Moiz's Rise to Power

[Qureshi]

Hello Everyone. My name is Moiz and I feel its time to move the this section of the forum finally!

Previous Log to view my struggle to power - http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=18180

For those who don't know me, here's a little about myself. I'm a medical student from London, UK who stumbled into SS with massive help and motivation from my good friend Sami. At first I wasn't impressed with it but soon started to see strength gains and physique changes. I was hooked. I've been doing SS properly for the past 1.5years and the time has come to progress.

I will be doing madcows 5x5 now.

PRs - 1RMs
Squat - 155kg
Deadlift - 180kg
Bench Press - 75kg
Overhead Press - 60kg

[Qureshi]

So were back from the holidays and back into training with a vengeance. Were at a fairly conveniently located hospital in central london which awesomely has a gym with decent weights and that isn't very busy at all. Unfortunately, there are downsides...
a 7.30am start and almost 12hr long days are pretty killer and also the travel is burning holes in my wallet and consequently I have barely enough food to feed myself.
Im loving the return to training though.

Monday
Felt awesome for some wierd reason.

Squat
130 x 5
Felt stupidly easy and powerful and easily made depth. Will prob bump this up to 140 on the friday workout.

Bench
70 x 5
These were also pretty decent but i really need to focus on keeping wrists straight.

General Dicking around:

Chins - Frenchies
2 reps of BW +5kg
I had NO IDEA how brutal these were! Intended to do 3 reps but couldnt manage. Will try again on friday.

45 degree back extension
15kg - 10,10,10
Easy

Kroc Rows
47.5kg - 7 on each arm
Pretty hard on the grip because straight after frenchies which rape grip. Will prob do with straps from now

Tricep Pulldown
80kg - 1 (PR!)
70kg - 10,10,10 (set PR!)
80kg is def the most ive ever done and 70kg the most for sets! This is very promising.

Probably did some other crazy exercises but cant really remember

BW: 83ish

[Qureshi]

Todays session
This was a lot more tiring and less fun than the prev workout. I guess because I had 3hrs of crappy ass sleep last night because of tossing and turning...

Squat (light)
100kg - 2 x 5
Easy and super-depth (well relative to my crappy usual depth)

OHP
belted 55kg - 4.5!
belted 50kg - 5
These werent really too hard except I kept getting v tired around the 4th rep. and the half rep of 55kg was an absolute struggle to the point where I couldn't actually keep the bar up at all and it just dropped. Not cool.

Deadlift
170kg - fail
160kg - 1,3,2
This was by far the biggest disappointment of the day. Felt really heavy - couldn't get 170 off the floor! Lockout was a struggle for all reps which has NEVER happened before. I also need to look up with the deadlift. I will work on these and hopefully the tabata rows will remedy them.

Weighted Situps (45 deg decline)
15kg on chest - 8,8
5kg behind head - 8
The 15s were ok but the 5kg was probably the most difficult exercise ab-wise I have ever done. I will do these more too from now on.

BW: 83/84kg

Ok I'd better go get some sleep now...gotta wake up in 6hrs. Yay for medicine

[Qureshi]

Cardio day today - the first of several to come. BRUTAL

Only had breakfast at 6 in the morning, and then a chicken leg at 12. Nothing otherwise, went into the gym at 1ish?

Elliptical Trainer
20mins at 7mph resistance 6 whatever that means
Fairly easy but quads started to cry out after 5 mins! Pushed through it though with good music.

Power Cleans
50kg - 5 x 3
55kg - 5 x 3
60kg - 5 x 3
65kg - 5 x 3
70kg - 2 (PR!)

I did all these with half a min rest in between each set. They were all strong and the bar flew up to past my nose on all cleans up to 60kg (meaning im prob doing it wrong!)
65 required a slight dip down to rack it well.
and a PR schweeeeet! These were hard but not v ugly and was just to try it out. Loved it.

Tabata Plank holds
20 sec holds followed by 10 sec rest x 8
watched my form in a mirror to see if the plank was straight. Wasn't sure because of the huge tumour-like growth that is my ass, but was pretty close. These hurt WAY more than expected.

Tabata Rowing machine
about 1:40/500m split time at res 8 (the first 4 intervals were around 1:35ish)
This is a lot weaker than what i used to do. May be because of all the cardio beforehand knackering me out but at least i know what to do to sort out my deads. Loads more of this.
It hurts so goddamn much. Had a splitting headache for 15mins, out of breath for 10mins and a REALLY short temper for about an hour. I hope it works.

BW: 82kg!

[Babu]

Don't go to 140kg, it looked strong but you were beginning to lose back angle a little towards the end. It was also your standard borderline depth =P don't get me wrong, it was a good set and it didn't look hard but jumping to 140kg probably isn't a sensible idea in the long run.

Also, Tabata planks wtf? You may as well just work up to holding a plank for 4 minutes instead...

Planks were good though. Lunchtime training tomorrow, get on it!

[Dastardly]

Those tabata planks are a little silly. I used to do planks and I worked up to several minutes pretty quickly. I could also do 1 minute plank with 20kg plate on my lower back. It took no time at all to work up to this, and my ab strength didnt feel particularly great either. I mean, I cant even do 1 full ab wheel rollout (from the feet, not knees)

[Qureshi]

Babu what the hell man - even Sami said that my squats on tues were all to definite depth apart from the 1st which was borderline - so SCREW thee. I cant remember much about the back angle tho tbh.

Tabata planks I did cos I was absolutely shattered at this point and wanted to do an "easy" tabata - oh how wrong I was. I was so shattered at this point that tabata planks turned out to be insanely hard. But I see what you guys mean. Dastardly I think I might try out some ab rollouts. You've inspired me.

Todays Workout
I was pleasantly surprised at how well this session went considering what i put my body through yesterday.

Squats
140 x 3 -
These were easy - It was just difficult to concentrate on keeping back angle and stopping getting tossed forward by the weight. This happened on rep 2. Other than that, easyyy. Will bump this up 5kg next fri oh yes.

Bench
72.5 x 3 (close grip)
60 x 8 (wide grip)
The 3 were all good - managed to stop my wrists bending at all and could really concentrate. Wide grip was surprisingly strong and fast and the ROM is so much smaller than with close grip. I think Ill keep doing this tbh - for a while.

Rack Pulls (above knee)
warmup sets
180kg x 3
200kg x fail
Sami wanted to do these so I obliged. These were quite a lot harder than I had thought. Hated them. Id rather do back extensions.

Chin ups - frenchies
BW + 5kg - 2 still
So annoying. The static holds really kill any chance of you pulling yourself up after 2 reps. Will try it yet again this mon.

45 degree back extension
20kg - 3 x 10
Strong and fast

Tricep extension
72.5kg - 3 x 8 (PR!)
Hard but doable. Will move on up this mon. Considering my 1rm is 80kg, this is going pretty well.

Nutrition is pretty bad at the min - maybe it will improve next week. Ill try harder to get in meals even if it means taking a protein shake on the ward rounds in the hospital!

BW: 83kg i suppose
will measure body fat tomorrow to get an idea.

[Sami]

You should get vaccinated.

[Qureshi]

Had a bit of a scare from not being able to post onto my own thread...seems I can only post when on my home comp dno know why

Monday
Was feeling pretty good today.

Squats
140kg - 2 x 5 (PR!) -
-
Got questionable depth on some of the ones in set 1 so decided to do another set. The second set felt stupidly easy and the bar flying off my shoulders on the last rep of set 2 was because I got a little excited... 145 on friday if all stays well.
btw loving the vote of confidence on my second last rep of the second set! 'rack it don't do another one motherfucker!' JOKES

Bench
72.5 x 5
These were fairly easy so will be moving up. Wrists were straight for most reps.

Chin ups - frenchies
BW + 7.5kg - 3 (PR!)
Amazingly I was able to both get another rep in as well as increase the weight. Also my BW was up because of 2 dinners I was invited to on the weekend.

45 degree Hypers
22.5kg - 3 x 10 (PR!)
Used Babus ingenious idea of placing a small weighted bar in a high-bar position on the back to do these. Otherwise the elbows get in the way. These were easy and fast.

Tricep pulldowns
72.5kg - 3 x 10 (PR!)
first set was pretty tough, next 2 were piss easy. I think its more of a psychological thing as to whether you can do these. Managed to do them with near perfect form.

BW: 84kg

Tuesday
This was my cardio day. I wasnt expecting much because on monday after hospital work I went to hockey training which I have now started, and then went out. Came back around 4am-ish and slept a bit after. Had about 3-4hrs sleep before having to get up to go back to hosp. Felt pretty decent but knackered during session.

Elliptical cross trainer
Did this in sets of 5mins with 30sec rests. Did 20mins at resistance 7 and 7mph. Was enough to tire me out quite a bit.

Power Cleans
50 - 5 x 3
55 - 5 x 3
60 - 5 x 3
Probably will lay off these, because although there was more control and power this time, the racking is causing me slight pain in the forearm as the bicep presses against the forearm in the racking. Will practice good racking soon. Did these with 1/2 min rests again.

Tabata Rowing Machine
got an ave split time of around 1:35 which is decent. Pussied out a little around round 5 where I stopped 5 secs early to catch breath. Felt OK though and will work harder next time.

BW: 81kg!! (dehydration mainly I guess from all that crap I did on monday!)

Rest of the weeks training will take a hit I guess because I lost muscle on mon due to less sleep and dancing for 5hrs with no food. Also got a flu jab (apparently I should get it for the good of the patients) sceduled tomorrow which will give me slight symptoms for a few days and also didnt take in much protein today...didn't have time.

[Sami]

Yeah, sorry... bad call. Well done!