The "My grandma is stronger than you" Log

[Noema]

Feel free to skip this and jump straight to my log:

Here’s the story: I’ve always been very averse to sports and physical activities in general. I was a fat kid and later, a fat teenager. I was so out of shape at age 16 that I couldn’t air squat below parallel even if my life depended on it. I would be out of breath just by going up the flight of stairs that led from my bedroom to the kitchen.

For a variety of reasons, at age 17 I decided I had had enough with being fat and lazy and started jogging, a lot. I’d jog twice a day, seven days a week. And a lot of dieting, to the point of almost starving myself. Since I was so out of shape, the results came pretty fast: I lost almost 80lb in a little over a year. I also worked with some old dumbbells my dad had around the house. I didn’t know anything about weight training so I just did stuff I’d seen in magazines like hammer curls, triceps kickbacks and tons of sit-ups and crunches. I didn’t get much out of that.

So, by the time I started college at age 19 I wasn’t fat anymore. On the contrary, I was skinny as a flagpole (157lb at 6’2”). Worse, I was skinny fat: I was pretty flabby and had a lot of loose skin, and had absolutely no muscle tone to speak of. And I was incredibly out of shape and very, very weak. And I had constant joint pain, specifically in my knees. Mild, but lingering pain, nonetheless.

Fast forward to late March 2011 when I decided to get back into the gym (I’d been in a couple of commercial gyms with no results). I must confess that originally I got into barbell training thanks to Stronglifts 5x5, but I switched over to SS as soon as I found out about Rip and the books.

As a completely detrained, sedentary 32 year-old, and with no real history of physical activity other than jogging, barbell training is brutally hard to me. I am weak like a little girl, and have the flexibility of an 80 year-old. The first time I tried squatting, I couldn’t even get close to a half squat, regardless of how hard I tried. Worse, after my first week squatting with a barbell and some weight (65lb) my knees hurt so bad that I thought I had seriously injured them. It took them almost 6 weeks to heal, and I used this time to work on my mobility and flexibility, following Kelly Starrett’s amazing Mobility WODs. Fortunately, I can now squat to depth with no problem and my knees haven’t hurt since. In fact this is the first time since I can remember in which they haven’t hurt at all.

I must also mention that I had a pretty serious arm fracture 11 years ago: I was hit by a car and landed on my right humerus, which fractured in two places (in the middle and also near the head of the humerus, right at the neck of the bone, the so-called surgical neck). Recovery was long and difficult, mostly because of poor decisions taken by my first orthopedist, and I finally underwent surgery 12 weeks after the fracture. Because of this, and also partly due to my negligence to rehab properly, much of my right anterior deltoid is basically just scar tissue. This mostly affects my press, naturally.

So I’ve been working up on my linear progression, albeit rather slowly. Although flexibility is not a real issue anymore, I’m still weaker than a bingo-playing, blue-haired 88 year-old grandma.

Current Stats:
Age: 32
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 190lb (up from 175lb in March).

I’m doing GOMAD, and I’m eating about 3500 Kcals a day. (About 250g of protein)

Here are my current lifts:

Squat: 200lb

I hate squatting. I find it so hard. So hard in fact that I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong, because I don’t think 200lb are supposed to feel so heavy.

Deadlift: 245lb

The deadlift is the only lift in which I haven’t stalled yet. I enjoy it and I try to work on my technique a lot too.

Bench: 150lb

Benching is really hard too. I think my technique is awful. I have a hard time keeping my upper back tight when benching. Luckily my right shoulder hasn’t bothered me like I thought it would.

Press: 96.5lb

This one is truly challenging, what with my scar tissue deltoid. I often stall, and I have reset this lift so many times I have lost count. I’m currently micro loading it, adding just 1 pound to it per week.

Power Clean: 140lb (I must admit I just started doing Power Cleans relatively recently)

I really enjoy this one. It’s so different from the other lifts. Plus, I must admit I enjoy the stares I get at the gym when I do it.

Chin-ups: 3x8 BW

I’m trying to break 3x12 before I start adding weight to them.

I recently took about 3 weeks off lifting due to a back injury (unrelated to lifting). After getting back to the fray last week, I think this is a good time to finally start a log.

[Noema]

Sept. 26th 2011

I decided to go very light since I hadn’t lifted in almost a month.

Squat

2x5 45lb
1x3 135lb
1x2 155lb
1x1 165lb
3x5 175lb

Felt pretty easy.

Bench

2x5 45lb
1x3 95lb
1x2115lb
3x5 135lb

Upper back felt really loose. Didn’t have trouble handling the weight but I have the feeling more weight will really make it clear my technique is holding me back.

I should add that I'm doing a pretty narrow grip. Not Bodybuilder narrow, but narrower than prescribed in SS. This seems to be the most comfortable for my shoulder.

PC

2x5 45lb
1x5 95lb
3x5 115lb

Nothing to write home about, but then again I’m going pretty light here.

Chins

BW 3x7

[Noema]

September 28th, 2011

Squat

2x5 45lb
1x3 135lb
1x2 155lb
1x1 175lb
3x5 185lb

Last set was pretty rough. Last rep went up very slowly

Press

2x5 45lb
1x3 60lb
1x2 75lb
3x5 90lb

Deadlift

2x5 90lb
1x3 145lb
1x2 185lb
1x5 205lb

[Noema]

September 30th

Squat

2x5 45lb
1x3 135lb
1x2 155lb
1x1 165lb
3x5 195lb

About as hard as Wednesday; had to go really slow on the last couple of reps.

Bench

2x5 45lb
1x3 95lb
1x2115lb
3x5 140lb

Wrists (specially right wrist) felt sore afterwards. Last rep went up slower.

PC

2x5 45lb
1x5 95lb
1x2 115lb
3x5 120lb

Chins

BW 3x7

[Noema]

Squat

2x5 45lb
1x3 135lb
1x2 155lb
1x1 165lb
3x5 200lb (failed)

Failed the last rep on the second and third set. Barbell felt heavy, like trying to squat an elephant. Was mentally and physically drained afterwards. Did a final set of 3 at 200lb just to try to make up for the failed reps.

Press

2x5 45lb
1x3 60lb
1x2 75lb
3x5 95lb

Deadlift

2x5 90lb
1x3 145lb
1x2 185lb
1x5 225lb

[Noema]

October 5th, 2011

Had to skip this workout due to a work-related issue.

[Noema]

October 7th, 2011

So I finally decided to do something about my squats; namely, I want to improve my technique as much as possible instead of grinding out the weight which is what I've been doing up until now. So far, I've been doing high bar squats, with the bar squarely on my traps. I've done this because it simply felt more natural, and I never really got the hang of doing low bar squats. And I just feel my technique is terrible: it's hard to activate the posterior chain with high bar. Also I find it hard to keep my lower back extension when going deep. And intend to stick out my chest up first, and I feel all this contributes to my stalling with such small weights (currently 200lb). I had tried finding the right position for low bar before but I always ended thinking "this is too hard" and I'd go back to high bar.

But it's time I stopped being stubborn and start doing them right, or at least the way prescribed by SS and this forum. So on Wednesday and yesterday I spent several hours re-reading the squats chapter, as well as re-watching the DVD. So I entered the gym with one goal in mind and that was "I'll squat low bat today. " So after fiddling around with the empty bar for about 30 minutes I think I finally got it. Because of my shoulder injury, the position is slightly uncomfortable, but honestly, it's not as bad as I thought it'd be.

So here's what I did today:

Squat (low bar!)

7x5 45lb
5x5 95lb
4x5 115lb
3x5 135lb

It's interesting how different low bar feels compared to high bar. I expected it to be different but it almost feels like a completely new exercise. 3x5 135lb felt really easy; not that 135lb high bar is hard but low bar you can tell the whole lower body is doing the exercise, not just the quads. My back felt really tight which is good. I'll try 185lb on Monday, but I'm hopeful I can master low bar soon.

Bench

Just like the squat, I feel I really need to improve my technique here, specially learning how to squeeze my shoulder blades and keeping my whole body tight. I re-read the boos and studied the DVD yesterday. The large amount of volume corresponds to my trying to practice technique today.

5x5 45lb
3x5 95lb
3x5115lb
3x5 135lb

I tried a slightly wider grip today. Overall the 135lb still felt tough, specially as my right arm kept giving in. I kept loosening my body. Definitely need to keep practicing.

PC

2x5 45lb
1x3 95lb
1x2 115lb
3x5 125lb

Chins

3x8 BW

Overall I feel this was a pretty productive day. Of course there were no PRs or anything but I feel I'm on the right track. I'm actually pretty happy that I finally found the elusive low bar position.

[Noema]

Squat


2x5 45lb
1x3 115lb
1x2 135lb
3x5 145lb

Still getting the hang of low bar. Felt some discomfort on my right forearm, specially on my wrist, as I experimented with different grip widths until I find something I can work with. Overall I like it a lot. I'm resetting my squat to put more practice into low bar with lower weights. 145lb felt super easy, as it should, but really tight. It also feels better on the knees.

Press



2x5 45lb
1x3 60lb
1x2 75lb
3x5 97lb

Deadlift

2x5 135lb
1x4 155lb
1x3 170lb
1x2 185lb
1x5 230lb

This was hard. I felt my form suffered in latter reps, specially when setting the bar down.

[Regin Smidur]

Have you seen the "So You Think You Can Bench" series by Dave Tate? Its a long series of videos on youtube thats very informative in regards to bench technique.

[Noema]

Have you seen the "So You Think You Can Bench" series by Dave Tate? Its a long series of videos on youtube thats very informative in regards to bench technique.

Yeah, coincidentally I just watched them this weekend. I tried implementing some of pointers he gave regarding positioning. It did feel odd benching with the arms so closely tucked in. I'd rather flare them out a bit more like prescribed in SS. But I can definitely try and learn as much as I can from the videos.