Another Old Dude's SS Log 54/5'11"/195

[Silentpadna]

Actually started on Stronglifts 5x5 in May after dropping weight from 240 to 205 (lots of cardio stuff starting in Feb).

I progressed fairly well with SL, but as I continued to learn more and more about this stuff I realized that not only was Mehdi's program just a take-off from this one, I wasn't impressed with his "expertise" - which I'll happily acknowledge is much more than mine. Anyway after some more research, I came to the conclusion that recovery time - especially at my age - is more important than overall volume when lifting heavy. I'm also pretty sure that although I was never ashamed of starting at the bar, I believe I wasted some time early in the program doing weight that was much too easy for me.

So I switched to SS last week and have had 3 workouts so far. This one is for 10/19/2017:

Squat: 200 5/5/5
Bench: 165 5/5/5
Dead: 225 5

This was a small deload from SL where I had stopped at Squat 225 5x5; Bench 175 5x5; Dead 275 1x5; Row 150 5x5; OHP 125 5x5 with two fails

[Silentpadna]

Squat: 210 5/5/5
Press: 95 5/5/5
Dead: 235 5
Chinups: -27 4/5/5

I have been weak at chinups/pullups my entire life. Our corporate gym has an assistance machine that I decided to put to use. I figured a 27 pound assist would be the equivalent of doing a chin-up if I weighed 168 pounts. A quick note on that. On a reddit thread, I was told that under about 25 pounds, the assistance doesn't really assist any more so next workout I planned to put that to the test.

[BrooklynJerry]

Nice place to be starting from. Good luck with your training .

[Silentpadna]

Squat: 220 5/5/5
Bench: 170 5/5/5
Dead: 245 5
Chin-up: -27 5/5/5; unassisted 4

So I did the assisted chin-up for my worksets and banged them out. Afterward, I went with unassisted and knocked out 4 - It kinda felt the same. Given my history of not being able to ever really do them, I am thoroughly impressed with the results of core lifts both in this program and in SL. Huge progress on that front since May. The idea on the chin-ups for now will be to progress to 5/5/5 unassisted and then bump them up by a rep per workout until I can do 12-15 per set. That'll probably take awhile....

One other note....because of time constraints and gym availability, my workout routine is slightly lighter than standard. I train 5 times over a 14 day stretch, rather than the standard 6 (M,W,F,M,Th). Probably helps my aging body recover better anyway. And...since I like to run a little (never thought I'd say that either) I run about 5 miles at an easy pace on most Saturdays.

[Silentpadna]

Nice place to be starting from. Good luck with your training .

Thanks!

[Silentpadna]

Squat: 225 5/5/5

OH Press: 100 5/5/5

Deadlift: 255 5

Chin-up: Assisted -23 5/5/5

[Silentpadna]

From Monday:

Squat: 230 5/5/5
Bench: 175 5/5/5
Deadlift: 265 5
Chinup: -19 5/5/5

[Silentpadna]

Onward

Squat: 235 5/5/5
Overhead Press: 105 5/5/5
Deadlift: 275 5
Chin-up: -16 5/5/5

[Silentpadna]

Squat: 240 5/5/5
Bench: 180 5/5/5
Dead: 285 5
Chinup: -12 5/4/5

[codger]

Always good to see another old dude around here!