barooo attempts to progress in a linear fashion

[barooo]

Been dicking around with crossfit, love feeling in shape when I do it consistently, don't love the fact that I'm not getting stronger and that I can't do some of the workouts as prescribed. Want to get stronger. Want to do oly lifts with nontrivial weights (e.g., move beyond my 165 pound clean). Read Starting Strength and have been lurking over here and at 70's big for a while.

So... I'm doing 3 months of attempted linear progress (at least) and will see where that leaves me. I would like to switch to a more oly-focused program in the Spring. This program may differ ever so slightly in a few details, one of the coaches at the crossfit facility came up with the schedule based it on SS. 3x a week, squat every workout, alternate presses and bench press, DL and power clean, and throw in some chiins or pullups and reverse hypers or back extensions one off two on.

PRs:
squat 205x1
DL 315x1
BP: ??? 125 maybe? Never trained this seriously
press: 115
PC: 155#.

me: 6'1", about 220 so I have some fat to spare.

Weights will be in kg becuase I'm doing my lifting in the oly training area which is metric, it has a rack and bench, platforms, eleiko plates and pendlay bars.

[barooo]

And the first day:

12/1:

squat 60kg 3x5
bench 45kg 3x5
DL 120kg 1x5

I'm starting a little light on squats and benches because I want to hit the heavier weights running on squats, and because I haven't benched in about 2 years and want to make sure my form is good. If I do 5kg jumps for a few workouts I should be near my current 5rm in a couple weeks. DL may have been a little heavy, 130kg x 5 will be hard but I did it pretty fast and with double overhand grip. I think I'd have to switch to hook or alternating for above 130.

[gzt]

Hey, look, it's barooo!

Are you going to be at the oly thing on the 11th? I'm not sure if I'll be there or not.

[barooo]

I will not... My oly lifts suck ass and I don't want to take any chances on messing with this program. One of the reasons I'm doing this is in hopes of getting to be at least not comically bad at oly, like can't consistently snatch 125# bad.

I might go watch though, since it's only a few blocks away and I'd be interested in seeing how it all works.

[gzt]

Yeah, I'm not sure. On the one hand, it's a competition and it's close, but, on the other, though I'm stronger, I haven't really been prepping oly and I'm busy these next couple weeks, so I won't really get a higher total now than 6 months ago. And did I mention I'm busy? I might need that afternoon for something else.

[barooo]

12/3:

500m row warmup (in 2:00), some active stretching and foam roller work, some dislocations and squat stretches.

squat: 5-5-5; 65kg
press: 5-5-5; 40kg
pull-up negatives 8-8-8 w/band and 1 second pause at bottom and top, 3 second negative

Press sucks. I have grip problems with the first rep, I have to do some major grip adjustments when I get it locked out to get under the bar then the rest of the reps are much easier but unless I fix that the first one is going to sneak into a push press so I can get under the bar and make my adjustments. Squat is tough when you're sore, I had a couple reps where I relaxed at the bottom to favor my quads and avoid the hamstring stretch, but the last two sets were solid and it felt good to move. I suspect that 75kg will be my last 5kg jump on squat, and I'll be doing 2kg jumps on the press. I could probably do about 2.5 strict chins, and I can almost do one strict pullup, meaning I can't do one without a slight kip.

EDIT: it occurs to me I never mentioned my age... I just turned 34.

[barooo]

back squat: 5-5-5 70kg/154#

bench press: 5-5-5 50kg/110#

chin-up 8-8-8 I used a band. I tried to do them as slow as I could unbroken, so the first set had about a 2 second negative, 2nd was about a 1 second negative, and the 3rd set was a little faster still.

back extension: 12-12-12 bw only.

I guess I should have put this in somewhere other than SS logs since I'm not pulling often enough to call this SS even if it's very similar otherwise.

Today kind of sucked. All weekend I felt itchy and bouncy like I wanted to get out and do something, this morning I just felt slow and stiff and could barely wake up, and it didn't help that it was 11 freaking degrees out. Nothing was heavy, but the only thing that really popped was the back extensions. Probably going to do one more 5kg jump on squat and I could probably do one more on bench but I'd rather be conservative since I stalled at 125# on stronglifts 5x5 in 2008 so I'm planning 2kg jumps on everything else from here on out except hopefully deadlift.

[barooo]

Also: How did I ever manage to get fat? Eating is fucking hard. I'm trying to do paelo + milk M-F w/ carbs under 50g, then relax a bit on the weekends (meaning 150ish grams of carbs), and shooting for about 3400 cals w/ 250g protein and lots of fat. Drank an entire goddamned can of coconut milk with lunch and I'm looking at only 3000 cals unless I eat more at dinner than planned. And I had like 4 chicken thighs for lunch, so it's not like I'm eating light. Seriously...

[barooo]

Squat 5-5-5 75kg
Press 5-4-5 42kg...
PC 3-3-3-3-3 65kg

Press sucks. I think what happened was I didn't rest quite enough, then I got lost in though on the 3rd rep and took a really sloooooow negative, which taxed me to the point that 4 was a grind and 5 was just not gonna happen. The 3rd set I went for speed and probably could have done 7 so I'm counting it and will try 44kg next time. I think as long as I go fast I should be able to do it.

Squat felt good, but it's getting heavy. Not in the sense of being anywhere close to failing, but it takes my full attention to keep my knees out and my butt back. I think I'm done with 5kg jumps unless I feel extra bouncy on friday.

PC was good, I like power cleans. Had some trouble catching with my arms because I was focusing on the shrug which I tend to neglect so it turns into a half-assed oly clean, and I got a little slow on punching my elbows through and had to muscle it, but the last set was nice and fast and I was able to ninja it up where it seems to just kind of end up on your shoulders without anything really happening.

[barooo]

12/10:
squat: 5-5-5 77kg
bench press: 5-5-5 52kg
pull-up negatives: 8-8-8 w/band @ 0x13 tempo

Thought about 80kg for the squat, but I had a hamstring cramp last night (let's just say at an awkard time and leave it at that) and decided slow and steady wins the race. Experimented with bar position accidentally in the 2nd set by racking it too low... I think I'm going to switch to lower because as long as I get my shoulderblades set and my elbows up, it feels okay and the squat part is smoother and tighter this way. First rep or two hurt my elbows because I wasn't set right for low bar, but it was definitely a more solid squat this way, felt like I was sitting down on my hams.

BP. Standard.

Felt pretty good overall, but I feel pretty wiped, like climbing stairs is an effort.

Monday is 80kg squat, which is a 5 rep PR, and a 125kg deadlift which I think is also a 5 rep PR... Kind of dreading it.