carpdiem's SS Log

[carpdiem]

After more than a year off, I'm going to be restarting the SS program according to the Wichita Falls Novice Program (from the wiki):


Monday
Squat 3x5
Bench press/press 3x5 (alternating)
Chin-ups: 3 sets to failure or add weight if completing more than 15 reps

Wednesday
Squat 3x5
Press/bench press 3x5 (alternating)
Deadlift 1x5/Powerclean 5x3 (alternating)

Friday
Squat 3x5
Bench press/press 3x5 (alternating)
Pull-ups: 3 sets to failure or add weight if completing more than 15 reps


I just finished building my own power rack this weekend, and I'm really excited to put some good use into it. I'll be starting my workouts at 7am every day, MWF, and posting the results right afterwards here.

Tomorrow will be the regular Monday program, starting with bench press.

[carpdiem]

Oh man. It turns out that being mostly inactive for a year straight makes you lose a lot of previously hard-earned gains. Who knew?

I'm a little embarrassed to say, but here are my numbers:

Squats:
W/U - 45 x 5 x 2, 85 x 5, 105 x 5
Work - 125 x 5 x 3

Bench:
W/U - 45 x 5 x 2, 75 x 5
Work - 105 x 5 x 3

Chin Ups (3 sets to failure):
1 1 0

That's about a hundred pounds below where I left off on squats a year ago. Oh well. Plenty of ground to make up.

All right, I'll see you guys again on Wednesday!

[carpdiem]

Squats:
W/U - 45x5, 75x5, 105x5
Work - 135x5x3

**Note - At the end of my work sets for the squats, my right heel began slipping outwards. I suspect I was leaning forward too much. I also began to feel just a little bit of pain directly above my left kneecap. Not sure what was up with that, but I'll have to take a video of my form to look over.

Press:
W/U - 45x5x2, 55x5
Work - 60x5

Deadlift:
W/U - 75x5

**Note - I cut the deadlifts short after the first warm up set because the pain above my left kneecap came back and I had a bad feeling about it. On friday, I'll definitely have to take a video of my squatting form and see what's up. I suspect that I might be putting extra weight on my left leg unequally because I'm just getting over a two month long injury to my right achilles tendon (I may have been favoring my right leg this whole time a little bit, and now it's carrying over into my squats). We'll see on Friday, though.

[carpdiem]

Squats:
W/U - 45x5, 85x5, 115x5
Work - 145x5x3

**Note - Good news. I took some video and caught myself leaning forward a little bit as I went down with the squats. I fixed my form, and that immediately fixed my heel-slipping and knee problems. Awesome.

Bench Press:
W/U - 45x5x2, 85x5
Work - 115x5x3

**Note - Today, the bench press was just not happening. I hit failure after 3, 2, and 2 reps. It was only 10 lbs above Monday's bench, and well below what I've done before, so I think it's mostly due to the lack of sleep I've been facing over the past couple days.

Pull ups (three sets to failure):
1 0 0

**Note - Yeah. For the sets that I couldn't get completely up on, I tried to at least keep the hang going at the point I was stalling out for 10-15 seconds.

[carpdiem]

Wow, I got my ass kicked for being dumb for the last couple weeks. I ended up injuring my left shoulder from the awful bench press set I described in my last post, and combined with a long trip to visit family for the holidays, I decided to take it easy and rest (and heal) up.

I'm back now, though, and my shoulder is feeling much (though not completely) better. I'll be getting back into the training tomorrow morning, and taking it nice and slow on the bench until I get my shoulder back up to speed.

[carpdiem]

Squats:
W/U - 45x5x3, 85x5, 105x5
Work - 125x5x3

Bench:
Work - 45x5x3

Deadlift:
W/U - 95x5x2, 115x5
Work - 135x5x1

Notes: I started over today after the weeks-long break to let my shoulder recover, and took it really light on the bench press. I could still feel the shoulder injury, but just enough to know it was there, not enough to really cause pain, so that's definitely a plus. I'll continue slowly ramping up on the bench press as time goes by.

[carpdiem]

Today's workout:

Squats:
W/U - 45x5x3, 90x5, 110x5
Work - 130x5x3

Press:
Work - 45x3

Pull Ups (3 sets to failure):
1 0 0

Notes: I felt the shoulder injury again while doing the press. Still not painful, just letting me know that it's not completely gone yet.

[carpdiem]

Squats:
W/U - 45x5x2, 95x5, 115x5
Work - 135x5x3

Bench Press:
W/U - 45x5x2
Work - 55x5x3

Chin Ups (3 sets to failure):
1 0 0

Notes: I discovered something about my shoulder injury when I was doing bench press. On my second work set, I forgot to lift my head off of the bench, and the residual pain in my shoulder completely disappeared. For the third work set, then, I tried an experiment: for the first three reps, I kept my head off of the bench, and then let my head rest on the bench for the last two reps. Sure enough, I felt residual pain for the first three reps, and nothing at all for the last two. Very curious. It's definitely getting better, but now I have some more clues to just what I did that I'm going to try to follow up on. Do you guys have any ideas which tendon, ligament, or muscle could cause such a thing?

[carpdiem]

Well, between some crazy last-minute business trips and the rest of life, I've been bad at consistently updating this, so I've got a couple updates to the log to post today. I hit 3 workouts in the last two weeks because of a couple road trips, so things have been a little sparse. Hopefully, I won't have many more interruptions coming up soon.

Wednesday, Jan 12, #4

Squats:
w/u - 45x5x2, 100x5, 120x5
work - 140x5x3

Press:
w/u - 45x5x2
work - 50x5x3

Powerclean - 45x5x3 (finally getting around to learning this one... it's fun!)


----- ----- ---- -----


Wednesday, January 19, #5

Squats:
w/u - 45x5x2, 105x5, 125x5
work - 145x5x3

Bench:
w/u - 45x5x2
work - 60x5x3

Deadlift:
w/u - 95x5x2, 120x5
work - 140x5x1


----- ----- ----- -----


Monday, January 24, #6

Squats:
w/u - 45x5x2, 95x5, 125x5
work - 150x5x3

Press:
w/u - 45x5x2
work - 55x5x3

Chin ups (3 -> F):
1 0 0

[carpdiem]

Squats
w/u - 45x5x2 100x5 130x5
work - 155x5x3

Bench
w/u - 45x5x2
work - 65x5x3

Power clean
w/u - 45x5x2
work - 50x5x3

Notes: It was a pretty good day today. Day #2 of the power cleans, and I'm clearly still learning the proper form. I might take one of the off days this weekend and just work on the power clean form a bit. The whole jump thing has still got me confused.