manisstrong's Starting Strength Log

[manisstrong]

I'm a student living in Australia. This is my starting strength log. Here are some stats:

Age: 18
Mass: 80.5 KG (177 pounds)
Height: 186cm (6'1")
Estimated BF: 18%
Waist size: 33" (Estimate going by jeans size).

Current Long Term Mass goal: a lean 90kg.
So that means I need to gain almost 15kg of lean mass.

Training history:

I did Stronglifts for about four months from February 2010. Didn't do too well as far as lifts are concerned. I blame my failure on three main reasons:
1. Didn't monitor my mass to make sure I was eating enough to be gaining weight.
2. Some form issues with squats/deadlifts
3. Stronglifts kept me from progressing because I kept missing reps in the fourth and fifth set.

Prior to stronglifts I had lost about 10kg over 2009 without any weight training which left me skinny fat. I'm slightly better now, but still have a significant lack of lean body mass.

Max lifts achieved for 5 reps under stronglifts:
Squat 65kg
Bench 50kg
Deadlift 85kg
Press 35kg

I haven't been to the gym for the last five weeks because of a holiday in Europe where I gained about 4kg of fat, however I will have to deal with that later. Before that I was lifting the above numbers minus 5kg in my squats and deadlifts. So I'm now doing Starting Strength beginning from today. I've deloaded all my lifts by 10kg. I will check my mass on Monday every week, aiming to gain a kilo each fortnight (2 weeks).

I will be doing The Original Starting Strength Novice Program:

Workout A
3x5 Squat
3x5 Bench Press
1x5 Deadlift

Workout B
3x5 Squat
3x5 Press
5x3 Power cleans

I am however doing high bar back squats. And double overhand deadlifts for the time being. I use chalk for the deadlifts and power cleans. No belt or any other equipment.

I will stay on it for at least 12 weeks, then I will possibly move on to a cut as I already have too much fat for my liking. So I should weigh about 87KG by the end of the 12 weeks. My minimum strength goals for the end of the 12 weeks are as follows:

Squat: 100kg
Bench: 75kg
Deadlift: 120kg
Press: 50kg
Power Clean: No idea as I've never done them.

I'm really hoping to reach about 20kg more than that in the Squat and Deadlift and maybe 10kg more in the Bench and Press, but those are the minimum numbers required for me to be satisfied at the end of 12 weeks.

Wish me luck

[manisstrong]

So I had my first session today:

Squat - 50kg - 5 5 5
Bench - 40kg - 5 5 5
Deadlift - 70kg - 5 5 5

I'll be increasing all lifts by 2.5kg per session and deadlifts 5kg session to begin with. Luckily my gym also has 0.5kg plates so I'll be able to micro load the bench and press when I get to that stage.

[ivankannan]

Hi there mani (mani is your name?)
I was also doing high bar squats but once I changed to low bar squats, it made a world of difference. Even though my flexibility is pretty bad, I feel that low bar squats is easier on my back and helps a lot with the progress.

[manisstrong]

Hi Ivan, thanks for stopping by. No my name is not mani. My account name is man-is-strong. It just something that I came up with when I was creating the account because originally it was only meant to be an account for one post. I was going to make a thread asking something but by the time my account was activated, it became irrelevant. So I'm left with this stupid username. However, mani is a pretty cool name, so why not .

Sorry, I really can't do low bar squats, I don't know it just feels like the bar is falling off my back and it really hurts my hands even though I keep my wrists straight. I'll just stick with high bar for now. I don't think it's a deal breaker. Besides, it doesn't seem that the matter of which one is better is so black and white...

Thanks though.

[ivankannan]

Oh ok, my bad. Mani is a pretty popular south Indian name, so thats why I read like that.
And what do you mean it hurts your hands? Actually my last workout was horrible since my arms were paining like anything after the squats and I just couldn't do the other exercises. I am hoping it was something else and I don't want to go back to high bar squats :P

[manisstrong]

2nd Session.

Squats - 52.5kg - 5 5 5
Press - 25kg - 5 5 5

Power Cleans...

Not really sure what sets/reps to put them as. I had a 30 minute power cleaning session with a PT. We were using 30kg most of the time. But I really need to work on them. He recommended that I do hang cleans for now because that's what I need to work on the most as I'm not generating enough power from the hips and jumping before I reach full extention. I also need to catch the bar in the rack position rather than catching it and then moving my arms into the rack position.

So yeah. Next time I'll try to work on some hang cleans maybe using just the bar.

[manisstrong]

Friday.

Looks like I hurt my right trap a bit on wendesday from the shrugging part of the power/hang cleans. Nothing major, will be fine on Monday, but I could feel it during my squats as the bar sits on my traps.

Squats - 55kg - 5 5 5
Bench - 42.5kg - 5 5 5
Deadlift 75kg - 5

Deadlifts were really easy, easier than monday's 70kg.
Bench pretty easy.

Squats were okay, although I hurt my left upper thigh a bit. Adductor I think? It happened because my squats are a bit wide which is slightly uncomfortable (I have to squat wide due to flexibility problems) and because I don't do any stretching. It's funny, I can get into the gym three times a week without fail, but finding 20-30 minutes at home to do some stretching rarely happens.

So, I PLAN on starting some static stretching on non-WO days at home and some hip swings and ankle mobility work before my squats on WO days. Hopefully this will allow me to slowly reduce my stance width and make my squat feel more comfortable.

[manisstrong]

Week 2. Day 1.

Weekly Weigh in: 80.2kg

Yeah, I know this is a 0.3kg drop from last week, but I'm not interested in weekly weight gains/losses. I know that water fluctuations distort this. I'm probably eating less carbs now than I was during my holiday, so I'm assuming that's why. Anyway, next couple of weeks there will be a weight increase. My eating is fine .

Anyway:

Squats - 57.5kg - 5 5 5
Press - 27.5kg - 5 5 5
Power Clean - 40kg - 3 3 3 3 3

Squats weren't too bad. My form in the first set wasn't great, but it was a bit better in the next two sets. However I feel that the same thing is happening that was happening previously, as this weight increases further I'll find myself turning the squats into good mornings more. I haven't reached that stage yet. So I need to focus on keeping my chest up I guess. However, my adductor is still hurting from Friday, but I'm pushing though it.

Press was easy.

Power cleans. I know I said last time that I would do light hang cleans. But I really don't like hang cleans because holding the bar fatigues my arms so I feel like I'm working my arms when I know that cleans shouldn't work my arms. So I'm using the lightest bumper plates I have, which are 10kg. Anyway, my form still isn't great obviously, so I'll keep the weight on 40kg for the next couple of sessions before moving up.

While I haven't reached what I was lifting before my holiday yet, as I'm only one week in, it seems as though I've barely lost any strength over the 5 weeks that I didn't go to the gym. I guess gaining 4kg of fat helped with that :P.

Anyway, that's all for today.

[ivankannan]

While I haven't reached what I was lifting before my holiday yet, as I'm only one week in, it seems as though I've barely lost any strength over the 5 weeks that I didn't go to the gym. I guess gaining 4kg of fat helped with that :P.

Jealous. I had lost a lot of strength after a one month vacation. But I had lost a lot of weight too.
Also about your deadlift post in my thread - I don't know why but I can never deadlift more than I squat. My upper body strength is pretty low compared to lower body and it doesn't seem to overtake. I squat deep, I have videos for that.

[manisstrong]

Week 2, Day 2.

Squat - 60kg - 5 5 5
Bench - 45kg - 5 5 5
Deadlift - 80kg - 5

Ok so my hurt adductor still hurts a lot, especially during squats. Basically when I start getting to about parallel, the sharp pain kicks-in. Which makes it hard to concentrate on my squat form and thus I can't say that 60kg squats were "easy". My form wasn't great but I blame my pain.

Bench Press wasn't too hard.

Deadlifts were fairly easy again although because of my adductor I can't quite squat down to the level that I want to at the bottom so my form isn't perfect. Generally though, my deadlift form is great, it's just this stupid injury.

I don't really know what to do about it. I'm basically just pushing through it, there's no way I'm stopping less than two weeks in. Hopefully it will go away but in the meantime it will be slowing my squat progress down, that's for sure, possibly other lifts too...