Devyn's Training Log

[Devyn Stewart]

Welcome to my training log, everyone. After a year and a half (give or take) of lifting seriously yet struggling to find what to do on my own, I've decide to give Starting Strength and its subsequent changes and advancements a try. I'll be starting today, Monday, August 20th, 2018. For future reference, here are some of my lifting achievements to date:

Squat: 330x1, 305x5
Deadlift: 345x1, 335x3
Bench: 220x1, 200x5
Press: 142.5x1, 125x5

Let's see if we can't push those numbers up!

[Ken_L]

I assume that you have the Starting Strength book. Also get Practical Programming for Strength Training. There is a wealth of information in the books. It will take some study to get everything that you can out of the material. Practical Programming for Strength Training has some great tips and adjustments to LP as it approaches the end. After looking at your numbers I think that you will find these very helpful in the near future.

Good Luck! Be Strong!

[Devyn Stewart]

Yep, I've got both of those and have read them in full! I'll be sure to reference both of them when making changes or advancements.

[Devyn Stewart]

08/20/2018

Day one!

Squat: 225x3x5
Bench: 180x3x5
Deadlift: 255x1x5

Squats were about as expected. 225 wasn't difficult, but it wasn't easy either. I felt like I could have done ten reps on each of the sets, but I normally feel like I could do 20+ reps with that weight. I'm definitely feeling the effects of a week's layoff from surgery. Bench was quite difficult. I made some adjustments on my first and second set. Some were good, some were bad. I was convinced my grip was too wide (ring finger on the powerlifting ring) by the book and by some videos featuring Rippetoe. I always get this thought in my mind, but as soon as I try pinky finger on the ring, it feels horrible, squeezed together, and weak. After switching back to my regular grip on the third rep, everything got much better. I'm also focusing on keeping my eyes on one spot on the ceiling because I have the bad habit of following the bar with my eyes. I definitely felt the difference. I also moved my feet forward a bit on the ground. I had my feet as far back as they could go without my heels raising up, and it just didn't work. I didn't feel like I could push hard enough without my butt coming off the bench, and my hip flexors would cramp up mid set all the time. I placed my feet pretty close to underneath my knees this time (maybe a bit further back, but close), and it felt much better. I felt like I could utilize leg drive much better, and there was no fear of cramping. Deadlifts felt pretty normal, just deadlifts. Though I did notice that on my heaviest set, which I did with alternating grip just to get used to using it, my left (supinated arm) shoulder felt odd and uncomfortable. It felt like an unnatural position, possibly because I was focusing on keeping the bar close to my body with my lats. I'd love to use the hook grip if only these stubby thumbs would allow me. Anyway, decent first training day on the program.

[Devyn Stewart]

08/22/2018

Squat: 230x3x5
Press: 107.5x3x5
Power Clean: 135x5x3
Chin-ups: 6,5,5

Squat: This felt really good. Every rep except maybe the last two, my balance felt great; I didn't feel any knee slide; and control was great. I think I lost balance forward on the last rep particularly badly (it's a bad habit I'm working on), but overall, this felt way easier than 225 did two days ago, even though I was still sore from that workout.
Press: This probably felt like the worst of the lifts today. I had some painless yet still uncomfortable cracking and grinding in my shoulders. Normally this means I either didn't extend my thorax enough or wasn't pressing my head through well enough. I think it was the latter. Either way, this still felt harder than it should have been, as this was not difficult at all before the week layoff. I might have to reevaluate the starting weight for this if things don't clean up fast.
Power Clean: This is my first time doing this exercise in 7 years, and it's my first time ever doing it remotely correctly. That being said, it felt great. I felt like my form got better each set, and the weight didn't feel difficult. I banged my shin a few times on the way up, and that was painful and something to work on. I also feel like I've got a bad tendency to move my feet further apart to get down rather than getting into a quarter squat position. This is something that got better with each set but is still something to work on.
Chin-ups: Definitely weaker than pre-layoff. I got 6,6,6 with a little in the tank before the layoff, and 6,5,5 was pretty difficult this time. I'm hoping for some rapid strength increases so I can get back to 6,6,6 maybe by next Friday. I perform these with neutral grip because I want the brachialis activation for elbow stability. I also just feel stronger with a neutral grip and don't particularly care about the minutiae of biceps activation.

Overall, I'm happy with this workout. I can tell that my traps are going to be very sore tomorrow from power cleans, as they were already residually sore from deadlifts on Monday. My body is acclimating to lifting again quite nicely already.

[Devyn Stewart]

08/24/2018

Squat: 235x3x5
Bench: 182.5x3x5
Deadlift: 265x1x5

Squat: Once again, this felt the best. Form felt better than ever, and I thought the balance held a lot better this time.
Bench: The form felt off on this one. For some reason, the reps just didn't feel consistent, and I definitely felt weak. I might have to upload a form check soon to see if there is an issue.
Deadlift: Felt pretty normal although I felt my kinesthetic awareness of my lower back was not what it was before the surgery. I'm out of practice. The weight also felt much heavier than I think it should have. My left shoulder still felt a bit of the asymmetry, and it had been bothering me a bit since last deadlifting on Monday. I know that I can't hook grip very well, but I'm seriously considering trying it again for like the fourth time because I am not a fan of mixed grip at all, and I don't want to use straps.

I was still tremendously sore, especially in the traps, from the previous two workouts this week. This along with the fact that bench press is already heavy leads me to believe that the lost weight from the surgery is seriously affecting me. I realize it will come back with time, but I'm thinking about increasing calories up to 4500-ish with more whole milk because my recovery is shoddy, and I'm sure most SS coaches would say I'm underweight at 6'3" 207. Probably will get that going this weekend.

[carson]

I'm working up to near top weight with hook grip but use reverse grip for top weight. In my case I do hook until I get to about 315 then use reverse grip for whatever is left. My thumbs just won't stand it past that. I hope to increase what I can do with hook grip but some transition may be in order for you.

[Devyn Stewart]

Thanks for your reply, Carson. I'm in the same boat with you. My max deadlift is(or was) around 345, and my hook grip would fail around 315. I warm up using plain old double overhand grip and use alternate grip on my final set, which might be why it feels out of practice. But yeah, I have short fingers, thick palms, and particularly tiny thumbs. This makes getting into a secure hook grip very difficult. I've looked up lots of videos and read lots of articles and given it at least 3 honest tries with several consecutive training sessions trying to use it, but I'm just not very good at it. We'll see how mixed grip goes for a while, and if it bothers me enough, and if I'm feeling masochistic enough, I might give hook grip another go.

[Devyn Stewart]

08/27/2018

Squat: 242.5x3x5
Press: 110x3x5
Power Clean: 137.5x5x3
Chin-ups: 6,5,4

The weights are weird because I just made a spreadsheet detailing how I'm going to deal with switching between pounds and kilos and not occasionally making crazy jumps because of estimation. This leads to some weird numbers like the 242.5 squat and 137.5 power clean. It will all work out just fine because the increment stays basically the same. It's a difference of like 5 pounds over 4 weeks of squatting every session.

Squat: Felt great again. Not much too report, other than I feel like I've got a whole lot more strength to gain.
Press: Felt better than the first time. No shoulder pain, and the weight actually felt a bit easier than last time.
Power Clean: Felt really easy. Normally, the increment will be more, but I feel like I've got a whole lot of weight left on this exercise.
Chin-ups: Felt really tough, and my number actually went down. That said, I'm not too worried because I've also gained 4 pounds since the last training session (205 -> 209 this morning), and this training session was a lot harder than last Wednesday's, relative strength-wise. I'm planning on gaining up to the 215-220 range during this LP, so if I can still do 6 reps of chin-ups when I'm at that weight, I'll consider that a success in and of itself.

[Devyn Stewart]

08/29/2018

Squat: 113 kilo(~247.5 lbs)x3x5
Bench: 83 kilo(~182.5 lbs)x3x5
Deadlift: 125 kilo(~275 lbs)x1x5

Squat: Nothing much to say here. Feels like it's starting to get a bit more challenging, but I don't plan on letting that get into my head. I can feel squats starting to make me hungrier. I increased calories to 4200 daily, and I think I'm going to push it up to 4400 (and add some fiber because digestion is hard yo) because I am quite hungry typing this right now.
Bench: Felt better than the last session, which makes sense because it's about the same weight. I don't plan on making this a habit, but it's weird because of the kilo/pound conversion. Anyway, it didn't feel like a wasted workout for bench because my form felt much more solid on this workout than the last one.
Deadlift: I felt like my hips dropped a bit too low on some of the reps. I also felt like I was using my lower back too much, which could have been related. On Monday, I'll be telling myself "hips up" for deadlifts.