Mike's Starting Strength Log

[floridamike]

47 years old, 5' 10" - 195 lbs of flabby. Never lifted weights before. Never really did any kind of exercise except for some Karate in my 20's and some Akido in my 30's. I almost died about 4 years ago, just before getting married. Really pissed the wife off.

I started having abdominal pains that felt like really bad gas and wouldn't go away. After about three days of it, I went in to see my primary care doc who sent me over for a CT Scan. The CT scan appeared to show a blood clot in my central mesenteric artery that was restricting blood flow. He sent me to the hospital and they knocked me out to do an angiogram and get a closer look.

I woke up the next day in a hospital bed. Turns out that it wasn't a blood clot after all. For some reason, my immune system had decided that my CMA was a rotten son of a bitch and had to die. Polyarteritis nodosa vasculitis was the diagnosis and I got to take high doses of Prednisone for a year followed by a year of Immuran. The prednisone gave me chipmonk cheeks but that went away when I got off of it.

I am now considered in remission but plagued by fatigue. And I'm fat and flabby which probably doesn't help. So, I started looking for solutions to the fat and flabby and found starting strength near the first of the year. I convinced the wife that shelling out a bunch of money for a really nice squat rack was important for my health and got started about three months ago.

I started with the bar and it was heavy for me. I get in two work outs a week usually Monday and Thursday. I'm still sore on Thursday but it's manageable most of the time by Thursday. I haven't gotten a bench yet so I've been doing push-ups until I can get one. Mostly I've been doing squats and deadlifts.

My press form sucks and hurts my left shoulder and elbow still but I'm getting better at it and it doesn't hurt near as much. (I'm a software engineer so spending nine hours a day on the damn keyboard doesn't help much either).

Currently my squat is at 205 and my deadlift is at 225. Weight is still 195. Not quite as flabby although I still have a bit of a belly. Fatigue is actually getting better, I have had a few days with none at all and only a few days of flat on my back can't move. Lately it's just been low level tiredness that I can get past.

[floridamike]

Missed friday workout due to work so I thought I would try a Saturday morning workout. I don't think I'll do that again, never really been a morning person and it was a more than a usual effort to move the weight. Squats were terrible and I missed the fourth rep at 210. I thought my form was pretty good until the weight started getting heavy and now I'm not so sure. My knees are going forwards and I'm really not sure if I have the bar in the right place on my back.

I did manage to get 230 on the deadlift, I had to switch to an alternating grip for the first time. The bar felt like it was going to slip out of my fingers.

Harbor City Crossfit here in Melbourne has a starting strength certified coach and they do a intro course that sounds like a really good idea for me. I think I will give them a call next week and try set something up.

[floridamike]

Squat 215
Press 90
DL 235

wt 205

I suck at posting. Never made it to Harbor City, just started over at the bar and paid a lot more attention to form. I still start to have my knees go way over my toes as the weight gets heavier but I've gotten better at noticing it. I start to get afraid to lean over enough when things get heavy. Doing better. My weight is up to 205 and belly is about the same so I guess that's a good thing. Energy levels is still fair to middling, usually get 2 workouts in a week + lots of yard work on the weekends.

Trying to make sure I get enough calories. When you are tired all the time you don't really feel all that hungry and cooking is a pain in the ass but I feel a difference in my workouts when I've eaten lots. Trying to cook a bunch on the weekend so I can just warm it up during the week.

Watched the new video on the press and trying to switch over to that method. Shoulder is no longer bothering me at all so I'm going to start adding in bench press. I keep pussing out after squats and press and not doing deadlifts, which is why they haven't gone up at all. Making some progress though so I will take it.