Member
Trev's Log
About me:
Male, 39, 5'9", 88.7kg, married, 3 kids.
I'm carry quite a bit of extra weight around my guts and front. I circled through most of my 20's and weighed about 65kg then. I haven't weighted myself for years and it was a bit of a shock to see the scales notch up 88kg just now. I'm a office worker and really since age 30 have done no significant exercise. Use to mountain bike, snowboard, bushwalk; hope to once again once the kids are a bit older, hence I need to get strong.
Lifting:
I've been doing SS with a mate (he's about the same age/size/build as me, but quite a bit stronger) in my garage for about a month, thought I'd start a log for motivation and a way to track progress. After years (oh, the time wasted) of just mucking about with weights (bicep/tricep/chest day and hamstring/quad/calf/shoulder day. Yeah.) and never making any progress I decided to get serious. Poking around on the net brought me to Starting Strength, and I brought it, the DVD and Practical Programming. I hate gyms so then I brought a squat cage and convinced my mate to pool our (accumulated over 20 years) bits of iron and try a real strength program!
We spent a week or so just learning one lift each workout day. I've read through SS a couple of times and made notes. Then my mate and I watched the DVD section on whatever lift we were doing that day and then went and did sets of 5, increasing the weight until it felt "heavy", then called it a day. After this my starting weights ended up being:
Squat: 50kg
Deadlift: 60kg
Bench Press: 50kg
Press: 30kg
Setbacks:
About 2 weeks in I hurt my left knee squatting. I was, and still am, struggling with squat form and during the squat my knee caved inward and something hurt. I went to a physio. He rather sneeringly told me "I was squatting all wrong" (and he was right, knees out damn it!); my toes should be pointing straight ahead and my weight should be on my heels. In fact, I shouldn't be doing squats with a barbell at all, and to stop squat at all until my knee was better and then to get a 10kg weight and do something called a "goblet squat". He'd never heard of SS and told me to bring in the book so he could "see if there were any other exercises in it you shouldn't be doing". I haven't been back. My knee is still sore while I'm sitting at my desk but it doesn't hurt at all during or after squatting. I went back and re-read SS, made notes, and get my mate to watch my form, in particular my knees, while squatting.
Age-related:
Well age and work related. I have OSS/RSI/Whatever it's called now in my right arm, in particular my right shoulder and wrist. This is caused (I'm pretty sure) by mousing; I work as a computer programmer. After a month of SS the wrist actually feels much better. And if I press right, the shoulder doesn't hurt at all. But if I get it wrong, a sharp pain results. I can't do pull ups at the moment, because that causes immediate pain in the shoulder when hanging, but I can do chin ups fine. That is, it doesn't cause any pain, but I can only actually do 2 because weak/fat. ;-)
State of the Nation:
Squat: 68kg
Deadlift: 95kg
Bench Press: 57kg
Press: 38kg
Anyway, I better stop before this post gets too long!
Member
Friday, 2-Aug-2013
New Olympic bar set arrived! Basically this: http://www.no1fitness.co.nz/weights-...03071?nav=5721
Bar was quite a bit thicker then the one we have been using, so we dropped the weight a shade to "get used to it".
Code:Squats Bench Deads 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x40kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x40kg 1x5x50kg 1x3x40kg 1x3x50kg 1x3x60kg 1x2x50kg 1x2x55kg 1x2x70kg 3x5x70kg 3x5x60kg 1x5x100kg
Member
Good luck. My knees used to hurt a lot from squatting when I started too (they still hurt a little, but it's just general soreness). Long story short, I posted a video here and Rip said I was "leg pressing the bar". Saw a coach and fixed my form. Could have saved some pain, time, and money by paying closer attention to Figure 2-50 on p.55 of SS:BBT3.
Member
Monday, 5-Aug-2013
Thanks for the feedback dpinsen, I've lent my SS to a mate so he can read up on Power Cleans, we hope to learn them this weekend, but I'll look that up when I get it back.
Deads were heavy tonight and my back rounded out. I'll repeat the same weight on Wednesday.Code:Squats Press Deads 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x40kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x22.5kg 1x5x60kg 1x3x40kg 1x3x25kg 1x3x70kg 1x2x50kg 1x2x30kg 1x2x80kg 3x5x72.5kg 3x5x40kg 1x5x102.5kg
Member
Wednesday, 7-Aug-2013
Work got crazy today and I missed lunch, I only got a banana and a orange at about 3. I tried to make up for it by having seconds for dinner but man, I paid for it tonight.
Last Friday 60kg on bench just sailed up, this week at 62.5, felt like pressing the titanic. And despite doing the same weight on Deads (to correct my rounded back), I almost missed the last one. My mate said my back only round a bit on the 4th rep, so there's that. I won't miss lunch again.
I also noticed a bit of pain/stiffness in my left shoulder on bench. When I really squeezed the bar it seemed to alleviate it. Didn't stop my doing worksets.
Code:Squats Bench Deads 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x40kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x60kg 1x3x40kg 1x3x40kg 1x3x70kg 1x2x50kg 1x2x50kg 1x2x80kg 3x5x75kg 3x5x62.5kg 1x5x102.5kg
Last edited by grover; 08-07-2013 at 02:15 AM.
Member
Friday, 9-Aug-2013
Changed warmup sets a bit, using the guide provided on the (unoffical?) SS wiki site. Main change is dropping the 1x5 warmup set out of deads. Rationally is your legs will already be pretty warm from squats.
Code:Squats Press Deads 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x40kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x22.5kg 1x3x60kg 1x3x45kg 1x3x25kg 1x2x85kg 1x2x60kg 1x2x30kg 1x5x105kg 3x5x77.5kg 3x5x41kg
Member
Monday, 12-Aug-2013
First night doing Power Cleans! And they were a mess. After training up on them on the weekend, when they seemed to go well, tonight I think I was still tried, or tried from squats/bench, and the last couple of sets went badly. My mate says I was jumping late, though it felt like i was jumping early to me, right after I got past my knees. I hit myself in the chest a couple of times as well. Not good. I'll have a search around and see if that is symptomatic of a particular error in form. Hopefully just the combination of a new exercise and being tried and form will improve with adaptation.
Bit of pain in my right shoulder too.
Code:Squats Bench Cleans 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x20kg 1x3x45kg 1x3x40kg 1x3x25kg 1x2x60kg 1x2x55kg 1x2x30kg 3x5x80kg 3x5x65kg 5x3x40kg
Member
Wednesday, 14-Aug-2013
My mate piked tonight, so training on my own. My missus came and expressed an interest... I made a squat form check vid that I hope to post soon.
Code:Squats Press Deads 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x40kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x22.5kg 1x3x60kg 1x3x45kg 1x3x25kg 1x2x85kg 1x2x60kg 1x2x30kg 1x5x107.5kg 3x5x82.5kg 3x5x42kg
Member
Friday, 16-Aug-2013
I have a really bad cold, I wasn't sure I'd even train today, but went for it at the last minute. I also made an attempt to implement the suggestions I got back following my form vid, moving the bar down, fixing the grip, angling my toes out more, and getting a bit deeper. I think it went well, considering, but I hadn't set up the camera. I'll take a second form vid on Monday. We also did the same weight for cleans as last time, choosing to really concentrate on not hurting ourselves over putting the weight up.
Code:Squats Bench Cleans 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x20kg 1x3x45kg 1x3x40kg 1x3x25kg 1x2x60kg 1x2x55kg 1x2x30kg 3x5x80kg 3x5x66kg 5x3x40kg
Member
Monday, 19-Aug-2013
Still a bit ill, and I missed the last rep of deads, couldn't even get it off the floor. I caught my breath for 20secs and then did the last rep. I'll repeat the weight on Friday, but hopefully it was just the illness catching up with me. It's hard to eat enough when you aren't doing anything all day.
Code:Squats Press Deads 2x5x20kg 2x5x20kg 2x5x40kg 1x5x30kg 1x5x22.5kg 1x3x60kg 1x3x45kg 1x3x25kg 1x2x85kg 1x2x60kg 1x2x30kg 1x5x107.5kg 3x5x82.5kg 3x5x43kg
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