A Track Junkie Hits the Gym
There are two things I love in sports; lifting heavy things and moving fast. It's this strange combination that leads me to powerlifting and track cycling.
Inspired by Rippetoe's recent post on the novice effect, and the knowledge that track season is just 20 weeks away, I've decided to take another shot at starting strength and this time, I'm keeping a training log AND an eating log online.
I made a half-assed attempt at following the program last fall, and saw reasonable gains on it despite not eating enough and not lifting hard enough. It's amazing how that works for novices.
My lifts were going up, but a month in, I weighed myself again and found I'd lost nearly 10 lbs. Determined to reverse the trend, I gained that weight back over the next couple months until my squat got up to about 225.
That's when I fizzled out. I kept going to the gym, but the squats were "too hard" and I "couldn't" keep my legs in position while setting up for the deadlift, so instead I played around on machines, thinking it would all get better.
Of course it didn't, and now I've lost a fair amount of progress after about a month long layoff, and so begins my second attempt.
I had my first day back in the gym yesterday. I took a 5 minute warmup on a stationary bike and then went to the real work.
Body weight - 182lbs
Squats - 3x5@165lbs
Bench - 3x5@115lbs
Power Cleans- 5x3@95lbs
Food: I drank my gallon of milk, at some oats with yogurt, and put down half of a delicious homemade pepperoni and sausage pizza. It was truly a thing of beauty. We're talking about a pan full of dough, topped with sauce, a pound and a half of cheese, 8 ounces of pepperoni and maybe 16 ounces of sausage? Not really sure. I probably ate some other things too. The food part of my log will only get better, since I only decided to take the food log part of this seriously today.
My plan for weekly programming is similar, at least at first glance, to the practical programming novice program. The difference is that I added power cleans on Monday, since power is important to lifting but especially important to track cycling. Since I added power cleans on Monday, I moved the deadlifts to Friday, which I intend to hit even harder now, since I'll have the whole weekend to recover from them. I added pistol squats to wednesday because I enjoy doing them, and Wednesday was looking awfully lonely without a double helping of leg work.
Monday-
General warmup on a stationary bike at 120 rpm for 5 minutes
Squats 3x5
Press/bench 3x5
Power Cleans 3x5
Chins to failure (which for now means negative chins, since I can't do any yet)
Wednesday-
General warmup on a stationary bike at 120 rpm for 5 minutes
Squats 3x5
Press/bench 3x5
Chins to failure
Pistol squats
Friday-
General warmup on a stationary bike at 120 rpm for 5 minutes
Squats 3x5
Press/bench 3x5
Deadlifts 1x5
Chins to failure