James Cavin's SS Log

[JCavin]

Squats 175x3x5 - Easy
Press 110x3x5 - Moderate
Deadlift 205x1x5 - Easy
Chins BWx5,5,5

Only thing to gripe about was that my hamstrings felt tired as shit after my deadlifts. I'll keep doing them with squats, but I dunno how much longer I can before I have to switch to every other workout.

Oh yeah, I weighed 212. Sweet.

[JCavin]

Squats 185x3x5
Bench Press 160x3x5
Deadlift 225x1x5

Squats and Deadlifts just seem to be easy every workout. I'm guess it is because of good recovery.

I actually went up 20lbs in Deadlift last night. My work set was supposed to be 220, but I was kinda in a hurry and 225 was just easier to load on the bar. I got each rep easy. It was kind of weird because I could tell it was a lot heavier, but I didn't have any trouble pulling it. I told myself I was going to pull it no matter what and I did.

The strange thing was that I didn't feel a burn or anything in my legs or back. I'm guessing it is because I distributed the load fairly well.

Squats felt heavy at first, but I just told myself I was going to do it. In fact, I was grunting something along the lines of "fuckin' easy" with each rep. And it was.

I think my biggest obstacle at the moment is my mind. My rational thought keeps telling me that i'm not supposed to be able to lift weight this heavy. I'm just gonna keep telling rationale to fuck off in the meantime.
=======================================
Current goals:
- Get stronger.
- Squat over 250.
- Deadlift over 300
- Bench over 190
- Press over 120
- Body weight over 215. Currently still at 212 and i'm thinking that I might have hit a sort of plateau with my current caloric intake. As long as I get stronger, I don't give a shit. At least until i'm squatting and deadlifting bigger numbers.

[JCavin]

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that the combination of squats and deadlifts is just draining the shit out of me.

I went home and crashed last night. Got about 8 hours of sleep and still woke up dead tired.

I'll be sticking to the same workout until after the holidays, but i'll probably need to start doing some power cleans then.

[StrongIslander,NY]

got to get that squat to bw. more milk for adding weight. good progress. sometimes during a session your body gives all.

keep going look forward to see you exceed goals for 2010

[JCavin]

Yeah, i'm really looking forward to getting my squat up there. I should be above bodyweight by early to mid January.

As for the milk, i'm already drinking GOMAD.

I'm actually up almost 40 pounds from October 3rd.

On October 3rd I entered the Men's Novice division(Judo) at 178lbs. Since then i've stopped training judo and i'm just focusing on the lifting.

That's not gonna keep me from eating my ass off though. I'll eat anything as long as I don't stall, lol.

[JCavin]

12/26/2009

215lbs - This seems to have levelled out on my current caloric intake. I actually expect my bodyweight to go down a bit now that I can workout 3 days a week again without worrying about hurting my family's feelers if I don't see them during the holidays.

Squats 195x3x5 - Easy
Press 115x3x5 - Moderate
Deadlift 240x3x5 - Was really easy until the last set. Gonna have to tweak my warmups.
Chins BWx5,5,5

My workout went better than I had anticipated. I only slept for about 4 hours the night before, so I knew there was the possibility of some lifting problems.

I spent much of the day mentally convincing myself that I wasn't going to let something like lack of sleep throw off my workouts. I just simply refused to believe it.

I got through squats no problem, and my presses were easier than usual. My deadlifts were looking great until the last set. The last set just killed me and I felt like I was gonna have a stroke pulling it. I managed to get all 5, but not without difficulty. The previous set wasn't a problem at all, but there seemed to be a HUGE difference in the weight for some reason.

I was texting a good friend of mine during my rest periods. He recently moved down to Texas so I don't talk to him much. I think that this probably caused me to lose focus. Combine this with a lack of sleep and they are the most likely causes of grinding through the set.

I'll be working out again today and i'm going to continue with my linear progression, even on deadlifts. One of my friends, and coworker, will be joining my gym today too. Hopefully with the extra motivation I won't have much trouble in any of my lifts.

If I have more trouble with my deadlifting today then i'll know that it is because I need to start doing powerclean and deadlifting every other workout. I don't really care as long as I get my DL over 300 in the next month.

In the meantime, i'll be eating about 4 peanut butter sandwiches to fuel up for tonight's workout.

[JCavin]

12/29/2009

Squats 205x3x5 - Easy
Bench Press 165x3x5 - Easy
Deadlift 250x1x5 - Really Easy

I had a pretty awesome workout yesterday. Everything felt really light.

I was a little concerned about my deadlifts because I had a bit of trouble pulling 240 last time. Because of lack of sleep and concentration last time, I decided to only go up 10lbs this workout. It paid off. I'll be moving back up to 15 for tomorrow to see if there is a noticeable change. If so, it probably means I need to slow down my progression to 10lbs on DL and then most likely 5 on squats.

All-in-all, another good workout. I'll be looking to continue my linear progression at 10 for squats and 15 for DL for as long as possible.

[JCavin]

12/31/2009 - 219lbs PR

Squats (PR)215x3x5 - Sleazy easy
Press (PR)120x3x5 - Easier than before. Think my shoulders are starting to get the idea of growing a little bit. Each workout has been easier than the last for about 2 weeks.
Deadlift (PR)265x1x5 - Heavy as fuck, but I pulled it easy. Weird how that works.
Chins BWx5,5,5 - Same as always, just with more dizziness, lol.
=================================================
So last night was a really interesting workout for me.

I've always been fairly immune to caffeine. I can down 3 or 4 red bulls, piss like a race horse, and then go fall asleep like I just took a xanax. I dunno why. Probably because I drank so much soda as a kid.

Yesterday I decided to take some caffeine pills before my workout, just to see if there was any improvement. So, assuming that the caffeine would have its normal affect on me(i.e. none), I took 2. Now, these are 200mg of caffeine per pill. Stupid...I could tell my blood pressure was really high because I was pretty jittery.

I didn't realize just how bad it was until I started doing my work sets on squats. The combination of heavy weight, holding a big, deep breath, and a really high caffeine dosage = nearly passing out on every single work set rep on squats, press(man that was interesting! Nothing like feeling really light-headed with weight above your head...), and deadlifts.

No joke. I spent the first minute or so of every rest period between work sets trying to make sure I didn't pass out. But, on the other hand, I got every set done and managed not to nose dive in the process.

I honestly wanted to just leave the deadlifts and chins for the next workout, but I knew i'd feel like a huge pussy if I left without getting them done. So, I manned up and made sure I didn't regret leaving.

I am setting personal records on pretty much all of my workouts now. The only one i'm not is bench press, though it won't be much longer.

Squats - They felt really good. I'm a little concerned that my depth wasn't very good at the beginning, but i'll just have to watch for it next time. Also, my back has been getting a little more of a workout than before due concentrating on hip drive so much. This has caused me to occassionally lift some of the weight with my back at the end of the rep because i'm not standing up straight in unison with my butt. It will hopefully correct itself with repetition.

Press - These have been going pretty well. In the beginning they were a grind every workout, but recently they've started to get easier as the workouts progress. I'm going to attribute this to taking longer rest periods between sets for now. That and, hopefully, i'm becoming more efficient with the form.

Deadlifts - I have had a little trouble with these the past 3 workouts or so. I had a workout where I moved from 225 to 240 and it was a brutal 5 reps. I then moved to 250 and it was much easier. Last night I continued with a 15# increase to 265. It was really heavy, but I lifted it without much difficulty. The problem was that I felt my form break down and I was a little achey afterwards in my lower back.

Summary - Due to my form breaking down in deadlifts, i'll be switching to 10# increments from now on. I'll likely switch my squats to 5# as well, just to be safe. I'd much rather keep progressing at lower weight than try and continue with bad form and potentially hurt myself.

I'm also going to be making some changes to my diet for the next 2-4 weeks. Instead of GOMAD, i'll be halfing that and adding canned tuna in its place. Hopefully the protein will still help me recover, but cut down on some fat at the same time. I think i'm just getting too many calories right now since my NEW clothes don't really fit me anymore...Man my wife is pissed about that.

I'll be adding 1 session(8 minutes max) of some metcon on Sundays, which is the day after my 3rd workout for the week. My wife gave me the best idea, which was to do some boxing training. I trained Muay Thai for about 3 years and it can puts you in really good shape. I'll most likely cut out the kicking and focus just on hitting the bag and shadow boxing.

[JCavin]

01/02/2010

So I just got to work and I feel like I just got finished with a hardcore DL workout. Even though my last workout was two days ago.

I attribute this to my momentary lapse in judgement in regards to consuming less milk because i'm worried about my uniforms fitting correctly.

I apologize profusely to all of my fellow 70's Big compadres and promise to never let it happen again.

To hopefully make up for it I will be consuming 1.5 gallons of milk today and I will still be working out even though I feel thrashed. Of course, if I feel too tired i'll just do a light workout.

ANECDOTAL GOODNESS*I just wanted to add that I was once again forced to buy new clothes yesterday. When I first began SS I was wearing 32x32 pants from Old Navy. Then, after a few weeks I went up to 36x32. Not in the waist, mind you, but I had to get 36 because the thighs were too small.

Last night my wife and I were getting ready to go to dinner with some friends. I got my 36x32 jeans out of the dryer and tried to put them on. At first, I didn't think they were mine. I thought I had found an old pair of my brother's pants or something. After inspecting them, I tried again, but couldn't even get the first buttons together. Not to mention you could practically see my hair follicles through the denim.

So, we had to go shopping before dinner. I bought two pairs of 38x34 Straight Old Navy jeans. The thighs had a little room to grow, but the waist has at least 5 inches or so. I had to go up 2 inches in the length of my jeans because my ass is literally so "bubbly" now that it is pulling 2 inches off the bottom of my pants. I went ahead and bought an extra pair at 40x34 just in case.

Then, we went to Target(the only thing open on New Years with any clothes left) to buy some shirts. The only thing I could find were flannels and t-shirts. I have now moved up to a 2XL shirt and XL t-shirt(because I typically like my under shirts to be smaller and fit more snug around the neck).

Is this a success story? Yes, yes it is. That is, of course, unless you are either:
a) Bigger than me. In that case, eat me.
b) A female trying to lose weight. In that case, yes, you can also eat me. Bow chica bow wow...
c) Not a proponent of 70's Big. In this case, don't eat me. Just go home and rinse your mouth out with buckshot.
d) A bodybuilder. You already punish yourselves enough in this case. I mean, you get razorburn all over your body, including your nuts, you shit your brains out for a day because of all the diauretics, you starve yourself of nutrients that Co-Captain Doug Young would wish you to eat, and you wear thong underwear in front of other oiled up, fake-baked, homoerotic dudes while you admire each other's breasts.

[TartanEagle]

Why are you deadlifting every workout?