Deepsky3539's (Killer Rabbit) SS Log

[Deepsky3539]

Greetings … Really happy to be involved with this group of people and while I have been at it for some time now, I have never posted a log of my progress but seeing how much benefit I get from reading all of your logs, I decided I really should contribute.

Stats: Male, 50yo, 6’3”, 226.5lbs and shaped like a praying mantis ...

Background:

Started lifting for the first time in March of 2015 at 275lbs (extremely weak) using the Stronglifts 5x5 methodology and a reasonably expensive Inspire Fitness cable machine as I had no access to free weights and simply didn’t know any better. After some OK gains, got concerned that my fat gut was not receding in any way, so I enlisted the help of a diet kid at the local PT office. He put me on 1800 Calories a day with low fat being the primary driver of the diet. I am assuming I don’t need to tell you all the results of that experiment but I will anyway: Lost very little weight, still looked like crap and lost all of my gains in strength.

So … in mid 2016 I decided to get educated and read more books on diet than any one person should have to but I do believe that I now posses the knowledge to smell bullshit when I hear or read it. Got myself down to a very weak 204lbs before I discovered Starting Strength through the Art of Manliness podcast and realized I was doing it all wrong. Jacked my calories up to 2500 and started making some strength gains but got stuck reasonably fast.

Attended the SS seminar in Omaha (Oct 2016) and was so impressed with the quality of all the coaches that I immediately signed up for Reynolds Strong when I got home which we all know is now SS Online Coaching. I also invested in my own power rack, weights, bar, etc… So I can workout whenever I darn well please. Bill Hannon is doing my programming and while I think he is trying to kill me sometimes, he has improved my form immeasurably and gotten me unstuck on everything so all I really have to say is thanks. Super excited to see how far he is going to push me this year.



I don’t have any discernible notes from 2015 all the way till October of 2016, so I am only including my logs from when I began with Reynolds Strong. Below is the bulk log from October 24 2016 through today with not a lot of detail. I’ll add more detail from here on out as I’ll be posting regularly. I also keep this log on my own blog (I made a rhyme) which won't be any revelation to anyone here but in case you want a good laugh its at: Weightlifting as an Old Guy and other random thoughts. It's mostly me ranting about crap that irritates me and references to great articles from this site and several others like it along with me grunting and sweating for my out of shape and old friends/family (which is most of them).


24 October 2016
Squat 230 3x5
Press 140 1x5, 135 2x5
Deadlift 330 1x5

26 October 2016
Squats 195 3x5
Bench Press 175 3x5
Chins 9,7,5,5

28 October 2016
Squats 240 1x5
Press 130 3x5 (Reset)
Deadlift 335 1x5

31 October 2016
Squats 235 3x5
Bench Press 180 3x5
Chins 8,6,3,4

2 November 2016
Squats 200 3x5
Press 135 3x5
Deadlifts 340 1x5

4 November 2016
Squats 245 3x5
Bench Press 180
Chins 9,6,4,4

7 November 2016
Squats 240 3x5
Press 135 1x6, 135 2x5 (Fail)
Deadlift 345 1x5

9 November 2016
Squats 205 2x5
Bench Press 190 3x5
Chins 9,6,4,4

11 November 2016
Squats 250 1x5
Press 140 5x3
Deadlift 350 1x5

14 November 2016
Squats 245 3x5
Bench 192.5 1x4, 192.5 2x5
Chins 9,7,5,4

16 November 2016
Squats 210 2x5
Press 142.5 5x3
Deadlift 355 1x5

18 November 2016
Squats 225 3x5 (Reset)
Bench 192.5 3x5
Chins 9,7,5,4

21 November 2016
Squats 230 3x5
Press 145 5x3
Deadlift 355 1x5

23 November 2016
Squats 210 2x5
Bench Press 195 2x5, 195 1x4 (Fail)
Chins 8,6,5,4

25 November 2016
Squats 240 1x5
Press 147.5 5x3
Deadlift 360 1x5

28 November 2016
Squats 235 3x5
Bench 195 3x5
Chins 9,7,5,5

30 November 2016
Squats 215 2x5
Press 150 5x3
Deadlift 335 1x5 (Reset)

2 December 2016
Squats 245 1x5
Bench 197.5 3x5
Chins 9,6,6,5

5 December 2016
Squats 240 3x5
Press 152.5 2x3, 152.5 1x2, 152.5 1x3, 152.5 1x2 (Fail)
Deadlifts 340 1x5

7 December 2016
Squats 220 2x5
Bench 200 3x5
Chins 8,7,5,5

9 December 2016
Squats 250 1x5
Press 152.5 2x3, 152.5 1x2, 152.5 1x3, 152.5 1x2 (Fail)
Deadlift 345 1x5

12 December 2016
Squats 245 3x5
Bench 202.5 3x5
P-Rows 135 3x8

14 December 2016
Squats 225 2x5
Press 145 5x3 (Reset)
Chins 7,7,5,5

16 December 2016
Squats 255 1x5
Bench 205 5x3
Deadlifts 325 1x5 (Reset)

19 December 2016
Squat 250 3x5
Press 147.5 5x3
P-Rows 140 3x8

21 November 2016
Squats 230 2x5
Bench 207.5 5x3
Chins 8,6,5,5

23 December 2016
Squats 260 1x5
Press 150 5x3
Deadlifts 330 1x5

26 December 2016
Squats 255 3x5
Bench Press 210 5x3
P-Rows 145 3x8

28 December 2016
Squats 235 2x5
Press 152.5 2x2, 152.5 2x3, 152.5 1x2 (Fail)
Chins 7,6,5,5

30 December 2016
Squats 265 1x5
Bench 212.5 5x3
Deadlifts 335 1x5

2 January 2017
Squats 260 3x5
Press 152.5 5x3
P-Rows 150 3x8

4 January 2017
Squats 240 2x5
Bench 215 5x3
Chins 8,6,5,4

6 January 2017
Squats 270 1x5
Press 155 5x3
Deadlifts 340 1x5

9 January 2017
Squats 265 3x5
Bench 217.5 5x3
P-Rows 155 3x8

[FacePalm]

Looks like a nice home gym - I like having mine... the gym I went to only had 2-3 power cages (it's been a while) and a couple half racks... nice not having to wait.

Looks like you have the 3x3 steel - would you mind getting me the width dimensions on the uprights? I built my own rack & it seems a little narrow for my new bar @ 49 & 3/8"

Interesting to read about your diet too
The Diet Lie ? Part 1 (My Personal Story)

[Deepsky3539]

The rack is a Rogue RML-3 .. Uprights are 3" square. Distance from outside edge to outside edge is 48-3/4"

The diet has been a real adventure ... From Eating like crap, to eating Paleo (not the religious kind .. Just food you can hunt) to just enough carbs to make sure I perform well in the gym. Currently doing 250P/200F/200C on the diet with all of the carbs being whole grains on workout days to lots of fruit on off days.

[Deepsky3539]

11 January 2017 Lifts - Chemically induced sleep last night, so got in a good 8 hours with one short interruption. Workout's are now taking 2+ hours with the extended rest period and 5 set lifts for press and bench.

3600 Calories

Squats: 225 2x5 - Light recovery day squats. Pretty easy but not very good form today. Knees sliding forward on the first rep of both work sets. I think I need a lobotomy.
45 2x5
95 1x5
135 1x3
185 1x2
225 2x5


Press: 157.5 5x3 - Major fail today. After getting unstuck at 152.5, pretty unhappy to fail this badly today. Simply didn't have the gas.
45 2x5
75 1x5
95 1x5
135 1x3
157.5 1x2
157.5 1x3
157.5 3x2


Chins: 4 sets to failure - Upped my rest times to 8+ minutes and 10 for the last two sets to get set 2-4 numbers up closer to the first set.
8,7,7,6

[Deepsky3539]

13 January 2017 Lifts

I am not a superstitious person, so it didn't even occur to me it was Friday the 13th until I started entering the data here from my lifts. I slept pretty well the night before and I definitely hit my 3600 calories over the last few days. So ... I was expecting a pretty decent workout today and besides some form issues here and there I am generally pleased with today's training.

After talking with my coach yesterday, it looks like he wants to move on to full intermediate training right now. Not sure if were going to look at a 4 day split or possible a 3 day Volume Recovery Intensity Texas method like I do for squats or something akin to 5/3/1. I'll detail it out as soon as we decide.


Squats: 275 1x5

Another PR today at 275#. Not sure how long I will be able to keep up this old man's Texas method on squats but it seems to be working. Intrigued to see if this will change as I move the press and bench in to intermediate along with squats and deadlifts.

45 2x5
95 1x5
135 1x3
185 1x2
225 1x2
250 1x2
275 1x5



Bench: 220 5x3

Also a PR for bench today. I can feel the end of the road coming on these though. I am betting on 1 to 2 more workout before I get stuck and have to start complicating things.

45 2x5
95 1x5
135 1x3
185 1x2
220 5x3



Deadlift: 345 1x5

Back was totally in flexion for the later reps ... Not entirely sure what happened as the warmups (all the way through 315#) were great. Frustrating.

135 2x5
185 1x5
225 1x3
275 1x2
315 1x2
345 1x5

[Deepsky3539]

16 January 2017 Lifts

Had a super crappy day on Saturday. Started off with a good breakfast, excellent lunch then I got a call to go out and celebrate someone's birthday. 3 rounds of Kings Cup later and the wife had to tell me stories about my evening and while I may have gotten 3600 calories down on Sunday, they didn't start until noon and I barely kept them down. So ... Not my best Monday. I did sleep pretty good Sunday night though ... ;-)

First day of full fledged Intermediate training ... Heavy day. Took almost 3 hours to get through it.


Squats 255 3x5

A little heavier than I feel like they should have felt since this was a bit of a backoff but overall, form was decent with a little knee knocking on the last rep of the last set.

45 2x5
95 1x5
135 1x3
185 1x2
225 1x2
255 3x5


Press 145 3x5

Back to 3x5 instead of 5x3 with a little backoff ... Really had to grind the last rep on the last 2 sets but locked them all out.

45 2x5
70 1x5
95 1x3
120 1x2
145 3x5


Deadlift 335 1x5

Also a bit of a backoff here but I used it to make sure I got my back locked up hard. Did really well on the first two reps and it fell off a little on the last 3.

135 2x5
185 1x5
235 1x3
285 1x2
335 1x5

[anniemichael]

Hellooooo fellow ReynoldsStrong lifter Your home gym set-up is just too too beautiful. I'm quite jealous.

By "praying mantis" do you mean basically all limbs?

[Deepsky3539]

Hellooooo fellow ReynoldsStrong lifter Your home gym set-up is just too too beautiful. I'm quite jealous.

By "praying mantis" do you mean basically all limbs?

And a warm hello to you sir. I love the flexibility having my own setup gives me and yes ... All arms and legs.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[irongeek]

Beautiful gym setup! One nice thing about us older lifters is that we can afford to buy the equipment we need and carve out a nice little niche to work in.
Great progress thus far - sounds like the coaching and your hard work is paying off. Hope you have many PRs in your future!

[Deepsky3539]

Thank you sir ... Appreciate the thoughts.