Female one month into NLP. How am I doing?

[Neeti Schworetzky]

Hi!

Female, 5 foot 4 inches, 158 lbs, new to weightlifting

I have just finished my first month of NLP. I was wondering if you could take a look at my programming and give me some advice on the following:

1. Are my warm up sets looking ok in general? (Link below) I worry sometimes that my last warm up set is a bit close to my working set weight.

2. The squat and deadlift are getting to the point where my form is definitely suffering. On the other hand, I have notmissed any reps yet but I feel like I am getting close to that point. Should I reduce my increases to 2.5 lbs now or weight until I am missing reps?

3. My bench is suffering because my commercial gym does not have a bench set up with those safety bars to keep you from dropping the weight on your chest during a failed rep. I do not have a spotter either. If I feel anywhere close to missing the rep I am cutting it short. Should I reduce the amount I am going up by to 2.5 as well or do I need to suck it up and ask random folks to spot for me :/

4. I think I have made a mess of the overhead press. I have not gone up in weight at all passed an empty 45 lb bar and have managed to give myself pretty decent neck pain twice. I plan on posting videos of my form to get feedback. Should I also do some sort of reset? If so, what does that look like on such low weight? I did recently purchase micro weights but I have yet to use them since I have not been able to do 5 sets of 3 or 3 sets of 5 with an empty bar without hurting myself.

5. Power cleans are very hard to learn! Every other session I try to spend about 10-15 min working on it but I have not come close yet. I plan to keep working on it and post a video for feedback soon. What would a reasonable warm up/working set look like for someone like me?

Here is a link to my training log: Training Log - Google Sheets

Thanks as always for your help!

[Michael Wolf]

1. You probably only need 2 empty bar on squat and one on bench/press. Aside from that, your warm-up jumps should be evenly spaced in weight, or with a slight bias towards bigger jumps at the begging when it's still easy and smaller into your workset. So for example your 12/4 squat workout you went 45-65-85-95-115. That doesn't make sense, to jump 20, 20, 10, then 20 again when it's going into your heaviest set. Better would be 45-65-85-105-115, or 45-65-85-100-115. Same applies to all lifts. Don't make the jump from last warm-up to work weight bigger than the previous jump from penultimate to ultimate warm-up. You're also fine with 3 warm-up sets on DL, don't need 4 right now.

As far as bench and press, you'll be able to increase the spread once your working weight goes up, but ya, right now your warmups will be clustered pretty close together. You could use the lighter bar on bench to mitigate this issue but I assume there's no lighter bar than 25 there, so you're stuck with it on press till your working weight goes up more.

Make your last warm-up ~80-90% of the work weight for a double. You'll be able to experiment with more ways later, but just stick with that for a few months.

2. I see you just switched to 5 sets of 3. Stick with that and 5 lb jumps and get your form checked if you're concerned about it.

3. Yes, reduce bench jumps to 2.5, and bench in the rack with the safeties set up appropriately, if this is at all possible.

4. Sounds like you definitely need a form check here, ASAP: 1/1/2018: Form Checks for Verified Users Only

5. Probably empty bar for 2-3 sets of 3, then a slow titration up to find working weight for 3 reps, at a weight heavy enough to be a little challenging but light enough that you can still pick up when you did something wrong and work to correct it the next rep. Then go up in 2.5 jumps from there.

[Neeti Schworetzky]

Thank you so much!

Can you explain what you mean by double?

Make your last warm-up ~80-90% of the work weight for a double

[Michael Wolf]

A set of 2 reps. In contrast to a single, which is a set of 1 rep. Or your fahves, which are, obviously, sets of fahve reps.

[Neeti Schworetzky]

I finally got verified 🎉

Here’s my press:
Presses 120718 40lb - YouTube

I went with 40 as my working weight since 45 hurt my neck.
Thanks!

[Michael Wolf]

I hope there's a rack at your gym, and you're using and having to clean the 40 up to press it only cause there isn't a lighter bar under 45 that fits in the rack? Cause if not, I recommend a new gym!

That said, they're not bad, but you may be a little more sensitive than usual to lumbar over-extension. You're not really over extending more than I see all the time, but if it's causing pain, then you probably need to be stricter about it than most. Before each rep, clench your abs real hard after you've held in your big deep breath. Imagine like you were being punched in the stomach and couldn't dodge or block it - you have to take the punch. You wouldn't "suck in" or "push out," you'd just clench and brace as hard as possible. It doesn't cause visible movement, but your abs will be hard to the touch. You need to do that, while standing up straight and tall, before each rep: big breath and hold, clench - then hold that clench for the whole rep as well.

Next thing is to bring your elbows up just a little bit at the bottom, and then "aim for your nose" when you press up, instead of pushing the bar out in front of you right at the start.

[Neeti Schworetzky]

There is a rack but you are right. There are no light bars so I use this. I do clean it into position. With the regular bar I use a rack. Thanks for the tips! I will work on the abs and elbows and post again soon.

[Neeti Schworetzky]

Hi Coach,

I think it’s time for that squat check. Are these ‘missed reps?’ Im wondering if next workout I should repeat 130 and then only go up by 2.5 lbs moving forward.

YouTube

Also, if it would be more appropriate for me to post on the technique sub forum, let me know.

Thanks so much!

[Michael Wolf]

The Staff Coaches Q&A is really the place to go for technique feedback. I suggested you do it and you were so excited to get verified and do so that I gave you the first piece, but yes - this forum, as the name suggests, is about programming.

Please read the sticky there first - when getting free form checks from people who command top dollar in person and online for their time, it's polite to wait a week or two between lift checks.

[Neeti Schworetzky]

👍