of course they were very, very weak - I could barely squat an empty bar. I read the book several times and paid extra attention to the nutrition part. Part of that section reads:

    "So, if you correctly chose the work-set weight for your first workout and your squat didn't go up 40-50 pounds between the first and the sixth workouts, either you're not in that demographic (a novice male between the ages of 18 and 35 with a starting body weight of 160-175 lbs) or you're not doing the program."

    After some consideration I decided that I wasn't in the said demographic as I weighed under ~160 lbs and started the program a bit conseveratively, without any 10-20 lbs jumps, except for the deadlift, and that was for only a couple of workouts.

    My starting lifts were: Squat 16 kg (~35 lbs) x 3 x 5; deadlift - 42.5 kg (~93.5 lbs) x 5, Bench press - 37.5 kg x 3 x 5, (~82.5 lbs) Press 3 x 5 x 20 kg (44 lbs). After around 9 weeks my lifts are as follows: Squat 82.5 kg x 3 x 5 (~182 lbs) ; Deadlift - 107.5 kg x 5 (~236 lbs), Press - 48 kg x 3 x 5 (~106 lbs) , Bench - 69 kg x 3 x 5 (~152 lbs) . By body weight has gone from 145 lbs to ~190 lbs and I'm shooting for ~220-225 lbs for the next couple of months. I'm eating anything between 4500 and 6000 kcal with around 3 litres of 3,7% fat milk. I eat at least 200 grams of protein and sleep 11 hours on average. I am yet to introduce the power clean to the program since I still have no problems with recovery from deadlifting three times a week, but I've been doing chin ups every other workout for a month now and I've just started microloading the press and the bench. So what I want to know is whether I've done any serious mistakes along the way and if there's anything I could do better. Am I doing the program?! Also, where should I expect my squat to be at the end of my linear progression? Should I accept that it will be ~100 lbs lower than the average guy squatting 110-120 lbs on their first workout?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,557

    Default

    Your lifts are a little light, but within the expected range. Post a squat video here. Start learning the power clean now.

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