Finally getting on the program

[Brandon M]

After a couple of weeks of screwing around and waiting on equipment we are starting the program tonight.

Me
Age: 30
Sex: Male
Weight: 200

Girlfriend
Age: 29
Sex: Female
Weight: ~150 (see how long this stays up before she beats me)

We have been doing Crossfit for a few months and had a good time with it, but now its time for us to get STRONG. We are doing the basic Starting Strength program with the addition of Chinups and Pullups alternating every other workout (meaning on A workout days, squat, bench, deadlift+ pull/chin)

I'll update this later with our first workout results.

Thank you in advance for any useful and constructive comments.

[Brandon M]

O.K.
Official workout one completed
results as follows

me
Squat: 170 felt really strong, heavy but stable and smooth
Bench: 145 Slow on my last rep
DeadL: 245 the bestest feeling ever
Chins: 6/5/4

Girlfriend
Squat: 80
Bench: 65
DeadL: 105
Chins: heavily modified kipping jumping negative ect done till I finished my 3 sets (man she is close to a dead hang pullup)

[shaddix]

shit you are strong as hell if those are your starting weights

[Brandon M]

I'm not new to lifting, I'm just new to having a plan. those are roughly 70% of my PRs within the last 6 months.

[Brandon M]

Rest day number one.
Erg. resisting the urge to do something. I knew that the first day off would leave me restless, and I am fully aware that the program is going to get HARD fast, but it is all that I can do to not go outside and lift.
I'm just so excited to see where I go that I don't want to wait until its time to work out.

Got the rest of the mats for my garage, it is definitely superior in every way to the base gym. My only equipment envy is a C2 rower.

Fractional plates and assistance bands (girlfriends pullups) are on their way and should appear around Tuesday.

[Brandon M]

Alright today was supposed to be standard "B" workout, however my girlfriend and I went out to our old Crossfit gym and had one of our trainers do a private session to really tighten up on our form. As a result we lifted pretty heavy several lifts went way over our scheduled weights for today and all sorts of fuckery with the rep schemes.
me
Squat scheduled 185 5X3 Actual worked up from 170 to 210 many sets of 3 working out form and its deterioration.

Press Scheduled 80 5X3 Actual 70x3 80x3 90x3 100xOh jesus bad form, reped 70x8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1

Power Cleans Scheduled Find starting point Actual Worked from 135 to about 155 3RM will back off to 105 for workset starting point

Girlfriend had some nice numbers that we will work into the schedule for her also
Squat 120x3
Press 45x,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
PC 65 worked up to 90x3rm

I kinda want to go to the garage and do my scheduled workout, but I dont know if it would be productive or just Machismo.

[Brandon M]

Woah 0500 was rough for picking up heavy things and putting them back down.

todays results
Me:
Squat 3x5 200 slow had to really focus on pushing my knees out. first rep down I tried to feel for the stretch reflex and sat in the hole for too long, dumped the weights and restarted. lesson learned go deep but don't fucking sit in it

Bench: 3x5 155 made all, slow last couple I think I'll go up by 5 next time. dicked up the vasavala once the weight got heavy for me.

Deadlift: 1x5 265 Have I made mention of the fact that picking heavy shit up off the ground makes me feel like a hard-on with a gun. love deadlifts this felt heavy but quite manageable, once i broke ground it was easy so I think that mentally i wasn't quite on point.

Girlfriend
Squat 3x5 100 amazing form slight knee inward last rep, and tried to go 4x5

Bench 3x5 75 wrists cocked back a hair good speed all reps

Deadlift 1x5 120 warmup reps had a curving bar path, something about weight fixed that, ;P.

I think that the earliness of the workout hurt us a bit we should wake up earlier and eat hydrate and warmup more i suspect. today was drink a glass of water drink a monster, some jumprope, random calisthenics,and get to work.

btw we do follow the 2x5 bar, 1x5,1x3,1x2,worksets I just dont feel like putting warmup sets into the post

[Brandon M]

What a cluster fuck of a workout

Me: broke a toe during squat warmup sets
GF: Forgot her last squat numbers and argued them up wound up doing a 25 lb increase instead of 5
both of us: Aborted Power Cleans due to form poor enough that I was certain Rip would burst through the wall at any moment like an evil avenging cool-aid man and strike us down.

results
Me:
Squat: 3x5 210 slow toe hurt like hell gripping the ground (possibly increased rep speed though)
Press: 3x5 85 Good bar speed expected this to be pretty light and it was
PC: Failure, toe screaming too much.

GF:
Squat: 125 5/3/3
Press: 3x5 50
PC: FAIL

We are going to study PC's more and work on empty bar for form for a while. Crossfit ingrained some bad habits I think, and I'm going to work on Rip's top down method.

do you guys think that 10-15 minutes of empty barbell work every evening will interfere with recovery? I'd like for us to be able to PC again on Monday with at least starting weights, but that means some serious corrections to form.

[MazdaMatt]

Interesting log. I'm just commenting because I have a broken toe right now and it has NO effect on my squats. When you say the toe was "gripping the ground" I am suspecting that you a) are not driving with your heels and you are b) squatting with squishy shoes. Since messing up my toe I have taken the oly lifts out of the program (I was snatching and powercleaning, those are out) but I've still squatted 3x5@280 and deadlifted 5@342.5... they don't bother the toe at all if you're doing it right.

Haha... 25% increase in squat weight was bound to go badly! She's a trooper for giving it, though.

Good log, do your best to stick to the program. It sounds like you've got some training ADHD :-)

[Brandon M]

I lift barefoot, or in Vibram five fingers, but I know that at the top of my lift I tend to shift forwards. I always spread my toes out and gently curl toes down, what I meant by "gripping the ground"
and yeah training ADHD try life ADHD, with four kids and a mother with cancer in the house, if its not written down immediately it is forgotten. She was remembering her 3RM from a couple of days ago (in my defense the whiteboard had the correct weights and plate breakdowns on it)

thanks for the imput Matt, it helps to get another point of veiw.