Tyler's SS log

[Tfin]

Hey guys,
A little background to start things off. Played baseball and football in high school, went on to college to play football. Started thinking with the wrong head and now I have a 5 year old. When I was playing sports I was in great shape and pretty strong for my age. Had my son and things started going downhill for a couple of years, although I didn't want to admit it. Got back into the gym doing my old football workouts and got strong again. Started doing a bodybuilding routine and got in decent shape, but I hurt all the time. Found crossfit through some guys at work and started doing it and lost a lot of muscle mass and a little strength so naturally I came on over to SS and made great strength gains for about 7 months. After the birth of my 2nd son, things went downhill again and I ate everything I wanted, not the good stuff either (cupcakes, brownies, cookies etc...) gained 20 lbs and got up to 240 lbs with a 275x3x5 squat. Not what I call strong.
Anyway, enough of that. Just got back from my honeymoon and am ready to get serious. I've been hanging around the posts for some time and decided that if I am going to do this then I need to be held accountable. My goals are pretty normal, I don't give a damn about a six pack but I would like to be strong and lean. I have to be in pretty good shape for work, (law enforcement and SWAT operator) so I don't want to be a bodybuilding meat head that can't wipe my own ass. I've started to clean my diet up and go low carb but recently decided to get with Johnny Pain for a diet consult. Waiting on him to get back with me, but am pretty excited about his suggestions. Workout wise I had been doing Joe Defranco's WS4SB program and enjoyed it but figured since I'm really not that strong that I should start back over with SS, let diet take care of body composition and keep conditioning to a minimum with our teams weekly PT session (sledgehammer swings, sprints, 1.5 mile runs, car pushes etc...), not ideal with SS but I don't really have a choice if I wanna be on the team.
Started SS today
Squat: 205x3x5
Bench: 205x3x5
Deadlift: 225x1x5
I look forward to hearing suggestions, input, advice and encouragement from you guys. By the way I'm a 26/6'0"/ 228 lbs. I can post pics along the way if you guys want to see how Johnny's diet plan is working out.

[Tfin]

Time to catch up on the log. Tuesday was a training day and we alternated car pushes/sprints for 1.5 miles. Not too bad.
Wed
Squat: 215x3x5
Press: 135x3x5
Power Clean: 135x3x5
All weights were really light and I felt good after the workout.

Fri
Squat: 225x3x5
Bench: 210x3x5
Deadlift: 245x3x5
Again the weights felt good, form felt solid and I felt good at the end of the workout. Diet this week hasn't been too bad. Lots of meat and eggs. Most mornings I'll have oatmeal with breakfast but that's about it for carbs except for some green veggies at the dinner meal. Still waiting on Johnny to get back with me about the diet thing. I also just started creatine so we will see how that goes.

[Tfin]

Alright worked out today instead of Monday because of some scheduling issues at work but at least I had 3 days rest and was ready to go.
Squats: 235x3x5
Press: 140x3x5
Power Clean: 145x3x5

Weights were no problem, although my back was tight after taking so many days off and it took several more warm-up sets on squats. Diet has been ok. Ate plenty of protein this weekend but also way too many carbs for what I've been trying to do. Anyways, still waiting to hear from Johnny about a diet plan.

[Rezart Erindi]

Good work Tfin. Try to milk those gains for as long as you can. Just curious, so you actually are part of a SWAT team? I asked that because it has always been my dream. Anyway, keep us updated.

[Tfin]

Hey Leonidas, thanks for the encouragement man and yeah I am on a SWAT team (we actually call it SRT). I don't know how it's gonna go, but I am planning on getting between 6 to 8 months (hopefully a little longer if I can) of SS in before swapping up. Right now the weights feel good. Diet is going pretty good and I'm not having any problem yet with recovery.
Todays workout was:
Squats: 245x3x5
Bench: 215x3x5
Deadlift: 260x1x5

Weights were no problem, but my grip felt like it was going a little on deadlifts (using double overhand grip right now). I'm gonna try to go a couple more workouts before switching grips. Anyway, that's it for now.

[Tfin]

Alright, just finished today's workout. Headed hom to grill some hamburgers and hangout in the sun for the day. Todays workout:
Squat:255x3x5
Press:145x3x5
Power Clean:155x5x3
Weights felt good, but my back was a little tight afterwards so I did a few sets of reverse hypers. Feel much better.

[Tfin]

Todays workout:
Squats:265x3x5
Bench:225x3x5
Deadlift:275x1x5
Weights felt good today. Squats are starting to feel like I'm working hard but bench was easy. I'll stay with 5lb jumps though.
Talked to Johnny this afternoon and I'm looking forward to getting to work on his diet plan. I'll post pics here shortly so you guys can see what he can do. If any of you guys get the chance, seriously get with him. He's a great guy with real sound training and nutritional info. I don't have any experience with this sort of thing but it seems to me like this guy really wants all of his clients to succeed. On top of that he's as cool as they come.

[Beltshumeltz]

How's your deadlift grip doing? Personally I hate having to switch grips, so as a consolation prize, I allow myself a "backoff" set after my working set that is 40 pounds lighter, but with a double overhand grip, this way I feel like I'm training to improve my grip too.

What are your short term and long term weight goals? You mention a diet so I'm wondering if perhaps you wanna say drop to much lower, and then go back up when you're strong?

[Tfin]

How's your deadlift grip doing? Personally I hate having to switch grips, so as a consolation prize, I allow myself a "backoff" set after my working set that is 40 pounds lighter, but with a double overhand grip, this way I feel like I'm training to improve my grip too.

What are your short term and long term weight goals? You mention a diet so I'm wondering if perhaps you wanna say drop to much lower, and then go back up when you're strong?

Oddly enough, the grip was fine with 275. I guess I was just being a pussy last go around. Not really, but I didn't really notice it this time. Although I do like your idea of dropping weight a bit and using the double overhand grip for grip training. When I get up to actually pulling some weight like a man and grip becomes a real issue, I'd like to try that out. How is it working for you?
As far as goals, right now I don't have any bodyweight goals. I want to get much, much stronger. I'm pushing for a 500 squat, 550-600 deadlift, and a bodyweight press (which would be 228 right now). I figure power clean would get stronger as my deadlift weight comes up and I'm not all that worried about numbers on bench because right now I'm a little disproportionately stronger in bench than all my other lifts. I won't neglect it by any means but everything else needs to get much stronger. I contacted John because I would like to get strong without getting chubby or fat. I think his ideas on body re-composition are great. I don't mind staying 225+ and being able to walk around at about 12% bf.

[Beltshumeltz]

I can't say yet about the grip, as I began using backoff sets this week after my mixed grip failed on a thicker bar last week. However, I did successfully do a backoff set of 1x5x265, when my working set was 1x5x295, using a double overhand grip, and my grip was 100% good for the whole set. 265 used to be the weight at which I switched to mixed grip... so something somewhere helped. Best wishes with John's diet too, I'm gonna have to get on one soon so I'm curious about it.