I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

[armerida]

So I am one week into SS based on the program as outlined in PP 2nd edition, and figured it would be a good idea to keep a log here to keep me accountable and for any other women on here, who seem to be few and far between.

A little bit about myself:
Sex: Female
Age: 30
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 120 lbs
Goals: To get stronger! faster! for all the other activities I enjoy - snowboarding, cycling, hiking/climbing
For food, I follow the "primal blueprint," similar to paleo but a little more flexibility for dairy, dark chocolate, wine, etc. I am sticking with this way of eating, but am also drinking raw milk + whey powder every morning for breakfast.

I don't have much experience with lifting - did a round of P90x over the summer (cheezy, yes, but it helped me eventually find SS by looking for a better program!) and then bought an Olympic weight set, bench, and rack. Found SS and already am making better gains than over the past few months. My husband and I are doing it together, so should help keep the motivation up, and nice to have a spotter, too!

This past week I followed the "rank novice" workouts from PP (no power cleans yet), but am planning on adding them in tomorrow when I begin the second progression in the program. I am using a 20 kg Olympic bar for everything except my presses, for which I am using an old lightweight (3 lb) standard bar until my number are up. Looking for a used woman's bar and/or aluminum training bar on craigslist...

WEEK ONE
Workout 1 - Monday 11/15/10
Workout A
(figuring out my starting weights, kept adding lbs till I slowed down)

Squat
45x5x2
50x5x1
55x5x1
60x5x1
Work Set: 65x5x3

Press
18x5x2
23x5x1
28x5x1
33x5x1
Work Set: 38x5x3

Deadlift
45x5x2
55x5x1
65x5x1
75x5x1
Work Set: 85x5x1

[armerida]

WEEK ONE
Workout 2 - Wednesday 11/17/10
Workout B

Squat
45x5x2
50x5x1
55x3x1
65x2x1
Work Set: 70x5x3

Bench Press
(figuring out starting weight)
35x5x2 (w/3 lb. standard bar)
45x5x1
50x5x1
55x5x1
Work Set: 55x5x3

Deadlift
45x5x2
55x5x1
70x3x1
80x2x1
Work Set: 90x5x2 (did an extra set by accident, what a killer!)

[armerida]

WEEK ONE
Workout 3 - Friday 11/19/10
Workout A

Squat
45x5x2
55x5x1
60x3x1
70x2x1
Work Set: 75x5x3

Press
23.5x5x2
30x5x1
30x3x1
35x2x1
Work Set: 40.5x5x3 (yay fractional plates!)

Deadlift
45x5x2
60x5x1
70x3x1
85x2x1
Work Set: 95x5x1

After completing my first week, it seems like I will be adding 5 lbs to the squat and deadlift every workout, and 2.5 to the press and bench press. I am planning on adding in power cleans this upcoming week to move to the next progression in the PP 2nd edition sequence, unless anyone thinks I should stick with working on the deadlift for another week. The PP book is somewhat unclear - first it says do the rank novice program the first few workouts, then says to do it for the first couple of weeks, until the "freshness" of the deadlift has worn off and it is well ahead of the squat - mine is 20 lbs ahead, should I add in the cleans this week?

[Kyle Schuant]

It's great to have an activity like this for a couple. Where have you put your setup? I'm always interested to see people's home gyms, the simple basics are good.

I won't offer advice, except to say well done, keep going.

[armerida]

Had to switch to Tu-Th-Sa for this week b/c of crazy schedule!

WEEK TWO
Workout 4 - Tuesday 11/23/10
Workout B

Squat
45x5x2
55x5x1
65x3x1
70x2x1
Work Set: 80x5x3 (went down too far & almost sat down on the 1st one, fine after that!)

Bench Press
45x5x2 (forgot to sub my standard 3 lb bar for the warm-up sets so they were a little too close to my work weight)
50x5x1
50x3x1
55x2x1
Work Set: 57.5x5x3

Power Clean
(1st time doing them, so started w/jumping w/the bar, hang cleans, below knee cleans, then power cleans for a few sets to get form correct)
35x5x2 - (used my standard 3 lb bar w/plates; so light that the bar flew up too easily - yikes!)
38x5x1
45x5x1 (empty Olympic bar)
55x5x1 - too heavy! bad form
Work set: 50x3x5 - these were tough b/c of working on the technique, felt more confident & better form around the 3rd set

Soooo...Mark recommended in the Q&A forum that I add in the power cleans this week, and they were challenging but fun. Will have to slowly bring the weight up w/my micro plates. Also, I really want a 15 lb technique bar!

[MazdaMatt]

Hey Armerida, good work so far. You will probably want to limit your warmup reps. if your working weight is 80, doing 5 reps of 55, 65 and 70 beforehand has to be a bit of a grind. For your 85lb workout, try this:
45x2x5
55x4
65x3
75x2
85x3x5

It gets you warmed up, gets your nervous system used to pushing near-work-weight but it won't wear you out.

[gamedog]

Mark Sisson is awesome. Good on you for following him!

And good on you for wanting to get stronger, too. You will find that barbell training will help greatly enhance your over-all enjoyment of not only the activities you love, but of living life in-general as well.

I suggest an extra 11 ounce porterhouse steak, per day for you, and a half of an avocado as well. And make sure you get good, restful sleep every night, too!

Good on you for keeping a log. I'll check back in on you often. In the meantime, good luck and go kick some ass with the 85 (or 90 if you're still going up by 10 or whatever) squats on Friday. Make it happen and get strong :-) :-D

[slowjoe]

Hey Armerida, good work so far. You will probably want to limit your warmup reps. if your working weight is 80, doing 5 reps of 55, 65 and 70 beforehand has to be a bit of a grind. For your 85lb workout, try this:
45x2x5
55x4
65x3
75x2
85x3x5

It gets you warmed up, gets your nervous system used to pushing near-work-weight but it won't wear you out.

Wot 'e said.

Except I'd go 45/65/85 for the weights.

I'd also consider sets of 3 for my cleans (sets of 5 for everything else), although my record for cleans is fairly poor.

[gamedog]

Work Set: 80x3x5 (went down too far & almost sat down on the 1st one, fine after that!)

Also, LOL I know precisely what you did without seeing you do it because I've done it before LOL ... It's not that you went down too far. I know this, because I squat extremely low, ass-to-grass baby... Rather, what you most likely did was two-fold:

1. your feet are just a hair wider than shoulder-width (which isn't bad, I keep my feet a little wider because I have long-ass, Abraham Lincoln legs)
2. when you got down there your ass actually went a little bit forward, and I know this sounds nuts, but your hammies may have been at fault

Sounds crazy but it happened to me once a long while ago while I was doing StrongLifts 5 x 5. I knew my hamstrings were at fault because both the damn things locked up real bad and it hurt like a motherfucker and I was on the floor, in the rack and people were lauging at me LOL

Squat past parallel, make sure to push from the heels, and do dynamic stretching for your legs before you squat, and that'll loosten them up and take care of it.

[spiderman]

I squat extremely low, ass-to-grass baby

Game, does your lower back go into flexion when you are deep in the hole? Mine does if I go very low.