time for a change

[mullman11bravo]

Greetings everyone.

I guess first I'll give a little background about myself. I am 29 (turning 30 in 5 days), 6' 240lb male with some minimal experience in lifting.

I am in the National Guard as an Infantryman and had done 3 years active duty prior to the guard with a year of that in Afghanistan.

Prior to the Army I was always somewhat of a fat kid. Eating whatever junk I could get my hands on and lots of fast food, soda, and beer. When I enlisted I was 235-240lbs of ripe couch potato softness. Upon graduating basic training and Infantry school I was down to 185-190lbs of lean mean fighting machine. Throughout the rest of my active duty time I hovered around 200 - 210 with some decent mass gains while deployed.

Fast forward to today, I have been off active duty since 09/2012 and slowly but surely crept up to 240lbs and lost considerable amount of strength and endurance.

Basically have become extremely lazy with focusing on school and not eating well to boot. With my 30th birthday coming up I decided now is the time to take back control.

On Jan 6th 2014, I decided to start a whole30 program to regain control of my nutrition. If you're not familiar with the whole30 it is basically set as a nutritional reset where for 30 days, you eat very strict and clean with no dairy, no grains, no sugar, no legumes. Basically just meat, veg, lil bit of fruit, some nuts, and healthy oils like coconut and olive.

During the first week I strictly focused on the food and my relationship with it and treating it as a means to fuel my body, and not just for fun/boredom/enjoyment. During that time I was looking for a good weight routine and had found SS. I purchased the kindle version and am reading it as fast as I can. I do feel it is a little dry reading all the science at times, but know it is great and needed info, and will just have to re read again til I can retain everything.

Little long winded but that's my story in a nutshell. Stay tuned.

[mullman11bravo]

Training day 01

01/13/14
Squat 115 3 X 5
OHP 75 3 X 5
Dead 155 1 X 5

I followed the recommendation of performing lifts with the bar and adding weight until form or speed suffers and this is what I got. They felt light, but I wanna do things the right way and take my time. I haven't reached the actual program in the book yet, but I'm wondering what increments I should be increasing the lifts. Should I do say 10-20 for dead and squat and 5 for BP and OHP or, just do 5lbs for all the lifts?

[Nick Klemetson]

You're off to a good start. I started with 10 lbs for squat and deadlift and 5 lbs for press, bench, and power clean. Eventually you'll move to 5 lbs for your squat, but try to keep your deadlift at 10 lbs. Try to stretch your LP as long as possible.

[carson]

I second Nick's advice. I gather you have the Starting Strength book.

[mullman11bravo]

Thanks for the advice. I am in the process of reading the book but its slow going.

workout 02
01/15/14

squat 125 3 X 5
bench 135 3 X 5
chinups 6, 5, 4


lifts felt good, focused on breathing and tightening of the core.
Whilst doing my squat warm up the decent shaped gentleman next to me commented on my form. Said I should stop at parallel so as to avoid knee injuries. I said thanks for the tip and continued going below parallel. Focused on the fundamentals in the book and felt great doing it. Later on I noticed mr helpful was doing the wiggle wobble when he was attempting to bicep curl what was clearly too much weight for him to handle.

[mullman11bravo]

Workout 03
01/17/14

Squat 3X5 135
OHP 3X5 80
Dead lift 1X5 175

All lifts felt strong. Really focused on breath control and noticed a difference in squats. Felt more power on the up portion.

[mullman11bravo]

01/20/14

Squat 3X5 145
Bench 3X5 145
Body weight Chin ups 6,5,6

[mullman11bravo]

01/22/14

Squat 3X5 155
OHP 3X5 85
Deadlift 1X5 195

Today was the first time I had to push really hard to get all my squat reps. It was to the point that my form was slacking and ended up leaning forward. I'm thinking I should slow down to 5lb increments now. Any thoughts?

Other than that this Whole30 diet is really working well. I have tons of energy and can tell I am losing some fat along the way. The only nagging problem is there is no scales allowed during the 30 days. Just before and after. It's killing me to not see what progress I'm making, especially since I can see it in the mirror and my wife has noticed as well. Oh well. Two weeks to go.

[carson]

Yes, stay at 195 for another session to get technique nailed. Then progress by 5 lbs each time until you can't do any more PRs.

Don't worry about losing weight. I've lost no weight in 11 months but have lost 6 inches from around my waist. Fat has turned into muscle. Rejoice.

[mullman11bravo]

01/24/14

Squat 3 X 5 @ 155
Bench 3 X 5 @ 155
Chinups 7, 6, 6

I stayed at the same squat weight as last workout to work on form issues. I also switched from my minimalist running shoes to my vibrams five finger shoes and noticed a big difference. The lifts felt stronger and easier than the last work out as well as more controlled. I did take a video and will be uploading it shortly, but noticed I am still moving forward during the upward motion. I will post a link once I uploaded the video.