Time for another aSS kicking! Confuzzl3don3's SS Log

[confuzzl3don3]

Ok so i decided to log my progress this time round on here so i can get ridiculed for my weak lifts, laughed at for my bad taste in music and for the general entertainment of you guys who want to see me get squashed into pulp by the barbell.

Monday 30 August

So i've made my first real gain in bodyweight in like 4-5 months. Have put on 0.5kg since last week to 71.5kg. Before i proceed i'd like to say that I'm going to do be doing a compromised SS at best because i will be eating only to gain between 0.5-1kg/week. Hopefully it'll be enough to pull off continual gains.

Coming back from a cut, i deloaded by 10% and am now approaching my maximal weights again.

Worksets only:
Squats - 122.5kg = 5/5/3 (i'm attributing the failed last rep to a poor night's sleep - had to pull off a late nighter to finish off a group project for uni, although i must say the reps were hard. It's quite a blow to the ego when my last completed set was at 125.5kg for 5 and i'm having trouble now with 122.5kg, but i realised that during my cut i was only squatting for 2 sets so it was only 125.5kg for 2. I guess more conservative increases in weight now will be needed to sustain progress.)

Press - 51.5kg = 2/3 (same deal i'm attributing this to the crap rest, but in all honesty i need to work on developing explosiveness at the bottom because that is constantly where i'm getting stuck. I dropped the weight down to complete 2 more sets of 5)
50kg = 5/5

Powercleans - 67.5kg = 3/3/3/3/3 (mixed quality of reps. Some were decent while others were caught a bit low (on the sternal angle) causing some significant bruising.

PS. i don't know if this is related, but i ran into some groin pain after last week's monday session. It's now seemed to have manifested into running down the middle of thigh primarily higher up near the hips. I've tried massaging it with a tennis ball and all that but it's starting to become a nuisance. Might be interfering slightly with my lifts.

[confuzzl3don3]

Ok the pain in my left leg seems to have flared up again after yesterday's session. I think i've isolated it more as adductor pain rather than quad as its mainly near the groin region. I think the pain was just radiating slightly or that my quads may have also been slightly compromised that i felt it down the middle of my leg as well.

So i get some discomfort/pain when i squat down (even without), but the funny thing is that as i continue squatting more, the pain seems to go away. The discomfort mainly arises when i reach near the bottom of the squat (maybe about the level of a half squat).

Do i need to lay off squatting heavy until this shit heals up again, sigh.... Would it be possible to get away with using deads as a subsitute so ie. warming up with squats sort of like the Starr rehab protocol and then switching over to do 3x5 relatively heavy deadlifts since they don't hit the adductors as much? Or would that not be conducive to recovery or would be too taxing on my back or what?

The funny thing is that i can squat through the discomfort/pain, but if quite definitely puts me off from putting 100% effort into my squats because of it.

[ivankannan]

Definitely subbed!
These are no way weak lifts man, at least compared to mine especially that we have comparable body weights [but I have much higher bf level ]

[confuzzl3don3]

^thanks for the kind words.

So to get to today's workout.

Wednesday 1 September (woot!! spring is here!!)

My adductor/groin injury seems to have gone downhill from that monday squat session, so i definitely needed to rehab it.

Squats
20kg = 5/5
40kg = 5/5
60kg = 1
Switched over to a narrow stance with toes less pointed outwards
60kg = 5
80kg = 5
90kg = 2
98kg = 2
80kg = 5/5/5
Returned to normal wider stance
20kg = 5

I did this ladder type approach where i started with my normal wide stance and did some slow controlled sets of 5. Slowly moved up 20kg each time. When i felt too much pain i stopped. Switched to a narrower stance, and continued to push up 20kg at a time. I wanted to see if i could hit my light (80% of monday's weight) with the narrow stance, but on getting 2 reps of 98kg with some significant discomfort i erred on the side of caution and dropped back to 80kg where i could quite comfortably get my 3x5 at the narrow stance. After this i returned to 20kg for a normal stance and it felt really quite comfortable (which i hope is a good sign)

Bench
74kg = 5/5/4(2) <- annoyed at missing the rep that i set the bar back into position took some deep breaths and did another 2 reps.

Deadlift
157.5kg = 5
I was going to err to the side of caution, but as i worked up in weights i felt no pain or discomfort so i just kept going. Then i just hit my workset for 5. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass, because last time i had some nagging lower back discomfort/strain i rested on the squats because it actually affected it, but it didn't seem implicated with the deadlifts so i just proceeded as normal. I set a PR that day, but i paid for it by waking up the next morning with my back turning into a full blown injury. Ended up having to rehab for 3 weeks. Let's hope history does not repeat itself.

I'm going to improvise foam roll with a frozen water bottle now. I just want to check in that i'm doing it right. Are you meant to come out of it feeling more painful than before you started? And how often should one be foam rolling an injury? Would too often prevent the area from healing?

[manisstrong]

Good luck with the squat rehab, doing the same thing at the moment. Also adductor problem I think.

Btw, large difference between deadlift and bench. I thought my difference (100kg vs 55kg) was too much and that my arms were weak compared to everything else, but I guess it's probably normal for someone who trains their whole body. I'm probably used to seeing stats from people who used to never train lower body.

[confuzzl3don3]

Haha i have seriously skewed upper and lower body lifts. Even my deadlift and squat has a massive gap. I don't know why, but ripping stuff off the ground seems to be easier for me than squatting.

Good luck on the rehab for you as well.

[tescott]

Confuzz, any reason you're not using the starr rehab? Just curious.

[confuzzl3don3]

To be serious i don't think it's that serious to warrant starr rehab. I'm not even sure if it's a muscle injury or a tendon injury at the moment because sometimes after i get exercising it seems to hurt less suggesting its more a tendonitis type thing, but at the same time it seems to be more an adductor muscle type thing. I'm not really that great with injuries. I've actually never followed the Starr rehab protocol as written. I've had 2 other semi-major injuries (both lower back) which i rehabbed following the principle of Starr rehab but without using so many reps, and stuff. So i guess i just try to follow the principle of active recovery but i don't really follow the rehab protocol.

[confuzzl3don3]

Yesterday's workout.

Friday 3 September
Squats
20kg = 6/5
40kg = 5/5
60kg = 5
80kg = 4
100kg = changed to narrow stance for 2, wider stance for 2
80kg = back to a wider stance 5/5
90kg = 5
100kg = 4

So on the whole my left leg is better. Hopefully i'll be able to get back to my workset on monday.

Press
51.5kg = 4/5/4/(short break then did 2 more)

Chins
21.5kg = 5/4/4(followed by 3 unweighted)

I'm so frustrated at my upper body lifts. Both the press and bench have already started stalling >< I've gained weight, but my upper body lifts refuse to budge. Would adding in assistance exercises such as dips help these pushing exercise? Or would that be more like "too many cooks spoil the broth" and it would make progress on the bench and press even harder?

[confuzzl3don3]

Monday 6 September

Squats

Didn't turn out what i had hoped. I had thought/hoped it would be back 100% by today and i thought it would be because it didn't seem to hurt, however on working up to my work sets i found that the pain started coming back as i hit the heavier weights. So i had to sit it out again. Surprisingly as i said before it feels better as i work it more (within reason that is). Does it still sound like a muscle injury? It feels like it rather than some tendonitis, but at the same time it's acting like a mixture of tendonitis and muscle strain/injury. Or maybe i'm just unlucky and had both. Either way i'm annoyed at this persistent injury.

20kg = 5/5
50kg = 4
82.5kg = 3
100kg = 2
110kg = 1
100kg = 7/5/7 (since i couldn't go heavy on the weight i wanted to hopefully help work the motion a bit more so i did extra reps on the first and last set)

Bench
75kg = 5/5/5 (glad to have blasted through this)

Powerclean
68.5kg = 3/3/3/3/3 (just a question though, do you guys count it still as a set of 3 even if u miss a rep and so end up actually doing 4 of 5 reps)