The Quest for the Holy Squat

About a month ago these were my maxes before Starting Strength.

23yo Male

BW 185lbs 5'10" BF% Between 12% and 16%

Squat 160x1 (Never done these before now)

Bench 250x1

Deadlift 350x1 (Never did these either, very rounded back too)

Press 140 lbs

P.Clean (I just started using my 10lbs above my press weight, so maybe 150)

I thought those numbers were really out of whack so I bought SS now I am posting my log with my gains.


5th workout in:

BW: 190lbs

S: 180x5x3

BP: 215x5x3

DL: 290x5x1

OP (4th workout): 125x5x3 (150x1 last night for the hell of it)

PC (4th): 135x3x5

Deadlift form is much improved as well as Squat form. BP and OP are still my bread and butter. Today the 180 felt off on the last set but my metal in my femur has been hurting the last two days likely due to the weather so I iced it and took IB P. afterwards and feels pretty good now.

Drinking lots of milk. Taking afternoon naps. I am a baby mammal. I wonder if I can get close enough to my cow that is nursing to milk it. I could probably just pretend to be the calf and suck the tit.

In two weeks I will have two weeks off of lifting for some military training but will train my grip strength and bodyweight exercises.

Find that training partner yet? Lol, good luck with everything!

No. I did meet up with the guy on craigslist who called himself Vegeta. He actually turned out to be a pretty decent kid, just a little weird but I kinda liked him. I picked him up the first time but told him he had to get a ride here the rest of the time and I would give him a ride home. He ended up never being able to get a ride.

Screw it. I am flying solo on this. I am doing pretty good so far, workout goes faster too; maybe it is for the best.

I did however find a decent way to self spot on bench. I have a power rack but the holes are way to far apart to get the right safety bar height for bench (fine for squat) so I started out with using some chains hanging from the top of the rack like I have seen before as they are very adjustable. They worked pretty good but I wanted something a little better, so I set up some tow straps I had in a manner just like the chains but they have a much better feel to them and frees up my chains for other things.

I still have plenty of Butt'r, it works really well.

Just a little background info:

I broke my femur in half 7 years ago snowboarding when I was 16. I can do most things fairly normally despite the hardware and the length difference in legs (~1/2"-3/4".) The pictures are what I found on a google search of what my hardware looks like and about what my break looked like. I think I have a few more screws in mine.

Friday, June 04, 2010

Progression is still linear but I looked at the back of Mark's Training log and I am between Intermediate and Advanced for my bodyweight on everything but Squat and Powerclean. Guess I get to milk these gains for their weight in milk.

SQ: 190x5x3

OP: 130x5x3

PC: 140x3x5

Squat and Cleans are now moving at 10lbs a workout. I decided to move Cleans up because they were fairly easy still and I will likely move back to 5lbs a workout when they even back out with the other lifts. The press is still at 5lbs a workout, hope I can keep that up until I hit at least bodyweight (would be nice.)

Sunday, June 6, 2010

I think I have gained about 10lbs in the last month.

BW: ~193

Squat: 200x5x3

B.Press: 220x5x3

Deadlift: 300x5x1

My squat is rapidly approaching my BP and will soon surpass it. I can feel my squat has a lot more linear gains to be made, my BP is much closer to stalling. I already have the fractional plates made for that day. Deadlift also has much linear progression left.

A solid 300/400/500 looks to be on track for everything to hit near the same time.

A 200lb press and 250lb clean will also be close.

My Squat, Deadlift, and P.Clean are all on 10lb increments a workout.
The OP and BP are on 5lb increments but much closer to stalling. It is expected since they were both more advanced already and is also normal for most people.

Tuesday, June 8th 8 workouts in.

Squat: 210x5x3

Press: 135x5x3

P.Clean: 150x3x5

Squats felt good, getting harder though. Press getting really hard. Cleans still pretty easy. I hope to make 300 on squats before I drop to 5lbs a workout but we will see. Cleans will probably hit 200, and I give press maybe 3 more workouts.

I have added:
+70lbs to Squat
+25lbs to Bench
+30lbs to Deadlift
+15lbs to Press
+20lbs to P.Clean

BS: 220x5x3

BP: 225x5x3

DL: 310x5x1


For some reason each set was easier than the last. Probably a mental thing.